How do you go from stage 7 to stage 8?

Hi all!

I've been studying the 9 stages model and I think I'm currently at level 7 (my emotions defintely seem attenuated, and if I investigate all of the sense doors I can't find anything you would call a self. However, there's still a sense of self left). But how do you get from 7 to 8? I've been reading Owen Becker's thread and it seems that he did it through the lightning rod/dead man switch. Any truth to this?

Thanks!

I am not personally at that level, but I know some people are going to chime in here and ask for your background. So that would help. Welcome!

"I am not personally at that level, but I know some people are going to chime in here and ask for your background. So that would help. Welcome!" -Aquanin

Thanks! I started a formal practice in february 2011, 40 minutes a day. Vipassa, noting. Doing Shinzen Young's noting, categorizing the experience as image, talk, feel, touch, sight and sound (no oxford comma! Pow!). For at least the first year, I was trying to be mindful throughout the day, mainly because of various mental health issues so when I stopped being mindful the suffering increased (and functioning in a significant way) and vice versa, so it served as a feedback loop. A month ago I started doing some questioning advaita style, finding no self here.
Why I say my feelings seem to be attentuated it's because if I feel for example enormous sadness, I still feel it but signficantly less than before and it seems that my mind is not that involved in it anymore. I sometimes grimace and almost cries but the mind is relatively still. Another example is if I'm walking around pissed of, my face probably looks quite threatening but I feel quite peaceful in a sense. It's like "I" take comfort that everything around me is peaceful, even though this character (I) is upset.
I've also been trying to find the self in all of the sense doors I know to exist, but no self was to be found. So the belief in a self isn't there anymore, but the sense of self is sort of still there.

I've been doing some noting of self-referencing and not self-referencing (the binary noting Kenneth talks about in one of his videos).

If you need to know anything more, just ask.

"Why I say my feelings seem to be attentuated it's because if I feel for example enormous sadness, I still feel it but signficantly less than before and it seems that my mind is not that involved in it anymore. I sometimes grimace and almost cries but the mind is relatively still. Another example is if I'm walking around pissed of, my face probably looks quite threatening but I feel quite peaceful in a sense. It's like "I" take comfort that everything around me is peaceful, even though this character (I) is upset.
I've also been trying to find the self in all of the sense doors I know to exist, but no self was to be found. So the belief in a self isn't there anymore, but the sense of self is sort of still there.

I've been doing some noting of self-referencing and not self-referencing (the binary noting Kenneth talks about in one of his videos).

If you need to know anything more, just ask."

Hi Pirkku,
The way you describe your experiences strike me as being closer to dissociation, which is a trap a lot of us have been through - myself included. Since you mentioned various mental health issues, I would recommend investigating why an emotion free/attenuated state interests you. 3-2-1 practice might also clear up a good deal of "material". Most of the progress I've made has been a direct result of increased willingness to become intimate and surrender to suffering, 3-2-1 appears to be a lovely practice for doing that.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology)


Hope it is helpful and best wishes with your practice.

Ok, I recognize what I claim might seem a bit ridicolous, but in any case, I'd be grateful if you could help me figure out where I am on the stages of development. Sorry about my overconfidence in my OP:

"Ok, I recognize what I claim might seem a bit ridicolous, but in any case, I'd be grateful if you could help me figure out where I am on the stages of development. Sorry about my overconfidence in my OP:"

I feel very silly and embarrsed now, especially now when reading about the dissasociation. If anyone could ask me questions regarding about where I am and trying to help me figure out where I fit on the maps, I'd be realy greatful.

No reason to feel silly or embarrassed. This can all be confusing territory. Maybe if you can explain what you have experienced phenomenologically in your practice. Have you read MCTB or most of the Progress of Insight on this site? Are you familiar with the Theravadan maps?

I've read most of it on this website, and briefly looked at passages in MCTB. My memory is kind of ****** though so I can recall the general gist of them but not all the details.
I don't know if I've experienced a fruition. I can get these seemingly blips when I follow a sense experience to its end. Where it seems like... well it just seems like a blip. An afterimage of blackness comes up sometimes in the mind afterwards but not always. Questions comes up if it seems to be a fruition or not. When I've focused on only noticing the ends and following it to the nothingness they arise from, it seemingly shifted my way of being so that it seemed my base state was groundless and from that no-ground the sensory experiences arose. From the silence. I used to be more interested in the maps and where I was on them. I'm now just mostly interested in getting on with my life, trying to decrease my suffering as I go along, hence wanting to uproot the sense of self as it seems to be the hook which all other things hook onto. Of course, that's a scary thought but it seems to be a logical step.

My disinterest in maps might be because of some sort of notion that I don't feel capeable of them. I'm not sure if that's the case though.

Dharma diagnosis requires a fairly long term commitment so you can't just show up, post a few times in one day and expect much, Pirkku. Maybe you could start a diary here and keep it going for a while so that we can get a better picture of what your practice is like. All the questions we'd ask you have to do with the longer term of your practice experiences anyway. Like most things, if you want to get something you will have to give something.

Make sense?

Definitely. Thanks for taking the time to answer, I appreciate it.