[altj1aMember]

Meshe,

The naturalist metaphor is one to keep in mind. The post-facto discriminating accords with what I have discovered and as yet am discovering. The beginnings and endings of A & P’s are bound up together, as it seems are the interim “sequences” as well as the contingent dependencies. They arise out of nowhere (emptiness) and fall back into it. Scary, that.

Thank you for your response. I appreciate your clear-cut pointers and your support.

John

[altj1aMember]

Re, Stage 8, Metacognitive Awareness with Meditation on Dependent Arising.

I have not been able to apply “chunkier” but do appreciate your advice. At this stage sensations mainly arise (perhaps it is different for others) and with only occasional thoughts (you suggest thoughts) and images.

I have found help with sensations. Daniel Ingram in MCTB wrote that one recalls the sensation as a resonance. He says this: ” The mind takes a crude impression of the object, and that is what we can think about, remember and process. Then there may be a thought or an image that arises and passes, and then, if the mind is stable, another physical pulse. Each one of these arises and vanishes completely before the other begins, so it is extremely possible to sort out which is which with a stable mind dedicated to consistent precision and to not being lost in stories. This means that the instant you have experienced something, you know that it isn’t there any more, and whatever is there is a new sensation that will be gone in an instant.”

That explanation has enabled my investigation. Because we can “sort out which is which,” we can recall the memory at a second remove. In recalling it we can tease it apart.

Then there is the Buddha’s, “Deep, indeed is this dependent origination. It is through not understanding and penetrating it that people become entangled like a tangled ball of threads.” (Long Discourse No. 15) Of that, I read this by Gil Fronsdal (Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California and Insight Retreat Center in Santa Cruz, California. Short URL https://goo.gl/iqPPkm): “The task of mindful investigation is to discover some of the individual threads and the connections between them. It then becomes possible to begin unraveling the tangled ball of suffering. Because of the way they are all intertwined, loosening any one thread loosens the rest.”

Investigating the full sequence seemingly is prescribed in that Stage 8 section (“you follow mental events as they occur in sequence”) but here is an alternative if undoing one thread loosens the rest.

Comments anybody?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  altj1a.
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[altj1aMember]

Hi Blake,

I have had luminous experiences with the eyes open and closed but am not sure that is the same as the inner light, so I may be among the “variables.” If it is different than that maybe the inner light will yet happen, maybe not.

In terms of complete pacification, it seems, at least for me, that as meditative joy spreads it crowds-out normal sensory information, leaving room only for itself.

So, in terms of unification, pacification, and physical pliancy, meditative joy can do the job. I may be an isolated example. Of course, a concentrative/absorptive state with metacognitive awareness and attention must first reduce sensory input before meditative joy can spread.

As Culadasa points out, one can cultivate pleasure as a preliminary to the meditative joy. This cultivation helps diminish sensory information thereby making it easier for metacognitive awareness and attention.

Thank you for your response, Blake. It was helpful.

John

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  altj1a.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  altj1a.

[altj1aMember]

Thank you for that explanation, which got me to looking further. I found this in Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s book The Shape of Suffering: A Study of Dependent Co-Arising:

“The upshot of [Chapter Three] is that a person aiming to put an end to suffering does not need to know all the ins and outs of dependent co-arising, because the practice can be completed by focusing on any one of its component factors. Once that one factor is understood, that understanding will spread to the other factors as well. Still,an appreciation of the complexity of dependent co-arising helps to explain why this is so.”

Available in pdf here: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/shapeofsuffering.pdf

I appreciate that you gave me a new approach. It was clear and to the point.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  altj1a.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  altj1a.
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