A&P Explaination?

In yogis experience would it be accurate to say that prior to the 2nd Jhana, you are doing the "Doing" and after 2nd Jhana, the phenomena is doing the "Doing"? Is the A&P event thus the experience of phenomena being in the driver's seat instead of "I" and your nervous system going crazy trying to process that?

Or is it perhaps the realization that phenomena is just illusory mind stuff doing itself to awareness?

Or is it perhaps the unitive realization that all phenomena is just illusory mind stuff occurring in my mind, thus all is "I" and thus "I" am continuously reborn (arise and pass away) in every moment?

Until very recently I have been quite confused by what "Arising and Passing" means as it seems to have been explained as watching phenomena arise and then pass away. This definition confuses me because even when I'm totally lost, all phenomena obviously makes some appearance and then goes away. I could interpret this to mean that if I notice a pain in my leg (it arises) then distract myself with a TV show (it passes away) that I have experienced A&P, which I have to assume is completely false because I have to assume that this is every human's normal experience. But then again, maybe I'm totally wrong about how most people experience reality.

Interesting questions, do you think that knowing this will help your practice?

I have no explanation for what the A&P "is", all I can say with any certainty is that it happens. You're absolutely correct in that all things will clearly arise and pass away, but the difference with going through the A&P itself is that you see this happen in high-resolution at a scale and speed which we're normally unable to perceive. It's during this stage that we can see directly how everything is constantly arising and passing, being born and dying in an instant, which leaves us with no uncertainty about the illusory nature of reality as a constant, unchanging experience.

My experience of it is fairly consistent during a sitting, I start noticing phenomena passing quicker and quicker until it's impossible to mentally note them. At this point sensation is observed as if it's going "brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" and rapidly flying past, although it's possible to examine them closely and see them as just flickering vibrations. My favourite description of this is the one Dan Ingram uses when he mentions vibrations appearing like a pointillism painting in motion, this fits with the majority of my experiences of this stage.

Hope that helps in some way, although I don't know if it's even remotely useful for answering your question!

I'm asking this question not so much for my practice, but to clarify the terminology. So much of the communication here is having terminology that lines up with experience.

"vibrations appearing like a pointillism painting in motion"

That lines up with my experience, but in general the route I access it via is different. I navigate by popping to wide open awareness with equanimity, then from there I focus in on something and see the fast vibrations.

I'm also trying to tease out what the scope of the term A&P is. There is a sharp line in my experience:

- When I am lost, I assume that I'm the one in the driver's seat and everything is solid and real.

- When I shift to wide awareness+equanimity then flowing phenomenon are in the driver's seat and Nowness and awareness are the only things that are real.

- If I listen for the Ships in the Harbor my curiosity and resolution increase, I assume less, and the phenomenon are more solidly in the driver's seat.

- If I focus and see the vibrations, the phenomenon is in the driver's seat

- If I merge with the vibrations then the phenomenon is still in the driver's seat, but my identity is also arising and passing in each moment. Basically I am reborn each instant.

As to your first paragraph, yes connection between 2nd jhana/A&P, the 4th Nana. Daniel I:
"As the A&P occurs in the basic territory known as the second vipassana jhana, a term I am not going to try to find an English equivalent for, it has the aspect of things happening on their own and showing up and happening naturally in many ways, as in 'with the dropping of applied and sustained thought' (the traditional initial descriptor that separates it from the first jhana, which tends to involve effort and the feeling of having to do something). All the things that apply to the territory of the 2nd jhana in general enhance our understanding of the A&P."

You also typed a lot about selfless aspect. See this link, it seems the a&p can be experienced many other ways as well, such that Daniel Ingram has said it would be really hard to nail down (paraphrase).
www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/1509672

As to your last paragraph, Kenneth F:
"Viewed through a purely mechanistic lens, the yogi has managed, for the very first time, to completely penetrate an object. He has reduced a seemingly solid thing to its component parts. A body sensation that was previously experienced as a solid pain in his knee while sitting is now experienced as waves of subtle tingling sensations. Thoughts, instead of sitting there in the mind like stones, are seen to arise, live out their brief existence, and then vanish cleanly into the nothingness from whence they came."

Perhaps only slightly off topic, but following up on Ciocoiu's post, here is how I see the nanas lining up with the jhanas:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/20+Major+Strata+of+Mind

Mind you, this is my own observation, so you won't find it quite this way anywhere else. The idea that specific nanas line up with specific jhanas is unique to my teaching. Nonetheless, this is how I experience it when I look directly at these phenomena.

Ciocoiu: Thank you for that link - Daniel's explanation was very helpful. My A&P was primarily intense time distortion, and that has formed the basis of most of my experiences since. I resonate more strongly with Eckhart Tolle's descriptions of Nowness as primary and less so with the Theravada path model of Nanas as primary, though its starting to make more sense as I take a closer look at what makes up my experience beyond Nowness and Awareness.

The dark night stages still don't resonate that strongly with me other than an extremely painful period after my A&P where I had an enormous identity crisis and remember being completely tormented by the question of who I was.

I had zero exposure to meditation or Buddhist philosophy at that time, so rather than moving forward through it, I'm guessing I took a step backward and just kept my insight dormant for 10+ years.

Since my experience seems different from the maps, I figure that documenting it might be useful for some others.