Hello everyone,
I'm about to embark on a 14 days solo retreat with the goal of attaining stream entry, so I'm looking for a guide on mastery of review and fruitions.

Here's a past thread link on repeating fruitions.  

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/11989038

If you're still working on attaining stream entry though you might be better served by thinking about how to work with the poi stages, and stabilize equaminity, ect.

Thanks T DC for the links and thanks Jim for the great tips on dukkha investigation.

I've expanded a bit on my questions about the specific of streamentry in another post.

Nice! is this your first retreat?
Good goal but don't overdo it and burn yourself out.
First get to stream entry, then work from there.
Tips,
Noting is great but as you speed up drop the noting/labeling if you can stay on track, go back to labeling whenever you need to.
Get to EQ and realize that there are many stages within that. A lot of people spend as much time within EQ as it took to learn how to get to EQ.
High EQ is about letting go and letting it just happen, stop noting and just relax and things will get dreamy but keep from falling asleep.
All the training of investigation will do the work if you have done well.
As you look into sensations really spend time on each sensation that seems to be
- you
- permanent
- satisfying
Stay on any of these sensations and watch as they eventually change and become "empty". Revisit these things over and over to ensure they continue to dissolve. That is the process that turns into automatic/effortless subconsciousness rewiring of the brain.
Remember that you are working on enjoying this stuff, it is not about grinding to hard and punishing yourself. Suffering happens on its own at times but just keep smiling and enjoy yourself, otherwise you end up associating meditation as a chore/negative/suffering/ blah blah blah. Keep focus and intensiveness high but don't beat yourself up. Notice where your balance is. Stand, walk, eat, lay back and keep being aware of each moment as it happens.
If you get to stream entry, then worry about review and repeating fruitions.
"Review" just naturally happens so no big deal. Fruitions also happen on its own, so dont worry about "mastery". Just play with it and see what happens as it happens.
As you get close, fear will kick in often but worse then fear is the excitement that pulls you out of EQ. Its funny that we get over fear so easy compared to the excitement feeling SOMETHING is HAPPENING! oops missed it. Just laugh and set it up again.
Good luck!
~D

Really appreciate the reply and tips DreamWalker.

I’ve done 2 ten days metta retreat and some shorter one(I add more detail about my practice in this post:  https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/23443660). After 2 A&P 8 and 6 years ago, I suspect being in Reobservation with some glimpses of EQ. I’m very inexperience with insight practice so I’m taking these 2 weeks as an experiment. Of course learning from the dukkha nanas and letting them behind sound great.

I think my reob is one of these really vibratory. Do you think that looking the vibrations of sensations can produce good insights into impermanence?
I’m mostly working on impermanence and noself with minor attention to insatisfactoriness. Should I work more with it in your opinion? For exemple my headpressure and the awareness contractions makes it easy to tune into aversion and see into his impersonality but it amplify my headpressure.

Definitely listen to DreamWalker's advice. Everything he said is something that was of practical relevance to me when I was mastering EQ.

I found it helpful to have a landmark to know when I was in High EQ. Basically, EQ has this "Mini Dark Night" where everything is still open and spacious yet feels somehow out-of-phase, like you are watching your experience from behind a pane of glass. I found it frustrating but fine compared to the DN. After you've been in this stage for a while and then the out-of-phaseness is replaced by something wide, even, neutral, and kind of ordinary, that is High EQ and is your cue to start dialing back the effort.

I would also HIGHLY suggest reading this short compilation of Shargrol's writing on diagnosing SE: https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#apeventformlessrealmscessation
It covers some things that I'm not sure are ever mentioned in MCTB, like how you can have an A&P event happen while in EQ! Especially if you are trying hard to make something happen. There were times in EQ when I felt like I had to see impermanence more clearly and tried to notice faster and faster and... BOOM! Back to the A&P, and had to climb all the way back up again through the dukha nanas.

Regarding ReObs, the way I handled it pre-SE was I would basically try really hard and throw every technique I knew of at it until I realized there was nothing I could do that would work and I would give up... and then TA DA! Low EQ. The first time I got to stable EQ was the second the retreat I was on officially ended because I finally gave up on getting out of ReObs. There really does seem to be something about genuine, utter defeat that is the door out of ReObs. I would later develop the equanimity and sensitivity to reactive emotions that let me get through ReObs without it being a big deal, but that took time and many more cycles.

Personally, I am a big fan of suffering/unsatisfactoriness as the central theme of investigation, but I'd say go with whatever interests you. Yeah, I find my head pressure increases if I focus on it specifically. One tip I would give for investigating suffering is to focus on the resistance to the aversive sensation, rather than the aversive sensation itself. For example, if the pressure in my head is annoying me, I'll often find that there is a sensation of annoyance somewhere in my neck, back, chest, or stomach that is the real problem. Just something to think about.

Interesting, do you mean that one may experiene fear, even though while in equanimity, because one is close to stream entry? Or is the fear due to the exploring of new territory of equanimity?

Best,
Johan

All the POI stages are within EQ but there is more EQ OKness as you go thru them and personal variance of which stages affect you more. So knowledge of fear is there.

As you approach rewiring your subconscious processes they will feel threatened sometimes and fear of all sorts of bullshit can happen. Don't buy into your fear stories and get off the goal...
There is a lot of different experiences but don't let this be scripted or surprised if it happens....just keep going and trust that everything is fine, because it is.
~D

Vibes are a good sign that your moving along.
You're ignoring what I wrote. I said look into -
Permanence
Anything that seems like you
Satisfactory sensations
Try doing my tips and see if there are any problems. Reread it again. If it works for you great. If not do whatever work for you.
Good luck,
~D

The 3C are still a bit new to me in practice and I'm still getting my head around them. Sorry if it seems I was ignoring your advises, it absolutely makes sense to focus on where the illusion is stronger and systematically dimatle it. I will try to proceed in this way. 
Best regards, 
Vassili 

Check out Kenneth folks writing
 link-

Could you try to explan a bit more about this phase? I still have problems understanding what is really meant by out of phase.

Pointing out the great way have retreats for this I think. Same goes for Daizan skinner, using three days (lol) for having that first insight with about 60% having the breakthrough. 2 Part formula is used in Pemako and sometimes happen from few days to a week, its an upcomming course on it soon I can post to you if you like. Not meaning to mess up your 2 weeks, but it is possible, and if you should feel like some help later on, its all there Awesome motivation  

Hm, interesting. I thought the review phase and the repeat fruitions were from Theravadan maps on the progress of insight. Fruition is of course something that happens regardless of tradition, when a practice comes to fruit, but it seems to be interpreted in very different ways. What kind of fruitions are you referring to here, and what would a typical review phase look like for the practices you are talking about? I would be very interested in comparing notes to "triangulate" the dharma.  

Linda  
I just read the start of the post and some comment. He begins by saying he want to attain stream entry within 14 days, all the three things I refer to here has that goal and thought it could be helpfull. 
Reg Mastery and fruition I am not sure what he means, like how it is "post-stream entry"? 

Ah, you were referring to the stream entry part. Then I'm with you. Thanks for clarifying!

Daniel (Ingram) writes about fruition knowledge as something that you can master at specific points of the PoI map, and the way he formulates it, it is pretty specifically focusing on precision with regard to repeating cessations and seeing clearly the entering of them and coming back from them, possibly also duration of the cessations. Fruition knowledge is part of mastering the review phase, but the latter is wider as it covers the whole terrain of the path leading up to that attainment, in this case stream entry, and usually also a greater access to the jhanas (so it's a great time for shamatha). 

Ok. Pol map, what is that?
Hmm, so you have stream entry, and then you go back/learn that cessation spesifically? Or, mastering the spesifics of that cessation, so could be that "level" of less clinging, or the fethers f.ex? 

Hi Oskar! Thanks for sharing the 2 part formula and Daizan 3 day retreat, really interesting approach, I will totally give them a shot in the future. I listen to Daizan interview on Guruvking podcast some time ago, increadible guy! Seems to me that those contemplation could lead in the "I M" realization terriory?(http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html) I would love hear Soh Wei Yu opinion on this.


note for mods: My Dho website turned in Japanese for some reason and I dont have any idea of how to turn it back.

They use the contemplation "who am I?", but it seems to go fast as some people use years on getting through that Koan, using some neuro science stuff in how they do the koan for maximum effectivity  
I don't know if they realize that unchaning "I AM" awarness, to me it sounds like just the "ordinary" stream entry shift. I think sometimes you get both in I Am, and sometimes not and people end up in zombie self inquiry mode for decades and just achieve stillness of mind. One will bump into I AM later on the path, so no problem worrying about it if you ask me, get your stream entry and then its on! 
​​​​​​​

PoI stands for Progress of Insight. It is used in the Mahasi Sayadah tradition, among others, and is described in Daniel's book MCTB2. It's a map that is very often referred to at this forum. I haven't mastered fruition knowledge so I can't tell really what difference it makes, apart from increasing technical skills and (assumingly) deepening stuff. Maybe someone else can share more specific knowledge?

But yeah, cessations tend to happen more than once for each path. I would guess that the first one has the greatest impact, but there are most likely further nuances to delve into. Personally I find that when I have repeat fruitions from an earlier path, that helps clear pathways that I have started to mess up again. So a bugfix perhaps. Or a follow-up cleansing. Also, there are a variety of different doors to cessations, and they all have their different twists on insights, so going through different doors should at least theoretically broaden the awakening, I would assume. Also, it's interesting, if one is nerdy about the experiences. 

I'm not totally buying the fetters model, even though I believe it has important points to it. What I said above about messing up pathways can probably be described in terms of fetters, at least partly. So yeah, I guess that repeating cessations could help with fetters. I don't know exactly how or to what extent or even if it is at all accurate. I do know that at new paths I have gone through changes that have remained, taking away suffering. I also know that in addition to those remaining changes, there have also been temporary changes. Maybe with mastery of fruition knowledge more changes would have remained. I really don't know. 

Ok, thanks for clearifying, though this is mostly unfamiliar territory to me. Does Daniel give elaboration on cessation in his book as well as nirodha-samapatti which as I understand it is The cessation of therevada domain?

So fruition is what you can "do" after a path attainment? I should read Daniels book, or re-read the stuff I read many years ago, to keep on track in this forum

Basically, when you reach Stream Entry you successfully complete a full cycle of the progress of insight, up to equanimity and then gain the insight resulting in stream entry.  The resulting "fruition" is the unique way this attainment manifests - a momentary gap in conciousness followed by a powerful wave of bodily bliss. 

​​​​​​​And also very uniquely, after Stream Entry we can repeat this fruition experience by meditating our way back up through the prior progress of insight stages, up to equanimity and then achive repeat fruitions.  It has no further effect on insight, but it is a very pleasurable experience and cool meditative skill.  Mastering this skill = mastery of fruition. 

Aight, thanks for clarification. 

Basically according to the Daniel Ingram/ Pra Da map you basically master fruition in late second path, then third path gives you more fruition skills. 

I think it's important to make a distinction between "fruition knowledge" and cessation. In my experience I had a million cessation events even before stream entry with no fruition knowledge. My log I mention all kinds of clicks, blips, stops, and what not, but the actual first time Nibanna is realized, that's stream entry. It takes away doubt becase it's based on first hand experience directly comprehended. You have to properly comprehend the cessation event or else it's a "near miss" event or something that maybe the mind takes note of but doesn't deem particularly important. 

Helpful tips for people having cessations but not fruition knowledge:
the cessation tells you something very directly - you are gone but somehow there is awareness of this fact. The mind sees the mind shut off and comprehends directly that everything experienced is direct result of mind's activities. The sense of continuity in the sense of existence itself is broken. This is very simple, how else will you lose belief in a self unless you see it disappear? If you are having these cessation like-experiences it helps in terms of the knowledge and understanding sinking in, to do a basic analysis of what seemed to happen, then the mind next time it happens will take notice, maybe learn something else, and if you keep doing that eventually the cessation experience becomes the Fruition of stream entry. The first time I had a Fruition and the event that I consider Stream Entry was  a cessation (which I had already been having, and my teachers had told me as such-they were cessation without fruit) but this time there was Fruition knowledge and Nibanna. When there is fruition knowledge there is a very clear bliss that is not simply the bliss of piti or some mundane bliss, it's the bliss of knowing directly that the mind creates reality and the self is a fabrication. There is a temporary glimpse of Nibanna and then that's actual stream entry. 

   

If that's the case, then I do have fruition knowledge. No doubt about that. 

I have had lots of blips before my two path moments as well, so I had actually been wondering about that. 

My practice history around path attainments doesn't fit the model being described here today. I had no "blips" at all until I had one large cessation/fruition signaling first path. Thus, I don't think we can generalize about this stuff. Blips can be something other than cessations, and diagnosing blips is, well, I'm not sure how one would do that reliably.

Sigma, can you give us more information about how your teachers were able diagnose cessation events without the benefit of an accompanying  fruition experience?

I wasn't implying you didn't know this Polly, hope you didn't take it that way. 

I didn't take it that way at all, but rather the opposite. I wasn't sure what was meant with fruition knowledge, so your description made me more confident. 

​​​​​​​And thanks!

Good question. I had two teachers who were partners. The events in question I reported to them, especially before a retreat with Tucker Peck I told him the phenomenology of those events. They often seemed like a momentary break of conscious awareness that were otherwise inconsequential. It would be like a small little hiccup or blip, which was pretty clearly perceived as a discontinuity, but otherwise there was no sense of the event being odd, or particularly leaving an impression on the mind, or the corresponding stage-related reffects of the progress of insight. They would often happen in an energetic state with high clarity and would seem like a zap, or there might be a jolt afterward even, but nothing like Nibanna as I now understand it.

I reported to Tucker Peck during a long car ride back to his house before my 12 day solo retreat there that I was having these events and I wasn't sure what they meant because they seemed like cessations but I didn't feel like they meant much. He told me they were cessations (what else would you call them?) and then we talked about whether I was a Sotapanna and he said straight up he didn't think I was. 

Later, I reported my experiences of doing TMI meditation on the mind, and I reported to Upasaka Upali another cessation experience, (which I know now was cessation and fruition), but an early understanding- I would be meditating on mind, there would be a blackout and a discontinuity, and then the energy changed in a very obvious way, there was a surge of blissful clarity and it seemed like the mind entered a different mode. I reported it like that and the diagnoses was cessation, I didn't ask if it was stream entry because it was a group Q and A, but in later meeting with him I continued doing the same thing, had more of the similar experiences, and I came to understand Fruition more completely. During this period I had a solidifying experience that was a massive, clearly comprehended, perfect death cessation through the no-self door, while meditating on mind, with clearly perceived formations, and I then was able to see the three doors and also see clearly how a momentary craving-less experience directly precedes cessation. And I saw how after the cessation and the fruition glow, there was an understanding of what was temproarily absent-the self-based clinging, and a direct understanding of that as the source of dukkha. Very direct and obvious, experiential, not intellectual. That's Fruition, and after some of that I discovered easy access to Jhanas 1-4 and would spontaneosuly cycle and have full Fruitions, spontaneously, in all situations.  

My theory is that Good Teachers can diagnose people  just by sitting with them for 5 minutes and having them describe their experiences. It's like when you have a PhD in organic chemistry, you can sit in a meeting and without hearing the end of a sentence of a person talking, you can tell whether they are on the business side of the company or a scientist. You can also tell a BS chemist from a MS chemist from a PhD chemist from a full Scientist from a few sentences of exchange. Anyone who is an expert in any field can attest to this. It's the same with realization, you can simply tell if a person has an understanding if you yourself have a deeper or at least equivalent understanding. You can't distinguish levels of understanding beyond your own if you don't have that same understanding. 

 Now, that's just how I understand things and I really have no flag to post here. I only recently started working with people myself and I am not an experienced dharma teacher, so I can't really say much about how dharma teachers in general diagnose these things. But I would assume direct knowledge goes without saying as being a prerequisite.  I suspect that some dharma teachers are diagnosing people wrong, but I  

 So, I think I was a bit presumptuous about my knowledge of the stages in my post above. I'm very good at writing articulately, and that can give the illusion that I know a lot more about what I'm saying than I actually do. Looking back, my motivation in writing that was probably to reinforce my ego's identification with being at a certain level of practice. Evening worrying about what "out-of-phase" means may even be on the wrong track. My best advice is to ignore anything I've posted and to read and follow the practice advice from Shargrol and others who know what they're talking about.

I've heard it can be helpful to observe what it feels like to be confused, and see if you can have equanimity with the confusion.