2nd path equanimity

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Dream Walker, modified 10 Years ago at 8/10/13 11:48 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/10/13 11:48 PM

2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Alright,
after doing some mapping and 4 jhana junky distractions I have come up with some things.
Thanks Daniel for your patience and gentle guidance back to the point.
I finally tried doing skillful practice and the 3 characteristics. I have tried to include everything in awareness. I say to myself "It is all the same stuff, it's all information, it's all thusness, it is impermanent, there is no self here or there" then I really look hard and see what is what whatever it is. This causes the vibrations to increase and become stronger. I investigate these vibes gently and try to stay on breath. If I move all my focus on them they tend to dissipate so it's a fine balance.
Now here is the crux - the Fluxing thingy makes absolutely no sense until it happens. It is only recognizable after the fact and there are no words to describe it accurately. So don't worry about it. It is like describing a color that you have never seen and only when you see it will you know what the hell it is. I glimpsed it briefly, no not a path moment. Things Daniel said make more sense now(somewhat) and the frustration around what the hell I was looking for is less now. Gonna try to just practice diligently and skillfully and trust the whatever the hell it is will unfold as it should.
(I still love maps and as long as I have this hammer everything is gonna look like a nail...just not on the cushion)

Daniel M. Ingram:
Actually, the trick in Equanimity staying into the thing just doing its thing, and that thing could be ANYTHING!

Now, that thing could be the breath, could just be whatever happens, could be thoughts, could just be being really honest about what is actually going on regardless of it is, could just be being yourself in some really ordinary and non-idealized way, could be really letting the mind just do what it wants to do, all while really being naturally present to that just as it occurs.

It could be wanting to control things. It could be watching that struggle itself. It could be wishing thoughts would do whatever or not do whatever. It could be just letting your stuff happen. It could be fluxing formless realms. It could be ultra-powerful concentration. It could be noticing the motion of attention as it creates space just by being itself and moving around making space. It could be that space and attention are the same thing. It could just be following the textures of form and mind as they synchronize. It could be being really annoyed that the mind isn't "behaving", whatever that is. It could be noting forms moving and changing. It could be some other formal practice just formally practicing or trying to practice. It could be any conflict, any harmony, any success, any failure, any neutrality, anything: but that thing, whatever it is, as it is, is the key, right then and really following it, really merging into that impermanence, really giving into not being able to hold off as an observer, really not being able to find any place in space that anything can stand on and hold out from, as the whole thing is allowed to show just how utterly unstable the whole thing really is with no reference points or practitioner or anything remaining uninformed and unviolated by that direct and totally absorbed, naturally fascinated following of all of that.

Staying on any of that: letting it take you out. Letting it vanish and take you with it. Letting it stutter. Letting it shift and squirm. Letting space flow towards disappearing totally with all that is in it.

Any of that make any sense?

Daniel

Daniel M. Ingram:

If our intellect is strong, we may try to use that to somehow pry open the thing. However, it is a crutch that is ill-suited to the task past beyond a minor supportive role past a certain point.

Know the simple sensations of all types that are arising and vanishing throughout the field of experience, and, if this is done well, wisdom will reveal itself. It is the direct path. "In the seeing, just the seen. In the hearing, just the heard. In the thinking, just the thought..." etc.
Daniel


Daniel M. Ingram:
It is not just their strange sense of continuity, but also the notion that sensations can observe or control other sensations.

Minds grasping nature -> Control everything -> create permanency rules -> build self on it = stress
Daniel M. Ingram:
Howzabout try a different approach:

There is no ego. There is no you to thwart an ego. There is no ego to prefer being an ego.

There are sensations, sensations of the head, sensations of the eyes, sensations of the nose, sensations of the neck, sensations of the chest: these arise and vanish. They are transient, ephemeral, totally and utterly impermanent in ways that seem both digital and analog at once, causal, yet created from nothing, by nothing, and vanish to nothing.

There are mental sensations: sensations of effort, sensations of analysis, sensations that make up the mental aspects of emotions, sensations that seem to be controlling attention, sensations that seem to be preferring this or that, sensations that make up moods, sensations that seem to do all sorts of things, sensations that seem to observe, sensations that seem to remember: all are totally transient, ephemeral, totally and utterly impermanent in both ways, causal, natural, impersonal.

Notice this quality of sensations again and again, notice the lack of control, notice that they are all over there, notice how slippery they are, how they shift and flux, and keep noticing this, as it leads to comprehension, and when comprehension is sufficient, something suddenly flips over.

Do you know the image of the old/young woman, where the image is exactly the same, and looking at it one way you see one thing, and then looking at it just slightly differently, with different assumptions, and you see something totally different you didn't see before: it is just like that.


Any other advice to get 3rd to pop?
Thanks,
~D
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Dream Walker, modified 10 Years ago at 8/10/13 11:55 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/10/13 11:55 PM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
<-----I just looked at my avatar/icon/picture of me....lol.
The fluxy thing is just like that...only it isn't visual.
That's funny
~D
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Bagpuss The Gnome, modified 10 Years ago at 8/11/13 2:00 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/11/13 2:00 AM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 704 Join Date: 11/2/11 Recent Posts
Hello DW. Did all those quotes from Daniel come from one thread? I'd really like to read it if you have the link?

thanks,
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Dream Walker, modified 10 Years ago at 8/11/13 1:32 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/11/13 1:32 PM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Nope,
Different threads
If you search with google on dharmaoverground.com for key terms like flux and luminosity and Daniel there are great nuggets of stuff interspersed.
good stuff here too...The Middle Paths (2nd and 3rd)
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Bagpuss The Gnome, modified 10 Years ago at 8/12/13 6:17 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/12/13 6:17 AM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 704 Join Date: 11/2/11 Recent Posts
Dream Walker:
Nope,
Different threads
If you search with google on dharmaoverground.com for key terms like flux and luminosity and Daniel there are great nuggets of stuff interspersed.
good stuff here too...The Middle Paths (2nd and 3rd)


Awesome, thanks!
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 8/13/13 9:17 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/13/13 9:14 PM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Hi D--
Gonna try to just practice diligently and skillfully and trust the whatever the hell it is will unfold as it should.
(I still love maps and as long as I have this hammer everything is gonna look like a nail...just not on the cushion)

(...)

Any other advice to get 3rd to pop?

Well, I think what you wrote about diligent and skillful practice (and love the hammer/nail analogy) is it. It's easy to look for/assert more and I think that's a natural part of "wanting".

But I think path-thinking is a hindrance at this point and is to be actively released every time it arises 1) because it manipulates and prevents "whatever the hell it is will unfold as it should" by asserting a want/question/target to the practice, and 2) it's not needed in the slightest (whereas path-thinking serves very useful purpose and/or outlet before path and at 1st).

My two cents. Good luck and thanks for the threads and sharing your efforts.

Katy
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 8/13/13 9:36 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/13/13 9:34 PM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Any other advice to get 3rd to pop?

Since you are well tuned into Daniel at this moment here he is on the subject:
RE: third path please help
1/8/10 4:01 PM as a reply to robert thomas hindmarch.
Without lending any diagnosis,

I got to third path after third complete cycle. I could get Nirodha Samapatti, and also could perceive that the path was much more about seeing the truth of things now than going through more cycles.

However, what happened next was cycles and cycles and cycles, and as things cycled, more and more this was it, luminosity was it, emptiness was it, integration of the sense field was it, all a deepening of third path, as I map it.

Thus, from my point of view, the key is not how many cycles, really, as third path is just one more phase on the way to the final thing. The key is the shift to the nowness of the thing, which is a big paradigm shift. The more you naturally look to this being it, the close you are to realizing this is it.

Helpful?

Daniel

And to pull three Daniel quotes from what you've already sited:
It could be wanting to control things.
There is no ego to prefer being an ego.
letting it take you out.

Unless you're building the new lam rim/abidhamma, I'd drop the mapping in all ways (including humunculous querying). Your own advice to yourself seemed spot on to me. Best wishes, D emoticon
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 8/13/13 10:33 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/13/13 10:32 PM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Any other advice to get 3rd to pop?

Lastly, the monk Analayo has a significant footnote (#58, page 196, Windhorse,2010) in his book Satipaṭṭhāna, the Direct Path to Realization. (His writings on the skhandas are also very practical. This book keeps on giving, in my opinion.)

So the footnote regards the practice of metta and cites the Samyutta Nikaya, the Anguttara Nikaya and the Dhammapada in regards to metta practice's capacity to work a mind from sotapanna through anagami and that it especially works on the fetters of 2nd and 3rd "paths": craving and ill will (gross and subtle).
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sawfoot _, modified 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 4:08 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 4:08 AM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

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Here is that footnote:

S V 131 and A V 300. (This is in both instances repeated for the other three brahma
vihãras.)
Similarly, Sn 143 describes the practice of loving kindness based on “having
experienced that state of peace”, with the result that the practitioner will not be born
again in a womb (Sn 152). This suggests that the practice of loving kindness can lead
one who has experienced the “state of peace”, i.e. one who is a stream-enterer, to tran
scending
rebirth in a womb, i.e. to non-returning. This way of understanding is sup
ported
by the commentary, Pj II 193, which explains “state of peace” to refer to
Nibbãna. This explanation is also confirmed by Dhp 368, where loving kindness is
again related to “state of peace”, the connotation of which is further clarified by the
expression “calming of formations”. However, Jayawickrama 1948: vol.2, p.98, argues
against taking “state of peace” to refer to a realization of Nibbãna. The Sanskrit frag
ments
from the Turfan discoveries also mention the realization of non-returning as
one of the advantages of developing loving kindness (in Schlingloff 1964: p.133). The
reason loving kindness is linked to progress from stream-entry to non-returning
could be related to the two fetters that are to be removed at this stage: sensual desire
and aversion. Loving kindness, especially if developed up to absorption level, can act
as an antidote to both, since the intense mental happiness experienced during deep
concentration counteracts the search for pleasure through the external senses, while
loving kindness, by its very nature, counters aversion.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 4:58 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 4:58 AM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

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(Thank you, SF, for adding the actual footnote.)
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Dream Walker, modified 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 2:50 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 2:50 PM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
katy steger:
Any other advice to get 3rd to pop?

metta practice's capacity to work a mind from sotapanna through anagami and that it especially works on the fetters of 2nd and 3rd "paths": craving and ill will (gross and subtle).

Thanks Katy,
I have been increasing/expanding my metta practice. Lately I have been noticing the heart chakra feelings as I practice. I think there are good things here to explore.
My inclination is that the fetters drop automatically from getting path and getting into a nondual framework. Being nondual seems to be the cause of craving and ill will to evaporate....crave what? all that is, is already me/everything...ill will towards what? all that is, is already me/everything. See what I mean?
I think that metta practice is another axis of development that is very helpful in it's own right but also can help to get path. Many of the high level yogis equate the oneness of all things to be love. I like this. From a physio-energetic standpoint I think that being a love conduit develops your ability to align/mature/energize/whatever your chakras and allow path moments to happen.

I love Daniels article on magick-and-the-brahma-viharas
Making Love Out Of Nothing At All
Casting spells of love on myself and others seems to be doing good stuff.
Metta to you,
~D
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 8:05 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 7:58 PM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
So I took a walk and tried to simply my first post:

My inclination is that the fetters drop automatically from getting path and getting into a nondual framework. Being nondual seems to be the cause of craving and ill will to evaporate....crave what? all that is, is already me/everything...ill will towards what? all that is, is already me/everything. See what I mean?
I understand your point. The same side of that non-dual point is, however, suffusive self-centering ("me/everything" as you write). "Me/everything" is also a surfeit assertion, a dhamma --- a hindrance to 3rd, so to speak. Even the arupa jhanas are dhammas, arising they also pass. So too "me/everything" view: a dhamma, a phenomena, an asserted object.

Otherwise said: "me/everything" view as in "ill will towards what? all that is, is already me/everything" is also in the family of subtle craving --- one of the foci with 2nd-to-3rd path examination --- creating and holding to dhammas; it creates a satisfaction and sustains the need for satisfaction and is deeply gratified that its being is massively expanded, as if its own generic-like expansion could reduce its sense of self. Not so. It is bigger than ever and subtle now. Very difficult to see then, until that created dhamma deflates unsatisfactorily and drives one on looking for "Where is reliable satisfaction? What gives rise to dukkha? Even me/everything view..."

So when Daniel speaks of cycles and cycles and cycles and seeing this in 3rd there is resonance with all ideas/all notions/ all cycles "deflating" into being seen as simple dhammas -- nothing to grab/add/overlay, pure and simple. So 3rd is about mind simplifying by not adding, mindfulness (that is attentive, not cool, due to absence of ill-will). Hence, craving also would go.


I love Daniels article on magick-and-the-brahma-viharas
i thanked him for that not long back, too. Magick is part of the "me/everything" zone, too, especially if it's untempered by the very clear understanding of suffusive mindfulness, something that seems to become suffusive for the 4th path folk.

The mechanism of mindfulness is much, much more influential and harmless than "me/everything" and "magick". It is also without inflation/deflation even as it acts, because suffusive mindfulness is functional, caring and localized to the immediate this and that, wholesome, and acts without asserting new dhammas, unlike "me/everything" and its creativity (which is cool...) and which is a dhamma that deflates just as it inflated to "me/everything". This is why there is always a question/reserve regarding ethics/intent of siddhis: Compared to the natural, non-additive influence of suffusive mindfulness, siddhis are dhammas: created, additive, intentionally arising things that will pass -- takes extreme skill, benefits from staying focused on just metta.

'Me/everything" is a very tricky view and needs utmost balanced understanding-- it is a dhamma. Whereas the "me,nothing" in mindfulness gives proper perspective when that mindfulness is built care-fully, with lots of personal study along the way and thus avoids nihilistic truncation of the practice as well as avoiding pretension and aversion, aka: cold disspasion. Anyway, so if you stay at me/everything for a while like maps, it's cool. I keep learning that it's only by dissatisfaction and outright pain that I drop some pursuits, but the pursuits and the dropping seem essential. *sigh*

Thanks much for sharing your practice, D.
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Dream Walker, modified 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 10:48 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/14/13 10:48 PM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Umm, there is a problem with language when discussing non-dual. What is the proper personal pronoun for one engaged in complete non-dual existence? I used me/everything but that as you pointed out has connotations you do not like...me=self perhaps? I would say that "me, nothing" doesn't do well either to capture non-dual either.
Any ideas?
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 7:19 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 7:03 AM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Non-dual has to also be dual. This is actuality. We are not one, you and I and others. So there is actual plurality everywhere. So this nondualness is also trapping.

Regardless:

Sensations. Mindfulness: The exact same basic starting practices. These are very, very hard because there is such a strong pull to make something of them, to add, to gratify, to not observe, to not study but to add for the effect of gratification and to pacify restlessness (and, useful query: from where does restless come?) and personal dukkha.

This is the dharma teaching circuit, the MyMaps area, the my book area. A paid teacher recently compared his map to the work of Pythagoreas... it's okay, a natural phase, an ultra-conceit, okay, "me/everything", "I make", "we make". Many suffering practitioners are helped/sustained by this phase in a person's practice (or uselessly retained for a long time -- not always the teacher's fault for sure). But this is so much extra. Extra deflates, arises, passes. "Not extra" is not nothing, is not nihilism, is not cold, is curious, is attentive, is satisfied, is warm, is care-ful. I think we've all experienced this briefly during retreat or ardent phases of practice.

Do you know/have you known in person, or somehow close to your actual observation-- not just dharma-- any persons, competent, curious, working masterfully, curiously, attentively, without surfeit (aka "simply") just in what's in their realm? They may be secular or any tradition.

Do I remember correctly that Daniel is pointing you to pay attention to cycles and sensations?

Knowing dhammas, not embellishing phenomena into more. Knowing curiosity, care.

Thank you for sharing your practice and effort, D.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 12:06 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 12:04 PM

RE: 2nd path equanimity

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Also, you seem kind of in a lot deep and rich right now-- new to metta, skhandas, cycles as dhammas, sensations as dhammas. These areas can each take experimentation and effort, again and again.
Good luck.

Anyway, I'm back in deep to my own efforts right now, too, hardly easy, sometimes a slog, sometimes plain and beautiful, motivated by the simple, dilident practice I get to see in others with themselves. So wish me luck, too.