How did you learn about the stages of insight?

Hi everyone,

Many of you know that I'm writing a book about insight meditation, which is foolhardy and crazy, but I'm foolish and bit crazy so... Anyway, I'm at the part where I'm introducing the stages of insight.

I remember when I first learned about them, and the "aha!" moment I had when I finally heard about them. I'd already read about them, but didn't really get it, and then when Kenneth explained them to me it was like an older brother letting me in on some really amazing secret, like I suddenly knew where the christmas gifts come from.

I'm hoping people who read it will have that feeling, and I want to them to know that they aren't alone in that, so I'm curious if anyone wants to share an anecdote or two about how they found out about the stages and what their reaction was to them.

Thanks in advance to anyone who shares with me. I promise that if I do put anything in the book I'll ask your permission first.

Ron

Ron!! Glad you are here, finally. I stumbled upon an A&P event by myself years ago and scoured the internet looking for what the heck happened. When I finally found MCTB and then Buddhist Geeks and KFD, the AHA! moment happened. It was one of those 'Ohh, this shit is real' moments that led me to reach out to a teacher (aka: You) I really always enjoyed your descriptions of the stages from your site. They were much 'lighter' (if that makes sense) than what Daniel described in MCTB.

As the stages went along and I had my own flavors of them, sometimes it still took some pointing out to realize where I was, but the more it was pointed out the more it made sense. So the more descriptions (flavors) the better I think.

Happy 2015 everyone - may it be healthy and happy!
Memory is a little hazy but I also found out about the stages of insight from MCTB (in 2012) which mysteriously showed up just when I was 'needing' to know about them. In short succession, I stumbled onto information about jhanas, (from listening to Aya Khema on Youtube) then tried them, had a wild experience, then consulted DHO to find out if what I had experienced was 1st jhana or A&P. In retrospect, I am pretty sure it was A&P.

MCTB, after devouring it twice in a couple of days then rarely opening it again, did crack open what was not understood and opaque to me previously regarding the nanas and paths etc. But, as you say Ron, it is at a level of focus that I found a bit confusing since I did not experience the Nanas in the same minute and distinct detail as Daniel described (probably because of using jhanas). Best of luck with your book!

Ronald Crouch wrote: like an older brother letting me in on some really amazing secret, like I suddenly knew where the christmas gifts come from.

Whoa, you know where Christmas gifts come from? There ought to be a forum for that.

Early on I had several strange experiences while meditating. The darkness behind my eyes got very dark and then it expanded out to create a 3 dimensional space...it was not like any other experience I had so I kept Googling it and finally fell upon the Dharma Overground posts. From there I found MCTB and read about the jhanas and thought (erroneously) that must be the 5th jhana of boundless space. When I read about progress of insite I finally had a frame of reference for the last 17 years or so of cycling thru the dark night since my A&P experiences. It was such a relief to know what was happening and to finally have something to do about it. I also had context for what had been stream entry without knowing what it was. I could see the stages of insite happening pretty clearly most times during the two years from post 1st path to when I started second path work. It was an amazing discovery to have a framework and to know this was a natural progression. It's like having a diagnosis for an unknown ailment after many years of searching.

~D

I found them quite by chance.

I had a sat a few Goenka retreats, and in one of the discourses he mentions a scientist who created a bubble chamber to measure, among other things, the arising and passing away of particles. (The relevance of the story is to show the difference between intellectual and experiential knowledge; the scientist got a nobel peace prize, and the Buddha got enlightenment.)

At home I was curious to look up the actual details of the bubble chamber, and so I did a google search that was something like "Bubble chamber arising and passing away," and one the pages that came up was the Arising and passing away chapter of MCTB. I read it and was blown away. I'm pretty sure I ordered the book off Amazon that night. The rest is history.

Excited about the book, Ron!

I didn't know about the progress of insight stages until I listened to Daniel Ingram's podcast episodes on Buddhist Geeks. After that, I read both MCTB and Mahasi Sayadaw's "Practical Insight Meditation" (still the gold standard, in my view). Then I read Jack Kornfield's "A Path With Heart," which also outlines them nicely.

Best of luck!

I learned from Mahasi Sayadaw's book also. Later I listened to Ron's podcast which I found to be the clearest exposition.

I would hope that a book would at least mention those people who don't seem to be going through the nanas in order or have only recognized a few of the markers or for whom they don't seem to apply.

Jack

MCTB was my introduction, made by way of Daniel's podcasts on Buddhist Geeks. I already had a copy of "Path With Heart," but apparently never read far enough to get to the stages of insight. Either that, or I just plain missed them.

I was fascinated, and set a strong intention to first get to first jhana, as recommended. I worked on first jhana for nearly five months, and eventually got there, but I was surprised that it wasn't quite how Daniel described it. Then, I couldn't reproduce it any more, and my meditation "stopped working" shortly after that. Eventually, I figured out that what actually happened was that I had experienced a strong A&P passage, not first jhana. After that, things made more sense.

Daniel was, in fact, quite clear, but I must have seen what I wanted to see.

I heard about the Stages of Insight through the work of Willoughby Britton. I had crossed the A&P on retreat without any context for such things and was searching the web for anything that would make me feel like I wasn't crazy. It was incredibly reassuring to know that other people had had experiences like mine. Good luck with the book Ron!

I knew nothing about insight or meditation. I had an intense 'on-you-feet' sports-like mindfulness practice that had startlingly good results. I noticed the results, investigated, decided I was doing a kind of meditation, then intuition led me to a real meditation retreat. Experiences during and after that retreat led me to search online, I found Danial's video describing the flow chart of the stages. I thought he was clearly a kook and the weird presentation gave me a headache. But I kept on looking around his 'integrated danial' website and found his book and DhO.

Matt

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm off to retreat for a week and then I'll take a closer look.

At first glance though, Daniel's book has become a major pointer for many people. Cool stuff.

Late to the party, but yes, it was MCTB in my case too. Then reading Kenneth's descriptions online as well.

I first heard about them at an IMS retreat w/ Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield in 1981, they were teaching classic Mahasi way back then. But I didn't learn how they applied to my practice, even after reading MCTB and DhO, until I started working with Kenneth and participating at KFD. Took me a long time to recognize how the nanas had already been happening in my practice and to notice them while they were happening. Maybe that's because the descriptions sounded so clear and precise and my experience was usually more amorphous.

After my second Goenka retreat I started devouring Dharma books. I wanted to know big picture stuff, buddhist cosmology, more about Goenka tradition and influences, etc. So I came across "A Path with Heart", "Living Dharma", and "After the Ecstasy the Laundry". Read some of the Goenka and U ba Khin stuff (essays, journals, letters, etc). Read U Pandita's "In This Very Life". And many more. All of these books talk about the progress of insight but I had no real clue and did not think it applied to me whatsoever. Kind of glossed over it. Probably chaulked it up to advanced stuff that applied to monks and "better meditators" because all I was only dealing with aches and pains, vibrations, drowsiness, and fear. Nothing fancy hear. No bright lights, vsions, etc. Anyway, went on a retreat that really freaked me out, left a basket case and was haunted by it for a few years not understanding what had happened (it was an experience that seemed very much associated with the meditation practice). A few years later and still bothered I had a thought that maybe that what I experienced was normal or common and that maybe others experienced it too. So I started googling and came across dharma overground and kenneth folk dharma and your site (your description is great). So I was shocked to read that others had similar experiences and that the progress of insight might apply to me as well! That is wasn't only for monks in Burma. That is a loose interpretation as I remember it.

Hope it helps. Good luck w the book Ron! I am sure it is going to be great.