Forum: The Arising and Passing Away

An interesting video of a monk describing his "deepest meditation experience." This sounds like a classic description of the A&P--light, clarity, long sit, spontaneous body movements, pleasure, etc. I just figured I'd share it, as it's an interesting example of a phenomenological description of the A&P: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVbR4M2ZKRI

There are many such videos related to this one, and something I find very interesting is that many of these monks seem to have no clue as to what they're experiencing. They don't seem to have access to the maps, to good teachers who will speak about this stuff openly, etc.

In a related vein re: the ignorance

http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/find-the-differences/

This is a question for everyone: do most people report an A&P "event" as well? That's something that seems to be missing from most descriptions we've discussed.

Or do people experience many A&P symptoms without necessarily crossing the threshold?

A related question: is someone launched into the Dark Night following these deep meditation experiences, or only necessarily when they have experience "the A&P event".

(I have to use quotes, because I'm not 100% sure if I know what I'm referring to. It seems like the event might be something so close to a description of a fruition, except it doesn't repeat itself in subsequent days/weeks.)

Thanks!

Not every one describes a classic A&P event, per se. There are those people who get into the territory, have energetic or blissful experiences that never reach some defined peak or have some big zap! or whatever, and yet they then go on to Third Vipassana Jhana/Dark Night/Dukkha Ñana territory anyway. There are others that get into the early part of A&P territory but have not yet had sufficient exposure to cross over it, event or other wise. Then there are plenty that do have a big event that was way different from before, some big bolt of energy through their spine, some explosion of consciousness, some big bright light or lights, some quick dip into some very incomprehensible territory. Most of these are very different from a Fruition, particularly if you include what surrounds them, as Fruitions tend to come out of very calm, ordinary, and yet clear, quiet and accepting mind states, where as there tends to be a lot of drama, shaking, bliss, energy, intensity, lights, dream stuff, etc. around the A&P.

I suspect I've passed through Knowledge of A&P, Dark NIght and into early equanimity twice. My experience both times of A&P phase was blazing fast particle-oriented attention, spontaneous body movements,and extreme bliss at times with an almost manic quality.

Neither time did I experience a specific A&P event before passing into a much more uncomfortable, buzzy and dissatisfied phase and then later into a an easy free spacious phase with a wave-oriented perception of reality.