Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha - An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

The Ten Corruptions of Insight are: illumination, knowledge, rapturous happiness, tranquility, bliss, resolute confidence, exertion, assurance, equanimity and attachment. To quote the great meditation master Sayadaw U Pandita, from his great but very hard-to-find book, On the Path to Freedom, “As for the practicing yogi, he will at once recognize the above as imperfections of insight not representing dhamma breakthrough and are only to be noted off, remembering the teacher’s advice as to what is path and not path. Being disabled by the ten imperfections, he would not be capable of observing the triple characteristics in their true nature; but once freed from imperfections, he is able to do so.” In short, they may feel that they are now a very mighty meditator and that they should try to hold on to this forever, i.e.

they stop actually doing insight practices and instead solidify these qualities as concentration practice objects. Thus, the advice given about deconstructing and investigating the positive factors of the samatha jhanas, particularly the second one, is also very helpful when trying to stay on the narrow path of the progress of insight.

Visions, unusual sensory abilities (such as seeing nearby things through one’s closed eyelids), out of body experiences, and especially bright lights tend to arise to the meditator, sometimes first as jewel-tone sparkles and then as a bright white light (“I have seen the light!”). The technical meditator may easily sit for hours dissecting their reality into extremely fine and fast sensations and vibrations, perhaps even up to 40

per second or even more, with an extremely high level of precision and consistency. (Where the absurd and disheartening rumors of billions of mind moments per second come from is beyond me). Fine vibrations 176

The Progress of Insight

may spread over the body, revealing interference patterns between experiences, enabling one to know directly that when one thing is experienced, in that instant, something else is not.

It is very easy to confuse this stage with descriptions of stage 11.

Equanimity, especially as the stage before it, 10. Re-observation, has some distinct similarities to stage 3. The Three Characteristics. A brief discussion of the fractal nature of things that describes this will follow in the chapter called The Vipassana Jhanas. The big difference is that this stage is ruled by quick cycles, rapidly changing frequencies of vibrations, odd physical movements, strange breathing patterns, heady raptures, a decreased need for sleep, strong bliss, and a general sense of riding on a spiritual roller coaster with no breaks. The higher stages (10 and 11) do not have those qualities.

As to the cycles, they tend to proceed as follows, with this description assuming that you are using the breath as object. The mind kicks in, follows faster and faster vibrations, things really engage and speed up, perhaps accompanied by more pronounced shaking or

strange breathing patterns increasing in speed, and then finally half way down an out-breath there is a shift, things drop down slowly, it takes work to stay with things as they slow down, and then things bottom out.

The breath may stop entirely for a while. Then things come back up with the breath, attention tends to flag, things relax, and then the cycle begins again with things speeding up, etc. These breathing cycles may happen quite on their own and may even be difficult to stop when we are deeply into this stage. Those using visualizations as object, may notice that the objects begin to spin with the phase of the breath, or move in ways that they seem to have a life of their own, albeit a two dimensional one, as compared to the three dimensional visions that may arise later.

As this stage deepens and matures, meditators let go of even the high levels of clarity and the other strong factors of meditation, perceive even these to arise and pass as just vibrations, not satisfy, and not be self.

They may plunge down into the very depths of the mind as though plunging deep underwater to where they can perceive individual frames of reality arise and pass with breathtaking clarity as though in slow 177

The Progress of Insight

motion. It can even feel as if we have been submerged in thick syrup and partially sedated with some strong, opiate-like drug.

At the bottom of these depths, however they present themselves, individual moments may sometimes have a frozen quality to them, as if sensations were stopping completely in the middle of their manifestation for just an instant, and this way of experiencing reality is unique to this stage. Somewhere in here is the entrance to the third vipassana jhana in U Pandita's model, though there is some controversy about exactly which insights line up with which vipassana jhanas from here on out. I prefer to think of the Arising and Passing Away being purely second vipassana jhana. I will discuss these controversies in the following chapter.