From "dry insight" dukkha ñanas to Samatha-Vipassana

[Anonymous]

After writing the above, it occurred to me what you meant by “collapse”. As TMI says, do not try to do whole body for too long, as this is very fatiguing to the mind. When that happens there are two possible circumstances of mindfulness (sampajana). What you describe sounds like losing mindfulness completely. The other is if you can maintain mindfulness, the Attention defaults down to a scope that is smaller and easier for it to attend to.

e.g., From “all senses” down to only ‘feeling’ (the body sitting). Or, from whole body down to only the breath at the nostrils, because it is easier to maintain. Or from whole body down to the abdomen, because it is the only part of the body that is moving. Or, When breath movement at the abdomen is very slight, it defaults to an easier object, the sensation of breath movement at the nostrils.

Getting minor piti is peripheral to these exercises in Attention.

[Julian SMember]

Thanks for this Wiley, I’ll try it 🙂 I’m still getting the collapse of attention but your idea to keep breath-body sensations in PA while attention is on the breath at the nose might yield interesting results. That’s kind-of how I practiced Goenka body-scanning but in reverse (with that, I would keep breath in PA and use attention to actively scan the body).

With my most recent “near-miss” of Sotapanna as I think of it, which took place on a silent retreat in 2015, I had a profound experience of capitulation — I surrendered my goals and my striving and my meditation in an act of what I thought was despair but turned out to be wisdom — acceptance of “me” as a process being “done” by the Universe. Maybe this is all the enlightenment I will ever get / there ever is. There was a kind of dropping away sensation as “what I might get” swapped places in my mind with “what there might be”, while both remained equally clear in my mind as fabrications of mind not anchored in the present.

The present moment then revealed itself as eternal and all-embracing. Awareness was watching myself experience each mind-moment of all senses arising and passing in synchrony, even including mind-door experiences of distraction, without any perturbations in the awareness that was watching the experience.

Then everything shrank down to a point of light in a field of darkness. From that point arose a featureless mask of a face staring back at me. Featureless not because of being empty but because of being everyone’s face at once. And my face. And then the face shrank back into the point of light and normal awareness returned.

There was no stopping of mind the way others describe it. Maybe I was just tripping 🙂

The other near-miss experience was a long time ago, but similar expansion of awareness beyond any kind of scale that I normally can comprehend.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by  Julian S.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by  Julian S.

[Julian SMember]

PS the collapse is a total loss of mindfulness. It’s like night and day. Re-establishing mindfulness afterwards requires a LOT of effort and usually uses up the rest of my sit. But I’m at least able to re-establish it now (most of the time), which is an improvement.

[Anonymous]

Julian,

I hesitate three times to say what you may construe as criticism, but what I am recommending to you is none other than what I myself am practicing right now.

You already suspect that you are trying too hard. I think you need more work in Stage 7, which should have invested you with confidence and ease of practice, which sounds like you are lacking. I think You have fixed ideas about what you should be experiencing, instead of just doing the exercises and waiting to see what happens. As an exercise, when you have loss of mindfulness, just relax and watch your breath very passively and notice the gradual return of mindfulness as your attention recomposes itself, even if that takes the rest of your sitting session. Mindfulness is the natural state.

Do more Stage 7 until you feel that sitting is fun and you are really looking forward to it. This is what I am doing and what I suggest for you. Of the three exercises described there, do the first until you can sustain mindfulness with it continuously for 15 minutes, before you rehearse the other two more experiential exercises. I am almost back to where I was 2 years ago.

Counsel yourself in regard to your Metta requirements. Whom do you resent…… Really?

Forget sotapanna. It is useful and interesting, but far from necessary. Been there, never discuss it.

Good Luck.

[Author]

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