Cycling

I was curious if other people experience this or a similar pattern between perspective shifts..

1. Honeymoon from shift.
2. Shift normalizes and mind tends towards restlessness or boredom.
3. Interest grows towards intellectual endeavors such as philosophy / politics (or creative activities such as music).
4. Mind gets wrapped up and finds relative suffering from not being able to come to rational conclusions within topics mentioned.
5. A renunciation of these endeavors occurs. A return to exclusive focus on mindfulness / Dharma.
6. Another shift

(5 and 6 sometimes being interchangeable in order)



I haven't been completely aware of this pattern until last night when I caught myself moving into steps 2 / 3. Thinking I should just jump to step 5

EDIT: between step 4 and 5 add in relative nihilistic tendencies...

I've noticed something similar
1.) Honeymoon (I am so awake, yo)
2.) Shift normalizes (wait, maybe I was wrong, oh wait, no def still super awake yo)
3.) Interest shifts toward worldly stuff like career/work/projects (I am "integrating" my awakeness with the world)
4.) Interest shifts away from worldly stuff because there's no lasting satisfaction inherent there
5.) Like you put it
6.) Shift or sub-shift

I kinda see this playing out on the micro scale with fruitions taking me from suffering to awake, and that happening every few days to every week or so, and also on the larger macro scale with regard to some noticeable shift (not necessarily path shift) but not related to any fruition. This is more or less obvious depending on how much or little I'm formally sitting. I'm sitting more now and noticing more. I'm definitely in phase #5 atm. Some people describe this kind of thing as "oscillating between emptiness and form" cue Heart Sutra. One could describe it as PoI too.

Sounds familar, though I don't evaluate on the short time frame. But I think similar patterns happen over weeks or months, more or less as you describe. I've never found that one can 'skip' or 'choose' what happens and for how long. It's like deciding that you will skip the part of the cold where your left tonsil swells and go right to the part where you have the lingering cough.

I was half-joking about the skipping stages part. However, the half that wasn't joking is maybe pointing to holding the intention to not get wrapped up in the stage 3/4 stuff.

Nicolas Overhauser wrote: I was half-joking about the skipping stages part. However, the half that wasn't joking is maybe pointing to holding the intention to not get wrapped up in the stage 3/4 stuff.

Technically one shouldn't get wrapped up in any of it, no?

I'd say steps 1 and 6 are in essence not being wrapped up in anything.

It's the rest of it that I'm working on.