A song about awakening awareness. But she's wrong! You already have everything

I use Daniel Ingrams definitions as my reference. Thanks for your input. I guess only time will make it clear what is what, but the difference now is that I'm aiming for 4th Path. Before stream-entry, I was aiming for stream-entry, after stream-entry I was aiming for 2nd Path, at some point I was aiming for 3rd Path, and now it only makes sense for me to aim for 4th Path. I feel like being "almost done," and those episodes where I have felt completely done seems to me to be the thing, except I wasn't done because something subtle was still remaining, or I was done but was being thrown out of it because somehow there was more work to do. I keep checking my experience up against the notion of "being done," and whenever I don't feel done I keep searching for whatever subtle work still remains. This blog is my practice notes, how I make sense of my own experience, so that I can go back and sort it out when I'm actually done, and also I find it a meaningful way to keep myself motivated and make it more fun. Whether I'm 2nd Path or 3rd Path doesn't matter so much to me (although I do believe I'm 3rd Path), but what matters the most is that now my motivation is all about finishing up this thing.

EDIT: Hmmm...... I think I'll modify this to say that I simply have no idea whether I'm 2nd or 3rd Path. It seems pretty difficult to map the middle paths. Three times I have felt really done now. Well, the first time I could sense that I was probably not going to land in it, but the two last times it felt really totally like "done is what needs to be done," and "in the seen is only the seen," and "the wisdom eye has been opened," and those kind of things. However it doesn't feel like that right now, but whether I could shoot up into that territory from both 2nd and 3rd Path, I don't know. I took it as a sign of 3rd Path that feeling of going back and forth between feeling "almost done" and "done." What does hold true, however, is that before stream-entry I was aiming for stream-entry, and after stream-entry I was aiming for 2nd Path, and now, wherever I might be, it only makes sense to aim for getting totally done, however long that might take. Time will tell how this sorts out :-)

In the first post in this thread are the essentials about my practice up until stream-entry: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/6344429

I can also add that Noting Aloud, which I learned from Kenneth Folk, has been my main-practice. It is basically just saying the labels from the mahasi noting technique out loud. I find it helps a lot because concentration is automatically build into the technique because of the physical feedback.

After SE there was a whole new level of creativity and spontanity in my practice, and I could basically just do whatever I felt like, it all felt like practice suddenly, probably because the momentum was now so strong. Though I have to say I've been seeing a gestalttherapist weekly for almost 2 years (yeah, I was really messed up), and I'm also myself part of a gestalttherapy-education now (from september), where we focus a lot on getting in touch with awareness and our bodies, and releasing stored-up trauma from our bodies, so all the teachers on this education are also my teachers now, even though they don't talk about enlightenment, but they talk alot about the process towards becoming whole.

EVERYTHING changed after SE. I've been feeling so miserable practicing for 15 years without getting any real foothold in my practice (sliding back and forth between dark night and equanimity for at least 8 years), so finally when SE arrived I had something to show for all this effort. There is just basically some kind of re-programming of how ones whole being operates after stream-entry, because one is learning ones system to ride through the whole anxiety wave of the progress of insight, ie not getting stuck in aversion towards the unpleasentness of dark night, but not getting attached to the pleasure in A&P or Equanimity either, but learning to ride through the whole process, feel it through to the end until it pops, and after it pops you know how to cycle through again and again, no need to try to run away from unpleasent emotions anymore, you know that the only thing you can do is to feel it through. There is something very healthy in how one relates to ones emotions that comes from learning to ride through like that.

Impossible to say how much I've been practicing because of all these therapy-groups I'm part of in this education, etc, and the dividing-line between practice and non-practice have been totally blurred.

Since I had periodically access to Equanimity for at least 8 years before I got Fruition, I find it pretty easy to solidify that into 4th Jhana, and after stream-entry, my mind started to get even more still, so that from the whole-body attention stillness of 4th jhana, the spacious quality of that experience began to stand out much more, so I could make spaciousness into my main focus, after some time, if my mind is inclined to even more stillness, it seems that I'm holding back my potential for even greater rest if I don't spread out as much consciousness throughout this space as I can, and when even that activity, as it is an activity, starts to annoy me, it is better to just let that go and enjoy nothingness - a quality of not trying to create anything at all, just letting it all go, it feels like it has a quality of going behind, perhaps going behind activity, and when my mind is even ready to leave that behind, it gets to a place where it doesn't need to have any focal point at all, what I think of as 8th jhana. My body usually seems to get more and more erect, and my breath gets very soft and still as I climb higher and higher trough these states. It's not that I don't feel my body, or hear sounds, or think thoughts, because I do, but I experience these states as formless, because the mind is now able to make formless qualities into its main-focus, and the world of form and all that goes far into the background. When this pressure in my head was building up, it was enough to pull me out of making formless qualities into my number one priority, though there is usually a momentum going so I can easily switch back to them, but then my attention will switch back and forth between states of stillness and engaging with some kind of other activity, and that will make it challenging or less natural to absorb into these potentials that are still there but not as potent as if my mind was inclined to just totally dive into them. For me, since I don't have fluency with the jhanas, it seems I can only go into them when my mind has a natural momentum and inclination towards them. If I try to force them, I quickly squeeze the juice out of them and my body-mind system will rebel and give me a mild sort of burn-out.

This feeling of being totally done has happened 3 times now after what I believe was attaining 2nd Path. It doesn't feel like that right now as now there is clearly more work to do, even when I have a nice clean, clear state going. I think of this practice as a kind of exposure therapy, and I could always feel the self-contraction very clearly. When I was working towards stream-entry, it felt when the momentum was getting strong that the distance between the observer and the observed was getting smaller and smaller, and there was like a push to see if I could get them to touch, how intimate was it possible to be with experience, because of the tension in the distance was frustrating, and that would make me like try to grasp the totality of my experience, and when that was grasped, fruition happened and the momentum of that push for release was dissolved. So I'm pretty used to chasing this dualistic tension, much of the time when my mind is not pre-occupied with anything else, I start searching for it and go into it like some exposure therapy where I just have to go into it as much as possible. It is there pretty much all the time, and now it is clearly back again, but during these 3 times that I have felt done, I haven't felt any trace of it, and that is why I have felt done. This inherent problem with the present moment was gone. So the difference between that and other nice, clean, clear states, is that that is my only experience of not feeling afflicted with this inherent tension in the present moment. When I think about it, and remembers back to how it was to feel that it was gone, I almost want to metaphorically scream and shout at existence for putting this strain on me, even if it is pretty mild and subtle compared to most other things. However, at the same time, paradoxically,  I'm glad that it is back, because it is motivating to have something to work on.

One thing that helps me is reminding myself that being in this state of mind or that state of mind is irrelevant.  No one cares but me.  When I stop caring, everything is perfect.  The game of chasing mind states is no fun.  Even when you are feeling in the flow and love is manifest, it is still just nonsense. 

Sure :-)

First one is really simply. It is just saying out aloud whatever I'm feeling. It works much the same way as vipassana, although sometimes I find it more useful to get it out of my system by expressing it rather than pick it apart through vipassana. Also it is those things that are lurking in the background, like an itch on my experience, and often that I don't like to admit to myself, that I find it really good to get out this way. For instance if I'm really angry at someone, but ashamed of admitting it to myself, there is like a moment of honesty and authenticity when I do admit it this way. It works by just saying out aloud: "I'm really angry at so and so." Usually when I get a hold of an emotion like that, there is a moment of letting it sink in afterwards, and usually it causes an involuntary reaction where it sinks in with an extra deep breath. Afterwords I can feel it getting cleared out of my system, but not through me wanting it to go away, but through simply acknowledning directly what is going on. Sometimes I do drills of this, trying to acknowledge and express as many different feelings as possible. Often times when we have "issues" going on, we like to talk about them, but talking usually doesn't get oneself out of the loop, much better, I find, to simply express on an emotional leve exactly what is going on, instead of ruminating on the story around it. Was pretty cool to combine this with sitting in the meditation posture, because it created even more of a mindful space around this exercise.

The next one works much the same way, but is about trying to get a hold of whatever negative viewpoints I have about myself, and express it like this: "The truth that I have made for myself that I'm not worthy of love, I remove now and forever." or "The truth that I have made for myself that I'm in a great hurry to get where I want to be in life, I remove now and forever." or "The truth that I have made for myself that jhana-practice is stressful and difficult, I remove now and forever."

These negative viewpoints that we sometimes have about ourselves, in my experience I find that they are like energy-blockages stored in our body, and when I really hit home with something like that, I can feel my body and mind open up more, like letting go of something that didn't serve any purpose that I've been carrying around way too long. It is like a powerful declaration to just drop this un-useful thing in life and move on with better things. I found it particularly interesting to do this last exercise when inside of 4th Jhana. Also with this exercise I sometimes do drills, trying to see how many I can find. Other times I just do it with the most nagging ones.

Thank you! That was a really cool way to put it. I will read it several times :-)

It made me apply vipassana even deeper on all these little impulses wanting to find something somewhere outside of my field of experience, and all the aversion and boredom with the field of experience.

Sat for 1,5 hour today. It is really nice to see that there is so much less fear and reactivity related to vipassananize all that stuff which questions my sense of agency, intention, choice, control and self, and today I just felt like my whole being was a glowing ball of chill vibrating healing-light.

From a Qi Gong perspective, and from Shinzen Youngs perspective on Flow, it seems like even agency, intention, choice, control, self, etc are just "frozen material" that I through vipassana can turn into flowing Qi-energy by tuning into its vibratory qualities. I've been really scaring the shit out of myself because of all these no-self teachings and not wanting to loose my identity and control, but more and more it just feels great to give myself over to these vibrations.

Happy New Year! :-)

Transcending Madness, by Trungpa, is a very good book on the six realms, but then it could just be a very simple yet powerful exercise also without all that theory.

Yes, thank you, I like your reflections on this :-)

As I've said before I sometimes wonder if the progress of insight is just some kind of ancient system describing a modern trauma release cycle.

It has been like this for as long as I can remember - openness and expansion releasing new layers of difficult emotions.

Seems like whenever I have managed to process a layer of difficult emotions I'm rewarded by somehow getting high or expansive or anything related to feeling on top of life, and from this openness, which can only be enjoyed for so long, a new layer of difficult emotions is released because somehow my psychological defense system keeping those things suppressed is cancelled out by this openness.

The funny thing is almost always it feels like that openness is going to last forever. Like finally I feel on top of life and there is an unconscious assumption that that is going to last. So that is what I find intoxicating by it.

I think I even used meditation as a way of escaping "the wound," like ok, just drill me solidly into the pain and then I will be rewarded with openness. Might sound skilful in some way, but there was something about the addiction towards expansion I think was unhealthy. Probably it was the lack of willingness to see the suffering also in openness/expansion that made it problematic.

Thank you :-) Great feedback :-D

Funny when the mind goes into "catastrophe mode."

Today I feel inspired again. My mind often goes into "catastrophe mode," and this is so far the most successful time where I've been able to pick apart what is going on in that mode.

Scrambling around for a solution while still being in panic is what is blocking the experience from being processed.

Hehe, thank you for the support :-)

Yeah, I guess it is pretty normal.

This is the biggest "it feels like I'm totally done" so far.

Perhaps the polarity of it is also more integrated now, and I'm sort of back somewhere in between, but who knows what the next turn will be..... :-)

Anyways, back to work, as always :-)

Intereresting and useful quote, thank you!! :-)

Thank you! Looks like great stuff!! I will see it when I get my faster connection back :-)

Thanks for sharing, I'm glad you did, it was great to read :-D

Being pre-occupied with challenging mental and emotional processes that takes the focus away from the present moment external situation, like chronic existential crises or processing some difficult situation from the past, and all that. And when I get to some equanimous state it feels like I'm syncing up with whatever is going on in the present moment, not lagging behind anymore. Sometimes it feels like some live-stream video on the internet with too low bandwith, so it starts lagging, but then, when vipassana is dissolving "frozen material" and things starts to flow, things seem to sync up again.

EDIT: Another way I think about it is that these past experiences wasn't dealt with / processed fully while they were happening, so I have to deal with them now at the same time that I deal with new experiences happening in the present moment. And then when I have processed like a good chunk of something, it seems like I temporarily get a pause so I'm free to only deal with new present moment experiences and that feels like syncing up with the present moment, before a new layer of something old comes to the surface again.

Hey Nick,

Thanks for your comment! I'm glad it resonates for you, and a lot of what you write here resonates with me. I was thinking: Why don't you give 3 months without alcohol a try as well? :-) I'm almost 2 months into this now and I enjoy it more and more :-)

Thank you! Great clue :-)

Been sitting for 45 min per day the three last days. Started applying this advice while at work and I started to notice that I was going beyond a lot of this mental activity that I've been focusing on lately and that perhaps a new Equanimity phase was coming up. All of these last three sits has been conforming that, and today during the last sit I was noticing there is still some harshness in my investigation (like I push it too hard), and I made the intention to soften up, and then things started to solidify into 4th jhana again. I forget all about what Equanimity and 4th jhana is during all this mental noise that fills in the majority of time in between the few periods of mental rest I sometimes get in these states. However, I didn't just sit there and enjoyed the concentration, but I continued to investigate and it had a really nice soothing effect on my tendency to investigate too harshly.

This may be a silly question but I'm new to Buddhism and haven't made it all the way through MCTB. What is 1st path vs 4th path? Is that stream entry vs. enlightenment?