Brahmaviharas & Dependent Origination
June 6th 2023
This post is a detailed meditation report of my experiences with various meditative states, insight knowledges and the implications of having realized them. Below is a term key. The meditation practice described is known as Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM) and was taught to me by Acarya Delson Armstrong.
Brahmaviharas | The “divine abidings” or “abodes of brahma.” These refer to the meditation subjects of loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity. |
Cessation & Nibbana |
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Jhanas | A state of mental collected-ness in which certain factors such as joy and/or equanimity are present. In TWIM Jhana is defined as a level of understanding in which the mind is free from mental hindrances. There are 8 levels of Jhana. Jhana is defined differently depending on the system of practice it is being utilized in. |
Hindrances | Sensual desire, sloth & torpor (unclarity of mind/laziness), ill-will/ anger, restlessness and doubt. These plague meditators. Jhana is when the mind is happy and temporarily free of these. |
Dependent Origination | The Buddhist principle of conditionality. How things arise based on causes and conditions. It explains primarily (1) how suffering is perpetuated by craving in the mind and (2) how rebirth occurs. Upon emerging from cessation the mind is exceptionally clear and executive functions are arrested. This allows for a moment of “fruition” to occur which in this system is defined as viewing the links (aspects) of DO. |
Taints/Defilements | Refers to the defilements in the mind. The primary ones are ignorance, anger/hatred, and sensual desire. |
Quiet Mind | In the 8th Jhana in TWIM this refers to a mind that takes itself as the object and is rested in stillness for long periods of time without much or any mind wandering. Here the mind is doing nothing. |
Path & Fruition
Did a 6 hour sit without moving or breaking posture at the advice of Delson. He encouraged me not to move at all if possible. Mind went through many many cycles of entering “Quiet Mind” reaching this point where mind seemed it was almost about to vanish, but then would lose its refinement and quietness. The mind starts grasping, expecting, anticipating that something is about to happen. In the same way the body braces itself for any possible danger, the mind can reach with expectancy even in the depths of silence. So many cycles of Quiet Mind/popping out into distraction again and again and again. Was so tired after a while and the pain in the shoulders was immense from sitting for so long. I endured the pain and after each round of popping out of Quiet Mind, strong equanimity would arise and take the mind all the way back into deep stillness.
Before this 6 hour sit, 3 days had passed of resting in stillness, radiating loving-kindness and equanimity. In the TWIM 8th Jhana “Neither perception nor non-perception” all kinds of strange imagery appear. It’s a lot like a DMT trip. Fractals, patterns— what Delson calls “proto-thought” which are pre-formed thoughts. People get stuck here because of the hyper realness of the 8th jhana territory. Ignoring such experiences, the mind enters “Quiet Mind.” On this final round of being lifted into deep quiet by a cloud of equanimity, the mind became so still that all functioning, intention and thought was no longer possible. Couldn’t have a thought or intention even if I tried. Suddenly, it felt as if the body and the chair I was sitting in were pulled upward in an ascending spiral motion. The mind then fell in a descending spiral down some kind of thread into a moving toroidal shape then “snap.” The movie reel, the continuity of consciousness was broken. The mind vanished.
Cessation is not a void, it’s not even an experience. It’s actually a non-experience. Similar to falling asleep, but the primary difference is the explosion of joy and clarity which follows when consciousness emerges or reviews the cessation event after it “occurs.” In my case there was movement, movement, movement, perfect stillness so much stillness that the mind itself completely disappeared.
the Nibbana-dhatu as defined in TWIM
the absence of experience in cessation was immediately followed by a flash bang contact with the unconditioned dimension or element. This is called “the arahattamaggaphala” in TWIM and is characterized by the complete absence of time, form, change, movement and even space. The only experiential quality of this non-dimension dimension was light. It seems the dhatu is a backdrop of reality. It is not-self in the sense that although contact with the dhatu is recollectable, consciousness had none of its usual functions nor were there any of the experiential qualities characteristic of other consciousness states. Upon emerging from cessation and nibbana, mind/body consciousness began to reappear gradually. The mind experiences the gradual reconstruction of the entire field of perception, feeling and individuated consciousness. In these moments of reconstruction, the mind appeared in 2 places— in the chair I was sitting in and in a vision of a small golden disk within a sphere.
When consciousness completely emerged, I don’t know how long later, I noticed a song was playing in my head. The mind had ceased for long enough for a song to be playing in my head. When just moments before I was experiencing the deepest stillness of my life. I wasn't sure what happened. I thought “did cessation just occur?” I reviewed the experience remembering all the visceral movement, the falling down the thread, the toroidal shape and then consciousness completely ceasing and reappearing with this strange vision. An immense joy exploded in the body/mind. I opened my eyes and it was the end of the 5th hour. To fulfill my commitment I remained unmoving for the final hour then left the meditation hall.
The Wisdom Eye
Had the idea to sit the whole night until dawn in the meditation hall. After about 3 hours I remember falling into a similar tunneling movement. There was movement, movement, movement snap, brightness, immense joy! As consciousness was emerging; it zoomed in on the disk/link from the first path moment, one link in particular. The mind became more active after this point so there was confusion whether what I was seeing was of any substantiality or if it was just hyperreal mental imagery.
I thought to myself “this can’t be happening, my mind has to be making this up.” “I understand how subconscious expectancy can generate or influence perceptions, this cannot be genuine vision, I have to ask Delson how to overcome the mind’s capacity for self deception.” There was an explosion of energy and wakefulness in the body. Everything became dependent origination. The entire inner field of perception exploded into infinite golden disk/links. Links upon links upon links everywhere. Again I thought “this can’t be.” The links kept rolling, spinning, over and over and over. Particle sized links, galaxy sized links. It occurred to me “all life forms are made of spiral/ fractal formations. Is this because of the links? Is this why everything that lives craves to preserve itself?”
Instead of the ones and zeros comprising the structure and matrix of reality, the mind perceived tiny dependent origination links. Links upon links. The links wouldn’t stop spinning. On and on and on and on in the mind continuously. Couldn’t calm into Quiet Mind at all after this. Mind was too distraught. “I can’t trust these visions, why aren’t the links stopping? How is this happening?” I must’ve sat watching these spinning link/ring formations for an hour. I thought to myself “what am I going to do?! Just sit here all night and watch these links? I can’t trust any of this. I'm going back to my cabin to sleep.” I got in bed and laid there from 10pm to midnight. “Too much energy, the body feels completely different, what is happening? how on Earth will I sleep and why won’t the disks stop?” Could barely stay in observation/mindfulness. Mind would observe or be aware for a few moments then the mindfulness would vanish as attention was drawn into the spinning links. The links keep spinning here, there, everywhere.
Sankhara— the Alayavijnana (the Storehouse Consciousness)
At some point I don’t know how but a wave of equanimity came. I thought “what a relief!” The mind quieted. The next thing I remember, Mind appeared as observing the links, but also WAS the field of links themselves. There was a super close-up seeing a link to the left, a zoom-in on a link in the distance, a third link rotating upward like a windmill and simultaneity of being the entire links/ring disk field as they rotated. Consciousness was unusual here in the sense that although it was not multi-point of view, consciousness was somehow nodal. It was every disk without multi-screen point of view.
When the human body and individuated consciousness fully emerged I thought “did I just have a dream of being the links of DO (dependent origination)? The mind was reviewing the experience again and again trying to understand what happened. I just remember deep equanimity and then consciousness vanishing into an experience of being the link disk field. I thought “impossible.” An even deeper, more intense, IMMENSE JOY exploded in the body/mind. I opened my eyes after this and it was exactly 1:08am
I still couldn’t trust what was happening so I laid there fully awake for another 3 hours attempting to meditate in bed. Finally I let go and just accepted the spinning links and allowed the mind to enter whatever experience was to follow. The mind dived into the dependent origination links. It was like being inside the links, looking out. A few moments later the mind perceived what could only be described as corruptions on the links. The links themselves appeared as golden rectangular spokes on the disks. There were 3 kinds of corruptions– bursted red spheres, grayed/whitened and green dendrite structures on the links.
Surprisingly, when I finally allowed this to happen the mind felt relief. It was as if the links were begging persistently to be viewed. After this the links receded into the background. By now it had been 8 hours in meditation and must’ve been 4 or 5 in the morning. I was resting in an uncontrived state which TWIM calls “signlessness”— a mind that rests without object or clinging.
This continued for some time since there was finally peace in the mind from absence of the spinning links. From this level of deep peace and brightness the black screen of the mind’s eye began to change, transform and take on forms. It began appearing as other heres, other nows, windows in time. It was not comparable to the strange visual imagery in the 8th Jhana territory. This was not imagery, it was reality. In this space or place I remember looking up at an a wall of screens and then looking down, holding a hand sized bean shaped object. On this object were rows of 1in x 1in screens, all first person POV of different scenes, different places and persons in time. There was a scene and reality of looking through the eyes of a woman gazing at a table on her back porch. The mind hesitated and I wondered if by taking one step forward into her reality, would I completely disappear from this one? the mind just continued to observe and appeared in this unknown woman's body as she watched the autumn leaves falling. I entered other bodies and lives like a Rolodex, a shuffling of countless incarnations. I was eventually drawn backwards. When I emerged from this I didn’t know if I was in the same reality anymore. “Am I in Dhamma Sukkha?” I felt my face and body superimposed/transforming into changing faces and bodies of various life personalities. One moment a woman’s face, the next moment a man’s face, next an alien, one person after the next arising and disappearing. One incarnations “feel” and then the next flickering from one moment after the other. I opened my eyes to calm down. I saw the door and the inside of the cabin and thought “ok yes I am in the reality I started in great.” The body calmed down and was finally tired enough to fall asleep and into a dream.
Post Retreat Conversation
An event which was omitted known as “Knowledge and Conversation” happened shortly before the viewing of the life personalities. In this event the inner master appears and the secrets of your life are revealed. Secrets which can’t be spoken of. What has happened that I did not understand. What is happening that I do not understand. What will happen that I otherwise would not understand. It was like a near death experience in which you have a life review, but instead of only a flash backwards there was also a flash forward.
At the end of many Suttas it says “upon emerging from cessation, seeing with Wisdom his taints were destroyed.” The taints and the links of dependent origination it seems, are not seen with physical eyes, nor even the mind's eye that we’re familiar with. Another dimension of inner vision opens inside the mind. This is the Wisdom Eye. It seems only to see dependent origination— these disk links. It sees the defilements. Everything in samsara is bound by craving. Particles have attraction and repulsion. All life strives to survive and preserve itself. Everything is dependent origination– the interplay of causes and conditions.
In the afterglow of this I no longer had attachments, attachments were not possible. My story as a person in time or a person at all was gone and every cell, energy center and meridian began changing, transforming, vibrating. It took days to feel normal again. I was concerned I’d gone too far and that I wouldn’t be able to feel anything ever again besides peace. Not concerned for myself of course but for everyone else.
The nature of all spiritual practice and meditation work was understood. Reality is fabrication. All things occur based on conditions. All meditation methods, traditions, and teachers are reality tunnels. Masters and deities install the seeds and structures in disciples in order for given awakenings or experiences to occur. All bodies– physical, astral, mental, causal and supra-causal (higher/cosmic self) are configurations of Mind/experience. These configurations interpenetrate, communicate and enact influence upon each other. The “higher” or more refined configurations guide the grosser ones.
Everything seems different now. Seeing with the wisdom eye– attachments and craving, dying as we speak. In regard to the state I was in that night where any place in time and multiple realities were accessible— consciousness didn’t even need to disappear here and appear elsewhere. I could walk into another existence like walking through a door. This seems to be my future state once the awakening process has matured further. There was peace in which no attachments were longer possible even if I wanted them to be. All human-ness gone, yet love and compassion remained.
All the spiritual experiences I’ve ever had happened because a set of causes and conditions were present for them to occur. All spirituality happens in this samsara. Surely further “awakening” will occur— still the mere interplay of causes and conditions. You do this practice or read this text or get this blessing/ transmission/initiation and will have a given form of awakening or special ability arise. Even the method here (TWIM) is no different in this regard. It’s all simulation– all code, computations and configurations. Just like how when you donate money more money starts to come in. You do A you get B. You do a certain kind of yoga or mantra or whatever and the lineage deities load your body with the necessary architecture and energy— they sow the seeds. At some point those seeds sprout. Different seeds, different enlightenments.
None of this can be taken seriously now. If I do, it’s the mere fault of habit or unmindfulness. The whole thing, even my experience of God consciousness in my near death experience, that was heralded as the most profound experience of my life— is just another configuration of structures/processes which are dependently originated. Mind appears as THAT. Mind appears as THIS. Without consciousness none of these experiences occur. The Buddha said “you are dependent origination.” These insights give a very different meaning of what those words signify.
Subsequent Cessations & Considerations Post Retreat
(Updated December 2024)
In the Suttas it says “he who sees dependent origination sees the Dhamma, he who sees the Dhamma sees dependent origination.” While I don’t propose a definitive meaning of the passage I will mention 2 primary findings which have emerged since writing this original post.
In “post-cessation” the mind can arise as 2 or more realities simultaneously. This mind-split effect is how it is possible for mind to ascertain both an asankhata-dhamma (unconditioned-reality) and dependent origination at the same time via this mind-split/duo reality phenomena. The mind arises as both an unconditioned dimensionless reality & as the disk/links of dependent origination simultaneously.
Cessation is NOT an actual absence of consciousness it is merely the absence of recollection. If cessation is not a vanishing of mind/reality then what is it? I argue based on subsequent investigation that the cessation event is actually an experience so far removed from conditioned and conventional reality that it initially cannot be recollected or reconstructed after the re-emergence of the experiential field. In later cessations the mind did not vanish but instead entered what could only be described as quantum omni-presence. It seems, somehow that the mind arises as the entirety of samsara & nirvana. Samsara as a reality of conditioned existence and Nirvana as a reality that I could only describe as the Buddha-matrix. Infinitudes of Buddhas minds. It defies description and is even more so less definable than the TWIM Nibba-dhatu. Somehow the mind arises as everything. A quantum non-local ground of pure potentiality collapsing itself into every particle of localized definable reality. In subsequent months and years the mind has experienced this and recalls it upon emerging from sleep. It is best described in quote from Meher Baba “when the body sleeps, you awaken as infinity.” This is distinguished from the vastness of infinite consciousness samadhi in which the mind appears as a cosmic consciousness vast and infinite. All samadhi and formless states are still single screen point of view realities. In quantum infinity however, mind arises as all screens, all places, all points of localization. It is inconceivable and indescribable. Whether any of the aforementioned possible Nibbanas are the actual Nibbana of Theravada or end goal of any form of Buddhism, I do not know nor would I propose that they are.