Villum's thousand and one mistakes

Now for fun, we can describe three possible yogas of the way i currently see the path

The Yoga of the Dark Night (KFD 1 to 5): concerned with ending of the ego and the ending of the dark night. Same territory as the mahamudra Yoga of Special Insight and the four Paths from the Mahasi tradition.

The Yoga of Awareness (or the Yoga of the Imperturbable) (KFD 5-7): Same area as the Yoga of One Taste and the Base of the Imperturbable Concerned with making space and awareness constant elements of the perception of the world, and with the grounding of emotions. Involves (in mumuwu's words) a more and more peaceful abiding. eventually concerned (after deepening) with the ending of abiding and the inner life.

The Yoga of Nothingness (area between KFD 7 and : Same area as the Yoga of Nonmeditation and the Bases of Nothingness and Neither-Perception-nor-Nonperception. Also corresponds to "early AF". Concerned with cleaning out the remaining parts of the attention wave/mental movements, including attachment to nothingness and (according to MN106) attachment to the equanimity that the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception grants.

Unbinding (KFD : Corresponds to enlightenment in the mahamudra tradition, where all that remains is the "luminous dharmakaya" which i'm guessing is what the AF'ers call "the universe experiencing itself". The yogi is fully liberated through final gnosis. He has done the task, laid down the burden, fully destroyed the fetters.

30 minutes trying to jhana. Got mild pleasure, better stillness. The extra relaxation seems to be helping, though not as much as i had hoped. Much surrender seems to be involved. Also, i get a lot of sudden bodily movements distracting me, which i suspect come from the relaxation and grounding of tensions. Surrender to stillness and rest while being sensitive to pleasure of the right kind seems to be part of the recipe.

The "everything is present" thing is very easily available now, but i find myself wondering whether it's something new at all. In a way i suppose it isn't, but i find myself unable to remember how i used to perceive the world. Some sort of shift does seem to have happened, and noticing that "everything is present (ie. luminous, i think) continues to seem the right thing to do, as often as possible
I also go through the Bahiya Sutta training (in seeing, only the seen) whenever i remember and have a moment, noticing how what it describes is the case.
I have been experimenting a little bit with merging the two, but have no conclusions yet, other than it not seeming a particularly bad idea.

35 minutes trying to jhana. Got mild pleasure but not the full-thing. I sensed, but did not enter the oasis.
Notes to self: This is partly a process of surrender. Surrender in this case means that i can relax totally, i don't have to "meditate" to go where i'm trying to go. There is nothing i have to do.
Sensitivity to pleasure means sensitivity to the sense of a still oasis and a pool of sweet water and freedom in which to rest and wonder and be filled with a happiness beyond all striving.
It gives a lot be sensitive to pleasure on the eyelids and the inner ear in a way that releases the sense of tension in the senses of sight and hearing.
There is a way of being energetic about the process of sensitivity to pleasure that i still have to figure out. Try dropping longing and attachment to the pleasure. I get the sense that it is and must be always a gift.
Fill the body totally. Leaving pockets in the core of the body untouched by pleasure seems to hinder the process greatly.
Try again to use the sense of the body filled with a cloud of tensions being released.

Note to self: should reread this thread on jhana: www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/2464570
Especially EndInSight's summary

Another possible shift yesterday. This is going to sound like fourth path, but i'm not gonna call it yet. Still too soon to tell. However, in the spirit of my log title, i'm gonna give you all the chance to see me making a mistake.
After watching this video: www.youtube.com/user/empty0grace?feature...ch#p/u/0/bYr1Cd9zgZg i got inspired to try and trace the source of this god-self that's been there lately. Going first to the heart, I somehow got down to a level where it connected with the presence of outside things. For a short while i seemed to be everything, then mumuwu told me to get a grip and go through these:
There is seeing, no seer, there is hearing, no hearer, there is feeling, no feeler, there is thinking, no thinker. In seeing, only the seen, in hearing, only the heard, et.c.
I did this, and then sat down and did nothing while something worked itself out with some energy-heat and kriyas and sudden fear-shivering. Right now i can find no self when i look, though a couple of times i sort of seemed to sense it out the corner of an eye. Awareness somehow seems more open, and it sometimes feels a bit like i'm watching myself from the outside. It is very subtly different in a big way.

Edit: When i asked "who am i" after whatever happened yesterday, attention sort of went to the center of the head, but i couldn't seem to find anything there. Attention held there for a while, as a subtle vibrating started over the head and upper body, and then it sort of bounced to the body surface. Today when i ask, there is a moment of attention turning inwards, then it bounces back out and i sit and stare for a moment.

Exciting!

Let's hope it sticks...

Might not be sticking so much. Lying in bed, i suddenly remembered what it was like to be a self. It was like i visualized it for a couple of moments, and then it was back for a while. Right now i seem to be shifting back and forth.

Edit: The morning after. Seems to be sticking after all, but i really have no idea where i'm at. A lot of small kriyas right now. Things don't seem stable at all. It seems i tend to misinterpret a lot of accidental signs such as eye strain to figure out where i'm at.

A bit tired and confused, the shift seem to be sticking. When i fell back into personal tension-identity two days ago, noticing that thoughts happens on their own would bring the shift back for a while, as would noticing that everything is present - doing that, i would eventually, after a little buildup notice that everything (inner and outer worlds) are present in the same way. There seems to be a kind of balance to this state that subtle and hard to describe. Perhaps most noticeable is the impression of the head being empty somehow, as something that was previously there has gone away. This is probably related to the sense of openness.
There is also a tendency to space out by just sensing the outside world, rather than falling into thoughts like i previously would tend to, and in general the sensory world seems much more immediately present, like it is somehow closer. When i look for it, i feel impersonal in a strange way.
Beoman asked me yesterday if this state is somewhat like being in the 4th jhana all the time, and that seems right to me. There is the sense of a more inclusive awareness, and the tendency to a more centered and equanimious mind is a bit like the fourth jhana, except that there is no sense of being concentrated, and it seems to come from the absence of something that in ordinary fourth jhana would be refined

35 minutes trying to jhana. Got close to the proper pleasure near the end, when i surrendered enough. Say it again: surrender to the sielne. This time i definitely went through the pure lands at first, as i noticed the heaviness from PL3 and shifted to PL4 because it was distracting me. I'm wondering whether this going through the pure lands is making it harder for me to reach proper pleasure.
Before starting i twice did the open-eye as-actual-as-possible formless jhanas up to what seems like the themeless meditation - my interpretation of MN121, The Lesser Discourse on Emptiness, in order to quiet the inner world: www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.121.than.html
This might be connected to my noticing the pure lands so clearly, but i really have no idea.
Conclusion: At the moment, i need to sit longer, 1 hour minimum, to have a chance of getting a proper deep jhana going. Could very much use some better tricks for letting go and generating pleasure.
Note to self: staying on the body surface while allowing the pleasure to build inside the body seems like something that works. This is similar to focusing on the coolness in the way i talked about before, but seems like it might be something i'm only just now becoming able to do properly. (i know, i'm not anywhere, but i'm trying to describe a way of inclining the mind)
Beoman suggests i keep looking for subtler and stiller pleasure. This might be a good idea. Will at least try it out. Should (he points out) also help me not cling to the pleasure.

Quick Christmas Night note: Things still feel open, balanced and, when i attend in ways that would usually bring out the tension-self, oddly impersonal. Becoming a bit more stable, still more energy stuff than i'm used to.
I figured out why i get the pure land stuff when i try to do sutta jhanas. The way i breathe pleasure in to the body, i circulate the breath in a way that is very similar to the energy thing i do to enter the pure lands directly.

Shift seems to be holding. Head feels a bit like the lights are on but the house is empty. Feel stable and balanced inside even when drunk or hung over. There was some strange tension on and off the last days of last year, like something gathering in the middle of the head, which thought seemed like the old head-self thing.

Really strange phenomenon: When i do stuff like look at a thought and have it say "notice that thoughts happen all by themselves", or continually ask "how do i know" of a sensation, seemingly going deeper and deeper in D-O, there is a sudden kriya - a sudden violent tensing of the whole body, with a sense of shock, thoughts blanking out, sometimes notes of panic. I have no idea where this comes from, but it seems to have come up about the same time as the shift to what i think is 4th path. It happens seemingly every time i do these things, reliably.
Anyone have any idea what this is?

The shock-kriya i describe in the last post can seemingly be attenuated by surrendering and relaxing enough, letting go enough. Sometimes a small amount of shockingness might remain. Will investigate further, but seems like it might be a useful indicator of insufficient surrender

Sometimes, there is the slight sense of an observer-self located in a tension in the neck, It has made me doubt whether this is really fourth path at times, and i'm still not totally ready to make the claim. Whenever i look at that sense in detail, or ask "who am i", one of the shock-kriyas come up and wipe clean the mind of all things, and seemingly catapulting me totally into the silence of the senses for a short moment.

*LOL* - silly self-inquiry variation.
"How many persons are in this room" answer comes "zero"
Apparently i don't count anymore

Reasons to doubt 4th path: woke up tonight and had a minute or two of self that wasn't seen through. Then followed a series of shock-kriyas and it went away. Also, i don't think i've had self arise and be seen through in real time the way i've heard others talk about.

These shock-kriyas i've been talking about - they're interesting. I've been investigating where they take me, when they blank the mind and straighten the body. The tendency is towards the witness and towards direct mode, depending, i think, on the way i come out of them. The primary direction seems to be direct mode for now. It somehow seems to me that these kriyas are pointing where i should be going at the moment. So i will read up on direct mode and watch the videos and see how it goes.

Whatever it is, it sounds like progress. Way to go Villum!

Be careful what you wish for? Or perhaps something else
been practicing direct mode for the last 3 days. Lots of tensions. I think i'm slowly learning the difference between pain and suffering.
Anyways, after a chat with kenneth, i was using some variations on the toll booth. "I am willing to give up my attainments for peace in this moment"
Episode of being "me" followed immediately. Peace lessened noticeably. Then i noticed that everything was present, and it went away again.