Moved from my practice log:


Since I was sixteen, my life has been run by very old samskaras from my childhood.  Various limiting beliefs concerning self-efficacy, my ability to get shit done, and my ability to get shit done even when it causes me negative emotions.  There is no me.  I am just a composite of these samskaras determining my every move, each moment after the next.  
          Furthermore, these samskaras do not have a separate existence outside of my present experience, meaning, I no longer believe in an independent subconscious storehouse somewhere in the psychic plane (or whatever).  The only way my limiting, early childhood experiences currently exist is in whatever way they are affecting me in any given moment.  
          This means that the experience of agitation when I consider cleaning my room, applying for a "real" job or eating a healthy meal is only that, an experience in the moment.  This contrasts with what I previously thought about it; that it was some force outside of my conscious mind (called bipolar n.o.s. or whatever you want to call it), but still a part of my being, controlling me.  

So, I now realize that there are multiple parts:
a) the external situation which bothers me
b) the feeling or emotion of being bothered
c) the belief that this feeling has control over me

In the past, I have failed to recognize c) as separate from b).  I now realize that c) is the real culprit of my problems.  

Some thoughts on the progress of insight:

When one focuses on whatever it is they choose (not necessarily reality as it is, could be absorptions or energetic patterns), they begin to notice things moment-by-moment, without filters.  Each moment, they notice some, single thing or group of things, in and of itself.  This is Mind & Body.

However, attention moves from one object to the next.  Moments of attention are linked in that previous moments affect future ones.  Likewise, objects of attention are linked in that previous objects affect future ones.  This is Cause & Effect.

Since everything is linked up in an endless chain of cause and effect, everything has one quality or taste.  That taste is movement or flow or change.  Each thing does not have its own individual character, rather its character is effected by the things that preceeded it just as it affects what it turns into.  This sense of the one character is The Three Characteristics.

When the process of observation gets close enough to this one taste, clarity begins to reveal that the process is not separate from what is being observed.  Therefore, there is not a separate observer.  There are only things.  However, things arise from their predecessors and pass into their future forms.  This is the synonymous with saying they come from the void and pass into it.  The observer sense, being one with the observed, also arises from the void and passes into it.  This is The Arising and Passing Away.

When the A&P has done its work on the meditator, the shock of a new understanding of life comes into play.  This shock is caused by a sense of the meditator never having existed in the first place.  The first tremor is called Dissolution and refers to the loss of a sense of self.

The process plays out on the predictable human psyche like a character in a horror movie or the stages of grieving.  After the initial encounter with the unknown (dissolution), Fear sets in.

When one gets used to the state of being afraid for their own life, Misery naturally arises.  They are no longer shocked or afraid, but just dissapointed and aggrivated and angered.

Misery evolves into Disguist as even the previous negative emotions are adapted to.  Now the meditator is simply tired.

Remembering the original goal of moving past existence completely, Desire for Deliverance arises.

However, one can not move past the process of perception, in all of its not-selfness and change, until they have really, fully and deeply mastered it.  They must accept the process of perception at their core.  To do this, they must accept all of its negative ramifications, before recieving any of the positives.  Therefore they must go through a Reobservation of the shockwave started at dissolution.

Finally, Eqanimity sets in.  The meditator has fully accepted that they are a part of the process of perception and that this process is reality itself.  They completely accept the true nature of human life.  This acceptance, however, has its own shockwave that must be adapted to.  Deeper and deeper levels of relaxation must be unlocked.  Aspects of reality that remain under the radar must be seen. 

Initially, the obvious ramification is Neither Pleasure Nor Pain, the 4th jhana aspect of the 11th nana.  There is no need to prefer some things and push away others if everything is inevitable happening on its own and the "you" is just there to ride the wave.

However, in riding the wave, one is still within the world of form.  They are still contained in the body.  There is a sense of the physical body and the physical environment.  This sense is a trap.  It is a way that the process of perception still, yet remains unclear to the practitioner.  This sense can be overcome, and experienced as Boundless Space, the 5th jhana aspect of the 11th nana. 

Unlocked from the understanding of being contained in a separate, continuous body and immediate physical space, the mind is still associated with its individualized self, its psychic locality within the body, framed by self-concept, memory, etc.  The mind is defined by what it has been aware of.  Dropping this layer reveals Boundless Consciousness, the 6th jhana aspect of the 11th nana.

With sense of the outer and sense of the inner released based on the understand that they are relative and not ultimate, what is left?  The one taste that was discovered in the 3rd and 4th nanas still applies.  Inner and outer realities are one, continuous, fluxing reality.  They have no inherent existence.  There isn't some-thing about them that is special or an exception to the law of the 3c's.  Therefore, there is no-thing about them at all.  Being freed from the individualized sense, they are infinitely no-thing.  This is Boundless Nothingness, the 7th jhana aspect of the 11th nana.

All of reality is fluxing.  There is no inner or outer.  There is no individual and no greater whole.  Thus a continuous, endless, flow.  However, how can any of this be known?  There is still perception.  As long as there is perception, there is limitation.  There can be a preference for perception, a preference for existence, a preference for the arrangement formed at birth (that of a separate self which suffers).  The elimination of the preference for the sense of knowing, the sense of perception, is Neither Perception Nor Yet Non Perception, the 8th jhana aspect of the 11th nana.  

With the elimination of preference for knowing existence, it becomes possible to unlock the key to existence: stop existing.  Release completely from the arrangement known as self and other.  Release completely INTO this arrangement.  When bare knowing is refined enough, it can lead to perfect not-knowing.  This is Cessation and Fruition.  When stabilized and extended, it is Niroddha Samappatti. 

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Siddhis seemed to be attained through further contact with the Boundless insights (5th through 8th jhanas).  This makes sense as they represent a break from the limitations of individualized mind and body as well as conventional cause and effect.

Jhanas in their purest forms are separate from their corresponding Nana aspects.  A full absorption into a part of this process of transformation is something separate from a full knowledge of a part of it.  It is probably impossible to be fully absorbed into a part of the process that is only a shockwave, only, inherently moving.  That is why there aren't really jhanas for individual Dark Night nanas.  

Niroddha seems to be the Jhana form of Cessation and Fruition.

There seems to be areas of mind beyond or somehow more refined than perfect release from the process of perception.  In Pragmatic Dharma-speak, they are labelled Pure Land jhanas, but I suspect they exist in other traditions.  How can they be "percieved" if they lie beyond perception?  This remains a mystery to me.  It might make more sense if we use a chakra model.  These states would then represent the soul travelling out of body (out of the perfectly open crown chakra which tops a perfectly flowing and connected chakra system [which is 4th path]) to become absorbed into higher chakras, perhaps collective chakras that do not belong to any one individual.

Furthermore, if we use a chakra model, Actual Freedom makes sense as an attainment beyond 4th Path.  At 4th Path, the chakras are all open, energy is free to flow in and out of the body.  This is why Yogis describe complete non-stickiness.  The exact nature of the energy doesn't matter (enlightenment doesn't change your personality), but the quality of it has changed.  

However, the fact that there is energetic flow is significant.  While there was no energetic flow in the moment of Cessation & Fruition, the flow continuous afterwards but is observed with a quality of the not-percieving state.  How can the quality of that not-percieving state become more integrated with the psychic system beyond just affecting the witness function and the openness of the chakras?  

The movement of the energy itself can be stilled through various other, alternate types of perception that have less to do with the relationship of self and world and more to do with the self only.  By continuously observing the self in its reactive modalities, the Yogi can notice something that is separate from this reactive modality: the quality of apperception.  No matter what the Yogi does or is, they are alive and therefore registering through the sense doors.  This is an unavoidable, inherent quality of human life.  

Developing a sensitivity to apperception, the ultimate effortlessness (since it is automatic), the Yogi can tell that he or she is actually still engaging the world, even though the engagement seems centerless and volitionless after 4th path.  There is a subtle effort that the soul is making as it exists in its awareness in the chakras.  This effort creates an environment within the energy system that is friendly to energy flow.  By dropping the subtle effort of being a soul, and simply enjoying or openly embracing as apperception instead, the system begins to become so calm that even subtle energetic flow is decreased.  This manifests on the phenominological level as the minimization of affect.