Hello fellow DhO members and other unregistered readers,

Did you know you can stop cycling by going straight to its conclusion?

Because mind is like multi-dimensional puzzle and to reach some parts of mind in order to put them to sleep and activate something analogous it requires at times bending your mind in very unnatural ways it might be hard to always do - but should be doable if there is connection strong enough for *you* to be able to experience effects of part of mind cycling.

Fruition 101: It is literally just putting part of mind to deep unspecified length of time to do its sleeping/maintenance/etc. activities disconnected from needs of mind and unbothered by it. For that to actually work we need to also activate new similar part to take its place.

If you do that the moment there is first indication of tiredness you will never have POI or these fancy schmancy nanas. Also no dukkha and also why I always say neurons get tired. Neurons individually but also whole mind needs time to sort itself out and parts of mind which need to do it can be considered "tired" even if individual neurons are not tired.

Now my understanding is that if POI and going through all the nanas was actually needed or useful then the whole bloody thing wouldn't end in fruition anyways. Thus I started testing it if I cut cut the chase and how that would feel and how it would affect me and concluded that not only POI is not needed but person can just identify the nature of attainments in general and choose to have mind operate in this way. The key word is "choose". Its a choice, nothing more.

Of course in order for things to just work like that person needs to put an effort to know how to do these things and what that choice is about. Nothing 'just works'.

My mindset was like I always present it: to know what I need to do and do it rather than do something and have something happen.
And since that is the case I have lots of experience with failing - because the "what?" and "how?" isn't intrinsically known.

For that reason I could not avoid (read: I totally could - with more attempts but that would be pointless!) some cycling, could not avoid some meditation with methods to keep things going like typical pragmatic dharma maps describe them. The point however was in my head all along to recognize the most important aspects of cycles, of performed practices and not wait for attainment but just do it as soon as I had good idea and enough skills to do it and maybe most importantly (also because knowing what you want is literally knowing how to get it if you remove all the pesky descriptive mind dwelling in abstract ideas) knowing what I want to accomplish - which still required lots and lots of trial and error and having some more traditional POI cycles.

I wouldn't bother making this topic if not for the fact this very rare attitude.
Heck, knowing myself if everyone done this I would do something else because I'd still want to be somehow different... but who knows. Myself is the hardest person to guesstimate what it would do, always.

Concluding while adding additional info:
- cycles don't happen for magical purpose of enlightening us - they happen because there is an issue in part of mind which cannot turn itself down - and it needs to do it or it will experience dukkha
- fruition is just mind figuring how to turn itself down and switch activity to some other part of mind
- structure of POI/nanas is how it is again not to enlighten us having us to go through some magical pre-programmed stages but because how nervous system typically reacts and solves its internal issues
- issue at hand can be resolved at any time - here I advocate conscious mindful volitional action
- doing it like that is like learning how to drive a car - at first we think and are conscious about every single thing but after a while its just something we barely think about and it just happens - same with all the actions which might be necessary to switch part of mind which are active
- each "active" part of mind has its consciousness
- there exists methods how to do that from within this consciousnesses or by developing various types of meta-consciousnesses... here I am not even suggesting "how" but rather "what" and "why"
- mind is very interconnected and lots of things depend on other things
- when pondering how to do cessation of this whole mass of suffering that exist in it its important to realize that we might try and attempt at its cessation and even for limited time succeed (which BTW practices useful skills!) but to do it right all the parts of mind which are connected need to be involved in our "called fruition" need to be involved
- usually in practice its almost all parts of mind which are active at the time - and to be more precise everything that feels like experiencing any nana

Some time ago I said the best nana and the one I dwell most in is... 1st nana - "Analytical Knowledge of Body and Mind". This is why. Its indication from this nana which are sufficient to start doing something about "body and mind". Until mind gets little "tired" it doesn't cause itself to have any knowledge of itself. It just is. Once the switch or fruition or you could call it "cessation" (though I purposefully avoid this term as it focuses on cessation aspect too much even if its important) is happens the new parts of mind should NOT experience 1st nana or any nana. Not even EQ. The experience of EQ is already giant indicator there is an issue and went for far too long or perhaps was solved by something similar to fruition but on micro-scale and the moment it happens has very specific expressions.

Everything about the so called Enlightenment has one way or another to do with some kind of switching of parts of brain happening in the mind/brain. There is lots of ways to accomplish that and therefore lots of different experiences. From my personal experiences - its much much easier to play with these different ways and different experiences when they are the last thing that mind/brain needs. Having fresh clicking meat... I mean mind/consciousnesses which don't experience issues is the best time to play with switching them around in this or that way, play with triggers for these switches or any number of other things which are pleasant for the same reason of reducing per-unit-of-time activity within the brain like using jhanas (parallel activation of parts of mind... or arising of consciousnesses) or as I always called it "momentary cessations" which by design were designed to halt activity and not necessarily induce any switches in where activity should be after activity is resumed. Though that at times happened anyways.

Maybe as a last thing I mention pink elephant in the room: sense of self.
So.. it by itself is unrelated to dukkha in any way whatsoever so no point in talking about it. I mean sure this faculty is used in wrong ways and usually experiences most issues, etc. but it itself can be solved in the same way as every other dukkha so it doesn't really matter by itself. Not to mention our bodies have their maintenance mode of operation and once part of mind which experience as I always called them "tired neurons" and "routing issues" goes to sleep (undergoes cessation) body will just repair itself and sooner or later (in case of bigger issues) this part of mind will be used again not experiencing such issues. Healing might take longer time than just one time so if when using this part of mind again it still has issues its good to recognize these and do cessation again. Of course having better internal perception of mind allows to use consciousness to resolve some issues even faster but even in this case it isn't something done on active mind.

I mean that any precise actions are best done on mind which is not being used. Kinda like meditation - you don't do tuning of car that you drive in while driving it. Likewise you don't repair car while driving it. There might be impression that its the only sensible way to repair mind because how else would we do it... switch to other part of mind which currently is unused and probably getting its own type of dukkha that arises from lack of sufficient activation and use that to then from this other mind deal with previous mind. Of course its best to not do it right away. Things need to settle in mind, activity in nervous system needs to settle.

Anyways, that is about what I wanted to say.
If you read the whole thing then thanks you for your attention and now re-read this whole post again using fresh attention otherwise it will just mean you lost time reading it and haven't understood a single word.

Interesting post Ni, even though it feels like I pieced it together from the maybe 10% I think I understood. I think I actually have a similar hypothesis to your 'tired neurons' one regarding cycling, but I think about it more as a depletion of neurotransmitters (this is pure speculation): ie in early nanas you sort of gain some ability to direct the mind, using insight to flip it into a model of reality in which every moment is rewarding in itself. This culminates in a&p, in which the mind gains full control over the cookies it bakes itself, at which point it effectively burns through its energy supplies. Then in the DNs, the raw materials slowly build back up in the background until things balance out in EQ, and the cycle starts over again. I have no account of what fruition does in this model though.. When i think of it this way it's as though cycling is a way for the mind to stretch and exaggerate its capacities until it grows dispassionate with all the possibilities. Wether the dispassion or equanimity can happen on a macro scale that puts an end to cycling altogether is still an open question to me, although the highs and lows have trended towards more balance over the years. I feel like whenever I lean into a particularly high powered A&p i tend to crash for longer afterwards, which is in part where my theory comes from (along the lines of something like drug consumption).. anyway, what do you think?

Hi Ni,

Two interesting references for you ! If you can't find the articles, I must have them somewhere, I can email them to you. I think you will like it.

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

Neurotransmitters definitely are involved but imho not necessarily the way we usually think.
Imho low levels of them are symptoms and not cause of the issues.

Imho nervous system is down-regulating activity because some places experience too much of it. Taking anti-depressants which increase levels can works because that stuff can cause activity to happen elsewhere and this can lead to activity to shift from places with issues. It can unfortunately also lead to the affected places to get too much stimulation and without any way to down-regulate which ends like taking anti-depressants some times ends despite promising first results.

In case of nanas imho there is definitely at times too much this stuff being used up during A&P but that is also imho not what causes the issue. Maybe at 5th nana some first effects can be caused by it but later hell that ensues is tired neurons through routing issues we cause during A&P by being perhaps too creative in creating stuff without being mindful (on brain level) how things relate. The same parts of the brain already doing self stuff can stretch their muscle and make all sorts of cool experiences out of thin air causing it all to feel as if we were mega ultra enlightened and everything seemingly coming our way and all feels so real and our mind is already perfectly developed and... it was all just a visualization - creative visualization which can lead to development of new things in the mind but at that point only a visualization and all pointing to parts of mind which are usually already too overburdened by pointers to them existing in mind. Now if we attempt to experience this brilliant mnd we had during A&P it will only add more activity. Not only nothing of the new things we experienced weren't really where we thought they were and nowhere developed as we thought they were but they made lots of connections to itself and mind as a whole, as a person might cling to these experiences thinking that all the dukkha they experience can be resolved by these experiences.
It is then because of this over-stimulation why brain needs to down-regulate neurotransmitters.

Overall however the issue is even more complex. It isn't just momentary suffering of individual neurons which by themselves have bigger issues to worry than lack of stimulation and expected responses caused by not having signal transmission medium. They have ATP running out, potassium calcium levels, internal/external wear of their cell stuff and levels of rare in body micro-elements and other nutrients, to name most obvious. This is an issue and what causes experience of dukkha but there are also issue with the network itself and what I call routing issues. Mind over time experiences "tiredness" of the kind where connections are getting too focused on specific parts of mind and don't go elsewhere to spread activity. There are also positive feedback loops causing some activity to literally blow-up causing immediately over-stimulation. There are much more nuances to this thing and in some cases more relevant like e.g. side activation where consciousness is activated as part of normal waking experience but the way mind naturally shifts activity causes it to experience multiple activations from different parts of the nervous system at the same time or as I call it experience of 'errors'. Its especially related to 3C nana dukkha nanas. This stuff is however resolved in the same way as any other 'routing issues' so overall its mostly something to ponder about to better understand how mind works.

All this stuff need to be repaired. Mind needs a lot of time to sort all that stuff out. When you use parts of the brain which should go to maintenance mode you will have bad time. Now EQ works but it doesn't exactly use the same parts of your nervous system. Not completely different but not exactly the same either. You can quickly fall from EQ to DN by wanting to experience A&P stuff. Less when you aren't very specific and its much harder to even remember A&P stuff from EQ.

Fruition like I said is mostly just large parts of mind being switched to new parts of mind.
It might sound ridiculous in light of this not being widely known fact BUT its not like we can tell. Most people experience hemispheric cycling multiple times a day and yet even though when 'manually' changing these it is obvious how both of these minds are "us" we cannot really even imagine the other mind and assume nothing like that exists. In this light in case of more drastic shift like in case of fruition people attention comes to effects of entrance and mysterious moment and feeling amazing and not that underlying hardware was replaced.

There are reasons for that - consciousnesses are synchronized by attention that 'drives' them and shapes conscious experience a lot. It is possible to develop mind that uses different ways of synchronization... which could be summed "best synchronization is not needing synchronization" and this makes these things easier to notice. While doing that first and advanced meditative tricks like the ones I describe leave for later is sound idea but there is a workaround: All the things mind can do after you could call it self realization or enlightenment or awakening of sorts, etc. it can already do.

Obviously the issue is answering the question "do what?"
Well, practice would be to observe our normal mind as it seems to be there and consider these things:
- its not permanent or solid but actually works in pulses
- the most important parts get activated in these pulses but can get activated outside these pulses also which is in-between moments this normal mind arises
- it is pointless to try to argue with this normal mind as it is or try to make it go away and trying to do so will only make it stronger
- in-between the moments it arises we can in fact do a lot of cool stuff
- discover that stuff mind can do in these moments, try to experience something even if might for the most part feel like nothing... like literally non-experience
- the act of mind doing something need not be of this normal mind and it then lacks certain feedback components which normally kinda confirm action but it doesn't feel any less 'real' and its quite opposite actually

When I say to "do" what fruition does I mean its something done in-between these moments. Done by mind which is still you and you do it but not the mind which normally asserts itself as being you with which you might identify. Its not all there is to mind. Mind is much larger than that, you are much larger

It might take some time to realize relative mastery of it but the amazing thing about this specific practice is that person can practice it at any time. No special prep required. In fact I would say the most efficient way to practice is to "do" stuff outside the cushion because then on-cushion mind is more plastic and it will be much easier to actually accomplish goals. At the same time on-cushion thinking is less focused so its harder to notice some things which require conceptually analyzing them to figure what to do. Even if its harder to do in waking consciousness if you make enough attempts at this time it will be easier later on cushion to not forget what you need to do and then it being easier do it and once its one on cushion then out of cushion it will be this much easier. Rinse and repeat.

I might even add that practicing this way was enough fun to make me just invent things to practice. Once you start feeling your mind its full of things to try out, things to discover and things you can feel it can be improved in how it works e.g. make it more jhanic or specific jhana, control some parameters of perception, etc. You don't need to tire normal mind with giving it something to do. It will when you interact with greater mind just slowly fade away. Or like Buddha put it will run for as long as its actually needed and once it isn't it will extinguish itself.

How is this switching stuff done...
I just talk it out with consciousnesses and agree what needs to be done, why, maybe throw some pointers about how and when to do it and then part of mind when everyone feels they are ready attempt doing it. After doing it for some time everyone gets pretty skilled at such sorts of things.

Well, consciousness operate in many modes but for out purpose its only enough to recognize two modes which I call:
- driver consciousness - its consciousness that we are actually conscious of and it drives its own actions
- executor consciousness - its doing stuff and doesn't expose its own actual consciousness from point of view of driver consciousnesses
Names represent how I called these things years ago. Probably could use improvement... or even finding how these things are called in dharma or something. Still it doesn't really make that much difference what note you slap on to these things.

If part of mind appears totally unconscious then we needs to become conscious of each-other - connect. How to do that one can practice on hand. Everything related to consciousness can be practiced on with consciousnesses in hand, things like jhanas, cessation, etc. I consider having given skill if I can at least can instantly do something it in my hand - like if I could not move my hand I wouldn't say I can move it and likewise if I could not experience hand consciousness in some arbitrary jhana I wouldn't say I know jhanas.

So when we know how to make consciousness conscious of us then only part of the equation is finding part of the mind which isn't active and would want to play with running some electricity through it. Specific type of consciousness in inactive parts of mind is part of 7th jhana experience - it feels completely static. Active consciousness can interact with inactive parts of mind through it to query consciousnesses without waking them up yet. Query mostly for if they would like to be active in this and that role. These can be parts of mind which never did and in this case they will not immediately know how to do it but that's fine when we can afford it. More specifically when certain level of performance we expect from pre-trained consciousness is not required e.g. when operating heavy machinery. Not even because there is faculty loss (its still much better performance than using tired neurons!) but I am mentioning this because vast majority of times it couldn't really cause any issues whatsoever even if using completely new mind for some faculty because in our today's world we are generally very safe. Anyways, parts of mind engaging with new activities always have very specific feeling to it - its the same experience as path fruition.

Now for technical difficulties: It might be hard to disengage running mind because there are signal flows that need to be constantly (read in pulses - so from time to time) handled so consciousnesses which currently engaged in handling these signals cannot just stop and disengage. Best workaround for that is to make new part of mind starting picking activity more actively. As this happens it might cause specific blip when part of mind blanks out. It means nothing except not doing it correctly as it should be smooth sailing without sudden drops caused by signal collisions. One should certainly not optimize for such things as blips. It doesn't matter however for a long as consciousnesses did their dance and what before active now is resting and what wasn't is now part of an active mind. If that didn't happen then it wasn't done correctly.

Because everything about this process is agreed upon in mind it can be made to look fancier like having some specific signal to drive the switch so e.g. prepare everything beforehand and then make actual switch in one moment and its done in one instant. If doing it that way best to not get confused. There isn't any signal which does anything. It only does when agreed upon within the mind. This process of agreement can vary and doesn't even always require much active consciousness of this kind. A lot of the time what we consider consciousness is barely having any. It is good to know and be mindful of it... mindfulness BTW is being conscious and not operating on predetermined impulses. Not that neurons usually care for as long as they get enough food and sleep if they run some reality tunnels or something because these are usually okay. It is however causing whole lot of issues doing if without at least from time to time being conscious of each part of the mind and everything all at once. They, consciousnesses have even more fun when they aren't confused what is what.

Anyways, so that is how I practiced that stuff. Also why no dedicated practices for it. When there is tired consciousness in sight its responsibility of everyone in my mind to do something with it. They know its good system for them ;)

Consciousness = Mindfulness,
Ni

That sounds delirious to me, can you please reformulate?