I'll be using this thread as a sort of practice log for my journey from the dark night (I think) to stream entry.

If you guys have any advice on how to proceed through the dark night (assuming I'm even there!) this would be much appreciated! Feel free to skip ahead to the ***Where I am now***, and for reference, the *** Prelude *** started roughly at the beginning of September 2012.

*** Prelude ***

Kinda long post based on two and a half months of fairly intense practice. When I was last posting I was still having trouble with skull pressure... boy have things changed.

So after trying to deal with the iron-skull cap experience while doing anapanasati and trying to get into jhana, during meditation I had a feeling suddenly like a small explosion happened at the top of my head. An icy liquid phenomenon started seeping in from the top of my head, and I could very slowly guide it with my attention. I could also very slowly accumulate it. This then became my obsession and I learned how to dissolve a huge amount of what seemed to be tensions from my head, but couldn't get them through my throat.

Then one day I worked out that it seemed like the icy-liquid thing did not always make it's initial appearance at the crown of my head, but rather at the center point of my head, sorta where the homunculus would be located. So I accumulated as much of this icy liquid as possible in that spot, and suddenly it felt like an explosion happened and somehow all the icy-liquid dissappeared. Instead I started getting a drilling experience of vibrations just above the solar plexus. (I should mention at this time I had just finished five years of extremely stressful schooling and was an emotional wreck, I've also gone through an incredibly intense drug induced A&P a few years ago followed by the dark night which wrecked my life for about two years).

Anyway, I learned how to manipulate these drilling vibrations and slowly used it to unblock huge amounts of tension. Anytime tension would be released, the icy-liquid would flow for a while through that area. Eventually I worked my way down to my groin and started noticing that the vibrations would travel up and down my spine. I started doing pranayama practice, and suddenly a huge amount of tension throughout my lower body opened up. At the same time I was spending a lot of time practicing mindfulness of thoughts and the body.

Most of this time I was practicing two to four hours a day (the motivation was very easy as when the tensions were released my life became significantly more comfortable).

I learned a lot in the process of releasing these tensions as I noticed how the entire body was composed of vibrations and how to follow them extremely carefully. I also learned that various vibrations were somehow correlated (basically I started getting a fuzzy sense of volitions). I also learned somewhat how to dissolve these vibrations. I was also able to locate the location of the various chakras in terms of regions where the vibrations seemed to centralize and where I could rest my awareness/attention. I also spend a lot of my daytime at work observing vibrations in my body and sometimes doing a bit of light body-focused meditation (basically "busting out some vibrations" as Daniel writes in his book).

***** Where I am now (over the last week -> A&P + Dark Night): *****

Shortly after the tensions opened up, I noticed there was a tremendous amount of tension still residing in the diaphragm, upper back, neck, back of the head, the top of the head, the forehead and the face. I started doing light noting practice during sits, though I dramatically increased the intensity of watching the vibrations (I honestly prefer watching vibrations to noting verbally as I find the latter rather tiring and slow). I also had a few lucid dreams!

- I also noticed that the primary sense of "I" seemed to be located in these areas of the body and that they were rather solid compared to the lower parts of the body where I had dissolved the vibrations (there are still vibrations there, but it does really actually feel "empty" of any solidity once I observe carefully).

- I also noticed that the annoying sense of "control" that "I" would exert when trying to relax tense muscles (while working on the lower body) always correlated to subtle tensions/solidness arising in the upper body (head region). (I actually found it rather exciting that sometimes when trying to relax a muscle it would suddenly twitch/tense, and there woudl be this feeling that "I" had twitched/tensed it, when in fact I was simply observing it... very strange to feel that "I" was performing an action that I didn't want to perform!

I continued doing meditation, and spent a lot of time working on trying to dissolve tension in my diapraghm and near my heart. Two interesting things happened that I diagnosed as A&P. When I worked on the solar-plexus chakra (and shortly after the heart area), the vibrations suddenly had access to the head region. So I allowed myself to sink into the vibrations until there was just this sense of vibrations on one side and "me" on the other. I tried to find this sense of "me" for a while and couldn't find "me" (honestly I felt rather stupid at that moment as it seemed like I was so clearly sensing "me" and yet I couldn't actually find myself!), and so I let the vibrations sweep into the area behind me and suddenly everything just became vibrations and then BAM!!! there was this explosion like experience (the first time just a momentary flash of light) followed by me wide eyed open feeling extraordinarily sober with a sense of "holy crap I'm alive!!!" Nothing like this has happened in my meditation before. I was able to repeat this shortly after (within the hour).

Later that day, suddenly the intensive vibrations were gone (although still large amounts of tension present in back of head, forehead, etc). I reread the section in MCTB on the A&P and Dark Night and decided I was probably in the dissolution nana as there was this subtle sense of something feeling off.

I did more meditation, and soon the vibrations were back, but much more faint feeling. I decided I was in the dark night when the next morning I woke up and spent thirty minutes trying to get out of bed. It seemed like I was stuck in this place of being half asleep, and I would keep imagining that I was going to wake up, walk to the bathroom, brush my teeth, etc only to suddenly realize I was still in bed. I think Daniel talks about this in the book as: "Another effect that can be very noticeable at this stage is that actions just don’t happen easily. For instance, you might be going to lift your hand to turn off your alarm clock, but your hand just doesn’t move. You could move your hand, but somehow things just tend to stop with the intention and get nowhere. Eventually you move your hand, but it might have been just a bit tiring to do so."

I also found during meditation that I had a much stronger tendency to get lost in thoughts. This was all as of Sunday. (The last couple weekends I try to do 6-7 hours of meditation since things are getting exciting).

I started noticing over the last few days when walking that it feels as though the ground is moving. When I observed more carefully it sorta feels (especially when I stand still) that space is slightly wobbling like jello...

Today two interesting things happened that were very interesting:

1. At work, while talking to a colleague, I suddenly experienced myself purely as The Witness and heard words coming out of my mouth but they were not said by "me." Basically the only time I have ever experienced anything like this was while playing with strong psychadelics years ago. This was a very strange and noticeable experience and lasted 1-2 seconds. It's the closest thing to "No-Self" I can imagine having experienced anytime sober, ever.

2. While meditating, I've now learned to simply try and absorb into awareness. I can now enter into something that seems like a jhana where the vibrations completely overtake me, I dissolve into them, and then I seem to not be in my body (I usually meditate lying down on a towel on the floor) and I fall through the floor and the body dissappears. Everything is super calm and I usually just space out... perhaps this is low equanamity? I'm definitely not seeing frame-by-frame forms as described in MCTB.

I've also noticed just while walking around my apartment in between meditation sessions that there is definitely something odd about my sense of self and the body. There is definitely a tendency to watch the body move around and do things, and I'm definitely not telling it what to do. For example, I will pace back and forth around my apartment just watching my body decide how to randomly pace. I did notice today that I can imagine one could feel creeped-out/lonely in this state as it definitely is starting to feel like there is just this field of experience and me trapped inside, and sometimes the sense of "me" seems to be not-obvious (like not firmly planted in the body).

Sometimes at work when people are talking to me and I try and pay attention to them, they will suddenly transition from being outside of me to being "inside my field of experience" as though they are directly talking to me (sorta feels like falling into the witness state).

I've also started paying attention to space and how (in another thread Daniel mentioned) attention/space/phenomenon are all one thing. Especially over the last few days I've noticed that by placing my attention on an object I can become aware of the surrounding space, and by resting my attention in the surrounding space, often the energy/vibrations of the center point will increase. In particular I've noticed that there is this tension at the center of experience (middle of the head) where "I" would presume to be located and everything else can be projected onto a sphere surrounding this "I".

I'm going to continue practicing as much as I can as I find this all quite exciting. I'd appreciate if experienced meditators could suggest to me:

A) Am I in the dark night? If so, which stage? I'm confused by cycling... (both the mechanics of how it works and how I actually feel cycling)

Are the different nanas not clear to me because I need to do more concentration practice, or should I just keep plowing along with the current insight-oriented practice I'm doing?

C) How does cycling work? Do I need to go through all the nanas starting with Mind & Body each time I sit down?

D) what is the relation between the energy-like vibrations moving up the body to the head and insight? It feels like dissolving the center-point of the head permanently is somehow crnitical... however my practice also feels incredibly body-focused...

E) Suggestions as to what to do / how far I might be from Stream Entry. Honestly I hope after stream entry this control-tension in the body goes away... is Stream Entry subtle? I'm confused reading the posts on the DhO because some posters seem to have a hard time noticing exactly what changed, where as Daniel talks about how it was incredibly noticeable for him and he felt like Daniel The Great Stream Enterer for days... perhaps there is some correlation between the super-intensive concentration Daniel had, but I thought Stream Entry was Stream Entry?

In any case, I will continue practicing as best I can with a positive attitude until I hit Stream Entry (hopefully sooner rather than later!).

EDIT: Yeah, actually now that I'm noticing carefully, noticing that "I" am somehow alive right now in the present moment is actually really creepy and actually kinda scary.

It sounds to me as though your center of gravity is in dark night, but you're making frequent incursions into Equanimity.

"Center of gravity" is a phrase Kenneth Folk uses a lot. You can think of it like an army advancing up a hill. The main body of the army is in one location (that's your center of gravity, the portion of the path that most describes what you're going through right now, in your case "Dark Night"), but there are scouts that go ahead to check out the new territory (that's the cutting edge of your practice, which in your case sounds to be Equanimity).

So the bad news is that you're probably in dark night (the weird, unsettling quality of things clues me in to that, as well as the fact that everything still seems to be so dramatic); the good news is that, if you keep up your practice, you're going to be squarely in Equanimity soon, and things will feel a lot better.



They probably don't seem clear to you only because you're not that familiar with them. Your account here doesn't exactly sound like textbook ñanas to me, because Mahasi doesn't describe it in terms of chakras and energy and whatnot, but you're reporting stuff that does match the descriptions of A&P, dukkha ñanas, and Equanimity.

As for your practice, I wouldn't necessarily change anything about it. It's gotten you this far, and it seems to be pushing you ahead into some good territory. I would remain firm and consistent with it. You may have to let your foot off the gas a little bit and assume a more gentle approach once you're fully in Equanimity, but for the time being, it sounds like what you're doing is working for you.



Until you get stream-entry, it's not really cycling, it's more like oscillation: you go up and down the ñanas. You start at Mind & Body each sit, go up to your cutting edge, come back a little, push at the cutting edge, etc.

I wouldn't worry that much about identifying each and every ñana. Keep in mind, these are just models of experience - imperfect ones, at that. Not everyone's practice is going to match every feature of the map. I've been over this territory countless times myself, and I still don't recognize all the ñanas in my own experience. The general features of your experience are what matter here, not necessarily the names.



I would interpret that as progressive dissolution of the head-centered illusion, sure. Your description of things is a bit different from how I recognize these stages - which is fine. Perhaps someone else can give a more detailed response to this question. But I would say that your general approach here - comprehensively dissolving all these sensations, seeing them just as sensations/vibrations, seeing them in terms of the three characteristics - is key. Relinquishing that sense of center-point, of control, of having things your way - that's the key to getting out of dark night and really establishing yourself in Equanimity, so I would say whatever is going on here, it sounds about right.



I would say that with the intensity and interest you're bringing to your practice, stream-entry probably isn't that far away. Once you're really grounded in Equanimity, the practice will become easier, too, so you'll naturally want to do it more. It sounds like you have a lot of that going on already, though.

Stream-entry can be subtle. It can seem anti-climactic. But then some people have very profound stream-entry experiences where it's like their head is coming off their shoulders, and people in the streets below are running away to escape the fire and broken glass. It depends. In my own experience, the after-effects of stream-entry were subtle but deep. Nearly everyone - myself included - goes through a period of Review where the mind is very subtle, very powerful. It's generally a good time. For some people that honeymoon lasts days, weeks, months. It all depends.

In my non-expert opinion, I think you're doing a very good job, and I hope you keep us updated on what's going on.

Hi

Sounds like you are well on your way..keep it going and there is always the awesome virtual
sangha here !

btw , how strong is your conviction ? I mean is there any monk/teacher that you've met or heard or seen
in any video and thought that "hey this guy surely is talking true stuff" and then you got inspired ?
Not that you have to be a blind follower , but I think just checking soem of these talks on youtube
are very inspiring and can lead to quicker progress.

- shashank

Hey guys, thanks for the comments so far.

Ok, update from morning sit (about 1 hr). (I'm using this a bit as a practice log where I can write down how I'm understanding things since sometimes I forget tricks I learned during a sit and then have to relearn them)

- The sense of not being able to control various muscles seems to arise when I don't pay attention to the area of the spine starting at the top of the back going up and over to the forehead. I hypothesize that what I see as "attempt to control" a muscle (as opposed to just relaxing) is actually just solidity of the head area. Once I started moment-to-moment noticing the spine and head of the body, the control issues of the muscle seemed to relax.

- On that note, I noticed there is this constant sense of both a "here" and a "there." The "here" corresponds to my sense of self usually in the head region, and the sense of "there" corresponds to what the attention is focused on. I have noticed in the past that when "here" and "there" seem to merge together, that is when major energy releases occurred.

- I also noticed that there is this subtle constant tension related to "here" regarding where the attention is placed. Since I usually try to think of everything from the perspective of muscles (even the mind is like a muscle... now that I think about it, really I just use muscles as a convenient way to try and understand the 3C's), it was be interesting to consider the attention like a muscle and try to release control from the attention. Specifically, letting roam around space as it pleases. I found that basically I'm often trying to force the attention to focus on some local area instead of letting it broaden out and do its own thing (whereas I've been trying to just relax in general and let the body do it's own thing in deciding how to breath and work with the vibrations).

More in the evening!

EDIT: one thing I forgot to mention. I've also started noticing that the way the "here" vs. "there" distinction seems to be strengthened is that there is also an a mental "image" of space that arises. I will try to focus on noting these "space" mental-images as they arise.

Report from afternoon sit.

So something seems to have shifted because this time within about 2-3 minutes my whole body very deeply relaxed, the icy-liquid flowed here and there near the base of my skull and on the top of my head. Also my body kept feeling like it was swaying in a cradle. Very soon the vibrations all disappeared and I was in this super calm state... probably low-equanamity. I then spent some time following the breath but this time carefully tracking both the subtle solidity of the abdomen (the lower and mid ab muscles are still slightly tight) and the region near the top of the spine, back of head, top of head and front of head. Amazingly, I could see almost the entire deep-belly breathing cycle take place with no doer assisting it.

The breath got more and more subtle, and then I started getting lost in thoughts. But these weren't just random verbal dialogues/random image sequences (which would come and go cloud-floating style in earlier meditation) - these were extremely vivid/engaging dream like experiences in which I could even feel like I was literally moving a mental image of my arm (that really felt the same as my normal arm in normal daily walking about). I would suddenly realize that I was in this dream state, and return back to moment-to-moment presence. The problem is that I am not really sure what to observe in the present moment... there is this subtle mental image of the body floating in space, and I try to observe that, but the practice honestly feels a bit dull. I keep spacing out. I think part of this problem is that I have not educated myself properly on how to work with (low) equanamity, as I've been re-reading sections of MCTB as I get to them.

I think I will try to anchor on the breath and spend more time observing the head region and trying to relax the ab muscles. One thing (I think... comments on this would be appreciated) is that it's actually worth the time to carefully mentally explore different regions of the body to develop familiarity - in this case my head/neck region which has been largely ignored up to now.

Also I'm going to work on trying to note the mental versions of the body and space, which are way more subtle. These aren't really thoughts so much... rather just this "space" with floaty-cloud body that seems to remain in low-eq.

Ok, late night sit report (for about an hour).

Really interesting stuff going on. I now am able to systematically progress through a series of jhanas, though I lost count (now I see that the transition from one to another is extremely sudden and definitely noticeable). I'm pretty sure I'm reaching somewhere near high equanamity now... also deep and almost complete (and at a rapid pace) permanent dissolution of most of the tension in my body, especially in diaphragm and head.

- I've noticed that there is nothing to do or that can be done in a sense except to simply watch the present moment with a sense of dispassion. In particular I sorta stopped caring at all about the content of reality and rather just the vibrations that make it up.

- As I switched into just watching mode, part of the right side of my body near my spine seemed to fold over and suddenly rather hot heat flow started entering the right side of my head. It appears to be the compliment of the icy flow.

- By purely trying to focus on watching the present moment and not identifying with anything in it I was able to get to various times when it would feel like reality was flashing very quickly.***

*** So basically I'm sorta frustrated as I don't understand what to do next. When reality is flashing (perhaps these are formations?) I can very slight disembed from the "self." However, I not sure what I'm suppose to do? I'm inclined to say I can't even do anything? I thought about it, and it seems to me that any kind of "doing" involves the self, and since the self is suppose to be part of formations, how can the "self" observe the non-formation part (nibbana)? I'm not exactly sure what to do... for now I'm going to focus on just more carefully paying attention to the present moment... question for readers, how long does one typically spend in (high) EQ, and hopefully you have some advice as to what to do? Is this one of those things where I'm basically going to expose my mind to (hopefully soon clearly strobing) formations in the 4th jhana for a long enough time until "it" gets it and then drops out?

Also how much time is usually required daily during high EQ? Right now I think I can manager 2-4 hours daily just based on the fact that I'm a lay-person...

Well at least the practice is quite interesting and enjoyable, albeit a bit frustrating as once I get to the point of just observing the self and this field of vibrations it's not clear what should be done or what is suppose to happen, etc...

EDIT: Ok, found a super useful quote I want to put here from Tommy M. on the DhO from this thread:

http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2890486

"Equanimity is concentration territory. You don't need to go in heavy the same way you did in the earlier stages, objects will present themselves for your inspection so you don't need to go looking for anything, just look at how these things happen and observe the 3C's clearly. Begin to look at what it is it that's observing this happening, turn the attention towards what's seeing this happen and pay attention, it'll happen by itself when it happens so investigate gently and see how all things are just more of the same impermanent, empty flickering tensions. If you see it just right, you'll know."

Hmmm... I think I see now that *I* was looking for the self! So I will focus on just building concentration (i.e. stay with the present moment as much as possible) in EQ and see where that goes.

Report from morning sit:

So within about 2-3 minutes I entered into the first jhana, and then proceeded all the way to the fourth jhana. The later jhanas took a bit longer to move up through. The fourth jhana is still a bit slippery. My description of being in the fourth jhana is that it feels like the world is almost just space, except it is subtly rippling, and the ripples feel like clouds. I also am able to sort of detect the sense of "space" now, and sometimes I think I might be briefly slipping into the first formless realm...

I haven't had anything like a fruition, though sometimes I wonder whether if after a fruition I would even recognize it? I mean the fourth jhana is rather subtle, and if I experienced a fruition from the fourth jhana and reentered into the fourth jhana, would it be very clear that a "blink out" happened?

I'm curious if I might have gotten Stream Entry as suddenly the tension in the head is greatly reduced, often just floats through like a cloud, and suddenly I have clear, distinct access to the various jhanas, and it's not particularly hard to systematically access them. Before this, while sometimes I might have been flailing around in the first jhana through vipassana, I've never been able to access all four jhanas so clearly...

On the other hand, I still intuitively think maybe I haven't experienced stream entry as there is still a sense of self, though it does feel rather loose throughout the day (in terms of identifying with the body and space)... the spill over of meditative experience / feeling as though I'm in a low jhana into daily life is way more noticeable during the work day than before... sometimes I almost feel like I could naturally get into a jhana while working at the computer or just standing around... but still I don't think I've hit SE since while deep in jhana-4 I try to investigate the self, and it definitely feels like there is this "self" that's there that I just can't find... often times it's associated with subtle things like how the eyes are connected to directing attention around. I also think perhaps I'm not as aware of "space" as I should be, and I definitely still sometimes have light mental chatter/commentary that is focused around trying to figure out what's left to investigate.

Question for readers: Is it possible during working in Equanimity pre-path to suddenly gain distinct access to the jhanas? I feel like I ramp up through the jhanas to J4, and then try to increase concentration until I get a bit of a strong flickering, almost strobing experience and then wait for some kind of blink-out experience and nothing really happens.

Well, I will continue to sit and focus on fine tuning each jhana (for starters become more comfortable in the fourth jhana). However, I have not yet noticed anything like a fruition, and honestly it does seem a bit fast to be able to reach SE after thinking I crossed the A&P last weekend...

Big breakthrough finally (but not SE!).

- I now definitely see that I have not crossed stream entry.

- I got all the way into High EQ and then directed the attention to the self. Along the way I had a hard time because I kept drifting off into these thought-dreams. However, once I directed the attention to the self (the "watcher"), rather than finding some "thing" what suddenly I realized very clearly and through direct perception is that what was happening was the following repeated sequence:

1. Various non-mental phenomenon
2. mental story propositions

Basically all sense of "I", "doing", suffering, etc happens when you fall into the delusion of believing the story. These story-proposition can be as simple as believing that "you" are "seeing" a "flicker of light" or that "I" am "straining" some "muscle."

Furthermore these mental story propositions are extremely subtly and deeply woven around the various non-mental phenomenon. It then became very clear to me that basically my experience currently consists of nothing but this series and that what I would consider "fundamental suffering" is the constant falling into believing these story-propositions.

This is a huge relief as now I think I understand what has to be done and this whole process seems very sensible - I can't "do" anything, all I can do is increase the clarity of awareness by constantly seeing through these story-propositions and not falling for them. I also see now why extremely clear moment-to-moment awareness is important as even failing to see clearly through a story-proposition for a single moment is very dangerous as you immediately fall into believing the story and then a long series of story-moments occurs until mindfulness comes to the rescue. It was also interesting to note that falling for these story-propositions is extremely comforting as it's almost like going to sleep in this relaxing cloud like equanimity state - however, the reality is simply that these are just stories.

I've also found it somewhat useful to play with using this mental mantra of "sttttohohohrrrrreeee" as (A) it allows me to take the "mental saying" of the mantra itself as a story to examine and ( it constantly reminds the mind to contemplate that experience is a series of stories.

(Also it was pretty interesting actually as I realized the mind has this fantastic recursive ability to take an entire story as an object and watch that, and then treat this *watching the story* as a story itself! This isn't really a "bad" thing as this is necessary for any kind of generative grammar, the problem is when I start falling into the dream like state of believing the story)

Stream entry feels different depending on which door you enter it through. Anicca is a very anti-climatic little blip, dukkha can actually be a scary experience I heard, and Anatta is the beautiful one. Regardless of how you enter it you will feel some nice peace after it that lasts a little while.




continue with the insight-oriented practice, good concentration is a natural biproduct of insight progress




I would not worry about this

-d

Report from another sit I did just now (about an hour and half):

I once again got close to the point where I could see the "story" like setup I described in my previous post. To be more concrete, I ended up basically looking at flickering light just in front of me. This was frustrating as I tried to locate a sense of "self" but simply couldn't. Then it occurred to me that since the light was flickering, it was impermanent, and so I carefully observed both my eyes and the back of my head until their vibrating nature became clear and then it was clear that those were also impermanent. This was followed by a strong sense of solidness in my eyes and eye socket area which I carefully observed to the point of vibrations at which point it became clear that the back of my head, my eyes and the flickering light were all impermanent. This was mildly entertaining as these all seemed to be empty and yet somehow there "I" was... or at least a sense of some kind of self.

Then I wondered what remained and it occurred to me that there was also the focus and attention that allowed this particular setup (looking at the flickering light) to take place. So I investigated first focus and worked out that it was related to "space." In particular, I realized that I could expand and contract the spatial-field of attention by carefully observing the vibrating area of space I was currently aware of and then some how subtly inclining it to expand/contract. I also noticed that I could get it to expand and contract in different directions.

I then reflected on the a statement I once read from Daniel Ingram in which he talks about how in equanimity it becomes important to study the relation (as I understand it equivalence) between space, attention and phenomenon. I realized that the way to proceed forward is to simply note no-self in every single phenomenon that arises and passes away while also paying attention to the fact that phenomenon are somehow integrated with a sense of where in space they are, and that by doing this I would probably realize that attention itself is no-self (i.e. I am not clearly noting the volition that directs attention around). I did this for a while... basically I realized I have a bit of work to do more carefully observing space and attention. I've realized that until now attention was linked strongly to my eyes in terms of where they were looking, and now I do not think that is the case.

Also, as a nice by-product, the blockage in the chest (i.e. heart region) cleared up and so the entire body was finally cleared up and then systematically my spine opened up. I realized that my physical sense of self isn't just in the head, but is along hte spine, and I noticed that there was a bouncing back and forth between the base of my spine, the center of my head and the point in space I was paying attention to.

I've also started gaining access into more clearly observing mental phenomeon from an objective perspective. It's kinda weird as it's as though I'm observing two separate worlds - the physical body world and the mental phenomenon world.

Current objective: I'm going to spend more time studying space and attention. I'm also going to focus on observing no-self in all phenomenon rather than trying to find a self as I think the former seems to give me insight whereas the latter leads me to tiring goose chases. I will also use the ability to expand/contract spatial-awareness to better understand the mechanics of transitioning from one jhana to the next (in particular, I think either 2nd->3rd or 3rd->4th seems to involve paying attention to the periphery / behind-me area of space).

This is a good line approach..Once in a while, I would suggest shifting this to a higher gear and assert with yourself
repeatedly with something like "Am I 101% confident that this phenomena is really really no-self and is every phenomena
like this ?" Right now , most likely, there must be a lingering doubt (however small) that phenomena has some self in it.

- Shashank

Yeah, it's possible. I think that's what happened to Nikolai: he sat down one day and realized he had the fourth jhana and then was able to access the jhanas below that. Shortly thereafter, he got SE.

If you're getting up to 4th jhana and are getting flickering/strobing, that could very well be stream-entry. Could you describe it more?

When you sit down, about how long does it take you to get up to the 4th jhana now? What's the quality of mind like when you first sit? Has your motivation to sit changed at all?

I noticed that phenomenon too, even though I conceptualized it as "Not seeing the sensations that seems to imply meaning".

Hi All, thanks for the comments so far!

@Fitter Stoke: Well the flickering seems to be around 1-3 hz(EDIT: Now that I think about it more carefully, probably closer to 2-4 hz... def not 1 hz I think), but it didn't ever feel 100% synced up. I also wasn't paying attention to everything as I'm still gradually discovering new things in my sits (last night I discovered how to become aware of the relation between space/attention). Also I've been making the mistake of not looking for the 3C's as well as I should have: so far the way I see it:

impermanence / no-self has to do with things vibrating/flickering and thus being "empty" in the sense that one can see through them.

suffering / no-self has to do with when I feel like I'm controlling anything, as when things don't turn out as I expected I get frustrated.

Maybe I need to continue ramping up concentration because I can't get really clear, synced up strobing, though perhaps this will be a natural result of more carefully including everything in the field of experience. It's also rare that during the strobing I would see both the physical phenomenon and the mental representation of me seeing the physical phenomenon though it does happen from time to time.

Other than that, basically I fall into the first jhana within about 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then the second jhana after about 2 more minutes, the third jhana within five minutes. I then slip in and out of the fourth jhana, usually because in the fourth jhana it's very difficult to reflect on what's going on to try and figure out what to look for and so I usually fall back into third to contemplate and then power back into fourth.

My motivation to sit is weird as while I'm kinda not super into sitting this morning, my mind's excuse is simply "feeling sluggish... should get energized and then sit otherwise will probably be sleepy during sit..." Also, over the last day I constantly feel like my body is semi-floating.

Also, it's getting difficult to sleep as just lying down and closing my eyes calmly results in me automatically falling into first/second jhana. Last night when going to bed I didn't feel like doing vipassana as I could tell my mind was a bit pooped and I wanted to let it dwell on what I had observed in my sits that day so far, so I thought why not do anapanasati to boost some concentration and maybe fade off to sleep? However, the heat I observed at the base of my spine/anus somehow sneaked up into my head as I then felt a powerful burning sensation for a second or so in my forehead! It did shock me a bit enough to lose track of the breath and then I continued, but I did note a bit of aversion to getting more burning sensations.

Well, I will get some breakfast and coffee and energize and then do a morning sit. Right now I'm going to settle for 3-4 sits a day. I'm still assuming I don't have SE (though the bleed-out from meditation experience into everyday life is crazy in terms of this floaty feeling...), and so my main goal is to become extremely comfortable reaching High EQ and staying there as it still feels a bit slippery sometimes.

I don't know. I would be very interested to hear Tommy M's opinion on this, as he's really good at mapping this stuff. My feeling is that you are at least very close to path, if you haven't gotten it already. That kind of quick power-up is something I almost never see except right around path (usually in review).

Ok, I just finished my sit, and very interesting report follows:

So first I spent the morning walking around the apartment like a nutcase because I thought well if I did get path already, I would see through the self and the self-belief fetter would be broken. So then I kept trying to find a self but there was this odd sense that it wasn't clear that I was always even feeling an "I". In the shower for example, it wasn't clear that it was "my" hands that were washing the shampoo out of my hair, rather just this pair of hands is washing this scalp and hair, and there is awareness of it.

I also noticed while in the bathroom that the odd sense of feeling like i'm dissolving or that the sense of being embedded in the body keeps dropping seems to follow an odd pattern and doesn't seem to be related to what I do. I was suspicious as to whether this is what is referred to as cycling? I also noticed that suddenly the mind was not really particularly interested in dwelling on the future or the past. It's much more interesting to simply observe and form thoughts about the present moment since the future and past are clearly these extremely patchy mental images and full of speculation, whereas at least the physical sensations that make up the current moment are here and you can interact with them in a sense.

Then I began my sit. First, this time was extremely strange as although I slowly moved through the jhanas, I could almost effortlessly see the impermanence of all physical sensations. Like even looking at the dull flickering light, it wasn't apparent that anyone was "looking" at the light, rather the flickering light just seems to present itself. It took slightly longer than usual to power through the jhanas, but this time I was carefully able to actually see all the sensations that make up reality.

Anyway, I then made it to 3rd jhana, where I found it was fairly easy to take into awareness the entire field of body/physical sensations. However, I would frequently have light mental chatter, although it didn't really seem to come with a feeling of me, but rather just the mind being baffled because of this clear sense of impermanence everywhere...

Then I spent a long time examining all physical/body sensations, and looking at impermanence and no-self. I have a hard time seeing suffering at this level as honestly all the echoes of body sensation and slight tensions feel just like echos.

Then I started searching for mental sensations... before this was always tricky as how does one observe mental sensations, they aren't intuitively accessible the way space/body are. So I then learned this trick where I just notice everything other than what are clearly the body/physcial sensations. It turns out those are the mental sensations, and thus I was able to notice the story sequence as before. Except this time the stories weren't really dream-like in that they would pull me away, they mainly seemed to consist of overlaying an image of the world over hte physical sensations that gave the physical sensations meaning/structure. So like the physical sensations would consist of the body and space vibrations, and then the mental image would seem to overlay this subtle pattern over these vibrations that gave the sense that they were related. (for the math inclined, it almost seemed like the body sensations constitute the points of a set and mental sensations constitute a topology over this set)

Then I started realizing the suffering of not being able to constantly see clearly the body and mental sensations as they are. So I strove to observe them clearly moment to moment, and then suddenly I lept forward into what for the last several days I've been calling "Super High EQ special mode" where suddenly there is just this bright, pure flickering of light that feels extremely relieving. The transition is instantaneous, and there is no sense of a "now in High EQ, dip into "blackness/nothing", and then Super High EQ special mode", but rather it is just "now in High EQ... BAM all of a sudden I'm in Super High EQ special mode". It's not even clear that Super High EQ special mode is in equinimity, as I was able to repeat this several times during the sit, and the first two times, while the mind felt purified and relaxed, the body suddenly lurched with energy as my heart chakra region and abdomen would release a lot of energy, so it felt like a super relaxed and transparent version of A&P.

So I'm starting to suspect that what I call "sudden transition into Super High EQ special mode" is actually what is normally referred to here as fruition and then cycling back down into A&P... and now that I think about it, over the last several days I've been having this special transition, but I simply thought it was even more equananimous and peaceful than before and so would get confused. But as soon as this time it happened, I immediately felt extremely confident that this was a fruition, that the transition was instant, and that I had cleared the path. Within seconds, I simply got up out of the sit as the certainty was simply so clear that there didn't seem to be a point meditating through this cycle trying to search out for fruitions anymore as now I had found what I had been looking for.

Interestingly I noted in High EQ that the mind is inclined to simply dissolve into formless realms as it seems like a lot of mental energy is spent upholding the structure of the formed realms.

Also, the joy that comes after these supposed fruitions is not this massive rapture wave or anything really A&P like, but rather this deep sense of relief and mental relaxation where it feels like for a while the mind has finally gotten a break and reality is just happening.

So does this sound like SE? Honestly, this isn't as mind blowing as I thought it would be. I thought I would be able to levitate and shoot lasers and shit. According to the Buddha:

(from wikipedia)

Dhammapada 178:
Sole dominion over the earth,
going to heaven,
lordship over all worlds:
the fruit of stream-entry
excels them.

Ok, well this mode of existence is pretty nice, but I'm not sure I would say it is the supreme awesome forever best anything. There is a deep tranquility to it... very relaxing... but somehow I feel like that old saying about "everything is just as it is" is slightly mocking me, as I feel like I had all these expectations about SE, and it feels like nothing about the world has changed, only the perspective of observing it has become more clear and less burdened. I use to be really into fantasizing for fun as it was great fun to simply imagine all sorts of crazy stuff, and now it feels less awesome because I can see them clearly as fantasies... perhaps another way to put it is that it seems like a lot of the time humans derive meaning and "fun" out of existence by dramatizing it unnecessarily, and now that drama is just clearly drama, and so one can't partake in dramatizing or falling into drama-dreams easily... still, better to be in this mode than not!

I wanted to shoot lasers out of my eyes damnit!

EXACTLY




This is because you can no longer go to hell my friend. Enjoy

Report from my day at work:

Ok I'm pretty sure I got SE as I started noticing clear cycling - it's basically impossible to miss. Big waves of no-self, dis-embedding from the body and space just opening up, and they seem to be getting more and more common. Also, anytime I would start doubting no-self, I can just look at anything that seems solid and almost right away i can see it as impermanent and not being self. Sometimes when I just focus on another person's face it becomes clear that there isn't anyone on this side. It's also very interesting to look in the mirror...

I've also started getting little jets of heat (complement of the icy flow) appearing around my body, although it's tolerable now as the heat doesn't seem to be striking me. There is still some residual tension in the heart/diapraghm area that I had from before that every now and then seems to give this distant dull "ugh" sense, and sometimes it feels like because the breath can't completely bottom out (because of diapraghm tension), when the big space expansions occur and it feels like the world is giving out from under me, sometimes it feels like the world just can't expand out to infinity and that I could breath a little mroe except for this tension. I'll try doing some yoga/stretching/breathing exercises to try and improve that. (although it seems to be progressively getting better throughout the day)

I'm going to take the next couple days easy, do a relaxing sit or two each day and try to expand vipassana out to things like walking around now and also focusing more on noting mental phenomenon. I also want to play around a bit now with energy practices as they are way more accessible and I'd like to understand these flows of heat and ice around my body.

Another thing I've noticed is that although the pattern/process of self is seen through, that doesn't mean I have complete control over it. Sometimes when a scary thing happens (a big dog barks very loudly in the elevator), it's like there is this recoil process where I can see myself jump back... there isn't really a me jumping back, but the mind/body still reacts as though there is one...

Ok report from sit just now.

So that didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I laid down and decdied I would do nothing but watch, not even try to note, observe 3C's, nothing. As usually I immediately began progressing through the jhanas, everything was going great, and I couldn't find any sense of self. At some point about thirty minutes, suddenly from near my spine two sensations, one of ice-flow and one of heat-flow began slowly going up my spine and criss crossing. I've read about energy practices / kundalini and know that these probably refer to ida/pingala. In any case, I felt a bit of fear as I didn't want any kind of kundalini experience.

I opened my eyes and distracted myself a bit, and then closed. The meditation automatically kept going (honestly it feels now like normal life is some kind of intense meditation experience all the time) and I felt myself feeling like I was litterally falling through the jhana's (not even trying, like just laying there). I also investigated no-self, and I found the following interesting thing: while normally just sitting around and meditating today, I usually don't feel any sense of self. In particular I have this practice of looking at my hands, and they consistently (did I just have a fruition while typing this? I swear it just went from "con" to "consistantly", wtf***) immediately demonstrate impermanence and no-self both visually and proprioceptively (i.e. feeling of my hands). There is also this constant flash-flash-flash in observing them ... *however* I did get into this one really intense thought loops where it's like, "well what if there is still a self, is there? who is even having these thoughts? (it's weird because when I speak and observe, the thoughts seem to come from nowhere and yet the thoughts themselves question how it's even possible) are you sure that tension isn't a sense of self? etc" and while I can't really find a sense of self when I examine all these things, I then get a slight headache. Specifically, I think this might have something to do with a sense of fear about the energy/kundalini stuff...

Now I have this ugh as I think the heat/ice flow has reached up to the middle of my spine where I have a large knot related to the diapraghm/heart area, and my body feels a bit wretched in the abdomen.

It's also a bit annoying as it's difficult to just take a nap as I just automatically start meditating if I lay down to sleep, as I have this stomach-chest ache.

It's weird as I feel sometimes like maybe there still is a sense of self, although usually I don't, and now it's just confusing as I've consistently been in this weird mode for the last two days and I can't really remember exactly what it's like to have a normal sense of self... I think the sense of self I got during the meditation had to do with the fear that hit me as the kundalini/energy phenomenon was creeping up the spine (during what I believe to be cycling, I have these times of tension in the head (although I can sorta see their impermanence) before they finally slowly relax and release. Also frequently the ice-flow seems to spend time dissolving various parts of my head. I think the problem is that my physical body is full of a lot of tensions (which was great for observation pre-path), but that those tension's haven't completely gone away or something. It's interesting how even though I don't really feel a sense of self (unless I spend a lto of time getting into these crazy thought loops that almost strike me as paranoia, where perhaps the story-constructing engine is in overdrive and paranoid about itself) doesn't mean there aren't occasional senses of "ugh" in the body.

If I still haven't hit SE, is it possible that reobservation and (almost always) EQ are leaking out like crazy during the day time? I mean like all the time, full on tripping like feeling... also is it possible that the higher level conscious acceptance of the results of path take a few days to accept? (I feel like while intuitively I have crossed path, sometimes my rational thought engine starts getting confused/paranoid (after all, it is use to thinking about an "I"... I sometimes get these waves of "how can there possibly not be a self... is this for real?" and then I have to check my hands, and then I can see hte impermanence, and then it's like well... damn... that's weird)

*** So can fruitions happen while doing everyday things like typing this message? That's a little confusing as doesn't that imply that it's possible to potentially have a really long fruition while say working and magically pop out of nibbana with a full hour of work completed for free?

Well I guess I'll just see what happens over the next few days... it would suck if I'm stuck in reobsevation or something.

EDIT: I think there is some interesting connection between the energy flowing into my abdomen (big spot of tension), the feeling of body ache and the emotion of "ugh" (almost like nausea... now it has mysteriously passed... it comes and goes every 1-2 hours from that area). If this is cycling it's quite intense.

EDIT2: Ok, feel much better now, and sense of no-self has returned... that sense of "ugh" felt very "un-satisfactory" and yet in the shower, once again it's like these random pair of hands are shampooing my head (and I can't even *#$@ step around the shower without it feeling like the entire frame of reference suddenly dissolves and this sense of vertigo arises (although it doesn't feel bad at all, it's just kidna bizarre)). Question for readers: after stream entry, what is the purpose of cycling? is cycling the deep unconscious mind slowly percolating up wisdom?

I'll maintain this thread as a general update for what's going on with cycling.

(note to readers - sorry if I seem a bit like a nutcase, but things are pretty intense now not even doing anything, just cycling i think, and recording what's going on sorta calms me down a bit as it lets me clearly organize my thoughts... also my practice has been energy focused, so perhaps this will be useful to other practicioners who also take an energy focused approach)

So muscles that have been tense for a very long time have started spontaneously relaxing while I browse the internet. I usually think of things in terms of energy as that's how my practice developed, and right now it feels like energy is flowing around through my body clearing things up. In particular, there seems to be a pattern of energy going into various tense areas, tiring emotions (which generate this dull sense of "ugh" and a slight lack of clarity/confusion about whether there is no sense of self), after which point suddenly the muscle relaxes.

Whenever the emotional "ugh" comes about, especially when any tensions arise in the head area, I experience suffering (in that the pattern of self seems to come out, tiring emotions arise and the world kinda sucks) until the tension seems to dissolve away, at which point the sense of clarity and clear recognition of the no-self characteristic in everything again comes to the fore-front.

In particular, I feel like it's better to stop thinking in terms of "there is no self now" but rather to adapt the thinking that there is this pattern of self that arises once in a while. Whenever this pattern of self arises there is suffering and things feel more solid. Also, often when this pattern of self arises, it predominantly seems to try to cling to a sense of solidness and generates unease because things just don't feel really solid.

---

Happy update! So I laid down just to relax and do some meditation to see what happens, and suddenly it became completely clear to me why I was freaking out - I had all these expectations about stream entry and what it's suppose to be like and then I was constantly comparing my experience to it. In particular, the easiest way to just relax into this calm clarity is just to accept whatever arises and passes away in the current moment. Any kind of clinging to expectations about how things are suppose to be automatically generates suffering. Now everything is just super tranquil and awesome! Finally I can proceed on with normal life w/o being paranoid!

Well done!