Author: ngakpakonchuknorbu
Forum: Practical Dharma

i believe on the 3 or fourth day of retreat i saw fruition, or maybe did not see fruition, tricky thing to try to talk about and communicate somewhat accurately. today is my first day back and its a little confusing and more difficult to have that same or similar non experience. there are so many people in the house and noise its affecting my memory of my own experiences and the concentration is not as clear. with in 90 minutes there seem to be a few unknowing experiences but the attention was a little more turbulant. its only my first day back so i might settle in better tonight in my second sesion but if you have experience or advice to share please do. i wont see my lamas for a month or two and when i do it could be some what difficult to communicate theyre precise experience because of the language barrier. thank you

Dear Konchuk Norbu, it's difficult to say anything from your report. I gather you're a Nyingmapa, right? What's the format of your practice at this point - ngondro, yidam, dzogchen? What was the format and duration of your retreat? A lot of silent meditation or not? Did what you refer to take place during sitting or between sessions? Also, the "non experience" and the "unknowing experience" you mention is possibly a strong non-conceptual state, but not necessarily a fruition in the strict sense. More details are missing to try saying anything useful. Please give a fuller account, while retaining that which you believe is better left unsaid.

Author: ngakpakonchuknorbu

the tradition is drikung kagyu.
in the morning i start with 5 or 10 minutes of calming and settling down. then thirty minutes or so of noting, which i try to keep up all day long. then i start with yidam and guru yoga for a very short time or else i can really really get stuck doing jhana for the next few days.after ward is more noting for another half hour more or less.
the retreat was totally out of my normal tradition. it was a linje style 6 day retreat at dear park. ive practiced zen and theravada because there are several centers where i live so it was not hard to adapt, i was familiar. i had did a lot of noting both sitting and walking the first couple days when it got into very quickly seeing one usauly unnoticable sensation come and disapear in a kind of hitting way, ( pat. pat. dot.dot.dot.tit.tit.tit.) very quickly. after that i progressively started seeing them just disapear more. it was every sensation for a while and then my attention went to all sounds. for a few hours one night it was mostly mental sensations and sounds. it was pretty effortless for the most part. mind seemed very empty yet sharp and clear and still had things apearing and passing in detail with a kind of shape/vibration. it got slower but was still being noticed. it is very difficult for me to describe this and i feel that there is still much left out. i appreciate your help and interest very much hokai. oh and as for dzogchen(mahamudra for me) in actual experience i see very little diffirence in noting and mahamudra, except saying them mentaly brings different concepts and feelings to me. this feels like jibberish it is so difficult to describe.

So it's kagyu :-) the "ngakpa" in your username lead me to think of nyingma (and therefore dzogchen), but never mind... Good to have you here. Yes, noting is quite similar to early mahamudra, while the stages of mahamudra - i.e. one-pointedness, simplicity, one taste, and non-meditation - describe very much the same territory like the four paths and fruitions. From what you're describing, to me this seems like an A&P event. Does that make sense?

see page http://dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/page/The+Arising+and+Passing+Away

also, you may want to have a look at the following chapter from Daniel Ingram's book http://bit.ly/RHWH

Author: ngakpakonchuknorbu

yes thank you. i will re read up on the a&p and keep watching things disapear and just the watching of the disapearing

Yeah, I just want to 2nd Hokai's accute observation, that this sounds like a description of the A&P event/territory. The dark night follows the A&P, so after reading up on the A&P you might also want to look into some of the descriptions of the Dark Night. :-D

Author: ngakpakonchuknorbu

now ive had another one today. is that normal. i read a post saying it is common to slip back and forth in the stages your on, but several in within a few days. what does that say?

It could mean you're ripe.:-) You still have the momentum from retreat, so it's good to build on that and turn a "state" into a "stage", i.e. make what is revealed in the experience a more permanent knowledge, and thus integrate that into your general awareness, to serve as base for further progress. As you can probably detect, there's a lot of additional stuff happening along with this clarity. Move on, maintain modicum of practice, and keep it simple.

Author: ngakpakonchuknorbu

thank you all for the guidance. turn a state into a stage. spoken like a true buddhist geek. ill just keep with whats going on and see what happens. thanks again hokai and vince