What is the relationship between the three doors leading to fruition and the path? Does the door say anything about the road ahead? Does everybody who continues the path to awakening eventually go through all doors? Or is it common for one door to dominate the entire journey? What are your personal experiences with regard to this? Is it difficult to go through a new door in the review phase following stream entry? Could trying to do so get the meditator into the new path prematurely because of new insights? If I want to cultivate fruition knowledge, what would you recommend?

I went through the impermanence door with no self as secondary aspect three times. Since then I have been trying to go through the no self door with impermanence as secondary aspect, but I’m having difficulties. Any advice would be welcome.

Also, if anyone who has gone through the no self door would like to share what they did to reach the tipping point, I would appreciate that.

Did any of you start out with the impermanence door, with or without no self as secondary aspect? In your experience, what implications did the door have for your following journey?

Oh, now I get it, that is, what I need to do. It is the same process but in reverse. Instead of following the subjective point and merging with it, I follow the objectification point and merge with it. This turns something seemlingly solid into a subjective vantage point, which dissolves it into a blind spot. Then a new objectification point appears, and I repeat. When I do that, the subjective point moves accordingly, as a biproduct. This makes it apparent on a sensate level that there is no continuous self.

For some reason, this direction of the process is more difficult for me, but I’m starting to getting into more of a flow. Some objectification points come in pairs or clusters, like both ears or both eyes, and different points on both sides. This makes it more bouncy. Maybe that’s a potential for getting fully absorbed in the process in a way that makes me forget that I’m striving for fruition, and for getting into the kind of flux that makes nothing solid for a moment.

This is fascinating.

I still wonder about the overarching questions, though.

I've never really cared too much about the more technical stuff like which door I went through. I tend to notice a few different types of phenomena before the fruition that may or may not have anything to do with doors, but I could be wrong.

For repeats I tend to just try to notice what kind of mind states are associated with fruition. Not really "try" to replicate the conditions but just notice. It really seems to be something that happens when the mind is open and not straining or trying to do anything.

Also cultivating an appreciation for the mental reset, sense of release and the benefits of the actual moment, in the moment, seem to guide the mind toward having more "moments". Sometimes I can't resist after a nice reset telling my wife I "had a moment" in my mediation.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing! Apparently I’m one of those phenomenology junkies, for good and for bad. Getting nerdy about technicalities is a big part of the fun for me. I understand of course that technicalities alone will not do any good. Ii need to forget about that stuff while I’m doing it. The nerd pops out after the fact, eager to document all of it before it is forgotten. There are entirely different processes that do the letting go part that is needed in meditation.

I'm curious about your initial questions as well. Some things that I notice are

1) Visual type freeze-frame stuff before the fruition which I think might be the impermanence door

2) Spacing out momentarily on some thought or vision, forgetting there's a me and whoop (no-self door)

3) Noticing some very clear way that craving is present, then gone, and then fruition (dukkha door)

I only really noticed these clearly during what appears in retrospect to be review of 2nd path.

This is interesting! Yeah, I recognize the freeze frame stuff from the impermanence door. The images sort of freeze for a short moment before changing. This happens three times, and then you’re gone. I saw that very clearly the third time. The first two times there was just a vague notion of a staccato experience of some kind, and I think it was mainly kinesthethic, but I guess that’s also sort of a sequence with freeze frame components.

I often space out like that before I get into the kind of mind state that makes fruitions possible. I used to think that was dullness, but then I noticed a pattern of increased clarity afterwards. So that could actually lead to a fruition as well? Interesting!

Your third example occurred for me prior to my third fruition within the same session, in a way that stood out from what I’m used to, but it didn’t lead to a fruition. There were other things happening inbetween. Cool that it can lead to a fruition! Anyway, first I thought that fruition had a dukkha aspect to it, because falling into a black hole felt like exactly the wrong thing to do, and that’s how Daniel Ingram describes the dukkha aspect. Michael Taft, my teacher, did not agree, though. He said that with the dukkha door there is a sense of feeling very badly that one cannot take it anymore, not a single sensation ever again. Daniel also describes the dukkha door as slow and painful and as having things ripped away from you until you can’t take anymore. I think I’ll try to skip that door if possible. I have felt like that during depressions, though, so maybe it is managable.