Over the last month or two my practice has shifted significantly. It began with some "sky-gazing" and peripheral vision, which led into a sort of panoramic relaxation. By simply allowing attention to broaden into the visual periphery, a spacious openness effortlessly emerged, resolving most tensions without explicit effort.

In the weeks following that, I noticed a series of profound heart-opening experiences. These came unexpectedly—suddenly, there was boundless, flowing compassion, softness, and breathiness. It was as though a deep chest brace had spontaneously relaxed, allowing breath to expand naturally, almost more than I previously thought possible. Accompanying these openings was the felt realization: "The world is safe; it's okay to be alive; home is where the heart is."

This panoramic relaxation and heart softness have begun to integrate quite naturally. They're sometimes present during daily tasks, although subtle tensions or "doing hums" still occasionally arise. Each big opening seems to lead directly into further subtle clean-up of the last three fetters—especially the faintest traces of restlessness, subtle selfing, and ignorance.Interestingly, every significant opening during this period seems triggered by the same simple realization: What if nothing needs to be done about the arising of any phenomenon? Each time I deeply recognize that the compulsion to manage or manipulate experience isn't necessary, another layer of tension spontaneously releases, allowing the openness and compassion to further stabilize.

This process feels very gentle and organic. While there remains some flicker of subtle checking ("Is this it?"), it's increasingly clear that the open heart and panoramic relaxation don't require any special maintenance. They're already here, simply waiting for subtle residual tensions to see through themselves.

Much of my current practice involves noticing and clearly recognizing deep-seated thought habits and subtle braces of attention. The practice itself has become simpler: sitting, relaxing, and allowing myself to become absorbed in the total experience of reality ("Jhana"). Within this space, it quickly becomes clear if something still feels "wrong," and if so, I gently meet it with awareness.

Sometimes the sense of something being "wrong" manifests as a certain level of background perseveration, particularly early in the morning, which typically softens naturally as the day progresses. Other times, it is expressed as subtle bracing in attention. Initially, I observed attention-bracing occurring through the front, middle, and back of the brain; as these gradually relaxed, the main remaining tension is now primarily centered in the heart region.

Overall, the unfolding continues to be interesting and quietly enriching. I remain gently attentive, allowing each subtle layer of tension to resolve at its own pace. Just tipping away at it really. It really does go on a bit... but a life of fear and anxiety isn't a quick fix kind of situation I guess.

​​​​​​​The title is not a claim to attainment—it's a joke.

Its never a fockin'' joke man!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wlBS22I8Ac

Very nice BB.

For what it's worth, I was reminded of Michael Taft's pattern of awakening... he spent a few months on a low effort individual retreat at IMS and just gradually tipped over. No big aha moment or grand insight or obvious threshold crossed. The fundamental ignorance just sort of melted away over time...



I had this thought/idea/quote come to mind:    "Stop trying to keep score."

(Might be useful, but maybe I'm just projecting though, it's definitely a reminder that's relevant for my psyche these days...)

This sounds lovely! It sounds like you are seeing how it unfolds, how the patterns work, how with this being that becomes, and with this not being, that does not become, without forcing. It sounds very open. Sadhu!  

Hey Bahiya, thanks for the update, and congrats on these attainments!

Firstly (to hijack your thread for a moment, lol), I'm hoping to get back on track with my practice soon, I got completely blindsided by some life stuff that has really prevented me from doing pretty much anything- meditating, checking DhO, or even playing music.  This is one of the first weekends I've had to catch up on things and your post was immediately inspiring and gets me excited to start sitting again.  Meditation is a luxury, lol!

If you haven't already (and im sure you probably have) checked out Dreamwalker's Framework of Awakening, the panoramic opening of the visual field is something he describes as one of the higher path sub-attainments.

I feel like you and I are on a similar track, or have similar psychologies, or something.  The heart-opening experiences I can definitely relate to and I've even refer to them as 'heart-opening', because yeah, that's exactly how it feels.  

For me it's also not a 'one and done', but rather each heart opening or each 'sub-attainment' seems to knock off little pieces of the armor that keep our pride and selfishness fettered in place.  

How it all maps to the 4 path model, I'm still not really sure, but Dreamwalker seemed to think these types of experiences fit into it somewhere in the higher paths - thought I don't know if he talked much or at all about heart-openings.  I think these heart openings are similar in nature to the perceptual field openings, but more at the emotional level rather than the sensual -
(well, yes, the emotional level is still the 'feeling' sense I suppose, but, I think you get my point)
- and so he may have placed something like this also as a 3rd path sub-attainment.  

Not that it matters so much anyway.

Glad you're doing well!

JW

Love to see you posting! Always fun to see your updates as you've gone through this journey. So much of this for me recently has seemed about taking down barriers we've put up and weaponized in our lives.

Not that it relates, but that previous sentence has me thinking - do we all start on this path because we're too good of tool-users? (as you'd put it) I have been thinking about what drags someone down this road recently, and for me, personally, I think that maybe I was too tool-minded and was looking for something else to call home. Maybe this will synthesize for myself down the road.

Wish you the best, Bahiya!

Yes, I do suspect this, Jim—that was absolutely the case for me. I was doing lots of tantra, magic, psychological and self-help work, using so many tools that I became hyper-neurotic and burned myself out. My bodymind simply couldn't handle it anymore. That burnout is what started this journey for me.

"Stop trying to keep score."

I was reflecting on this recently whilst keeping score on the progression in my practice. First, there was a cultivation of groundlessness, initially experienced as "centrelessness," which evolved into clearly seeing everything as flux. Then came the panoramic openness and deep heart-opening experiences—the spontaneous compassion I described.

So I found myself with everything appearing panoramic, fluxing, and overflowing with compassion. But when the fireworks of recent weeks settled and life seemed "meh" again, I asked myself: what's missing? How do I know something is missing? Why does it sometimes seem like nothing is missing? How do I know any of this?

What is knowing?

Who knows?

Who knows the knower?

Rigpa!

Clarity. I had known it before, quite a few times at this point, but in that moment I recognized it clearly—not as a result of flux, compassion, or emptiness, but as its own ineffable, ungraspable thing.

"I do not know what anything is." As beautiful and profound as that koan is, it still rests on a subtle misunderstanding. In truth, I neither know nor do not know. Meaning, even the knower itself must be recognized as empty, fluxing and luminous.

-
Now, a brief tangent on mental objects: Throughout this path, as far as my experience goes, practice is essentially about recognizing and clearly identifying mental objects so that they can be relaxed. These objects are the moving, shaping patterns of the identity complex. I'll describe this using left-brain, logical, doing-oriented language—but please interpret this from the open, spacious, non-doing meditator perspective that undoubtedly most of you are familiar with.

The essence of the path and its unfolding involves clearly recognizing mental objects. They must first be identified before they can be released. That's why sitting and looking directly at suffering is incredibly useful: you begin to see sounds simply as sounds, sights as sights, emotions as emotions, thoughts about practice as thoughts about practice, and all the sticky thoughts about self, ownership, identification, agency, greed, and indifference as what they are—mental objects. Through familiarity, you clearly perceive how these arise, persist, and vanish, seeing directly that they are not-self—attachment and obsession naturally begin to relinquish.

For me, this process has always been very kinesthetic. I feel the mental object viscerally. Once I clearly sense it, it dissolves.

​​​​​​​Recently, I've been exploring this dynamic closely in relation to ignorance and the subtle residue of restlessness and conceit. It's become evident that this simple act of recognition and release is precisely what I've always been doing, regardless of practice style or conceptual framework. Noting, the Three Characteristics, emptiness, inquiry, non-doing—these were just conceptual overlays on this fundamental experiential process.

It's through this process of identification and release that the self puzzle gets undone. It's almost very Jungian in a sense. Except the Buddha was sharp enough to discern that the doing of the path was not-doing. Hence the reason for my left-brain right-brain disclaimer above. Usually when I get a good feel for a mind object I can sort of "do things" to evaporate it but eventually that just wears itself out and the actual real work continues on in the not-doing, in the progressive relaxation of just sitting. 

What to do if we can't find and observe particular objects?

Finding them in order to observe or investigate would be a bit "left-brain."

I think when one sits and experiences things they simply reveal themselves... or they do not. 

Whether one is necessarily or need be aware of this I can't say. Very possibly not or not always. 

But as usual I have taken your question at face value and in the process of answering been entirely bewildered by the potential meaning of what you're asking me. 

So, honestly I have no idea. What would I do if there were no mental objects for me to find and observe?

Probably go to bed and hope I have better luck finding them in the morning.

The searching gets in the way of the finding  

EDIT: I was simply posing a question that befuddles a lot of meditators. Your answer was great, BTW.

You've a fine sense of humor Chris

​​​​​​​I had a good laugh about that. 

Finding and observing objects is magic! 

Indeed, so much of it is simply getting out of your own way.

Tricky part is, we're all born into such chaos and cruelty that usually we can't really 'just do it'.

To use the music metaphor (well, not really a metaphor actually) -

"The best songs happen when you just trust your instinct, do what feels natural, don't overthink it, don't overproduce it, just capture the moment and the vibe and go with it."

TRUE.

But, the problem is in order for that to be true, you have to know how to play music at least a little bit, you have to know how to sing at least a little bit, you have to know how to write words just a little bit- in other words, your instinct has to be developed and honed in order for the magic to happen.

Most people (and not people here, but MOST people), unfortunately, do not have a good instinct.  I daresay, most people's instinct is horrible.  Their "instinct" is fear, greed, ego-clinging, etc and so that's when most people write their first song, it's unlistenable, except to the person who wrote it.  For them, it's a masterpiece.  To everyone else, it's super cringe.  

I think perhaps what Chris and others are suggesting here, not to put words into others mouths, is- you're ready.  Just trust yourself and the rest will fall into place.


Thanks again Bahiya for letting me ramble- gee, i really should like start a log or something huh? Lol...

Aye. The best songs happen by accident.

J W quoted, ”The best songs happen when you just trust your instinct”, and added how some knowledge of music etc is still needed. Many times a child is completely ready to sing, and just sings an original song with uncanny ageless wisdom. They could not reproduce it, maybe, and they certainly lack most knowledge, skills and experience. Maybe what is required then is an open listener. Connection. Music, any performance or expression, is as much from the performer as it is from the experiencer, the moment.
​​​​​​​Be well everyone. 

Log? Not necessary. You could start a topic called "JW's Random Thoughts About..."

@chris : Hah! Now there's an idea.


@kettu :

Agreed - and part of the limitation of the metaphor is that music is, exactly as you say, an expression of the internal experience.  
What is discussed primarily here is the internal experience itself. Part of the struggle is to describe with clarity that internal experience.

As it's been said, it is impossible to know if someone else is enlightened, though there can be some pretty reliable indicators.  Personally I tend to be on the more generous side and give the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.

To your point, could we all be born into the natural state right out of the womb, before the subject-object separation is definted and we become subject to the conditionings of samsara?  Quite possibly so imo.

In my metaphor though, singing of a beautiful song is not possible by a new born child, because they do not possess the mental and physical capabilities to express their internal experience via art or language, at least not in a complex way that can really be understood by others.  The only song they sing is "I'm hungry" and it sounds absolutely miserable (by evolutionary design). 
By the time one reaches the age of maybe 5 or 6 years old, using the very earliest examples, maybe as young as 3 years old, one may have developed those capabilities sometimes to an extraordinary degree.  The famous examples would be Mozart, Lizst, or you can go on YouTube today and find scores of incredible young performers.  These are what we call 'child prodigies'.  They do exist, but it's very rare, quite remarkable, sometimes completely natural but sometimes partially the result of abusive parenting, and the their stories do not always end well.