Fruitions

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12 years 8 months ago #3116 by Chris Marti
Replied by Chris Marti on topic Fruitions
Yep, I agree.

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12 years 8 months ago #3117 by Dharma Comarade
Replied by Dharma Comarade on topic Fruitions
Okay, I see two distinct and separate issues now:

1. Do the insight maps point to something real and universal and inevitable to any kind of practice of sincere, diligent bare disembedded attention?

2. Can people make mistakes that are detrimental to their practice while working with maps, such as looking for certain things to happen rather than looking at what is actually happening?

I think the answers to both questions is yes and I don't see any reason to discount number one just because number two is true.

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12 years 8 months ago #3118 by Ona Kiser
Replied by Ona Kiser on topic Fruitions


Okay, I see two distinct and separate issues now:
1. Do the insight maps point to something real and universal and inevitable to any kind of practice of sincere, diligent bare disembedded attention?
2. Can people make mistakes that are detrimental to their practice while working with maps, such as looking for certain things to happen rather than looking at what is actually happening?
I think the answers to both questions is yes and I don't see any reason to discount number one just because number two is true.



-michaelmonson


Mike - based on my personal experience only, I think the answer to #1 is "more or less" and the answer to #2 is "yes"

You know what I just thought of? Remember car trips when you were a kid, like driving 800 miles to grandma's house? Here's some mappy stuff: do you need to know the general route so you don't take the wrong exit? Yes. Do you need a GPS tracking every moment of your route on the Interstate? No. Do you need some attention to the map as you approach an exit, so you don't miss it? It helps, but if you miss it you can turn around and go back. Do you need the answer to "Mom, are we almost there yet?" every five minutes? No!

My stupid metaphor of the moment. :D

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12 years 8 months ago #3119 by Dharma Comarade
Replied by Dharma Comarade on topic Fruitions
Do you need to know that you have a grandmother, and that she has a house, and that you'd like to visit her there? And, that her house is in a spot that you are not located in right now?

Or, maybe it would be better to just stay at home on the off chance granny might drop by?

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12 years 8 months ago #3120 by Ona Kiser
Replied by Ona Kiser on topic Fruitions


Do you need to know that you have a grandmother, and that she has a house, and that you'd like to visit her there? And, that her house is in a spot that you are not located in right now?
Or, maybe it would be better to just stay at home on the off chance granny might drop by?

[image]



-michaelmonson


ROFL

Can you be sure she won't drop by? Even if you call in advance she might forget. She's got a bad memory.

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12 years 8 months ago #3121 by Dharma Comarade
Replied by Dharma Comarade on topic Fruitions
But she LOVEs me.

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12 years 8 months ago #3122 by Chris Marti
Replied by Chris Marti on topic Fruitions
"I think the answers to both questions is yes and I don't see any reason to discount number one just because number two is true."

No one has said that here, though.

"Do the insight maps point to something real and universal and inevitable to any kind of practice of sincere, diligent bare disembedded attention?

I don't think this question can be answered in a global way, only in context. Which maps? I read MCTB and I loved reading it. It set me off on a different, very fruitful practice. But at no time did anything I experienced subsequently match the minute detail in MCTB. And again, force fitting everything that might possibly happen to someone into the Theravada maps is, IMHO, turning the map into the territory. It's what we know best so we tend to think "That's it. that's the Way." But is it really?

Why is ti that Theravada maps work for Theravada practitioners, Zen "maps" work for Zen practitioners, Kabbala maps work for Kabbala practitioners and Sufi maps work for Sufi practitioners? All of these folks would probably say what we're saying here; "That's it, that's the Way" about their own maps. So....are they all wrong? It reminds me of the 10,000 versions of God across the world. Which God is the REAL God? Why, mine is!

;-)

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12 years 8 months ago #3123 by Dharma Comarade
Replied by Dharma Comarade on topic Fruitions
I guess I'm against force feeding but still insist that the insight maps are universal if one is practicting continuous bare attention to one's experience with momentum. The bare attentive brain doesn't know that it is zen or theravadan or sufi or kabalan -- when it looks at things in just the right way certain things WILL happen to anyone.

I didn't know there where any kinds of maps in zen or kabala or Sufi that are as detailed as the insight map or that would in any way contradict the insight map assuming one is doing the bare attention practice. I need to look those up.

"I think the answers to both questions is yes and I don't see any reason to discount number one just because number two is true."

No one has said that here, though. -- my mistake, I thought that was what was being said.

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12 years 8 months ago #3124 by Mike LaTorra
Replied by Mike LaTorra on topic Fruitions
"I think the common denominator of any "fruition" experience, regardless of whether it comes out of Chinese Zen or Tibetan Vajrayana or Burmese Theravada, is that it's a step beyond identification in a very thorough way. It's a straight-shot cut through duality. I think that a sense of continuity may be more likely if one is dwelling as primordial awareness, rather than taking consciousness or phenomenal appearances as object."

Yes, Jackson, this is what I believe also.

A fruition can occur without the practitioner maintaining any continuity of awareness. This results in the "reboot" or "mind-blink" experience without any transformation of the practitioner. When the practitioner realizes "primordial awareness" in or during the fruition, then there is continuity of "consciousness" [aka awareness] throughout, even during moments of no experience whatsoever. This is the achievement of "path" at a fairly high level.

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12 years 8 months ago #3125 by Ona Kiser
Replied by Ona Kiser on topic Fruitions
" "I
think the common denominator of any "fruition" experience, regardless
of whether it comes out of Chinese Zen or Tibetan Vajrayana or Burmese
Theravada, is that it's a step beyond identification in a very thorough
way. It's a straight-shot cut through duality. I think that a sense of
continuity may be more likely if one is dwelling as primordial
awareness, rather than taking consciousness or phenomenal appearances as
object."


Yes, Jackson, this is what I believe also.

A
fruition can occur without the practitioner maintaining any continuity
of awareness. This results in the "reboot" or "mind-blink" experience
without any transformation of the practitioner. When the practitioner
realizes "primordial awareness" in or during the fruition, then there is
continuity of "consciousness" [aka awareness] throughout, even during
moments of no experience whatsoever. This is the achievement of "path"
at a fairly high level. "

Are either of you saying it's an experience of nonduality? Just not recognized in some instances, thus experienced as a sort of lapse?

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12 years 8 months ago #3126 by Mike LaTorra
Replied by Mike LaTorra on topic Fruitions


Jackson [awouldbehipster]" "I think the common denominator of any "fruition" experience, regardless of whether it comes out of Chinese Zen or Tibetan Vajrayana or Burmese Theravada, is that it's a step beyond identification in a very thorough way. It's a straight-shot cut through duality. I think that a sense of continuity may be more likely if one is dwelling as primordial awareness, rather than taking consciousness or phenomenal appearances as object."Gozen [mlatorra]: Yes, Jackson, this is what I believe also. A fruition can occur without the practitioner maintaining any continuity of awareness. This results in the "reboot" or "mind-blink" experience without any transformation of the practitioner. When the practitioner realizes "primordial awareness" in or during the fruition, then there is continuity of "consciousness" [aka awareness] throughout, even during moments of no experience whatsoever. This is the achievement of "path" at a fairly high level. "Ona: Are either of you saying it's an experience of nonduality? Just not recognized in some instances, thus experienced as a sort of lapse?

-ona

Well, Ona, we're speaking of something very subtle so I must choose my words carefully. Much depends on the level of development of the practitioner. That's one important point. The other important point has to do with the difference between an experience and a transformation of the practitioner. I assert that a transformation is NOT an experience, but that certain sorts of experiences may be associated with a transformation.

A fruition is one of the sorts of experiences that may be associated with a transformation. What you referred to as "an experience of nonduality" I would call "an experience associated with the recognition of nonduality." Nonduality is always already the case whether someone realizes it or not. So I'm saying that nonduality is a fact, but it is a fact that is not apparent to most people, most of the time. The first few times someone experiences a fruition, that person may not be transformed, but merely have the experience, because he or she is not ripe for the transformation.

Let me quote something else Jackson posted earlier in this thread:
"The vipassana mode some of us practice (whether exclusively or not) involves looking into the nature of phenomenal appearances, noticing some distinct characteristics. This seems to be what leads to the cessation moment we refer to as "fruition".

"BUT, I don't think that this "fruition" is necessarily one of the deep features I mentioned above. I think that it happens as a result of the particular type of practice one engages in.

"Now, if somene practices something more like moment to moment recognition of awareness (e.g. mind-essence, citta, rigpa, Witnessing, etc.), the way the path unfolds at the level of particulars may be quite different."

In my own case, my Zen practice was deeply influenced by "pragmatic Dharma" vipassana via Dan Ingram's book. One morning (and I've told this before so I'll make this a brief summary) while preparing to leave for work, I was moved to inquire non-verbally into the nature of my own experience and identity. I was ripe, as evidenced by certain energetic phenomena which had been gently unfolding during the preceding couple of weeks. When I turned my mind toward inquiring (as if asking "What are these experiences in this world? And who am I who is having them?") fruition occurred in the next moment, and I was completely aware the whole time. I was aware of a moment of emptiness (i.e., no experience whatsoever, not even blackness), followed by a moment of velvety blackness, followed by the reconstitution of my visual field (my eyes had been open the whole time), all with a bliss and radiance that were immensely pleasurable without being overwhelming. Concomitant with the fruition (but not caused by it) was the certain, yet tacit, knowledge in answer to my inquiry. I knew what this world of experience is and who I am. I, the practitioner, was transformed. Yet I also felt slightly embarrassed, because I saw that what I had just "discovered" had been right in front of my face for my entire life, yet I had previously failed to recognize it. Duh!

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12 years 7 months ago #3127 by Ona Kiser
Replied by Ona Kiser on topic Fruitions
Okay, I realize I was so caught up in the mechanistic description of "cessation" (only supported by that quote some posts back from an old text describing a coma-like cessation in which the meditator might remain for days!) that I lately stopped thinking about the context.

MLT, what you say makes total sense, but I'm still not sure whether this means that the "other kind" of fruitions - the hardcore-dharma-cessations are actually the "fruition without recognition" or "non-transformative" type, or something else entirely. In any case, "fruition" as you are describing is not something the meditator makes happen or achieves - they are self-arising.

MLT your explanation also comes back around to something earlier in the thread which I'm not sure I feel 100% clear on. Jackson pointed at this same general idea as what you are saying when he said "my guess would be that the identification mechanism runs out of things
to grab on to or push away - basically, it can no longer sustain itself
by way of reference." and I then asked "If that's the case they would stop at some point? (or become a constant condition, thus not occurring?") and Chris said that seemed to be the case in his experience.

More thoughts?

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12 years 7 months ago #3128 by Chris Marti
Replied by Chris Marti on topic Fruitions
"MLT your explanation also comes back around to something earlier in the thread which I'm not sure I feel 100% clear on. Jackson pointed at this same general idea as what you are saying when he said "my guess would be that the identification mechanism runs out of things to grab on to or push away - basically, it can no longer sustain itself by way of reference." and I then asked "If that's the case they would stop at some point? (or become a constant condition, thus not occurring?") and Chris said that seemed to be the case in his experience.

More thoughts?"

Hmmm....

This is complex territory. I'm going to get very personal for a moment because I'm far more comfortable talking about this from personal experience, and my experience with this phenomena seems to encompass four types of these "things" --

1. The very large SLAM BANG blackout kind that I posted form my journal here. These are few and far between and some do seem to signify path realizations and movements. These are, I think, what MLT is calling "transformative" fruitions. I would agree.

2. The little "blip" kind that I can both induce voluntarily and that also occur naturally at various times on their own and which can come in a kind of staccato chain. They vary is size but none reach the grandeur of a #1 ;-)

3. Nirodha Samapatti - this is induced voluntarily and leads to a slow, very peasant descent into darkness (I'm including this here but I could easily be convinced otherwise. I'm not tied to this one being classified as a fruition but it seems to be of similar pathology)

4. The kind MLT just described. It is, indeed, a sort of blip and I was, indeed, aware the entire time and it did, indeed, reveal the true nature of things and cause the realization that what I was seeking had always been righting front of my nose. It made me laugh out loud. It also made me sort of angry that I had put so much work into something so... freaking... simple. This event seems to have provided an answer and seemed to eradicate a hole in my perception. Before the event I had some innate assumed belief that there was a special thing inside that was, until then, invisible but assumed to be in control of things. After that event the hole was just gone and all things were quite obviously the same with no object or process occupying a privileged or controlling role.

I haven't had any of #1 for a long time. The last was years ago and I was told at the time it probably marked a path transition. The aftermath convinced me that was the case as my entire outlook and view of the universe had changed. I still have #2's pretty often and I can still cause them to occur voluntarily. I have not even tried #3 recently but I have practiced the jhanic arc and it seems to be an exit ramp off of jhana #8, so I assume I can still do #3, but who knows?

My guess is #4 is a one-time event, but I can't say that with any real certainty. It just feels that way.

So, over all, I have far fewer fruitions now that in the past but I am no longer practicing the same way so that may factor into the lack of fruitions. I think that #4 immediately becomes a constant condition, Ona, and the full implications and realization of its power take a long, long time to grok.

Sorry to bore you all with all the personal detail but that's how I think of this stuff and keep things straight.

And, after having decried the detailed maps for the last few days here I am, pretty much validating them!

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12 years 7 months ago #3129 by Jackson
Replied by Jackson on topic Fruitions
First, thank you Mike L. and Chris for openly sharing your experiences. As much as this is frowned upon in the greater Buddhist community, I feel it is really helpful when done skillfully, as you both have done here (in my opinion).

My experience is very similar. In short, the first fruitions I experienced (beginning at what some of us call "stream-entry" were momentary total cessations. There was no continuity. They were usually quite dramatic, and not always comfortable. The reason for this, I suspect, is that the center of gravity for my identification was bound up in the gross mind and body. So, when cessation of mind and body happened, so did "I".

I, like Mike L. and Chris, went through a different kind of developmental shift a while back (I'd have to consult my journal to know exactly when this was, but that isn't really relevant for this post), where I recognized nondual awareness - the deathless. As this became more and more clear to me, the quality of cessation experiences changed. The broad stages of the progress of insight (Mahasi Sayadaw style) are still apparent, though not nearly as pronounced. When cessation/fruition occurs, there is no longer a sense of an utter STOP or blankness. Rather, there is a "blip" that (and this is difficult to describe using language) collapses and re-gathers within the deathless. The continuity of awareness is not like the continuity of gross mind and body, which is illusory. Continuity as a concept doesn't jibe well with timelessness, but its the best word I can think of at this time. "I" as a inherently existing entity am certainly illusory. But "I" as groundless knowing do not arise and pass. My hypothesis is that as one's identification (center of gravity) shifts, the experience of "fruition" changes.

Any sense of this continuity remaining during cessation doesn't sit well with some of the Hardcore Dharma types, nor with some hard-line Theravadins. I'm sure some of them would read what I, Mike L., and Chris have written and think we're reifying consciousness into some kind of Super Self to cling to. I am certain that this is not the case.

Wow, things just got really personal in here, didn't they? :-D

I should add that this should not be read as a proclamation of being "done". I still think that practice and realization are always interwoven. Practice is the recognition and actualization of what is already true, what has always been true.

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12 years 7 months ago #3130 by Ona Kiser
Replied by Ona Kiser on topic Fruitions
This is for me a much more clear distinction.

I might emphasize for my purposes, Chris' examples are not part of some kind of definitive list, but just more clarification on what, for him, he has often included in the general use of the term fruition, and which might or might not fit in with the way the rest of us are using the word in the context of this discussion.

As such I do not consider this "mappy" any more than our list of "qualities of awakening" was supposed to be definitive or comprehensive.

This kind of discussion is "mappy" to me in the same way you might say to someone "there was a lot of traffic on the interstate when we went to Grandma's, especially around Pittsburgh, and construction in the eastbound lanes at night, so keep an eye out for that".

That said, I am pretty sure I do not or have not experienced 2 or 3 in any deliberate way, though perhaps if I were to sit down with Chris and he coached me, I could say "oh, yeah, that's happened before, I just never called it anything".

1 & 4 are familiar, but I would add a distinction which we referred to before, and perhaps Chris would consider #2. That is the spontaneous blips followed by a sense of disturbance, but without insight, which was making sense to me as possibly an unrecognized experience of emptiness or nonduality, which because it was not yet recognized just left a sense of strangeness, fear or "what was that"?

Since Chris is sharing, here's one example of that from my journals a while back:

"At the end of the sit there was one bizarre moment, where suddenly the intense nearly painful ecstatic state suddenly vanished in a way that almost made my ears pop, and for a strange instant the world felt inside out in some way. Not that there was anything visually specific I could point to, it was more like this weird sense that what had been inside me and outside me had in an instant switched places with an elastic snapping, and for an instant after that there was a continuity between "me" and "that" that negated the distinction. It was startling enough that my mouth dropped open and I exclaimed "oh my god!" out loud. But then sat there sort of baffled and staring for a bit because it had been so strange and was completely ungraspable. It didn't linger."

or a month or so later:

"Felt like all sensations and goings on very very distant from me, as if my body filled the room and I was a small point in the center, watching calmly. Sudden snap of world, followed by sheer terror. Panicked, gasping. Talked myself into just noticing how the fear felt, etc. but took me a good while to calm down, eventually laughed at myself a bit. Everything mundane yet somehow untrustworthy, terrifying. Like the scene in a sci fi/horror movie where the characters are innocently sitting on chairs, but YOU know the chairs are actually the evil aliens in disguise, which will be revealed at any moment. Once calmer, strong energies in head continued, irregular and fluctuating. Background weirdness, instability and wariness lingering hard after. Keep telling myself everyone else survived this. Whatever it is will only be scary for a little bit."

Maybe these are like little preludes of the #1 kind, just to keep you on your toes. ;) With the caveat that my practice was always a bit dramatic and colorful, so your mellow Zen mileage may vary quite significantly.

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12 years 7 months ago #3131 by Ona Kiser
Replied by Ona Kiser on topic Fruitions
PS - if you all get too uncomfortable with any of this discussion, just feel free to delete anything I write. I'm totally not bothered by it. I have these conversations privately all the time, and they are very supportive. Sometimes they aren't as useful in a public context.

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12 years 7 months ago #3132 by Dharma Comarade
Replied by Dharma Comarade on topic Fruitions
On things getting "personal."

Huh? First, I don't think things have gotten very personal at all -- just barely.

Second, why all the shyness about being personal? I don't get it. I think forums like this should be about 80 percent personal and 20 percent... what ? ... theory? Intellectual discussions?

Personal is interesting, vital, real. Theory, intellectual discussion, etc. - mostly lifeless and dull.

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12 years 7 months ago #3133 by Shargrol
Replied by Shargrol on topic Fruitions
Ona, have you read the chapter on "the three doors" by Ingram?

http://www.interactivebuddha.com/Mastering%20Adobe%20Version.pdf

"

The suffering door aspect has to do with fundamental attachment,

dropping attachment like a hot coal that one finally realized one was

holding, really letting go, compassion, ultimate bodhichitta, the true love

of God, being purged in the flames, renunciation, relinquishment,

feeling the fundamental queasy tension in the illusion of duality for just

a bit longer than one ever would normally, and that sort of thing. The

suffering door relates directly to “the mind” releasing its fixated hold on

the whole of relative reality and allowing it to fall away, leaving

“awareness” to discover itself. Remember, these words in quotes do not

refer to fixed phenomena or experiences. It can also feel like the sum

total of existence is suddenly ripped away from us. The suffering door

aspect tends to be the most unsettling or wrenching of the Three Doors,

the most death-like.

"

"

When the suffering aspect predominates and is combined with the

emptiness aspect, again, the toroid thing happens, except that it can be a

quite distorted or cone-like. The universe can rotate up or down and

away from us, so that the primary experience is of an image falling from

this side, though with the hint that it might be coming back around to

this side. When the suffering door aspect predominates with

impermanence present, then the three moments in which the universe

is ripped away from us are distinct. When the suffering door

predominates, the experience is always a bit creepy."

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12 years 7 months ago #3134 by Chris Marti
Replied by Chris Marti on topic Fruitions
Not "mappy" so much but I'm thinking now I might just be fill of shit about the maps not having a lot of globally applicable material.

All hail another come-uppance!

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12 years 7 months ago #3135 by Chris Marti
Replied by Chris Marti on topic Fruitions
Mike, I just don't want to bore people and sometimes posting a lot of personal detail is taken in ways it's not intended. Okay?

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12 years 7 months ago #3136 by Dharma Comarade
Replied by Dharma Comarade on topic Fruitions


Not "mappy" so much but I'm thinking now I might just be fill of shit about the maps not having a lot of globally applicable material.
All hail another come-uppance!

-cmarti


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12 years 7 months ago #3137 by Ona Kiser
Replied by Ona Kiser on topic Fruitions
@shargol - I read MCTB years ago, and not since. It might be interesting to re-read it now. It initially was one of several (unrelated) things that motivated me to practice more diligently, and eventually with a teacher.

It was funny, though, the deeper I got into practice, the more I didn't read. I found theory and discussion offputting and confusing, like way too much information. I relied instead on my own experiences and supportive conversations with a few colleagues and my teacher. These were in no way "boring" but rather hugely helpful (when, for example, a person who had not been through fear in meditation might say "well why don't you stop meditating?" rather than explaining the reasons why fear might arise and good strategies for being with it).

My practice has sort of mellowed in recent months, and I am now finding it interesting to read stuff, which instead of being a distraction or baffling complexity feels like a clarification. I also work as a writer, so sometimes I have about zero eye-capacity
left for reading at the end of the day, and choose audio-books when
possible.

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12 years 7 months ago #3138 by Jackson
Replied by Jackson on topic Fruitions


On things getting "personal."
Huh? First, I don't think things have gotten very personal at all -- just barely.
Second, why all the shyness about being personal? I don't get it. I think forums like this should be about 80 percent personal and 20 percent... what ? ... theory? Intellectual discussions?
Personal is interesting, vital, real. Theory, intellectual discussion, etc. - mostly lifeless and dull.

-michaelmonson


Mike, I know you benefit from the sharing of personal experience. I think a lot of people do. But, I think some people go about it in ways that are less than helpful. And, whether it should or not, it tends to deteur me from wanting to get really personal in such a public space. I'm usually a lot more open in private conversations between friends. Anyone and their mother can read this stuff, and it easy to take out of context. I'm still relatively inexperienced at this whole "public sharing" thing, so I try to be careful - perhaps TOO careful at times.

It's nice to hear your opinion, though.

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12 years 7 months ago #3139 by Ona Kiser
Replied by Ona Kiser on topic Fruitions




Personal is interesting, vital, real. Theory, intellectual discussion, etc. - mostly lifeless and dull.


-michaelmonson


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12 years 7 months ago #3140 by Ona Kiser
Replied by Ona Kiser on topic Fruitions
@jackson I think there's a big difference between flaunting some experience like you should get a trophy, or be considered special (which no one here does, imo), and sharing. But there should likewise be no shame is saying "I had this or that experience and it sounds like what so and so is describing" or "the thing so and so is talking about reminds me of this experience, and I dealt with it this way, so maybe that is helpful?"

Unless you don't want your mom or boss to know. Then again, if you've had bad experiences with that kind of thing before, makes sense you might be uncomfortable with it. Then there's teenagers today, who account for their every thought on Facebook without hesitation.

I am btw always happy to talk to any of you offsite if you want to.

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