richard's retreat report

I returned about ten days ago from from a 28 day solo retreat here in the UK.
Here's my report.
On the retreat I took no reading material and resolved to practice all the time I was awake. This was about 14hours a day as I have medical problem which keeps me awake at night and I need about ten hours in bed to get enough sleep most nights.

Most of the time was spent sitting and lying in semi-supine (got a back problem too). I walked but rarely more than 20mins at time, though I did more as the retreat increased.

Before going I had a couple of sessions with Kenneth the second of which we went up the jhanic arc to 7th jhana. This was the cutting edge of practice and I was aware of recently increased concentration. I was claiming to be 1st path, and thinking maybe second though it was unclear from my sessions with kenneth whether this was the case.

On the retreat I started by doing 2nd & 3rd gear ( in the sense of no manipulation) only. This has been my practice for the last 3 years since when I believed I attained 1st path.

After a couple of days I noticed a shift in my practice. I found myself accessing 8th jhana (a kind of presence but can't say what it was and lots of focus around the 3rd eye), and then a series of new states where the focus broadened out, was very blissful an sunshiny, and there was a clear shift upto the crown chakra. These new states had an archetypal (kingly?) quality.

There also seemed to be a marked increase in fruitions and an intense activation of the 3rd eye - as if someone was pressing on this with their finger, or their was a maggot burrowing there. There was also some visionary material coming through at this stage. I committed myself to non-manipulation and let these states present themselves. In the end I counted five, and wrote down the details. I was aware they could be Pure Land jhanas, though didn't have much sense of what they should be like.

I also tried accessing NS from the 7th jhana. I felt shut down to an extent and definitely noticed a kind of blissful divine valium effect after. I recognised that I expereinced a similar feeling on the last day of my previous retreat six weeks before.
These states carried on for the next ten days of the retreat when I had a session with Kenneth and described them. We discussed briefly at the end of the session the possibilty of 3rd path, which I had thought a possibility, and that i maybe gained it on my previous retreat.

This was a real surprise to me as it was possible that I was at the other end of the map to which I thought I was.
Kenneth said he thought I could finish it. I had sensed this and began beginning the day as soon as my mind was concentrated made a resolve to attain 4th path and let go of any obstacles.

Surrender has always been an important part of my path, and I felt a process was taking me over, and something in me quite involuntarily surrendered to it. There was also a kind of involuntary process where all of my previous spiritual conditioning was thrown out, all my objections to the possibility of completion came up and I had dialgues in my head with old teachers, and my version of the buddha etc. In the end they we all thrown out and there was only surrender, of nothing to nothing. I had after the first few days of the retreat dropped 2nd gear as i knew the fetters to be broken we so subtle they couldn't be done with even the slightest manipulation. Even the subtlest manipulation became very painful to me.

After another week I had another session with Kenneth who gave me his you can finish it talk and told me he thought I was close to 4th path. Two days later (20 days into the retreat) after a painful, uncomfortable meditation session I went onto the track next to my caravan to stretch my legs. An insect flew in my ear and the thought came 'It's gone, it's fninshed'. I walked around the track a bit and went and sat on the deck of the caravan. Over the next few days I had doubts but they arose as thoughts. I had feeling of profound satisfaction and wholeness, and was unable to create a sense of a separate self. Something was gone, a root identification had just dissappeared.

I felt some grief after a day at it's passing. No fireworks, no big energy things, just this absence of what had been driving me on. At a fundamental spiritual level something was satisifed by this absensce. So far it hasn't come back.
Talked with kenneth today who said it was OK for me to post.

So much to learn about this new life. I'm drawing no conclusions. I'm not interested in jhanas or direct path states of no suffering at the moment. How all this happened is a complete mystery to me. So much to reflect and learn from. So much to be grateful for. Yes. I have been so lucky and had such excellent teachers. It' amazes me now, whatever the outcome if it comes back, even if it never comes back, this beautiful absence.
(note: if you know me from the triratna/fwbo sangha and read this please can you not spread it around, I feel such a new-born- this is a work in progress (though if you want to message me that's fine))

Congrats Richard!!!!! Another one in the house

Since this shift I have felt a sense of drift. I have not been so consistently lazy in terms of practice in the last twelve years. Yet this has not been a big concern. Where to go with this has been a big question. Though now I am reagaining a sense of wanting to re-engage with a practice. I've just watched kenneth's direct path videos, and realised what he is describing has been my core practice these last four years. I think I may do it pretty intuitively now and there is no doubt my suffering has decreased. So this will continue. Don;t think I could stop it.

In terms of formal practice I am thinking about experiementing again with heart practices.I dropped these completely on 1st path and had been tailing them off before. There is part of me that has always been drawn to a kind of sufi sensibility but becasue I wanted out of samsara I've just not followed it up recently - in the past also it was intoxicated and needed to be moderated by insight/mindfulness. During this period I've had some expereinces where the heart was torn open by life events and the world of surrender and the beloved opened up in a very powerful way. I've been reading Aziz Kristofs books again. He writes about a further movement on from what he calls stabilising in emptiness (4th path?). An enlightenment of the heart. This interests me. I feel my heart is a little neglected with all this wisdom though I am quite content and happy. I was glad to see Owen's post about dedicating his practice and Kenneths comments on video about doing the direct practice for others. Lets see. I have a sense growth now could go in so many directions and I don't want to head back to past preoccupations as a way of fitting it back in the box.

Sounds good to me

Congratulations Richard,
Monumental achievement. Hope to join you there soon.
Paul

Well done! Congrats!

I am still letting things settle.
My practice has been disrupted by a mixture of poor health and demands last couple of weeks but I've remained happy enough.
I have been experimenting with compassion and deity yoga practices. The first time after maybe 5 years of just vipassana, self-inquiry and non-dual sitting.
This seems to come from wanting to 'live the realisation'.
There has also after a period of drift a desire to move towards committing to something.
After doing the visualisation, (or invocation, a better word I believe) of the deity outside myself and then merging with it and invoking it as myself I had a sense of understanding tantra for the first time.
It is fundamentally non-dual, very subtle, and non-conceptual - before when I tried it was the opposite.
i am wondering if these practices are really intended for post 4th pathers, I am wondering if this is true too for genuine compassion practice like tonglen too. They seem so different now.

I perceive a "fake it till you make it" thing in some Vajrayana lineages, Richard. It's easy to write off, but I know people whose mindstreams have really been deeply liberated by practicing that way with deep devotion to a living teacher. I think that's how it's supposed to work, frankly, and trying to do those practices without the devotion to a concrete teacher is probably not so effective. There's some sort of morphic field resonance with a liberated teacher. Strong sitting practice seems much more useful for a DIY Yogi, perhaps.

"i am wondering if these practices are really intended for post 4th pathers, I am wondering if this is true too for genuine compassion practice like tonglen too"

Richard,

You raise an interesting point. When I was involved in tibetan practices I felt as if toglen and yet more lectures on compassion were being shoveled out as a panacea to any practice issues that arose. Tonglen never resonated with me at all. I'd read somewhere what an "advanced" practice tonglen was. Perhaps trotting this stuff out too early is putting the cart before the horse.

Eric