Path-like event

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Chris O, modified 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 10:54 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 10:43 AM

Path-like event

Posts: 54 Join Date: 10/8/16 Recent Posts
Would like to get some opinions on what to make of this "event."

Back in the third week of January, I got Second Path. Review of Second ended the last week of February and a new (my third) macro Progress of Insight started. Over the last week, the mind moved into Equanimity on this third Progress of Insight.

Yesterday morning, I had a huge cessation—probably the third "biggest" I've experienced. When the mind came back online, the whole body dramatically and violently jerked/flailed/spasmed (think convulsion or seizure) in two back-to-back pulses.

When I got up and started walking around after this, there was an odd sensation of "floating" a few feet above the ground as I moved around. It felt like “I” was only from the torso up—that the legs and feet were something external to “me” that “I” was not a part of, like the legs were walking themselves, separate from me, and carrying "me" across the room.

Over the course of the rest of the day, however, this feeling that my lower body did not belong to me, or was not within the "me" bubble, disappeared. 

Since the cessation, it appears the mind is in Review. Every time I close my eyes, whether I'm meditating or not, I'm in A&P with REM-like eye fluttering, extremely fast flashing/flickering illumination, and extremely fast vibrations from root of spine. On the cushion, in the four sits I've done, Review cycling happens.

At this point, about 24 hours later, nothing perceptual feels to have changed; there's no obvious "shift."

Looking for insights into what this might have been. For example, could this have been Second Path again? Could it have been some "half-Path" thing, like some marker between Second and Third? If this event was Third Path, wouldn't there have been some dramatic perceptual shift to obviously mark it—as I've heard people say about Third?

Ultimately, only more practice and time will shed light, but in the meantime, feel free to speculate.
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Laurel Carrington, modified 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 10:58 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 10:58 AM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 439 Join Date: 4/7/14 Recent Posts
I have two comments. The first is that things often (usually?) need time before they become clear. The second is that an answer to where you are now is going to vary according to the maps of the various diagnosticians. I am not a map expert, so can't be specific. Just stay aware. All the best to you.
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Chris O, modified 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 11:15 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 11:15 AM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 54 Join Date: 10/8/16 Recent Posts
Laurel Carrington:
I have two comments. The first is that things often (usually?) need time before they become clear. The second is that an answer to where you are now is going to vary according to the maps of the various diagnosticians. I am not a map expert, so can't be specific. Just stay aware. All the best to you.

Good points. After making this post, I wondered to myself why it even matters what this "event" could be considered. Why does it have to fit into a neat model or have some specific label? To what end? Who does that serve? It was whatever is was, and I'm at where ever I'm at, and whatever's going to happen will happen.
J C, modified 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 11:28 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 11:28 AM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
For what it's worth, I had one of those "half-path" moments between second and third.

Third is a huge jump - you go from about 25% gone to about 75% gone.

I'd recommend making a resolution to become fully enlightened as quickly as possible for the good of all beings at this point - I think it would be very powerful now.

Things to pay attention to now: what is the part of you wondering where you are? What is the process of trying to determine that? Look closely at it.

Have you accessed the 5 pure land jhanas?
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Chris O, modified 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 11:47 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 11:47 AM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 54 Join Date: 10/8/16 Recent Posts
Thanks for chiming in, J C. Regarding Pure Land Jhanas, no, definitely not. Have only had a few solid Formless Jhana experiences since Second Path, and don't even have a good handle on that yet.
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Dream Walker, modified 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 2:06 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 2:06 PM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Chris O.:
I got Second Path

Yesterday morning, I had a huge cessation

this feeling that my lower body did not belong to me, or was not within the "me" bubble, disappeared. 

Since the cessation, it appears the mind is in Review.

At this point, about 24 hours later, nothing perceptual feels to have changed; there's no obvious "shift."

feel free to speculate.
Welcome to the fractal nature of practice that is post second. Once this has happened enough times, you just stop asking what cycles have to do with anything.
Get ready for cycles and sub cycles and the variety of expereince that tells you little on where you are from a Mahasi mapping point of view.
Daniel M. Ingram:
So people being to incline their minds towards what I’ll call a less cycle-fixated approach and a more right-here-right-now, an it’s got to be now or never kind of dharma-awakening approach, and they begin to see more and more of what I’ll call emptiness in real time. Whereas they go deeper into more cycles and stages and more really investigating how things are, just moment to moment, same good, old foundation technique stuff, they begin to notice, “Wait a second. The center point really doesn’t seem to be such a big deal anymore. The sense of subject seems to be becoming more integrated with the field, or it seems to become less important,” or they seem to see I’m seeing more of what I’ll call “luminosity of phenomenon”


Daniel M. Ingram:

One thing to think about:

This field is it, totally, completely, so committing to being totally and very clearly present to this field here and now, all the way through, and abandoning the sense of progress in favor of the sense of immediacy, not in the sense of not working to be present to the immediacy, but in terms of starting to habitually perceive everything that has to do with past and future, with progress and stages, with practice and result, with self and other, and all of that as part of this field, right here, no exceptions.

It is like taking the last stand, the total stand, the complete stand, and in that synchronizing with the thing, finally, utterly, the ultimate settling in, the resolving nothing but this.
J C, modified 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 3:39 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/17/17 3:39 PM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Chris O.:
Thanks for chiming in, J C. Regarding Pure Land Jhanas, no, definitely not. Have only had a few solid Formless Jhana experiences since Second Path, and don't even have a good handle on that yet.

I highly recommend listening to these:

http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-1.html

http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-2.html

From here on out it's just about getting way up there in the high jhanas and letting it happen.
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Doctor Avocado, modified 7 Years ago at 3/18/17 5:59 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/18/17 5:59 AM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 50 Join Date: 11/2/16 Recent Posts
J C:
Chris O.:
Thanks for chiming in, J C. Regarding Pure Land Jhanas, no, definitely not. Have only had a few solid Formless Jhana experiences since Second Path, and don't even have a good handle on that yet.

I highly recommend listening to these:

http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-1.html

http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-2.html

From here on out it's just about getting way up there in the high jhanas and letting it happen.

Hi JC, do you have a direct link to these audio files (and other podcast files on the hamilton project site), I clicked through but can't see how to access them?

-WIng
J C, modified 7 Years ago at 3/18/17 2:29 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/18/17 2:29 PM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Go to those webpages and click on the title heading - let me know if that doesn't work.
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Chris O, modified 7 Years ago at 3/19/17 3:55 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/19/17 3:55 PM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 54 Join Date: 10/8/16 Recent Posts
Wing Biddlebaum:

Hi JC, do you have a direct link to these audio files (and other podcast files on the hamilton project site), I clicked through but can't see how to access them?

-WIng

Indeed, the links to the MP3s (the links are in the titles) don't work:

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Nikolai , modified 7 Years ago at 3/20/17 3:17 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/20/17 3:17 PM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
Yeh the links aren't loading. I'll ask Owen to check it. I have all the recordings, I might put them up on a different access point. Any ideas on doing this for free?

nikolai
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Chris O, modified 7 Years ago at 3/20/17 7:50 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/20/17 7:50 PM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 54 Join Date: 10/8/16 Recent Posts
Nikolai .:
Yeh the links aren't loading. I'll ask Owen to check it. I have all the recordings, I might put them up on a different access point. Any ideas on doing this for free?

nikolai

Believe SoundCloud.com was created for this sort of thing. Google Drive and Dropbox both also allow files to be marked as public and shared via URLs, AFAIK.
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Nikolai , modified 7 Years ago at 3/22/17 8:57 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 3/22/17 8:51 AM

RE: Path-like event

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
The HPlinks to podcasts recordings are back online. Just click the title heading to load them.

http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/p/hamilton-project-podcasts.html?m=1


This video could also help start scripting/fabricating certain mental states/positions/poses/structures.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJUl8JyDRJlIrff45WdlX5LUbfm0ld_vz

nikolai