If one has attained an awakening, what is the best approach to the review phase? Learning the territories, calling up fruitions and dialing the Jhanas are what I've read one can work on. If one somehow got through with the dhukkha nanas leaving little impression, how does one further learn about the subtleties therein? What does it mean to "call up a fruition?"

My guess is learning to recognize and live in the stages is most relevant, followed possibly by getting intimate with the Jhanas and then recognizing subsequent fruitions being least important (I've read that some people aren't sensitive enough to catch them after the first path)?

addendum:
(Looks like MCTB chapter "Beyond First Path ("What Next?") takes a closer look. Probably worth closer review.

One interesting thing that I have not seen mentioned after first path is to look at reality as it is inclusively with a quiet mind. My experience was I could do this in the honeymoon phase post 1st path but faded in about a month, became accessible all the time second path with effort, and shifted to a more effortless permanent state at 3rd path. I still obscure this state but every time I stop I go back to it.

Go outside or look out the window and look towards the horizon. Open your peripheral vision to include the edges of your vision. Use your fingers to find the edges the first time by wiggling them at the very edge of the corners of your vision. Now stop having a actual focal point in the center. Take it all in relaxingly. Notice the nose and eye-ridges are visible without refocusing your eyes in any way. Notice your eyelashes. Rest your hands in front of you so they are part of the perspective. Now stop breaking it down to things and just let it take on an all inclusive, one thing quality. Practice this without moving at first. Add walking meditation to it. Practice this in other scenarios. I don't know what would have happened if I had worked on this earlier but now I wish I had. This is advice for off the cushion practice throughout the day. Please try it and give some feedback.
Good luck,
~D

I used to do something like that too, but it wasn't primarily a vision thing... more an attitude toward all phenomena, whether typically regarded as 'inner' or 'outer'. Eventually it came to include the perspective shifts and mental movements of "breaking it down to things" without disturbing the all inclusive, one thing quality. One way of describing it (though obviously not the only way) was like a non-phenomenal self or non-phenomenal awareness that remained still and whole, no matter what was taking place 'within' it. (Maybe should have stuck with it and taken it all the way; something I've generally not been good at).

1) Ven. Analayo makes this point in his book on the Satipatthana Sutta:
Footnote 58:


2) And "dharma eye" is seeing increasingly cause-and-effect in everything, everywhere the mind can alight.

3) And I like sensate stuff, some personal practice of mindfulness, maybe like John and DW have mentioned, but something you explore for yourself, your own recipe.

4ish) This release you mention is in part known by its autonomy. Relatedly, if you can, try to be gentle with so-called teachers now. You may do well on retreat now or be appalled (retreats can be epicenters of stress, teachers with flaws, excellent practice for metta..). I'm not saying "Go be a recluse", but there are reasons people tuck in a little more after this, IMHO : ) Congrats



____
from the Pali tradition...

*
AN 5.19 "How is the dharma taught", Buddha to his cousin Ananda:
It's hard to teach dharma, and qualified dharma teachers teach in a way that:
1) it's taught step-by-step
2) it teaches cause and effect
3) it's taught with a mind of compassion
4) it's taught without purpose of material gain
5) it's taught without disparaging self or others

And there are said be six qualities of the teaching (from which Wikip article all of the below is excerpted):
[indent]"a) Svākkhāto (Sanskrit: Svākhyāta "well proclaimed"). The teaching is not a speculative philosophy but an exposition of the Universal Law of Nature based on a causal analysis of natural phenomena.

b) Sandiṭṭhiko (Sanskrit: Sāṃdṛṣṭika "able to be examined"). The Dhamma is open to scientific and other types of scrutiny and is not based on faith.[12]

c) Akāliko (Sanskrit: Akālika "timeless, immediate"). The Dhamma is able to bestow timeless and immediate results here and now. It does not (...) does not change over time and it is not relative to time.

d) Ehipassiko (Sanskrit: Ehipaśyika "which you can come and see" — from the phrase ehi, paśya "come, see!"). The Dhamma invites all beings to put it to the test and come see for themselves.

e) Opanayiko (Sanskrit: Avapraṇayika "leading one close to").Opanayiko means "to be brought inside oneself". This can be understood with an analogy as follows. If one says a ripe mango tastes delicious, and if several people listen and come to believe it, they would imagine the taste of the mango according to their previous experiences of other delicious mangoes. Yet, they will still not really know exactly how this mango tastes. Also, if there is a person who has never tasted a ripe mango before, that person has no way of knowing exactly for himself how it tastes. So, the only way to know the exact taste is to experience it. In the same way, dhamma is said to be Opanayiko which means that a person needs to experience it within to see exactly what it is. (To me, this relates to what John and DW are mentioning and in my words: attention in the sensated when not needed for cognition. AKA: sati/mindfulness)

f) Paccattaṃ veditabbo viññūhi (Sanskrit: Pratyātmaṃ veditavyo vijñaiḥ "To be personally known by the wise") (...)
No one can "enlighten" another person. Each intelligent person has to attain and experience for themselves. As an analogy, no one can simply make another know how to swim.

___________
[12]^ The Buddha had in fact required that his teaching be scrutinized to see for oneself. Thathagathappavedito bhikkave dhamma vinayo vivato virochathi, no patichchanto. (Anguttara Nikayo, Thika Nipatho, Harandu vaggo, Sutta 9) The Dhamma vinaya of Thathagata shines when opened for scrutiny, not when kept closed."[/indent]
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_(Buddhism)#cite_ref-12

I like the above advice.

Traditional advice would vary by tradition, but I found use in learning to notice the stages well and how they shift automatically in review phase when sitting, learning how each functions, what its paradigm and perspective is, what attention is like during it, and really noticing how each little part is different and has its own quality, but then I am a phenomenology guy trained by some phenomenology people.

I had a lot of fun playing around with calling up ñanas just by number and calling them up out of order. In this practice, I would just sit there and think, "Five", and Dissolution would show up, and then think, "11" and Equanimity would show up, and then "7" and Misery would so up, for an example, and just shift between those, noticing the specific qualities of each, and then noticing the universal qualities of them all.

If we learn the state shifts well and the jhanas well, then the next time we go through them we will have a much better handle on them.

The big transitions are worth practicing specifically: call up 10, Re-observation, then call up 11, then do the unthinkable and call up 10 again, then 11, then 10 again, then 11, and notice how you shift from one to the other and what that is like, such that, the next time you have to learn this for some new strata of mind, you will be more used to now one learns to go from one to the other in general terms and it will more recognizable and less disorienting when you do it later for new levels.

Another fun one: it is typical after a Fruition to start again at the A&P, but instead, take that afterglow and cycle back to another Fruition: just incline back to that and see if you can get multiples. Not everyone can, and there seems to be some person-specifics wiring one way or the other, but it makes for something fun to play with.

More fun stuff: take, say, the 3rd vipassana jhana, starting at Dissolution, and see if you can walk back and forth between the 3rd samatha jhana and the 3rd vipassana jhana, noticing how things change when you do that. Try it for the rest of them, such as Fear through Re-observation. Shift back and forth, so that would go Dissolution, 3rd samatha jhana, Fear, 3rd samatha jhana, Misery, 3rd samatha jhana, Disgust, 3rd samatha jhana, etc. and really notice how things change and exactly what is different as you do that. Not everyone can do this, but if you can, you will learn something important that not a lot of people know.

Do the same for the A&P and 2nd samatha jhana. Do the same for Equanimity and 4th samatha jhana.

If you have the chops: play with the formless aspects of Equanimity ñana. Notice how to shift to fluxing space, fluxing consciousness, fluxing nothingness, up to NPNYNP (8th jhana), back out, see if you can get a Fruition, then back up to the formless stuff and around again.

Also, take each aspect of each ñana and really go into them. This is probably best done in order, though you can do it out of order.

Start with the A&P, notice its ultra-fast vibrational aspect as far as you can take it, then its rapturous aspect as far as you can take it, then its effortless aspect as far as you can take it, then, when you really feel the pull to Dissolution, drop down, down, down, as far as it goes, as slow as it goes, as far out as it goes, like dropping to the bottom of the sea, like taking Dissolution into formless territory, to really see how dissolved you can be, now out of phase you can get, how low can you go, how wide, now peaceful, like being under water, like being sedated: take it down to the furthest depths it has, then, when you really feel the pull, shift into Fear, and take fear as far as it goes: really get freaked out, really let the willies, the terror, the horror roll, like your body is rotting away, like the whole thing is vanishing to creepy death, like some vipassana disease is filling everything, as far as fear can go, and then notice its vibrational aspects, is shamanic drum-beat aspects, its shifting vipassana aspects as far as you can take them, then, when you feel the pull to Misery... etc.

See how that works? Really explore their depths, as a master, as a safe and competent adventurer who has control in a non-control, no-self kind of way, who can go there and be ok, who can flush all of this stuff out in its width and breadth and all its fascinating variations. Just call those up. Just ask for them to show themselves and do this again and again until you are really, really good at knowing the ñanas cold, as a seasoned expert, as a true technical practitioner.

Any of that give you any ideas?

That's the sort of fun I had back then. If you are in Review phase, perhaps you will appreciate some of those things like I did.

Writing a book on meditation is a lot like trying to write a dictionary by trying to remember every word you know but without talking to anyone. I will bet I couldn't spontaneously remember even 25% of the words I know. How do I simulate the amount of stuff I can remember about practice when people come up with questions about it when writing MCTB2? Vexing...

My takeaway is that one should be inquisitive, but perhaps more importantly, one should have fun :-)

I was having a little doubt about whether I'd finished the path, but sitting earlier this evening, I just took my time and tried to figure out how things stood (or sat, as it were). No question, I'm starting at the A&P, the pulsing sweetness of it feels like a more mature version of what was sweeping through me during the initial opening a few months back. That was hella ragged and rough (though very pleasurable). This is far more refined. I then started in on all the dhukkha stages I could think of. Not surprisingly, they came as soon I called: fear, misery, disgust. The big surprise was re-observation. It was whirlwind and chaos, and now I understand what I was doing between mid-February and last week!

I somehow made it through without much noticing the dark stages, so I feel like I should spend a large part of this review opportunity to get to know them. Strange as it might sound, I'm looking forward to dissolution, fear, misery, disgust... :-)

Thanks to all for the great suggestions. This whole path has been fascinating and wondrous. I'll try to write something soon to claim this attainment.

To myself (and any other practitioners who want),

Here is just one reason that this is called practice:
Daniel:
This mental area is like a roller coaster diving to the bottom of the sea. It is natural to involuntarily or voluntarily stop the training here, to stop the development of meditation here. Soooo, like a roller coaster, it is more stable and "rideable" the more it's experienced. And the value here is not joy-riding here, but learning how mind works, the mind being forerunner to all actions, the mind being that which can give rise to skillfulness and peace and kind and curious interrelations or unskillfulness and misery/miserable interrelations.

Much much gratitude for all the great advice and insight in this thread.

Ditto : ) Thank you for opening the thread.