Are we all just different yet interconnected perspectives in and of a sea of infinite potentiality? It's a game where infinite potentiality plays with itself. A movie where infinite potentiality marvels in different mirrors of the same infinite potentiality at itself, and always sees something a little bit different, yet still the same and of the same.

I have no idea where I am on the path of insight, but nothing beyond the above has come to me during meditations or even daily life practice for at least a couple months, despite diligent practice. I've just been floating in this equanimous-like state since the above insight, and today I've had enough and am bored with it. It's almost pissing me off. I'm not being smug. The insight might be completely inadequate and inaccurate. I thought it was such a fantastic "thing" when I first started "seeing" this.

I'm tired of always being "chill". I want the thrill back.

But now I don't know where I am on the path of insight, what I'm doing in "life", what the point is to so-called "life" (other than to marvel at itself in the mirror), or where I'm going. I thought it was stream entry. Nothing else seemed to fit. I don't care if the first path is finished or not. I keep practicing, but nothing new happens. So I keep practicing.

Forgive my bitter attitude. It will likely be gone in less than an hour.

Fin.

Well, I hate to assume I know what you're going through, but that sounds spot on to me.

My opinion just stems from my experience: even if you blow all of this off (sitting meditation) for a few months (I'm not recommending any action here), but I think it's natural to just "give up" for awhile. There's something useful about sitting again in almost a futile attitude, just to sit. Maybe in a few months you'll just sit on a park bench again because the sunset is nice; there will be no thought about getting something, waiting for something, not getting something out of it. Just sitting. Just senses, brain getting still on its own.

Anyway, I think what you're reporting is useful and familiar and even predictable.

What I think is funny is that one can have read about the path models and yet when stages in the path occur, it just doesn't seem like anything familiar or that one could have been lead by suggestion to this place. And I don't think one is being lead. I think models -- whoever's models -- tend to map typical mind stuff pretty well or people wouldn't use them so many hundreds of years in.

Anyway, if there were no dukkha in equanimity, everybody would stop there. Part of the greatness of dukkha in EQ is that the brain stops presenting so many demands on meditation, because it starts to give up and that's a layer of thought and desire that has to die off on its own and can't be forced, in my opinion. It sort of wears itself out through lack of reward in combination with frustration and finally gives up on demanding products from the practice.

[edit: so when that point hit in my practice, I think I let go of scheduled sitting for a couple of months. I would regularly sit during full moons and very early morning, because those are beautiful times of day and where I lived then the moonlight on water was close and part of a vast landscape. I would have to say that I am grateful for the annoyance of dukkha in EQ now, because it really shakes off a useless mental urge which can't help but place expectations on practice-- and that expectation is natural, but totally gets in the way, blocks the openness that seems to need to happen. So congrats?]

If you're bored and uncertain, it's not stream entry.

If you want thrill, you could always switch to cultivation of the brahmaviharas or do anapanasati with an eye to jhana.

I can relate to what you write here! For me this has been about working with the impulse to change experience, to generate some excitement. It's like there is a part of the mind that is projecting that experience should be a certain way, and that is invested in the drama of achieving/failing to make this change. When we uncover the timeless true nature it is a let down to this part of the mind. It undercuts the egoic drama of becoming a spiritual supertstar and achieving an amazing transformation.

The irony or paradox is that deep transformation can arise spontaneously out of gradually relaxing that self-manipulating impulse to 'change'. I would recommend examining and contrasting the difference between the peace of simply resting in/as that empty nondual totality on the one hand, and pursuing 'progress' that is predictable and controllable on the other. My experience is there is a wealth of insight in such exploration which will paradoxically result in a gradual letting go of the mind that wants to alter experience and 'fix' life, alongside a gradual waxing of the sense of wonder and enjoyment of the 'sameness' of true nature as well as resiliency and effectiveness in the face of ever changing conditions.

It is only imagination which separates the unconditioned from conditions. In actual life there is a continuous unfolding newness simultaneous with a pervasive sameness. It will always frustrate an intellect that is driven to comprehend true nature in conceptual terms. Yet an intellect that accepts its place as a pragmatic tool for working with changing conditions, in service of good will, is an important part of life.

In other words, maybe it would be a good time to practice 'just sitting', alongside 'just' doing whatever you have to do in daily life, and letting go of any conceptual barriers between practice and life, unconditioned and conditions.

If a practitioner is bored and uncertain about their realization, they probably have more to learn/unlearn. Strem entry is just the beginning, so being bored and uncertain seems like it's quite compatible with it... at some point in the process. Or did I misunderstand you? Haven't you found a tendency in your practice to be really impressed and fascinated with a new experiential insight/shift in manner of experiencing, only to later get the sense that you had been missing some stuff?

Good points, and thank you. That was insightful to read.

You know it was strange how it happened, now that I think of it from a different perspective. I was just sitting reading MCTB for the first time, having finally attained a break from the DN, and then something weird happened. I said "Wait, if I'm not this.....then" and everything just stopped. That's a poor way of explaining it, but that's the best I can do.

My partner was watching me, because I was actually describing my contemplation outloud. Next thing I know she says "Jason?" and I realized I'd been just sitting there apparently crippled with my mouth wide open and eyes welling up.

Since then it's been nothing but equanimity interspersed with similar moments as just described. I started focusing on samatha at that point because it was most interesting to me, but I've returned to insight in the last month, and nothing at all is coming. It's like the "curiosity" of the mind is gone. I'm not implying I made path. I'm just saying what it's like.

Maybe I will make more of an effort to take pleasure in everything instead of observing it.

Thanks for taking the time to offer support.

I'm actually okay with this. I came to terms with it while reading Daniel's soul crushing (lol) description of what Enlightenment isn't. But that process was how you explain above.



Wow. Yes, I have to agree. I'm a Health Coach, so I'm always "fixing" something, either directly or indirectly. I've also been in "go" mode for quite a while, now that I think of it.

I'm going to try each of your suggestions and just sit when I can. I don't think I want to give up the morning hour of insight, but maybe I won't "care" so much what is to happen through it.

Thank you

I'm not too familiar with either of these terms (brahmaviharas anapanasati) but I'm looking into the former and finding it of interest. I'm really craving something cosmically pleasing. I've been craving that for a while now that I think of it. Samatha doesn't do it for me, but I'm only doing breath meditation and then cultivating the states which come. They're a nice respite, though.

"Explaining" it is often pretty hard to do with some areas of meditation, because speech (verbal, pre-verbal conceptual, and physical communication (including afferent and efferent sense actions)) is just one aspect of the mind's capacity. So when mind is active in an area that is not communicating in the more familiar verbal or image-conceptual means, then one's own hindsight view and verbal/conceptual re-expression of that experience is naturally hard to put in words. It's like trying to explain "taste of carrots" with vocabulary restricted to words around "Michelin tires".

I think you're going to know very well for yourself over the next year what happened. Personally, I found the fetter model very accurate for sotapanna --- edit: wait, that's funny. That's a tautomerism. The defined is contained in the definition basically! So I'll say that I found the fetter model simple and apt. A friend and I following different systems in recent years seemed to have had what is described by the first path in the fetter model. I mean these terms are useful like "birthdays" to indicate some change, but can't be taken too seriously (like birthdays reflect time passing, but don't speak to any inherent maturity or any inherent rate of aging)

I loved reading and that's probably a personal resonance for me. Fun stuff.

I think the first few months after mind's sotapanna release are inherently wonderful, edit: mind can take in more enjoyment, there is less tension and something is relaxing, letting go it seems. The difference between equanimity (where we can easily think we're having "stream-entry" mind) and "stream-entry" is that there is definitely familiar tension persistent in EQ, basically because the mind is very, very concerned about falling back into the dukkha nanas. I guess that tension would be something about mind's belief framework of reality, which starts to change after the stream-entry release. With sotapanna release, the mind definitely can still panic, can definitely be miserable, can definitely be foolish, but basically there is some kind of new relaxation/release there that becomes more the norm over time (and allows the mind to keep releasing) and a natural momentum towards dealing with itself. It will naturally start dealing with its ill-will and the causes that amount to ill-will (e.g., greed, exaggerated pleasure-seeking).

So congrats on whatever happened there =]

Anyway, those are just my thoughts.

Well, thanks especially for doing what you're doing. No matter what tradition one is in, there are people whose minds experience release and and a natural, gradual wholesome shifting starts to occur. It also reminds me of what I have heard from former addicts: touching a bottoming-out place and having a clear irrevocable wholesome shift result.