I was going thru the dark night as usual, misery was kicking my ass as usual. I had been watching Daniels various podcasts and that motivated me to not be a wimp. I got mad skills but have been lazy. I layed in bed and meditated for a couple hours to get up to EQ and maybe get a fruition, though I've stopped letting myself do that for years as its worthless for where I'm at. I got up to high EQ, kept my vision panoramic in the closed eyes and watched all the little smudges of dream/subconsciousness stuff arise and flicker. The usual strobing effect started as things got synced. I layed there watching the show but realized it was not gonna pop. At that point I instructed the mind to speed up the flickering dream stuff. I then instructed the mind from this faster point to realize that all the flickering was empty upon arising instead of arising and passing. Some number of maybe a hundred or so experiences of emptiness happened very very rapidly. I was operating at the speed of awareness to do this. I noticed that all the processes/noise stopped but there was still unexplainable infrastructure there to see. I was done though. Sub attainment of some sort had been completed.Misery is no longer physical but still mental, so much better, so far. It hurts so much less but the mental anguish is still there and makes me want to cry about half way most of the time. So clean, clear, still sucky, lol.Additional notices- physical sensations of hunger are not the same, I remind myself to eat, or with low blood sugar the mental anguish kicks in and screws me.Whatever I deleted seems very like first pathish stuff with a second layer of mental to go. Wish someone would have told me years ago to do this. So there you go!

Clear goal - Delete 3rd path physical subconsciousness processes
Clear recipe- Go to high eq, increase speed of observed dreamy process. Do emptiness upon arising of the processes
Clear results – The processes one after another in fast secession are deleted, many times so very fast. Multiple physical sensations are deleted including physical misery.

Hi Dre,
I sense that dharma is strong with you today

But seriously that experience of architecture is a good one.
Can you see this architecture in less flashy but easily accessible way?
If yes how would you call this mind state? Also how it feels and looks like?

I ask a lot of questions because I want to compare notes. This is the juicy stuff my dho account exists for ;)

I am sorry, I have no idea what your background is, I'm using very specific language to express myself where I can. If we don't have a common vocabulary it makes it very difficult to create a "easily accessible way"  or "feels and looks". 
If you are not somewhere in 3rd path with Mahamudra experience, you will not understand a thing I said.
Read "Pointing out the Great Way" by Daniel p. Brown if you wish to understand more.
Good Luck
~D

My background is that I have been here and there.
What you are talking about doesn't sound like something which would require specialized Vajrayana trainings.
I have no problem understanding you.

Have fun with your practice.

OK, ask a specific question. This is not Vajrayana. Emptiness upon arising is a mahamudra thing in my experience.

Clear recipe- Go to high eq, increase speed of observed dreamy process. Do emptiness upon arising of the processes
So- get to high EQ right where fruition happens. Look at the same suble stuff like when you are in 7th jhana and there seems to be a lot of stuff going on under nothingness. Get the strobing to happen just like high EQ does before fruition. Instruct the mind to speed shit up. then instruct it to do emptiness upon arising.
What is not clear?
~D

The key to 3rd for me was giving up on the idea of a clearly definable process.

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5800908

Thats wonderful! So how does someone else repeat your non-process?
Any advice?...Ya, not so much. thanks for pointing that out.
~D

I realized that awakening couldn't possibly be anything I wanted or expected. So I tried to deconstruct every idea I had about what awakening might involve. I pushed that pretty hard and then shit started to happen. I did disappear into a bit of a nondual rabbit hole, but it worked out in the end :-)

Interesting thoughts! 

First some ranting before getting into the good stuff. Please bear with me!

George, so now you are in the part of your cycling where you are certain that you are awakened? And you feel confident enough to give advice to someone whom others who claim to be awakened refer to as one of their biggest supports in that process? I respectfully call bullshit. I believe it would benefit both your practice and - on the long term - your wellbeing if you could learn to preach less and listen more. You have asked to be called out when needed. Consider this a call out. 

Dream Walker, I wouldn't dismiss Ni Nurta that readily. He uses a very different lingo but I think the two of you could probably have really interesting conversations if you both would assume less and explore more. He has built up some pretty interesting tech, just like you have. Maybe you could pick up a few things from each other. I don't always have the energy to overbridge communication difficulties, so I can relate to feeling the need to deprioritize that. However, it just might be a difference in perspective that points out one's own blind spots. 

Ni Nurta, you probably need to fill out the blanks more, that is, make some effort to find common ground. Your language is just as based on your taken-for-granted stuff as other people's wordings, and it might be helpful to be open to the possibility that you actually don't understand other people's perspectives/experiences as well as you think. 

Sorry for my bluntness. I'm currently unable to sugarcoat it. I do mean well. I actually like all of you a lot.

As for the topic of the thread, I feel like this is what I'm doing too, but with less precision and less systematically. Just like you said, Dream Walker, this isn't usually pointed out explicitly, so thankyou! I take this as a sign that I'm going in the right direction. I had to make my own mischmasch of very different practices to arrive at my version of it (MCTB2 and Dzogchen/Mahamudra were both important for it to click). Before I found that intersection, I felt pretty lost. I'll explore if your description of the steps can make my very intuitively driven process more replicable, because I do have lots of subprocesses to delete and a lot of it is buried in my body. I think some major knots have been tied up very recently, but I have no doubt that there are more knots to untie. When a knot is untied, I find that the emotions that were entangled in it come to the surface with a surprising strength, which can be a bit overwhelming and... well, messy. Still, the entanglement was clearly incapacitating, so I wouldn't want to go back to more of that. It does feel purer like this, like a healing pain. It's fascinating that your wordings are almost exactly the same wordings that I have been using when trying to describe my experiences to friends. I have a very tangible sense of a complex infrastructure that is gradually untangling and dissolving. It happens at the threshold of the subconscious and it often happens very fast. I'm just starting to learn to instruct the mind to get into this subtle mode instead of just waiting for it to happen. Do you have any advice on how to do this in a reliable way? 

Nope. I've not gone back yet but would just do the same again, get to high EQ after resolving to not get a cessasion, Look around and see whats there. You could also try 7th jhana.
Good luck Polly
~D

​​​​​​​I’m not fully awakened. I know how to experience nibbana when I need, which is several times a day, but I still need to remind myself. However I am confident that it is nibbana.

I haven't mastered this resolving thing. That's kind of the thing I need advice on how to do instead of just surrendering to the process and hope that it will take charge. 

I haven't visited higher jhanas since they got me into what seemed like an almost endless loop leading to very slow suffering door cessations. It felt a bit like being mentally raped in retrospect, or forced to give birth over and over again for hours. 

George: yet your log is full of examples of what could be described as the kind of physical subprocesses that Dream Walker is talking about, still at play.

Of course, what do you expect?!

Well, you have a tendency of sounding like you have put all that behind you. You did use past tense in talking about these issues and third path. Just sayin'. 

Third path is past, issues are still present!

I think I made a false assumption about this discussion. I saw the reference to 3rd path and assumed that the context was being stuck at 3rd, but (re)reading DW’s Framework of Awakening I see that the context is post-4th. Sorry Dream Walker! Deleting subprocesses sounds like a great practice. I also got a lot out of your framework – thank you 

I just asked because my suspicions were it is somehow related to 7th jhana ;)

@Linda
I gave a lot of thoughts to what you said, got some ideas and now on to practice.
Big thanks

So I was meditating in a public place and noticed that sound caused a subtle contraction in the mind door. I didn't really notice a somatic contraction, just something possibly in the mind that corresponded to a subconscious selfing process of "me" making. Once I noticed this I figured out the "switch" that allowed me to flip it to non-contracted. Most nights while laying in bed I would flip it and hold it open. The body would go "arupa" without focus upon spaciousness needed but J5 was an easy way to get it flipped easily and quicker. As I held it open longer eventually it held itself and then it just stayed that way.
Results- The body is now empty, thoughts no longer have a reference point, everything seems to have the "one taste", thoughts seem to have a timeless(emptiness) quality without space and mental anguish is considerably less. Whether this is just honeymoon or not will be seen over time.
I have very high standards and therefor make no claims yet until it proves over time that other aspects don't crop up. In the mean time I am quite happy with it and I'm going back over how I've mapped stages previously to ensure I've not missed any sub-attainments in any sense doors especially focusing on the "luminosity" aspects.
~D

So it's been about a year...Seems like the standard time to get something. Cycling like crazy mostly DN negative fear based crapppola....imagine that usual repetitive thing.
Log Notes ----
​​​​​​​Great meditation today. A&P detail high, emptiness practice then noticing anything that constricted vs relax, let go more, relax and emptying/deconstructed the constriction/tension. Noticed many subtle things happening such as transitions from sense doors, difference of sound startling me when in visual mode but listening mode, no startle/tension.
I finally understand my mahamudra retreats

Didn't get a perm shift yet. Close to stabilizing that simplest thing that is empty

Fuck sake I'm dense sometimes. Via negativa is of course what I'm doing

I totally understand why Daniel simply calls it vipassana now....Not that I agree with his oversimplifying.

I understand his 'sneaking up on your sneaking' metaphor.... laughed my ass off.

My metaphor is -notice the pool is wavy because you keep toss'n rocks. Figure out each type of rock and deconstruct it but from under the surface.
Arupa into lite J4.J7? Hold that to investigate subtle qualities that flip anything in any perceivable way, any difference of this/that.

Oh for fucks sake, I'm regurgitating Daniel again....hahaha
Totally understand, now to get'r done,

Also did chakra openings, root for something new, like a ball pressing. Created a visual combination of chakras to feel multiple.... (watermelon) Head stress because I force shit in the head. Snake hiss is highest frequency heard of nada, happenstance?
Jeeze, did so much stuff...I hope to remind me to break down these notes more....

This is notes for myself as a log to remind me of my nonsense. If you get anything whatsoever out of it, please feel free to start a new thread.
~D to ~D

And you give shit to everyone for being vague??????? !!!!!!!!

:-)

hellz ya!!!!!
I'm vague to myself as much as I wanna be.  post to yourself as I'm doing
I'm gonna say, hey, fuck my vague logs to me, it's not for you. 
I'm not asking a question from anyone so STFU if you can do that vaguely. 
if ya get anything out of my stuff, great. 

Petitmengin, C. (2006). Describing one’s subjective experience in the second person: An interview method for the science of consciousness. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 5(3–4), 229–269. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-006-9022-2

Petitmengin, C., Remillieux, A., & Valenzuela-Moguillansky, C. (2019). Discovering the structures of lived experience: Towards a micro-phenomenological analysis method. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 18(4), 691–730. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-018-9597-4

Hey, Olivier S
I want to apologize for being agressive sounding.  After saying  -

I thought I was being clear that I was logging to myself notes to me and nothing else...
I totally agree with my notes to me are vague to anyone else,
I hope to break down this log to be useful to others as I contemplate my experiences. I could obviously not post my experiences as they happen but I think that there might be some usefulness to all to see my process and struggle to make sense of really hard to figure out stuff as it happens. I'm kinda along on the complex end of the path and there is not much great advise that is repeatable as a practice. I hope to share the vague crap as it happens as well as the creation of some structure that leads to a continued framework.
Allow me to do my best in this post and feel free to ask questions in another post of your own.
Good luck to all, 
Including me.
Sincerely,
~D

Hey,

Apologies accepted, though granted you did not ask for feedback. I was of course poking a bit of fun.

I do believe ethics are important in our interactions, even when trying to get people to be more detailed/precise. It's not easy or natural for most people to be very good at articulating pre-reflexive experiences using words, they don't usually do it on purpose, there are non-aggressive ways to do it.
Your framework for awakening was really useful to me, so thanks for that.

Regarding practice: have you tried the pointing out instructions in clarifying the natural state? Something about them put something to an end for me.

Best wishes,
O

I have reread it multiple times, but thank you for the reminder...It feels like I might get more from it that before. There has always been parts that I wasn't clear about clarifying
~D

 I read them after 10 days of retreat (parts of this retreat involved revieweing your framework for awakening at some point, I think!), went very progressively with it, and the actual meditative reading of the pointing out instructions seemed to come at just the right time, leading to a real oh fuck moment for me, as in, "*untangling* — that is it", but at the same time, *oh shit, this life is actually it!*. I don't know if this was would be what you have been looking for, but anyways, something about the very idea of meditation practice and the answer to the question of meditation in the very original intention/view of meditation.

In fact, re: your framework: I am currently writing a paper for a special issue of the journal Religions which I will call something like, "Experiential Universals, Contemplative Development, and Multiaxial cultivation", or something less clunky, and this seems like an opportunity to do something I've wanted to for a long time — mention your simple, perceptual shift view of the path, if I find a way to incoporate it. What do you think?

 

I'll just throw this notion out there... instead of deleting, I would be inclined to use the language "cleaning" or maybe "respecting" and also suggest that it might be time for the via positiva (I think I just made that up) for this last little bit of territory you need to go through.

In other words, the goal to make an experience empty really has to noticed as a kind of restlessness and conceit at some point. The bias to empty-out an experience is another form of sneaking up energy. It can become a subtle form of ill will. 

At the core of the transition from late pre-3rd through 4th is indeed mahamudra, which is mind-as-it-is. Clean-mind-as-it-already-is-clean-mind, you could say. It's sort of like being a perpetual batchelor and always on the hunt for the next disposable girlfriend and then remembering that you are already married to a supermodel that you truly love and want to spend your entire life with. My hunch is the DN energy is the fundamentally ignoring of the inherent perfection (precise yet empty) that is already the nature of every experience.

There is "I'm losing, not winning" feeling that is part of path of mahamudra which accompanies relaxing the core neurotic energy of the self. In the next moment, there is revitalization feeling when we realize we really didn't lose anything, in fact dropping the control/manipulation energy is much much better. (I just threw the I Ching this morning and I'm reminded that a good hexagram that points to this vibe is "preponderance of the small" which advise the little bird not to fly high but rather stay close to the ground, which leads to success. It's #62 and one other slogan for the hexagram is "the small get by".)

Jhanas are good mirrors into our fundamental attitude: do we need them to be other than they are? Do crave some rather than others? Do we long for embodiment (down in the jhanas) or do we crave for further emptiness (up in the jhanas). Can we allow the awkward ambiguity of neither-perception-nor-non-perception to just be as it is and not pick a fight with it? It's important to see how all the jhanas are actually equally empty, equally valid. There is no reason except a lingering neurotic tendency to prefer some states over others.

I'm also remembering that most of my practice was hunting for subtle ill-will and relaxing it. Wow, yeah I would say that was the heart of what I was doing most of the time. (Wierdly and deeply inspired by this image on the cover of vimuttimagga: Vimuttimagga - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia )

4. sensual desire
5. ill will
6. material-rebirth desire
7. immaterial-rebirth desire
8. conceit
9. restlessness
10. ignorance

For what it's worth, I really do think working with a teacher is valuable at this stage. You basically just have to find the person that you truly think "has it" and work with them. They might not teach that well, but it's that "contact high" you are looking for. For fourth path, it's almost like an de-transmission that takes place. The teacher helps you drop/lose/stop something neurotic, not gain something new.

For what it's worth, when I was working with a teacher the first practice he had me do was getting established in meditation by whatever normal methods that work for you (30 or 40 minutes), then inquire "resistance?" --- like asking the psyche in shorthand"is there any resistance here? am I resisting at all? what happens if a resistance I'm not even aware of gets dropped? or can show me whatever resistance might be lurking in the shadows?" and allowing whatever experience or energetic response to come up and reintegrate. The psyche wants to reach 4th path, but we need to give it the opportunity to guide us. This is only done for 5-10 minutes because it touches quite deep and can't be forced. (Sort of like a heavy lifting day at the gym, 3 sets of two or three reps and don't try to do more )

Anyway, it's always good to be relentless because that's the only way to find out how far things go. But it's also important to be flexible, because some approaches really do have a limit and so it's important to try a different angle. At least that's been my experience. If I don't exhaust the possibility of a practice, and instead keep swithing approaches, then I never get traction. But if I neurotically ignore the stagnation that inevitably occurs with mastery, then I'm just confusing mastery with failure -- which is sad and ironic! There is a funny way we can achieve ourself to failure in meditation by mastering a method/view but then sticking with that method/view for too long.

(This is worth what you paid for it! )
  

I think my framework is half to 3/4 baked.

The framework take away is not "getting" perceptual shifts...it is that you are deleting delusions, or subconscious processes that no longer serve you.
The perceptual shifts are merely a gauge to notice that you deleted stuff...Results
OH BOY, I wanna GET shifts! Well, maybe that will work for ya. Listing perceptual shifts are marketing and sales. 

My pragmatic ethos is-

1. Clear Goal
2. Clear Recipe
3. Clear Results
4. Willingness to Share

Recipe is where the work is....permanent awakenings.....many, many awakenings.
What do you think?
~D

Heya!
Deleting is just my way of saying cleaning, less delution (whattever delusion it may be)
Respecting? sure, kinda, in a way but alowing it to go.......

Empty is a after deleting.....It's gone. 

Noticing the easiest thing, clarity of mind, Empty but full of whats happening.

I notice such subtle stuff, then relax to simple, again and again.

Empty the fabrication of J7, That has got me to this precipice, HAHAHA....what is that subtleness that fabricates nothingness?

Ya, Not perfect modling here.....Just noticing what I can notice.
Delete, I so far think I need to retreat to 'burn' the insite in, let it stay shifted, let be empty til it wants to stay that way. I'f that don't work, perhaps teacher shopping

Hmmm, gonna have to think about that...

I always spend years looking, the actual doing goes quick once I find what to "do"

Mos Def my friend,
Thanks,
​​​​​​​~D

I think all frameworks dilute out into reality eventually, or take their proper place in it, and I agree that the whole "get shifts" perspective eventually makes no sense, or at least, the way one evaluates things shifts (shifts!!!!!!!!) along the way, in fact pretty profoundly I would say, to the point that it is hard to convey the way one values things after some development of this kind, to someone who hasn't started, but yours (among other such frameworks from the pragmatic dharma community) is still a temporarily interesting, and more practical map, than what you find in most traditional mystical texts! 

Excellent, shargrol!
​​​​​​​You did not invent via positiva, btw!

Imho faculties of formless jhanas in order are:
5th - absolute location of parts which make up mind - from pretty much all possible spaces
6th - feedback from neurons, how they themselves feel and stuff - also related to immunity system
7th - maps of potential pathways for activity - relates to parts of mind which are NOT active
8th - I call it 'action potential' - read for active consciousnesses and write to inactive

Because mediation is best done on parts of mind which are not active (basically no consciousness of them arise and they are not referred to in currently going mind) we need some way to see mind when its not active without waking it up. 7th shows where activity can go through by sending very subtle signals. These signals can be sent in droves making presentation more vibrant.

Where it comes to faculty of 8th jhana it do no 'mapping' of any kind so to use it effectively one has to mix it with e.g. 7th jhana. Dwelling in this mode of mind while still holding to forms and relying on them for driving focus and perception causes collapse of perception/mind because 8th jhana allows optimizing perception away when optimizing for typical target - resting. It is however possible to make better perception using 8th jhana that is more stable and generally has better specs and even have error correction (the so called vajra). On the other hand 7th jhana by itself doesn't control anything that can collapse mind and at most can cause very subtle activity that is enough to be registered by nervous system and with that also by normal mind as "something" but too subtle to be experienced so it ends up as this glaring experience of nothingness.

I tried to keep this post as concise as possible. Hopefully I am not too vague in this post