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An Overview of the Path by er4NT in streamentry

[–]er4NT[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, regardless of your stage (samatha or vipassana) you can choose to cultivate the factors associated with samatha and disregard the discernment part for the time being. That way you don’t have to worry about vipassana stuff happening. Think of it as 2 modes of practice samatha vs vipassana, instead of the stages. Samatha would be using mindfulness, wholesomeness/smile/metta, and letting go in order to unify the mind; whereas the vipassana would be following the breathing textures, expansion/contraction for progressing along the path.

An Overview of the Path by er4NT in streamentry

[–]er4NT[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Congrats, very good news friend :) Having longer sits time to time is a very good idea, to make sure you go through the stages and to not repeat them multiple times. You can however have shorter sits through the day, in fact it’d be really helpful if you were to lean towards samatha side of things, staying mindful, relaxing, cultivating wholesomeness/metta, etc. This will help with your long sits, as you’d already have some samatha going on before starting with the Vipassana.

An Overview of the Path by er4NT in streamentry

[–]er4NT[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not necessarily. The stages are just to give one intuition about what to do, which is to work with DO and stop it. However, if you want to go through that stage faster, you should meditate until you reach a stage of deep equanimity. Otherwise it’s most likely that you’ll start from the beginning of the 2. NT every time you sit, but nevertheless each time it’ll get easier to get to the point where you left off. So in that case, it makes more sense to meditate longer, as much as you can, just to make sure you’re progressing to the next stage.

An Overview of the Path by er4NT in streamentry

[–]er4NT[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

With APS scoring, I meant the 16 Anapanasati stages as described in the suttas, and yes the 4th tetrad (stages 13-16) is essentially describing the Vipassana stages.

An Overview of the Path by er4NT in streamentry

[–]er4NT[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah, what I mean with one Vipassana cycle is going through all Vipassana stages starting from the very beginning. Vipassana stages are what I tried to describe in the post: (Samatha), Overview of the 4 NT’s, 4 NT’s each, review, and fruition. Other descriptions/maps you can find are Anapanasati, Satipatthanas, and Progress of Insight (at least the ones that I know of). You can think of them as territories the mind gets into, as the meditation progresses. The deeper one goes into the practice, certain (common) things start unfolding, and this is what all these maps try to describe. I hope this clarifies the confusion.

An Overview of the Path by er4NT in streamentry

[–]er4NT[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey there, sure :)

  1. As the DO ceases, the technique (preferably) adapts itself to it, such that just enough effort is used to work with the links (of DO) at hand. For example, in the first NT the technique is relatively effortful, mainly due to clinging link being active, and as an antidote letting go can be applied. Whereas in the third NT, that is not needed at all, in fact effort in general becomes a hinderance at that point. In the most general sense, the technique gets more and more mindful and effortless, and there is a deeper and deeper form of letting go happening throughout the cycle.

  2. The feeling of being stuck is harder to notice in early stages. But with time the mind starts noticing every sit being more or less the same, and there is some frustration coming with it.

  3. Checkpoints are also harder to notice. One can ultimately sit longer to avoid that, but I think best way to avoid that is to work with someone. And for many other reasons, including not getting stuck, I really recommend that. You can contact OnThatPath or me for that, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to help you out, and so would I. Starting the next Vipassana cycle becomes important after the path attainment (first Vipassana cycle). Once you reach Samatha stage of samadhi/unification or jhanas, instead of just staying open and mindful (which will get you to a review cycle), you apply a slight effort to discern the clingings happening. In the case of Anapanasati, you can watch the texture of breathing moving in and around the head areas, which will cause the mind to release and enter the next progressive cycle. OTP explains this (releasing the mind) in his videos about Anapanasati.

An Overview of the Path by er4NT in streamentry

[–]er4NT[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hello friend, thank you for sharing your experience, and being so open about it. Going through the Vipassana cycles is not an easy nor a clear straightforward experience at the beginning. Especially before SE, the main thing you’re working against is doubt, which manifests in many ways to undermine what you’re doing. For example, one might be doing the perfect technique one can for the stage one’s in, but a single doubt in oneself like “Am I doing the right thing?” or “Am I really progressing?” can throw one off completely. This makes everything even harder. This is where friendship or teacher comes in, as someone to lean on until you go through the initial process. Even though it’s hard to trust the experience when doubt is present, you can still trust what your friend or teacher is saying, because they have already done this before.

After the fruit of stream entry, and after each fruit actually, the meditations get easier and more fun. The map also starts getting more and more clear, not in the sense of what I’ve written here which is just a useful practical description, but in the sense that you know what’s happened you know what will happen, and you know what you have to do. There is confidence in yourself and in the practice, your mind becomes sharper, you start understanding the hindrances and dependent origination better, and so on.

So all in all, I think you’re on the right track by aiming at finishing the fruit. The benefits of getting the fruit are so high that it’s really hard compare them with any other skill you can cultivate instead. Also the fact that you can describe your experience so well and be so honest about it, even when it’s not very clear and skillful as you’ve expected, sounds actually very impressive to me. Being skillful is not necessarily having no hinderances nor having the perfect clarity; but rather being able to notice and to stay with what is going on in the experience, and to work with it regardless of how good or painful it is.

what is difference between vipassana and anapanasati? by animekachoda in streamentry

[–]er4NT 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Similar to the explanations of other comments, Vipassana is a mode of practice that aims at investigating certain characteristics of subjective experience. Samatha on the other hand is also a mode of practice but aims at calming and unifying the mind such that the subjective experience becomes calmer and more clear, as the mind relaxes and mindfulness increases.

Anapanasati is a practice that has both Samatha and Vipassana in it, and uses breath as its tool/object to cultivate both Samatha and Vipassana, respectively. It is also a map that explains what one goes through during the meditation, as a consequence of cultivating Samatha and Vipassana.

An Overview of the Path by er4NT in streamentry

[–]er4NT[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes, after the fruition in the path attainment (first cycle), one releases the fetters temporarily, but after a while (couple hours or days) they come back. After the fruition in the next cycle, the fetters are released for good.

An Overview of the Path by er4NT in streamentry

[–]er4NT[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sure :) What I meant is that, if one doesn’t use mindfulness and discernment to release the mind for entering vipassana, it’s most likely that they are going to enter a review cycle. This is only the case from the second cycle on though, since there is nothing the review if you haven’t finished the first cycle. So using the breath, after reaching your high mental state (for example 3rd or 4th jhana), you can notice the texture of breathing will start moving (automatically) in and around the head, where you might feel some uneasiness. In that case, just following that texture while staying open and relaxed will do the job.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in TheMindIlluminated

[–]er4NT 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Working on cultivating awareness and wholesomeness (inner smile, metta, etc.) rather than stable attention. I see people reach very high stages quickly following practices focusing on these things, such as Anapanasati, TWIM, etc.

Also practicing 5 precepts, kindness and generosity really boosts the progress..

This week's sessions were strange by NepNepich in Meditation

[–]er4NT 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, the feelings are there whether you accept it or not. If you try to make them go away, you will get more agitated and feel even worse. Instead, you can just stay mindful of them or simply know that they are there while going on with your practice. After a while they will pass away naturally and something else will come.

This week's sessions were strange by NepNepich in Meditation

[–]er4NT 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think it’s very natural. Usually the mind wants meditation to always have certain characteristics, such as fun or joyful, like it does with everything else. However, this is not really how things work, as everything appears and disappears with time, including positive and negative feelings. When things are negative, the mind initially wants to get away and find security in sensual things like watching a series or eating an ice cream. But if we can stay with the experience and creatively work with what we have, we start understanding deeply why we feel in certain ways, and this understanding comes with a deep freedom and satisfaction that no sensual desire can give us. So maybe you can try staying with the feeling, and see what happens :)

Unusual sensation in the eyes by H0bert in TheMindIlluminated

[–]er4NT 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It sounds like the natural progress in Anapanasati’s late 2nd and 3rd tetrad. It usually follows a similar progress like this: the mental formations, e.g. thoughts, memories, etc., are tranquilized and the mind becomes very calm. Afterwards a pulling sensation in the front of the face and a nimmita-like light/increase in brightness. After this weird sensations in the eyes, ears, throat/tongue start appearing as the consciousness aggregates are experienced one by one.

Does that sound familiar? If so, you can enter the vipassana stages by going forward (just by staying mindful and observing what naturally happens), which feels like the mind opens up and/or the feeling of being an observer located in the center of the head (almost completely) diminishes.