Buddhistically speaking, what is it when life seems like a great dream in an impersonal dreamer that has no essence but a sort of beingness, and everything is being dreamed into existence out of peace and love, with a sense of simultaneous nothingness and peace ?

Likely EQ - Knowledge of Equanimity of Formations

https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#dreamlikestateeq

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/mahasi/progress.html#ch6.11

Ah thank you JW. Well, it does sound like high equanimity - although the dreaming isn't like personal daydreaming and fuzziness, more like the sky is dreaming reality into existence. It's pretty grand and beautiful (well at least if I am outdoors), and like both Shargrol and Daniel say it's reminiscent of something from childhood. I'd go further and say it's exactly something from childhood - say 6 years old thereabouts - as I remember laying in bed at night or looking at the sky with this sort of peace and presence.
p241 of The Holy Book - "The early parts of equanimity can feel very familiar and normal, like we have remembered something simple and good from childhood."
Would it be anything different just because it's cultivated in adulthood ? Seems the same to me. Which makes me ask some questions about what I am doing with deliberate meditation & wotnot, and what else I might have forgotten... ? Shades of the prison house and all that.
Maybe I'm looking at the way we can relabel ordinary things that ordinary people have ordinary names for, like 'feeling relaxed' or 'peacefulness', as something special because we do special spiritual things on cushions with a special purpose etc. I only wasted 30 years trying to cultivate something natural, never mind eh ?  :-)
It's a bit confusing, I do admit. Is it all, in the end, regression, or simply undoing the crap of culture ?
Some of the non-dual stuff of latter years - I can't remember in childhood, but maybe that's my memory playing up.
Dan further says - " ...the way reality presents is not made up of little, individual sense doors, but instead complete phenomena..... objects in the world arise in these integrated wholes, consolidated swaths of moving space that contain all these things in them"
Hmm, maybe-ish something like that, I'll have to look for that. I've been looking for things to lose their individuality in some way.

thnaks.

ps. at least one biography of Gotama has recollection of childhood jhanas as a pivotal step on the path - after a long detour following what his culture said was the path, so maybe shouldn't be surprised at all this.

Your initial post is a lovely description Stickman.  Maybe a bit more than equanimity.  From the point of view of other traditions ... I believe Dzogchen see this dreamlike nature as the correct peception of reality.  Also, cultivating the view of daily life as a dream or cartoon is recommended, together with a dedication to humility, as important perparatory practices in Tibetan Mind Training. 

Also, it is just the way the world actually is.  So stick with it.  Cultivate it.  Enjoy the direct glimpses of the ground of reality.  See if it brightens and deepens.  Merge with it.  Be non-separate from it.  Make this a practice. 

Malcolm

It's not super steady though - comes and goes, but at the moment seems fairly easily accessible to tune in to, and there to be enjoyed, you're absolutely right.

Thing is, occurs to me, that if I was like that as a kid then someone could have pushed me into stream entry couldn't they ? Come to think of it, who says it has to be an adult pursuit anyway ? Obviously, though, that's not the world we live in.

thanks

Yeah, love your initial post too. Looks like "One Luminous Body" in Dilullo's Zen map isn't it? Congrats, enjoy it! Have you read Soh Wei Yu's "Four Aspects of I AM"? I think you would be interested in it. From a Buddhist point of view, check Burbea's StF pages 192-194 ("A Vastness of Awareness") as your description matches with some of the stages of his (implied) map. 

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I remember jhanas from early childhood and even events which were very much like fruitions.
I also remember that at my teens I did feel like my mind state is different than it was before, that I lost something and could not remember what it was.
Later after 1st path I did consider my mind state to be more like during lucid dreams which I had at my late teens. Especially late 1st path and early 2nd path was at the beginning identical. Literally if I had lucid dream in the morning or very vivid dream and I woke up there was literally no difference. Before that, at my teens there was very big difference.
Also getting 1st path was very easy.

Judging by this I could say 'yeah, I had 1st path at my childhood'. But then at my teens I didn't have it? Doesn't make much sense. Maybe there is something to it and people who have fruitions at their childhood are pretty much born SE and 'attaining' it later on is automatic. It certainly felt automatic. Maybe this is basis for the idea of being certain path from the beginning. On the other hand I rather assume it is just something which some people are more tuned in to and if they had certain effects during their childhood they are more likely to have them later on making whole thing easier.

As for everything feeling like a dream. It kinda is and isn't. Certainly feeling it is a dream has more to do with alpha/theta brainwaves during waking consciousness than reality being a dream but that itself is not very good indication of a path. Besides paths are not tangible and it is just our agreement to call certain effects happening as indication for 1st path. If unsure the best way is to do some vipassana and have fruitions. When person is 1st path and they do not have fruitions because nothing is being done that causes them then doing these things (eg. mahasi noting) should relatively quickly cause fruitions to happen. Same goes for having fruitions in the past and now they being not sharp enough to be 100% sure - just do vipassana, make them more 'canonical' and with that there should be no doubt one matches Theravada models.

I cannot recall the Pali suttas comparing life to a dream. I can only recall the Pali suttas comparing sensual pleasures to a dream. 

Dreams can be pleasant good dreams or terrifying bad dreams. 

Buddhism views life in an unsatisfactory way that leads to disenchantment; such as here: https://suttacentral.net/sn22.95/en/bodhi

Very nice sutta Nicky2.  I personally would interpret this as related to the points being raised, but if you have a different view of course I respect that.  From my perspective, the poety at the end tells the story.

"Form is like a lump of foam,
Feeling like a water bubble;
Perception is like a mirage,
Volitions like a plantain trunk,
And consciousness like an illusion,
So explained the Kinsman of the Sun."

... and then latter ....

"A bhikkhu with energy aroused
Should look upon the aggregates thus,
Whether by day or at night,
Comprehending, ever mindful."

You could say that it's awake awareness or "Buddha nature" or tawa. When resting into it is available, make that your practice without trying to hold it. When it isn't, don't try to grab it. You can gradually learn to lean into it also in more difficult situations, first with brief glimpses, then more often, and then finding that it's actually already there sort of beneath all other layers (this wording makes it sound like an essence or entity, but that's not the case; it's more the unchained potential that remains when habitual patterns are stripped away). 

It's awesome, isn't it? 

I'm more of an empiricist than a scholar, so I don't know whether this is brought up in the Pali suttas but it is essential in Tibetan Buddhism, and - more importantly - it works. 

Oh it's lovely. No I don't think it can be grabbed, more eased into, it's more like a natural subsiding of cognitive self than active choice. It was there when I was a kid, probably is there for most kids, and seems entirely normal rather than a special attainment.

Yup ​​​​​​​

I would say life is a dream. Very sophisticated one for sure but still a dream.
It only makes perfect sense that knowing it is a dream and knowing how this dream works is the only true liberation from this dream, from the Samsara.

Sensual pleasure a dream... doesn't make much sense if everything else is also not a dream.
Disenchantement is toward not sensual pleasure but to everything conditional. If it is a dream you can have as much of it as you want, the pleasure, including sensual one.

Dream theory matches my experiences.

Ah, but, why is this buddha nature when I thought nirvana was buddha nature ? Isn't everything but cessation a delusion ?

I don't understand, really, the need for cessations, if all reality and emptiness are concurrent then why do we need to have pure void, if it's kind of with us all the time ?

The meditative path seems a bit like separating a curry out into it's individual spices just to experience them individually, when really it's all blended together.

How do I know I'm not just perceiving a formless jhana, but eyes open, and I've mistaken one of the ingredients for the whole curry ? Maybe all this twiddling with my mind has led me astray from the obvious.

It's like, OK, I can taste coriander.... hmm, now I can taste the cumin... oh and that's the chilli - it burns but I endure it with equanimity.... until finally you realise that the unifying element is water, the whole curry is suspended in water, all the different flavours are suspended in water... but no there's more - what is water contained in, and oh there's a pan, an empty pan. But who holds the pan, and who's recipe is it, and who is going to eat it ?

Well, I didn't choose the name. I agree that it's confusing. I find that it makes more sense to talk about it as glimpses or approximations. They don't need to be longlasting or perfect to work with. It usually doesn't mean that one is done. There are so many layers of construction. 

Delusion can be a rather strong word, depending on the connotations one associates with it. I find it misleading to say that the entire reality as we know it is a delusion. After all, it's all we've got. But we sure take a lot of things for granted, and that limits and constrains us and creates tensions and rigidity. It makes us unfree. The more we can see how we create our reality and let go of the constraints that make us and people around us unhappy, the better.

There is no consensus with regard to cessations. In Tibetan Buddhism that doesn't seem to be a thing at all. Whether practicioners of those traditions do go into cessations anyway, without realizing it, I can't tell. They use different maps. I had the opportunity yesterday to talk about it with a group of practicioners of Tibetan Buddhism. I didn't use labels and didn't talk about it as an attainment, but talked about it as experiences from a different practice, outside their tradition, a Sutta-based one. It was relevant because we were talking about how to practice with impermanence and the fear of losing some "owned" consciousness at death. I shared about it because it was helpful for me in seeing that there is already nothing continuous there, and it can go away without it being a big deal. The groupleader was interested to hear about it. So I don't know if they are able to accomplish the same thing some other way, or if they do it the same way but pay attention to other aspects instead, or if it's really a different path. I just know that for me there is no contradiction between the practices. I find that they go together very well. 

I used to be more cocky in assuming that cessations are necessary, but I actually don't know, so I'm taking a step back there. In my personal experience, they have at least been helpful. 

The cessations around stream entry changed some hardwired stuff for me that I didn't think was possible to change over night like that, or even at all, and a large portion of those changes have remained. What is it now - two years? I have lost track of time. I think it really changed my brain. It really took away some layers of suffering. After that, it hasn't been quite as clear. The repeat fruitions from previous paths seem to be something of a reset (bugfix?) but their effect doesn't last long. I suspect that cessations at new paths do accomplish some rewiring, but I suspect they are more a manifestation of a change as it happens than the cause of it. It's not like you can just go for cessations and expect to go all the way if you don't do the work - or the non-work - that allows those changes. And maybe there are people that don't need rewiring? I don't know. Maybe some people just need to change the software and maybe those downloads don't always require a restart. On the other hand, I can imagine that we do lots of little restarts basically all the time even when we don't notice it. It's not like experience is continuous. 

The real deal needs more than one ingredient, I would say. The union of wisdom and compassion is one way of phrasing it. I can't speak for everyone else, but I need enough of emptiness in order to be able to embrace compassion without turning it into something to feel guilt and shame around. Others seem to need the compassion (or connection or love, or whatever aspect of it speeks to them the most) in order to not be freaked out by the emptiness. A balance is needed, to put things into proportion and minimize the distortions. I like the notion of Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya. The emptiness that contains all potential, its inherent aliveness that can't help but forming intentions, and the manifestations of those intentions. The way I see it, awakening needs to operate in all those realms. The cosmic lovemaking between emptiness and form is another storyline. 

I think we need to take the awakening all the way back to the form again after soaking in emptiness. What do you think? 

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I have another empirical phenomena. I was feeling super peaceful and equanamous and timeless, and noticed that I had lost sense of scale, and my bedroom wardrobe suddenly looked vast like a mountain. Like having K2 in my bedroom, hadn't noticed this before. Didn't last long due to thinking "whoa, my wardrobe!"

What's that, buddhistically ?

Yes and no. It doesn't mean you should stop twiddling, but what you are ultimately looking for is blindingly obvious.

Your mind is starting to see that space is a construction, or several layers of construction, and is sort of playing with it to see through different aspects of it. Good stuff. 

Personally, I would advice against rushing to conclusions as to what you are ultimately looking for. There are many points along the path where people tend to think they have got it all. Let the twiddling do its own thing. The process knows the way, so you don't have to. 

How do I know I'm not just perceiving a formless jhana, but eyes open, and I've mistaken one of the ingredients for the whole curry ? Maybe all this twiddling with my mind has led me astray from the obvious.
Welcome to the club. I've been fighting with this kind of questions for a loooooooong time and asked many dead serious teachers about it. Funny thing the spectrum of answers. Sometimes I think the less some people experienced, the more certain they are, because they have no clue what a vast array of mindscapes our reality can turn into. I especially dearly hate the answer: you will know. Do I have to mention I had thought I've known for how many times now...? Some teachers will confirm the same thing which other teachers will not. THIS IS F*** CONFUSING.

According to suttas (or commentaries?) formless attainments are variations of 4th jhana - so there are no remains of any walking, lying down and defenitely not thinking individual, which seems to be present in your raport. So this is not a formless jhana in hardcore style. But maybe jhana lite? Or maybe it's just access concentration with focus on space?

I also know from literature and checking my own brain that after certain realisations the default mode of perception changes and panoramicity (producing perceptions of distorted size) and various degrees of centerlessness (producing nondual sensations of being a sphere) or agencylessness (producing sensations of "me and The Presence) can become a new baseline. 

That’s similar to the Yogācāra school of Buddhism. The key authors to read are Asanga and Vasubandhu.

Well I looked up Vasabandhu and I didn't see much to do with the dream of life. I just saw a massive ancient Indian buddhism nerd.

Are you thinking of his early period? Read his later works, e.g. the Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā.

Ha I was thinking of his wikipedia entry. Honestly, though I recognise he was a briliant savant, I dont think I'm going to be a big Vasabandhu reader I have books on top of books unfinished already.

Ha I knew it, peace, unity and love are just not good enough for buddhism.. nope!
High equanimity sounds like a better description, I've definitely been as far as the three doors, as described in MCTB wizard manual, so as far as maps go I'm somewhere round that territory, but even more like it sounds like stuff I read from advaita people like Richard Sylvester, in which you get a sense that the self has been seen through and it's just a matter of time before it becomes more complete. And a sense that even pondering it is too much self and feels fake. I think there's a danger that the idea that there is more becomes a source of dissatisfaction in itself - sort of "yeah there's this expansive empty mind dreaming all reality but, you know, I've heard there's something even better." Which there might be, but thoughts about that better thing won't be it - except in the sense that thoughts will be part of it, which I am looking out for.

"I think we need to take the awakening all the way back to the form again after soaking in emptiness. What do you think? "

errr...

Ah, now, these cessations - is it possible to get to one of the three doors but not actually go through it, and if you do does it have to be spectacularly obvious ?
The no self door - that's sounds familiar. I'd say that's done.
Looking through the MCTB section on three doors, and the topological analogies Dan uses, I can't say toruses ring a bell, but standing outside of reality like looking into a goldfish bowl does - if we're talking about topological transformations in consciousness ..?
Book sez (p260)... "there may be an image on one side staring back, but even if there isn't, the universe becomes a toroid (doughnut shaped), or occasionally a sphere, and the image and this side of the toroid switch paces as the toroid universe spins"
Aha, a sphere ..hmm... rubbing chin.
But then it says, "the whole thing synchronises and disappears.".
I don't recall anything disappearing, so, hm again.
Problem is I'm usually doing something when these things happen, like I was talking in the kitchen and whooop I'm on the outside looking in but I have to keep yapping.
I find I have to focus to get into this book, but it does yield fruit. Which is, I suppose, unsurprising as it's written in and about high concentration.
Thinking I'm getting to the doors without going through them is a bit of a bummer. I'd like some good news :-) lie to me if necessary. No don't.


Suggestive picture, wondering about non-eastern context..
I think I'm looking for confirmation of the truth of the Theravadan map by looking at other cultures, like the European alchemist here, it would be good to know if the three doors as described isn't just a by product of a particular Asian set of practices and the phenomena can be found elsewhere. If I read deeply into christian mysticism, for instance, will I find corresponding descriptions of the path to God? I think they should be there if this is a common feature of the human psyche. That would be something of a scholarly search.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Amphitheatrum_sapientiae_aeternae

So is a cessation anything like this ?  - loaded question, just checking, because there's so much disagreement about cessations.. are there two types of stream enterers, those who have absense seizures and those who don't.

Epilepsy: Absense seizure video

With a cessation, is there actual missing time, for instance if you were sitting in a car would you have gone further down the road during the blip ?
Or is it just like observing gap between the frames between conscious experiences  - so no actual time passes (granting time is an illusion etc) ?

I'm not sure how to interpret that. Let me know if you wish to talk about it further. 

As for the first part of the question, I have been wondering the same thing and I still don’t know. As for the latter part, as I understand it, it very often isn’t that obvious, but as one keeps going through cessations and knows what to look for, it seems that at least some of them are obvious. I don’t know if that was any helpful at all.



Hard to tell if it’s cessations, but it’s definitely something. I have had the visual thoroid experience both without detecting any cessation and with something that I interpreted as a cessation although I’m not 100% certain that there was an actual gap in the mindstream there. It was more a sense of reality imploding and exploding at the same time and in doing so, also turning inside out. It had the afterglow, so I have mentally put it at a point in the scale that is fairly close to a clearcut cessation but not there all the way. I have also had no self cessations with all the components clear enough but very fast and without much of a visual component, as it was sort of more kinesthetic. Furthermore, I have had what I believe was a no self cessation with a clearly demarkated cessation but without a clear sense of a toroid. In that door moment, there was a very clear photographically realistic image of a flower with a center that felt like an eye, and it came closer and closer until there was a merge, and then the cessation. Apart from that, I have had lots of experiences of reality turning inside out (kinesthetically or something like that) without any sense of there being a cessation, and it seems to be when the underlying framework for perception shifts from a dualistic one to a nondualistic one while both clarity and concentration are strong enough for the shift to be detected that clearly. So if your experiences aren’t cessations, maybe they are the latter? Not saying that they aren’t cessations, though. Regardless, I’d say that they count as important milestones for insight.