Hi all. I'm not going to be writing experiential descriptions.


For years I've been able to work uninterrupted on destroying the cankers in the traditional sense. I believe my first five cankers are essentially destroyed, as an infinitely small fraction of a second of ill will or sexual desire would never be enough to have me act upon it. The base of those two cankers are rested in ignorance, which only arahantship would dispel.

I imagine I have passed MCTB fourth path a long time ago. Several times in the last few years I have reached end points where it seemed useless to go on, but after hard weeks of 8 or so hours of jhanic practice each day, I have always broken through to go further.

I am now absolutely stuck. I like to look on the bright side of it, maybe it means I'm just about to hit jackpot and I have to earn it.

I sit down and enter jhana, I start at fourth and over the course of 2 hours or so build up strongly to eighth jhana. It is tremendously obvious each time I switch to the next arupa. Eighth however continues, and continues, and continues. I can pressure it, and this will give way to a variety of worthless experiences which ruin the whole direction of the work. Three hours wasted, I have a cloakroom break and start again, or schedule a later time.

I have tried switching to moment to moment observation of a hard eighth jhana, and this will either land me in a useless place, or cause too much pain and discomfort. I don't know what to do. I have tried to take some solace in the scriptures, which I remember stating that the pure abodes were built on the fourth jhana. I really do not think those gross non-path post eighth experiences are the pure abodes. Those realms of mind seem unconducive to attaining liberating insight, unlike where anagamins are meant to arise after human death.

I'm not sure what to do.

With metta and all this
Siegfried

There are numerous things about what you say that seem inconsistent, such as investigating 8th, for instance, which is basically impossible if it is real 8th.

I am wondering, what are your criteria for MCTB 4th?

It would be interesting to talk with you about these things if you are interested.

Let me know.

Daniel

Skype name: daniel m ingram without the spaces.

you know that the transient field is the entire, whole, complete, undifferentiated, undivided, natural, and only thing, right?

given that, what else could there be to look for?

given that, who else is there to go anywhere or get anything, at least on that one axis of development?

given that, this should be very obvious as the only game in town if you have what you claim, then why the discrepancy?

how could that transience, that ephemerality, that freshness, be stuck?

if you really have 4th, mctb 4th, or whatever you wish to call it, then the entire field should know itself where it is, as it is, all through everything, without separation, without duality

automatically, the field knows itself as the answer

without the sense that this has anything to do with paths, states, stages, levels, modes, or anything

this being the very obvious intrinsic quality of all states, all sensations, all qualities, as it is their true nature, always has been, always will be, couldn't possibly be any other way.

being bound in stages, states, levels, jhanas, twisting and turning, seeking, gaming, bargaining, strategizing, trying this, trying that, cycling, rising up, falling down, plunging on: all that grand struggle, it all finally misses something about all of that which is so direct, so intimate, so pervasive, so easy, so natural, so pristine, so resolving of the tension that drives all of that

the field speaks for itself, is itself, simply, elegantly

just that.


gently let all the scared, confused little voices come out from behind their bluster, be seen as they are, and join the party


again, care to chat about this?

daniel

said another way

past a certain point the notions of paths and all that are not helpful

and the textures of space must rest in themselves

Hey Daniel I wonder what else there is to do if this is 4th path and you suggest that there is more to do after it? This is basically something that has been spontaneously arising for me lately (the field knowing itself as the answer) and it seems sufficient. What else is there?

Beautifully said btw.

p.s. don't mean to derail thread so I won't continue the inquiry after this post

You yourself must make your own careful inventory of how you are, how that system functions, what are its strengths and weakness, what additional aspects of life and the mind you wish to develop.

There are so many things to enhance, so many things to bring more attention to, so many ways we can further our growth, that the topic is too large to easily discuss without asking more about the specific thing that drives your particular question, as something clearly does, or you wouldn't have asked it.

What is that? What calls to you at this time? Whazzup? ;)