Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27839
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Brizzy,
Brizzy wrote:The rapidity of the mind and its observed sensations is what I understand as dissolution.
That correlates to my experience on a Goenka retreat a few years ago.

During and afterwards, I could randomly pick any area of the body and consciousness would flash to it nearly instantaneously like a laser. If I do the same now, out of retreat conditions, it may take up to a second or two to direct (manasikara) consciousness to the chosen point in order to experience vedana in that location. The mind isn't tuned to such activity in the way it would be under retreat conditions.

In retreat, during the "sweeping" activity the vedana experience had a washing vibrancy to it and from what I remember of Goenkaji's video instruction, that experience is what is known as bhanga (dissolution). By changing location continually, the exact point of vedana trails just behind the point of manasikara, so you only see the tail-end, or dissolution, of whatever attention is (then very quickly, was) paid to.

Further to what I said earlier though, there was nothing at all fearful, miserable or disgusting about this experience. If anything, it was quite pleasant. According to the insight-knowledges model, my failure to experience fearfulness, misery and then disgust in response to this was a failure to develop through the next three insight-knowledge stages. However, not seeing experiences such fearfulness, misery or disgust portrayed as signs of spiritual progress in the suttas, I wasn't particularly perturbed by this absence.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by Ben »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Brizzy,
Brizzy wrote:The rapidity of the mind and its observed sensations is what I understand as dissolution.
That correlates to my experience on a Goenka retreat a few years ago.

During and afterwards, I could randomly pick any area of the body and consciousness would flash to it nearly instantaneously like a laser. If I do the same now, out of retreat conditions, it may take up to a second or two to direct (manasikara) consciousness to the chosen point in order to experience vedana in that location. The mind isn't tuned to such activity in the way it would be under retreat conditions.

In retreat, during the "sweeping" activity the vedana experience had a washing vibrancy to it and from what I remember of Goenkaji's video instruction, that experience is what is known as bhanga (dissolution). By changing location continually, the exact point of vedana trails just behind the point of manasikara, so you only see the tail-end, or dissolution, of whatever attention is (then very quickly, was) paid to.

Further to what I said earlier though, there was nothing at all fearful, miserable or disgusting about this experience. If anything, it was quite pleasant. According to the insight-knowledges model, my failure to experience fearfulness, misery and then disgust in response to this was a failure to develop through the next three insight-knowledge stages. However, not seeing experiences such fearfulness, misery or disgust portrayed as signs of spiritual progress in the suttas, I wasn't particularly perturbed by this absence.

Metta,
Retro. :)
To me, it is entirely possible that what you experienced was not Bhanga-nana (according to the tradition). I may be wrong but from what you've told me (or remember from what you've told me). And my observation has been that a lot of people misdiagnose their experiences as Bhanga. As a lot of people also misdiagnose particular experiences as Jhana.
there was nothing at all fearful, miserable or disgusting about this experience.
You may recall the warnings SN Goenka gave during a ten-day course that there is a real danger in being seduced by the pleasantness of the experience. As with Bhanga, so too with other pleasant non-Bhanga experiences. Knowledge of terror, danger and disenchantment are actually separate meditative experiences or nanas.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27839
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Ben,
Ben wrote:To me, it is entirely possible that what you experienced was not Bhanga-nana (according to the tradition).
Entirely possible to me too. Given the insight-knowledges framework of the Visuddhimagga is not my path, I have no inclination to desire, wish or hope that that's what it was either. If it was, it was - if it wasn't, it wasn't. It did however correlate with what Goenkaji said I should expect to be experiencing in the latter stages of the 10-day retreat when he would be mentioning the word bhanga, and from what I could overhear from other discussions between the AT and students I wasn't lagging behind anyone in terms of expected progress.
Ben wrote:You may recall the warnings SN Goenka gave during a ten-day course that there is a real danger in being seduced by the pleasantness of the experience.
Yeah, no worries about this... he was even more insistent on the maintenance of equanimity! Unlike some people who rock up to a retreat, I'm not it for a "good buzz" and wouldn't be interested in meditation at all were it not for the Dhamma and for Samma Sati and Samma Samadhi being components of the Noble Eightfold Path.
Ben wrote:Knowledge of terror, danger and disenchantment are actually separate meditative experiences or nanas.
Yes I know, they're the next ones in line, even if (to me at least) they feel very alien in the context of the Buddha's teachings on the reasons and motivations for dispassion and cessation. This is the second time I've mentioned this, so I feel I should provide something from the Dhamma to substantiate it. Here is an extract from a Q&A session between the Buddha and Sariputta, as recorded in SN 12.31 - Bhutamidam Sutta - http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Excellent, Sariputta. Excellent. One sees with right discernment that 'this has come into being.' Seeing with right discernment that 'this has come into being,' one practices for disenchantment with, for dispassion toward, for the cessation of what has come into being. One sees with right discernment that 'it has come into being from this nutriment.' Seeing with right discernment that 'it has come into being from this nutriment,' one practices for disenchantment with, for dispassion toward, for the cessation of the nutriment by which it has come into being. One sees with right discernment that 'from the cessation of this nutriment, what has come into being is subject to cessation.' Seeing with right discernment that 'from the cessation of this nutriment, what has come into being is subject to cessation,' one practices for disenchantment with, for dispassion toward, for the cessation of what is subject to cessation"
I have not found similar sutta parallels for the insight-knowledges of fearfulness, misery or disgust. Rather, clear-seeing tends to be regarded in the suttas as a positive experience, such as that of realising you've been cheated in the past, and now needn't be cheated any more. No terror there! Equanimity, as per Goenkaji's own instruction however, to such an experience/insight seems a far more valid reaction/response, aligned with the Buddha's own instruction, than experiences of fearfulness, misery or disgust.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
bodom
Posts: 7215
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:18 pm
Location: San Antonio, Texas

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by bodom »

retro wrote: I have not found similar suttas parallel for the insight-knowledges of fearfulness, misery or disgust.


The pali term for fearfulness, misery or disgust is adinava and is the supposed 7th insight knowledge found in the Vsm. The term adinava can be found all over the suttas.

See this selection of suttas:

adinava
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dham ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27839
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Bodom,

I have no problems whatsoever with adinava as relating to the draw-backs of conditioned experience.

The terms I was using above, were taken straight from Mahasi Sayadaw's "The Progress of Insight" (Visuddhiñana-katha)

- Awareness of Fearfulness (bhayatupatthana-ñana)
- Knowledge of Misery (adinava-ñana)
- Knowledge of Disgust (nibbida-ñana)

In connection to adinava-ñana, Mahasi Sayadaw says...
When he has realized the fearfulness (of the formations) through the knowledge of fear, and keeps on noticing continuously, then the "knowledge of misery" will arise in him before long. When it has arisen, all formations everywhere — whether among the objects noticed, or among the states of consciousness engaged in noticing, or in any kind of life or existence that is brought to mind — will appear insipid, without a vitalizing factor, and unsatisfying. So he sees, at that time, only suffering, only unsatisfactoriness, only misery. Therefore this state is called "knowledge of misery."
Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... gress.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
bodom wrote:The term adinava can be found all over the suttas.
Yes, but not used in such a grim, miserable and depressing way. In the suttas, adinava is hued with clear-seeing, dispassion and equanimity.

This whole notion of "any kind of life or existence that is brought to mind — will appear insipid, without a vitalizing factor, and unsatisfying" is so different from the seven factors of enlightenment, as taught by the Buddha...

1. Mindfulness (sati)
2. Keen investigation of the dhamma (dhammavicaya)
3. Energy (viriya)
4. Rapture or happiness (piti)
5. Calm (passaddhi)
6. Equilibrium of the detached intellect (samadhi)
7. Equanimity (upekkha)
MN 54 wrote:'The Blessed One has compared sensuality to a chain of bones, of much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks.' Seeing this with right discernment, as it actually is, then avoiding the equanimity coming from multiplicity, dependent on multiplicity, he develops the equanimity coming from singleness, dependent on singleness, where sustenance/clinging for the baits of the world ceases without trace."
Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
Alex123
Posts: 4035
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by Alex123 »

Hello all,

I have been reading this thread with interest and considered many things back and forth. In my experience there IS momentariness, and it is actually taught in the suttas (dhammas are said to arise, persist and fall). Example: Look to the left, look to the right. You have just witnessed momentariness of seeing. It is empirically given to experience.

The only thing is that it should not be abstracted into zero-length or "trillions cittas per second" which are not empirical truth, unless it is actually experienced. As you are reading, the consciousness state changes with every letter, word, sentence. Consciousness is always consciousness of something, and it changes with its object - in this case letters, words, sentences. We do not live in some frozen state where nothing changes. If nothing would change, then you would never finish this sentence after starting to read it. IMHO,

"Known to him they arose, known to him they remained, known to him they subsided. He discerned, 'So this is how these qualities, not having been, come into play. Having been, they vanish.' " - http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe the number 10^21 of cittas per second should be taken metaphorically just like number "500" is metaphoric meaning "a lot". Indians were not precise with numbers like us, and unintended literalism for people removed from that time and culture can lead to hair splitting discussions such as these.

Alex
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by Ben »

Hi Retro,
I understand where you are coming from regarding some of the insight knowledges and the perceived negativity in which those experiences seem to be framed. Speaking from my own experience, those nanas are characterised by equanimity. They are very different from the affective experience of terror, fearfulness, misery and disgust. I think I have mentioned this before in another thread and I have said similar things with regard to the contemplation of the repulsiveness of nutriment. Its not that we develop aversive responses to food or phenomena. What we are doing is seeing food, phenomena or our situation in greater clarity unveiled from matrices of aversion, craving and ignorance in their myriad and very often subtle forms.
Entirely possible to me too. Given the insight-knowledges framework of the Visuddhimagga is not my path, I have no inclination to desire, wish or hope that that's what it was either.
Sure, I understand. In day to day practice and during a retreat I put aside everything except the instruction atapi sampajjano satima with respect to the object. Experiences come and go. But what I experience isn't as important as how I experience. What is the quality of mind when I avert to the object? How successful am I in carrying out the instruction atapi sampajjano satima? What one thinks one should be experience becomes a bit of a barrier to actually perceiving what's actually happening moment to moment.

In fact, I put aside just about everything whether it be the Dhamma according to SN Goenka, U Ba Khin, Ledi Sayadaw or others and I regard all of it as provisionally acceptable. While I have great confidence in the lineage I practice in and the scholar/meditation teachers within my tradition I also investigate their teachings with the cool piercing laser or objective investigation.

Anyway, I've said enough and I need to get back to work if I want to get out of here this evening...
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
Alex123
Posts: 4035
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by Alex123 »

Greetings Retro,
retrofuturist wrote: Yes, but not used in such a grim, miserable and depressing way. In the suttas, adinava is hued with clear-seeing, dispassion and equanimity.
"A virtuous monk, Kotthita my friend, should attend in an appropriate way to the five clinging-aggregates as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self." - http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Magandiya offers his daughter to the Buddha, who replies:]
On seeing [the daughters of Mara] — Discontent, Craving, & Passion — there wasn't even the desire for sex. So what would I want with this, filled with urine & excrement? I wouldn't want to touch it even with my foot. - http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Full of the many clans of impurities, the great manufacturer of excrement, like a stagnant pool, a great tumor, great wound, full of blood & lymph, immersed in a cesspool, trickling liquids, the body is oozing foulness — always. Bound together with sixty sinews, plastered with a stucco of muscle, wrapped in a jacket of skin, this foul body is of no worth at all. Linked together with a chain of bones, stitched together with tendon-threads, it produces its various postures, from being hitched up together. Headed surely to death, in the presence of the King of Mortality, the man who learns to discard it right here, goes wherever he wants. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If correctly applied, these teachings lead to joy.


With best wishes,

Alex
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27839
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Ben,
Ben wrote:Anyway, I've said enough and I need to get back to work if I want to get out of here this evening...
I did enjoy your post though, so thanks for sharing.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27839
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Alex,
Alex123 wrote:If correctly applied, these teachings lead to joy.
Yes - joy, as opposed to sour-facing.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
User avatar
bodom
Posts: 7215
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:18 pm
Location: San Antonio, Texas

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by bodom »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Bodom,

I have no problems whatsoever with adinava as relating to the draw-backs of conditioned experience.

The terms I was using above, were taken straight from Mahasi Sayadaw's "The Progress of Insight"...
Got ya. Thanks for clarifying.

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
User avatar
robertk
Posts: 5603
Joined: Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:08 am

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by robertk »

robertk wrote:
tell me if you think that it is the same citta or a different one that hears, that sees, etc
?
Nana: Cognitions are classified in terms of sense faculty and object. MN 38 Mahātaṇhāsankhaya Sutta:
Umm ok. So are the 'cognition that arise say with sound object or visible object different or are they still the same one?
Brizzy
Posts: 138
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2011 7:58 am

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by Brizzy »

chownah wrote:
Brizzy wrote: One cannot use every experience to progress on the path.
I think you are mistaken....every experience is an opportunity....I guess.....
chownah
I think that points to a vital concern in this thread. With the idea that every experience is an opportunity does that apply to sex or pursuing other sensual pleasures? Does it apply to developing the dissolution experience? Not every experience is to be developed.

Metta

:smile:
Ignorance is an intentional act.
Brizzy
Posts: 138
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2011 7:58 am

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by Brizzy »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Bodom,

I have no problems whatsoever with adinava as relating to the draw-backs of conditioned experience.

The terms I was using above, were taken straight from Mahasi Sayadaw's "The Progress of Insight" (Visuddhiñana-katha)

- Awareness of Fearfulness (bhayatupatthana-ñana)
- Knowledge of Misery (adinava-ñana)
- Knowledge of Disgust (nibbida-ñana)

In connection to adinava-ñana, Mahasi Sayadaw says...
When he has realized the fearfulness (of the formations) through the knowledge of fear, and keeps on noticing continuously, then the "knowledge of misery" will arise in him before long. When it has arisen, all formations everywhere — whether among the objects noticed, or among the states of consciousness engaged in noticing, or in any kind of life or existence that is brought to mind — will appear insipid, without a vitalizing factor, and unsatisfying. So he sees, at that time, only suffering, only unsatisfactoriness, only misery. Therefore this state is called "knowledge of misery."
Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... gress.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
bodom wrote:The term adinava can be found all over the suttas.
Yes, but not used in such a grim, miserable and depressing way. In the suttas, adinava is hued with clear-seeing, dispassion and equanimity.

This whole notion of "any kind of life or existence that is brought to mind — will appear insipid, without a vitalizing factor, and unsatisfying" is so different from the seven factors of enlightenment, as taught by the Buddha...

1. Mindfulness (sati)
2. Keen investigation of the dhamma (dhammavicaya)
3. Energy (viriya)
4. Rapture or happiness (piti)
5. Calm (passaddhi)
6. Equilibrium of the detached intellect (samadhi)
7. Equanimity (upekkha)
MN 54 wrote:'The Blessed One has compared sensuality to a chain of bones, of much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks.' Seeing this with right discernment, as it actually is, then avoiding the equanimity coming from multiplicity, dependent on multiplicity, he develops the equanimity coming from singleness, dependent on singleness, where sustenance/clinging for the baits of the world ceases without trace."
Metta,
Retro. :)
I pursued the method a bit further before I had concerns.
I had the fear & misery nana's - one of my concerns was that the equanimity that I developed felt imposed/lifeless/dead, whereas the equanimity I have experienced pursuing sutta jhanas was natural/rich/deep and a solid basis for discernment.
The fear that I felt via the nana's was truly fearful, the fear/dispassion that I cultivated via the suttas was truly joyful.

Metta

:smile:
Ignorance is an intentional act.
chownah
Posts: 9336
Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:19 pm

Re: Vipassanā: What Is Dissolution, Really?

Post by chownah »

Brizzy wrote:
chownah wrote:
Brizzy wrote: One cannot use every experience to progress on the path.
I think you are mistaken....every experience is an opportunity....I guess.....
chownah
I think that points to a vital concern in this thread. With the idea that every experience is an opportunity does that apply to sex or pursuing other sensual pleasures? Does it apply to developing the dissolution experience? Not every experience is to be developed.

Metta

:smile:
Yes, I think it applies to sex and pursuit of other sensual pleasures....absolutely! It is often easier to see clinging when it is a very strong and recurring clinging.....sex and other sensual pleasures help to make clinging very obvious to the careful observer I think. We do have sex and pursue sensual desires....let's use it to point the way along the path....We don't need to worry about developing sexual desire and pursuit of sensual pleasure because they are already developed......You seem to have lumped the dissolution experience along with sensual pleasures and then say that not every experience is to be developed.....why not disentangle the two and make a statement about what is bad about developing the dissolution experience and don't let people fall into the false trap of guilt by association. Maybe people get too attached to the dissolution experience....that would be a reason to not develop it or to at least develop it with some knowledge that could help avoid excessive clinging......there is no precept to avoid dissolution expereinces, are you suggesting we make it a precept?.....or.....what harm does it do?......seems like some people come to a certain type of insight from the experience...I have never done it so I really have no basis to approve or disapprove of it.....is the dissolution expereince more harmful than rock and roll or rich desserts?
chownah
Post Reply