A
note about "This can be a long,
developmental process from the first time they notice this to it
becoming a nearly complete experience. Thus, Third Path tends to be
a long path, though it doesn’t have to be." -- Dharma Dan took
about 1 year to progress from Stream Enterer to Once Returner to
Anagami, but got stuck 7 years in the Anagami
stage.
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http://web.mac.com/danielmingram/iWeb/Daniel%20Ingram%27s%20Dharma%20Blog/The%20Blook/51EE7943-0A69-488A-B5B0-3C8F2EF7C5E8.html
...Those of Third Path have shifted
their understanding of what progress is from those of Second Path,
and have been to see that it is about seeing the emptiness,
selflessness, impermanence, etc. of sensations in daily life and
begin to see that they have the ability to do this. This can be a
long, developmental process from the first time they notice this to
it becoming a nearly complete experience. Thus, Third Path tends to
be a long path, though it doesn’t have to be.
At the beginning of Third Path, most
practitioners think: “I’ll just complete more cycles of insight,
like I did before, and this will do the trick.” They don’t tend to
understand what it is they have attained all that well yet, nor its
deeper implications. By the mature stage of Third Path,
which can take months to years to show up, the practitioner is more
and more able to see the emptiness, selfless, centerlessness,
luminosity, etc. of phenomena in real-time, so much so that it can
be very difficult to notice what artificial dualities
remain.
As they cycle, they will enter new
territory, possibly causing some uncertainty or instability, and
with each Review phase they tend to really feel that they
have done it until they begin to notice the limits of their
practice. There can be
this nagging something in the background that things aren’t done,
and yet figuring out exactly what the problem is can be very
slippery. It is a bit like being in the stages before stream entry,
trying to figure out what exactly needs to be done. They
need to notice something that has nothing to do with the cycles, to
finally untangle the knot of perception at its core, but doing this
can be a real trick. It is a very strange place, as one seems to
know the dharma all the way to the end and yet somehow it just
isn’t quite enough. In that vein, it is interesting to
note that I wrote the vast majority of this book while I was some
sort of anagami, and on reflection I got just about everything
right. My emphases are slightly different now, but the basics are
all the same.
As things progress, anagamis begin to
tire of the cycles to a small or large degree and begin to look to
something outside of them or not related to them for the answer to
the final question. Finally, the cycles of insight, the states of
concentration, the powers, and all the other perks and prerogatives
of their stage of awakening or concentration abilities (if they
developed them) hold no appeal and only lead to more unsatisfying
cycles.
I completed around 27 full, complete
insight cycles with mind-blowing A&P Events, Ass-kicking Dark
Nights, Equanimity phases, and what seemed to be brand new, fresh
Fruitions and Review phases between third and fourth path. There is
nothing special about that number, as I mentioned previously in my
descriptions of the problem that I call Twelfth Path. The later
cycles got faster and faster, so that by the end it seemed I was
whipping one out every few weeks or even every few days, but they
still seemed to be leading nowhere. It was only when I had gotten
so sick of the cycles and realized that they were leading nowhere
that I was able to see what has nothing to do with the cycles,
which also wasn’t anything except a strange untangling of the knot
of perception of them. The cycles, for better or worse, have
continued just the same. Thus, there is not much point in counting
cycles or paths, as they don’t necessarily correlate well with
anything past the first two or three, and issues of backsliding can
really make things complex, as I explained earlier.
Finishing up my Revised Four Path
Model, arahats have finally untangled the knot of perception,
dissolved the sense of the center point actually being the center
point, no longer fundamentally make a separate Self out of the
patterns of sensations that they used to, even though those same
patterns of sensations continue. This is a different understanding
from those of Third Path in some subtle way, and makes this path
about something that is beyond the paths. This is also poetically
called the opening of the Wisdom Eye. What is interesting is that I
could write about this stage quite well when I was an anagami, but
that is a whole different world from knowing it like arahats know
it.
The Wisdom Eye may seem to blink
initially. It may go through cycles of flashing open just after a
Fruition and then slowly fading over a few hours (at least on
retreat) as each round of physical sensations, then mental
sensations, then complex emotional formations, then lastly
fundamental formations such as inquiry itself move through and
become integrated into this new, correct and direct perception of
reality as it is. Review cycles may occur many times during each
flash, but when the eye is open they seem rather irrelevant in
comparison to keeping the level of clarity and acceptance high
enough to keep the eye open. When the eye fades, the familiar
insight cycles may seem like pure drudgery, with the focus being of
practice initially lost in getting through the cycles and then
gradually shifting again to getting clear enough to get the eye to
open again. The themes that occupy center stage go through a cycle
that is very much like a progress cycle.
Finally, the Wisdom Eye cycles and
insight cycles all converge, and the thing stays open from then on,
which is to say that at that point it all seems the same whether or
not the eye is open, which it actually was. That being seen,
nothing can erode or disturb the centerlessness of perspective.
Done is what is to be done, and life goes on. That there are
arahats who have opened the Wisdom Eye but had it fade and those
who have opened it and had it stay open is rarely mentioned but
worth knowing.
For the arahat who has kept the thing
open, there is nothing more to be gained on the ultimate front from
insight practices, as “done is what is to be done”. That said,
insight practices can still be of great benefit to them for a whole
host of reasons, there is a ton they can learn just like everyone
else about everything else there is to learn. They can grow,
develop, change, work and participate in this strange human drama
just like everyone else.
Thanks for this.. :)
