Stages on the Way to Cessation

"
David --

"I'm planning to do a full write up summarizing Mahamudra and comparing it with our Hinayana technology in the near future."

How is this coming along? I would love to read it.

"

Well - maybe I can have it out by the end of the weekend. It's proved to be more complex than I originally suspected - it's at least Master's thesis material. I've been a bit overwhelmed with how to summarize it and what parts to gloss over. Interestingly, a lot of the more advanced stages are involved with uncovering some of the subtle cognitions you refer to above. They have a a different vocabulary though. Here's a kind of summary of the stages:
I Preliminaries: Guru yoga and Virtue Training
II Contemplation: Perfecting the Asana on physical, energetic (and breath), and mental levels
III Meditation with support - a visual image is taken as meditation object (usually the Tathagata) and the skills of directing, intensifying (and "easing up), pliancy, and intelligence are trained. There are 9 stages that the aspirant goes through until he can pretty much visualize the stable image for the entire meditation session. At that point the image is allowed to change and one meditates upon the "seed" of the image (a kind of formation complex related to the idea of the image). There are some other very specialized meditations after one masters this to get to the stage of being "done with the seed."
IV. Meditation without support: No particular object is taken, or rather the mind itself as object is observed. Subtle cognitions are the main object. Again, a number of very specific exercises are prescribed. By the end of all this, one has developed "Quiesence."
V. Insight training - At this point the meditator learns the relevant Buddhist philosophy, thinks about it, and then verifies it in his own experience during meditation.

Continued..

Continued from post 200

During this the meditator gains insight into the emptiness of the self, and all things and events. Again, there are very specific instructions given on how to meditate.

Finally come the "Extraordinary Practices"
Yoga of the One Taste: The meditator experiences nonduality between self and universe and all things. During this phase is when Enlightenment proper dawns.

Nonmeditation - pretty much dwelling in Rigpa, as far as I can tell. There's no end to this phase of practice.

There are a few post-enlightenment practices too.

I'll try to get something together, but it's been a bigger project than I thought.
David

David, I'm not trying to hurry you! I was just curious, and yes, anxious to read what you're writing. Take your time. I know what not having enough time is like. I would be horrified to learn that I'd inflicted anything like what i go through on another human being

Something new. There has grown a high bandwidth connection between my mind and my heart. What I think, I feel. What I feel, I think. There is a kind of symmetry, a parallel, a connection, that has never been there before. Not like this. It's very deep and it's very wide. More later. I do not yet have the words assembled to talk well about it. Maybe I never will. Maybe this is fleeting. Maybe not.

I've been observing closely and it's not bandwidth. It's simplicity. Nothing interferes with the signal. And I don't think it's new.It's been sneaking up on me for a while now.

And once again I have to say, there's no one this is happening to, and all the motivation in the world won't change the timing or the result. Inexorable. Impersonal. No purpose.

Up most of the night last night. Lots of jhanas to start, but for some reason the bloom has come off that rose a little bit. There is a feeling of unsatidfactoriness about the jhanas all of a sudden. It's as if the mind has grown too used to what now seems just another thing, another state, another experience. This led me to practice something Kenneth taught me last week, and the Witness. About dawn it became clear that simple, simple, simple is the way. Then came another revelation, uncovering, of the very simplest thing. Then more jhanas, then what I think was sleep, but entered into through Nirodha Samapatti. I do that now when I really want shut things down. It's definitely nice to have

It's funny -- I can pretty much tell when something different is going to happen. It's sort of like a bigger, longer, more pervasive version of a cessation, where the polarity builds up inside until it just has to pop. Before a cessation the polarity builds up in what seems ot be the frontal lobes of the brain. With these larger cycles the polarity is building up all over. This cycle seems to have more to do with feelings and emotions, whereas past cycles have been almost entirely about pure mind (whatever that means).

It let me sleep last night. I think of this, whatever it is, as "it."

It is nameless, faceless, inexorable, uncontrollable, unpredictable, unbelievable, irresponsible, implacable, un-caring and unwilling to let "me" have any say. Good for it! Someone e-mailed me yesterday and asked me if I regretted letting it into my life. Hell no! It is the best teacher I could ever hope to have. It is working very hard to show me how to let go.

"
It let me sleep last night. I think of this, whatever it is, as "it."

It is nameless, faceless, inexorable, uncontrollable, unpredictable, unbelievable, irresponsible, implacable, un-caring and unwilling to let "me" have any say. Good for it! Someone e-mailed me yesterday and asked me if I regretted letting it into my life. Hell no! It is the best teacher I could ever hope to have. It is working very hard to show me how to let go.

"

Hey, Chris. I wanted to say thank you for keeping this diary up. I really appreciate the companionship. Though I'm not in "it" where you are (meaning the content is totally foreign most of the time) I can totally relate the the sense of being in "it". I won't go into what that's like for me at the moment, but I want to say that this journal of yours is highly valuable to me.

The best way I can say it is that I appreciate your tone.

Thanks. The tone you will read here is pretty much always dictated by "it.". I try to report and then let you decide

I seem to have come to a place where the prior practices (concentration, vipassana) are not helping me answer the Question very well any more. And the Question has morphed into one that is less about things and processes and more about identity and, well, let's call it metaphysics. So be it. Let's change the practice! Kenneth taught me a new one last week that seems to be exactly what the doctor ordered, and maybe what I'm feeling is based on having adopted that practice. Who knows? Who cares? Who the heck am I, anyway?

The other thing on my mind is the idea of simplicity. I cannot seem to bring myself to tolerate complicated stuff right now. I'm sure it's the stage or the cycle I'm in making itself known, but whatever it is it seems very right to me. Simpler is better and probably more true when it comes to this practice. Everything I know today tells me that the complexity that gets introduced into the practice just obscures it. For me, right now, I need simple and very, very direct. My patience with intricate reasoning, symbolism and any of that complicated kind of stuff is gone, just gone.

One simple truth: there's nothing holding us up. When I first started seeing that and believing it I was freaked out. But there never was anything holding me up, and really, there's nothing there to hold up anyway. We are where we are and we have just what we have and that's it. That's all we need. The rest, the complicated stuff we invent, just props up our "stuff."

This may seem like a somewhat sorry, negative update, but I asssure you, it's not. Change is good. New meaning is good. Simpler is really good. It's all very, very good.

Happy Holidays Everybody! (And I really mean that)

A part of my practice that I haven't really ever dwelled on here: my teenage daughter. If you want to be presented with a daily challenge, get one of those. Now that I think about it there isn't a corner of my practice that raising a 17-year-old doesn't challenge, but it's uniquely effective at helping me realize I am not in control and that letting go is a really effective strategy

Speaking as a graduate of that particular 'hard school', I'd say it's the graduate level course for which 'the terrible two's' were the college entrance requirement! This is where the 'three characteristics' turn out to be the GOOD news: this sucks (and you were expecting--?); everything passes (thank goodness!); it's not about 'me.'

Bodhisattva bhumis, here you come!
Cheers-- Kate

Yeah, like that. What Roomy said.

So... from a certain critical perspective the only difference between you and me is the mental suit we put on. The difference between what people call evil and good is, likewise, the nature of the suit. This means that really awful stuff is just over there, right on the other side of the razor's edge. Morality is a mental construct. It's a reasonably good one as mental constructs go, but it's a construct just as much as we are. What's the cut of the suit you're wearing today?

Pushing down on what makes this feel like "me" reveals an amazing amount of stuff, but in the end it's pretty much a matter of perspective -- perspective as in from this particular set of eyes, these ears, this touch, and the bubbling mental activity it all generates (the lava lamp). I think this might be another cycle, or the effects of one, because this territory isn't unfamiliar, just ... deeper. This particular process is less like a paper travel atlas and more like walking the terrain with map and compass. "In it" as opposed to seeing it from 10,000 feet. It looks like the same territory I explored before, but I think that's just a good decorating job. It's different, too. Practice, as I said yesterday here, is no longer about doing stuff as much as it is about asking the right question, finding out that leads to a better question, and so on, and so on, and.... obviously, there's no ground to hit. Funny thing about that, too -- I was never holding onto anything. There was never anything to let go of. I'm putting that condiment in my coffee this morning.

The practice Kenneth asked me to use has made it easy to watch the universe manifest. I'm going to call this practice "watching the dummy" because that's what it feels like. And it's very, very revealing. I'm sure you can guess who the dummy is.

What Chris is saying about 17 year old daugthers is very very real. I am SO glad to be practicing. She'll never know how much controlling behavior I haven't engaged in because I know how useless it is (it is only harmful). And, I certainly know how much suffering I've avoided because I know I have no power over her behavior and choices.

Yes, Mike, that's it exactly. You can put on your "father" suit and really go to town on your daughter. That makes YOU feel like you're doing something. That will make YOU feel like you're doing something when you get a flat tire, when your boss yells at you, when a "bad" thing happens. That may or may not help your child. Actually, you are less likely to truly help your child, or anyone, if you are playing a role, putting on that set of clothes and acting like... a dummy.

Disclaimer: I have four kids, all are teenagers or older. Despite that, I claim no expertise in the raising of children domain. They seem to work things out on their own, just like you and I did.

I had another long period of sleeplessness last night. These periods can be interesting and noteworthy or just more of the same. Last night was more of the same, spent tracing the jhanic arc, up and then down again. Despite that, I'm still very focused on the new practice Kenneth taught me and the huge, major change in perspective it has engendered. I'm spending lots and lots of time, all day long, with the locus of consiousness over my head and behind me. This "watching the dummy" perspective brings all experience into a very different framing. It also makes it clear how much all of us are doing the dummy dance Now, I'm using the word "dummy" not to mean stupid but in the sense that the Buddha might have described the life we lead prior to any level of awakening or realization of not-self. Maybe that's what "ignorance" means in Buddhist lexicon. Reacting. Not mindful or aware of one's actions, which then creates a karma trail.

Thought for the day: it really helps to believe in your *heart* that you might not be right at any given moment. This is both a cause and a benefit of really learning to let go. And at the very core, when the practice starts to scrape the bottom, it seems to be all about heart. Heart is the source of all the energy you feel inside. When your heart is attached to something through ignorance you will suffer, be uncomfortable, not satisfied. Your life will fit with reality like that unbalanced wheel AugustLeo described a few days ago here on KFDh.