Kasina Object for Concentration Meditation

For the Rotating Snakes image... It stops if you slightly cross your eyes towards your nose, simultaneously paying attention to the breath, while not focusing in on any of the black dots at the centers of the circles.

I'm not sure if that's true.
As far as I understand, even an enlightened being would see moving optical illusions. The difference would be that they wouldn't regard this perception as inherently real (even if they didn't know it was an illusion), seeing it as dependent on conditions, impermanent and insatisfactory.

I'm not saying we can't see this image without seeing the moving optical illusion, but that in both cases they are dependent on conditions.

If I'm talking nonsense, please correct me.

I can stop the motion pretty easily by letting my eyes relax and my vision become more panoramic and less focused. I'm in a noisy room right now and after about 30 breaths my eyes tend to want to focus, so I have to exert a moment of effort to get back to panoramic.  I don't think this is tied to a stage of awakening so much as way of holding your eye muscles. I'm pretty sure I'm pre-path, though I've posted before trying to figure out some cessation-like things, so it's possibly, but unlikely, that I've had MCTB SE.

Hi Sloane!

In what way is MCTB SE different from the "other" SE? I'm confused now.

respectfully,
C

I tried doing that but as I breathed, at certain points, the movement started.

I'm not sure how the image would appear to be for an enlightened being because I haven't asked one.

So you can stop the motion for one full in-and-out breath or does the motion start in the middle somewhere? Stopping the motion for a short time is easy but when you have to concentrate on the breath also, then it is a different matter.

Hi Connie, 

That's a pretty big question, and I haven't spent enough time studying it to give a proper answer, but the short answer is that there is some disagreement about whether the paths that are described in MCTB line up with the traditional Therevadan paths.  The suttas describe 10 fetters that fall away upon attainments of paths. This might be helpful. I've heard some discussion that MCTB 4th Path may actually line up with what is stream entry in this fetter model. I think this sounds plausible but would need to look into it more to be certain.  In any case, any self dharma diagnosis I've done is based on MCTB/Kenneth Folk models only, so I think it's useful to specify that I'm referring to MCTB SE in my post above. Hope that's helpful, you can probably find a much more thorough explanation by searching for "fetter model" on the boards.

Yes, I can stop the motion for many full in and out breaths as I mentioned above. But I may have misunderstood your initial post - I can do this by focusing on the visual image and keeping my vision panoramic. While I have some awareness of the breath, I am not fully concentrating on my breath at the same time as I would doing anapana.

Ok. I was talking about fully concentrating on your breath at each and every instant. What happens when you fully concentrate on your breath? Do you start to see movement?