Stages on the Way to Cessation

I'd like to report on my experiences of late so that others might be able to avoid the little traps and some of the confusion I've experienced. Turns out I've been experiencing Theravada fruition/cessation for a while now, but was unaware of what it was. I was practicing steadily using Daniel Ingram's MCTB as my guide. One day I was sitting when everything whooshed into the object I was concentrating on, a very brief complex image appeared like a flash and then everything, and I do mean everything, winked out of existence. This was like hitting the off switch on your computer. Then, just as fast, everything rebooted and came back online. This winking out has continued to happen to me ever since. A week or two ago I described this process to Kenneth only to find, to my surprise, that this was pretty clearly cessation after obtaining first path.

Odd as it may seem, I had no idea this was what had been going on. I've been talking to Kenneth and have made a commitment to focus my practice on this ongoing process and report back here on my experiences as I try to become much more familiar with the stages of insight I'm cycling through every time the cycling occurs. This is my very first report:

I sat down to meditate this afternoon and immediately noticed that the vibrations and sensations I could feel were at a gross level. My intent was to try to invoke whatever series of insight steps I could... on the way to a cessation. What I can already report is that there is a very clear series of stages that do occur, although I'm not yet familiar enough with them to describe them all in great detail.

I've already mentioned the first stage, which seems to correspond with A&P. There are lots of bright lights in my field of vision and an energetic jumping around of my attention. Pretty soon this stage smoothed out and I I could feel my extremities very clearly, especially my feet for some reason....

... where there was a coolness and yet a very slight vibratory sensation. After that stage was established pretty clearly things seemed to happen fast: there was a stage during which noises were very pronounced, clanky and disturbing. There was a stage in which the colors in my field of vision turned completely white and smooth, and then a stage where the white faded to dark grey and a dark horizontal red line with a dot in the middle appeared.

Shortly after that a giddy feeling showed up and fast vibrations, centered on my forehead, arose. The vibrations crept slowly up from my forehead to the top of my head while the giddy feeling followed my breath up and down, waxing and waning in intensity. My breath slowly became more regular and deeper and the giddy feeling grew and grew, until at some point everything went POP, there was another brief flash of a bright, complex image and the lights wink out, followed after a fraction of a second by that same "rebooting" feeling as the world popped back into existence.

I was able to make it through what I believe were the same series of stages twice this afternoon.

As I practice this progression of stages more over the next few days and weeks I'll report back on whether or not I can make the stages stand out separately better and, as Kenneth tells me I should be able to do, call up each stage independently as I become more familiar with them.

- A newbie in the throes of learning something.

Chris,
Thanks for sharing this detailed description of your experiences, it's very helpful.
I'm looking forward to reading your ongoing reports of progress. The unfolding of an adventure!

I had a new experience this morning while practicing. Instead of a single "pop" I experienced a fulttering, eyeballs-up-in-the-head kind of denoument to the process. Same stages pretty much, although prior to the fluttering there was an extended period of quiet, peaceful and easy observation. Also, I seem to notice clearly now that a fruition/cessation means the end of something and the beginning of something else. I wasn't able to see that until I started paying attention closely, although I can't imagine it wasn't there all along.

Kenneth, is this new fluttering experience another door to fruition/cessation? It's actually quite easy to call it up again after experiencing it. All I seem to have to do is make the decision to have the experience and it comes pretty quickly after that.

Thanks!

Hi Chris,

I know you directed your question to Kenneth, but I thought I'd chime in. Hope that's OK.

Not long after I got Second Path, Kenneth and I had a conversation at the DhO about the three doors to fruition and how we experience them ( dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/thread/2583865/Dukkha+Cessation ). From what I can tell, the fluttering cessations you experienced sound like anicca (impermanence) fruitions. We didn't say much about anicca door fruitions, so it was easy to paste the relevant information below...

Me: "... From what I can tell, the anicca, or "impermanence" cessations are the most difficult for me to get a good look at. There's quick flashing, and then I come to with a sort of disoriented feeling for just a moment."

Kenneth: "... Anicca cessations feel to me as though some force has taken hold of my brain at the third eye area, and is rapidly wiggling my mind in and out of nibbana. They are very pleasant, and can last for several seconds. They seem to require a very subtle effort to sustain."

Helpful?

~Jackson

That helps a lot, Jackson. Thanks! It's very close to what I experienced this morning, especially the "wiggling" language. Fluttering is close, wiggling is better

I assume the third eye area is in the center of the forehead?

"That helps a lot, Jackson. Thanks! It's very close to what I experienced this morning, especially the "wiggling" language. Fluttering is close, wiggling is better

I assume the third eye area is in the center of the forehead?

"

Hi Chris,

Yeah, the Third-Eye chakra is also called the Brow chakra. When energy is heavy in this nexus, the sensations stretch from just below my eye-brows up to the middle of my forehead. During Second Path, fruitions occurred when energy that was blocked up in the Brow/Third-Eye chakra transitioned up to the Crown chakra. Strange, huh? The more we pay attention to these things the more they show up.

~Jackson

Thanks for the report, Chris, it's helpful to read accounts of the experiences of others as they progress along different stages and discover new territory. I'm looking forward to future installments - congrats!

"During Second Path, fruitions occurred when energy that was blocked up in the Brow/Third-Eye chakra transitioned up to the Crown chakra. Strange, huh?"

That's a very accurate description, Jackson, of what I am facing on pretty much every sit.. There is a "tension" that builds right in that area and until cessation it stays, both on and off the cushion. It may be stronger or weaker, but it's there.

Thanks for your contributions. And thanks, too, to n8sense.

There was a long period of time when I was experiencing a pressure at my bai hui point. The crown of my head. And a tightness in my face. The pressure at the crown is gone now. but the tightness in the face sometimes I still feel. I'm looking forward to getting back to practice; and continuing the process. It will be useful to be able to check in here once those psychophysical processes start to get going again.

A funny (as in odd) thing just happened. I'm sitting here reviewing my own descriptions of my experiences and just reading this topic has caused me to enter another cycle. I've got that giddy feeling all of a sudden and the tension in my forehead again. I think I'll go sit with this and see what happens...

Note to self: you can overshoot a cessation. You can be concentrating too hard and in the wrong "way." Hold things lightly. There is no need to bear down. Let the breath breathe itself!

"
Note to self: you can overshoot a cessation. You can be concentrating too hard and in the wrong "way." Hold things lightly. There is no need to bear down. Let the breath breathe itself!

"

Ah ha! Yes. An excellent reminder.
Let the breath breathe itself!

Items to report from last night's sitting: there is a stage that introduces significant feelings of nausea. A real churning,sick feeling in the stomach. Must be Disgust. Then a stage which induced some twitches in my legs and a strong desire to get up and go somewhere, anywhere. I assume that is Deliverance, but I'm not sure.

One thing is becoming very certain: fruition/cessation brings a definite change of mental state and what I'll have to call outlook for want of a better term, and it is this change of outlook that seems to mark the cessation as much anymore as it is the cessation itself, as these seem to be getting less and less clear as I experience them more. I guess paying attention has that effect. Not sure. They used to be Big Events, then speed bumps, now they're kind of like running over a garden hose with my car.

"They used to be Big Events, then speed bumps, now they're kind of like running over a garden hose with my car."-cmarti

Chris, this is brilliant! This is exactly what I mean by the "wow factor." Any new experience in meditation causes a big "Wow!" But after awhile, it's not a big deal. How many times are you going to laugh at the same joke? It's the mind's natural tendency to get bored with things over time that enables us to move on to the next level. As soon as all of the phenomena of 1st Path are routine, we move on to the Progress of Insight that leads to 2nd Path, etc. If we allow ourselves to let go of each new "Wow!" phenonenon in this way, we move inexorably toward arahatship. If we let go of even arahatship, we fall into that which cannot be further reduced.

""They used to be Big Events, then speed bumps, now they're kind of like running over a garden hose with my car."-cmarti

Chris, this is brilliant! This is exactly what I mean by the "wow factor." Any new experience in meditation causes a big "Wow!" But after awhile, it's not a big deal. How many times are you going to laugh at the same joke? It's the mind's natural tendency to get bored with things over time that enables us to move on to the next level. As soon as all of the phenomena of 1st Path are routine, we move on to the Progress of Insight that leads to 2nd Path, etc. If we allow ourselves to let go of each new "Wow!" phenonenon in this way, we move inexorably toward arahatship. If we let go of even arahatship, we fall into that which cannot be further reduced."

Amen.

Two days away, two days full of meetings and dinners and the like. No time to sit down and meditate. While these trips mess with my regular schedule it might not be such a terrible thing to take a break once in a while.

I'm now more aware of the stages that I'm moving through as I go through each day. This past weekend was a wild ride which I believe was spent almost entirely in the stage that causes nervous breakdowns This means I was very bothered/angered/frightened by a lot of things, especially loud noises and things going on outside my direct field of vision, mainly quick movements. Saturday was thus a bad day to go see "District 9."

After a sitting session yesterday evening something different: a pronounced zinging/tingling at the top of my head and all the way down my back. This lasted for quite some time and caused me to twitch, shiver and shake enough that my wife asked me what was going on. That never happens, so the effect was pretty pronounced. I went to sleep with the tingling still going on. The nagging pressure right in the middle of my forehead is now completely gone. Cessation was different, too, with a longer than normal period of time spent in a much darker, quieter place prior to it, and a very, very bright flash of very, very bright plain white light. The tingling sensations started almost immediately afterward. Something is different now and I'm hoping time and more sitting will tell me what it is. My general mental state is more reserved and quiet today and my mind seems more still than it has in a long time.

"
After a sitting session yesterday evening something different: a pronounced zinging/tingling at the top of my head and all the way down my back. This lasted for quite some time and caused me to twitch, shiver and shake enough that my wife asked me what was going on. That never happens, so the effect was pretty pronounced. I went to sleep with the tingling still going on. The nagging pressure right in the middle of my forehead is now completely gone. Cessation was different, too, with a longer than normal period of time spent in a much darker, quieter place prior to it, and a very, very bright flash of very, very bright plain white light. The tingling sensations started almost immediately afterward. Something is different now and I'm hoping time and more sitting will tell me what it is. My general mental state is more reserved and quiet today and my mind seems more still than it has in a long time.

"

Hi cmarti,
Good work. Continue.

And please keep us informed of how you're doing. If adverse effects arise (due to the energies you're experiencing veering into the wrong channels) we can help.

Best wishes!

I veered into the wrong channel???

"I'm now more aware of the stages that I'm moving through as I go through each day. This past weekend was a wild ride which I believe was spent almost entirely in the stage that causes nervous breakdowns This means I was very bothered/angered/frightened by a lot of things, especially loud noises and things going on outside my direct field of vision, mainly quick movements. Saturday was thus a bad day to go see "District 9."

"

Hi Chris

I feel for you, it can be real tough going through that type of territory, I'm guessing the first (few?) time(s) on a new insight cycle. I had a weekend like that at Easter this year... very tough.

'Saturday was thus a bad day to go see "District 9." ' made me laugh. I don't know if you're familiar with Terry Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys" but I suspect I watched that movie under very simliar circumstances. I was in a very dark place, and decided a good movie might help - I was only 20 at the time so hard to say now whether it was dark night or just depression (if there's a difference - sometimes I think there is not). Boy oh boy was that the wrong movie choice. Funny in hindsight though

Interesting to hear your updated experiences with the tingling and something being different. Exciting stuff.

Craig

not to forget the original topic, but I had a similar movie experience in 2006 or 07. The movie was David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. Someone had described it as a metaphorical tour through the bardo realms. I was intrigued.

But after I watched it, I literally suspected that I was being haunted for about 2 weeks after that. I'd start my standing meditation, and would feel a sense of unmooredness and impending malevolence. It stayed with me throughout the days. And took about 2 to 3 weeks to subside.

Ironically, it was another movie that helped me out of the period. Wai Ka Fei and Jonny To's Dai Jek Lou, english title: Running on Karma.

A funny little cinematic sidetrip.

[edited typos]

Hey Chris,
I just want to say thank you for sharing these reports on your progress. Sounds like you're undergoing some significant energy transitions. Breath work can be helpful in easing through energy transitions. Slow, deep, regulated abdominal breathing is particularly beneficial.

Again, thanks for sharing.
- Tina

"
After a sitting session yesterday evening something different: a pronounced zinging/tingling at the top of my head and all the way down my back. This lasted for quite some time and caused me to twitch, shiver and shake enough that my wife asked me what was going on. That never happens, so the effect was pretty pronounced. I went to sleep with the tingling still going on. The nagging pressure right in the middle of my forehead is now completely gone. Cessation was different, too, with a longer than normal period of time spent in a much darker, quieter place prior to it, and a very, very bright flash of very, very bright plain white light. The tingling sensations started almost immediately afterward. Something is different now and I'm hoping time and more sitting will tell me what it is. My general mental state is more reserved and quiet today and my mind seems more still than it has in a long time. - Chris (cmarti)
"

In addition to the breath work, things such as Tai Chi, Qigong, or yoga asanas can be a supportive asset to your meditation practice. I've found that following my meditation sit with a qigong session really helps to smooth out the energy. Just a few days ago, my meditation seemed to have produced some interesting energy stuff. I followed up by doing qigong... it helped a lot.