The jhanic arc, NS and formelessness as a continuum

Hi all,

I am wondering what your experiences with formless states and NS are in terms of how cleanly executed the formless realms need to be for NS to hapen in your practice. 

A little context: After getting to what I think of as 3rd path, I went back to formal concentration practice, trying to hone my focus on the breath, pumping the concentration muscle, going for a much deeper access concentration. After about an hour of that, I would then go up to 4th and then I experimented with various methods to get to 5. But actively trying to go beyond 4th never amounted to much else than a more pronounced spatial aspect of 4th - until the day when I stopped trying and just let the jhanas unfold. In that first non-efforting sit after about 4 weeks of practicing, a number of new states beyond 4th unfolded, that to me seem like beginner versions of the formless realms. Boundlessness in front, not completely all around, etc. Unclean as they were, with body sensations mixed in, they seem to fit the description of the arupas. Now there is a series of states that have more that baseline attention shape change to them, but far from perfect, just like when the rupa jhanas first came online. That new sequence goes from that sitting under the the white light shroud in 4th to attention then going out in front and that spacious aspect coming do dominate, to attention shape then inverting to the awareness of that space, to then the sense that where before there was boundless space there now is nothing, to then a washing machine like state that, at this point in practice, has the feel of velocity, of a roller coaster. After that there comes a state where there is bright light again, but with a serene quiet and sunny joy that is quite differen from fourth. When fourth is the serentiy of sitting in an underwater chapel with light shining from above, this is more like having burst through clouds. Long story short, this seems to be the jhanic arc as has been described here before. 

Thing is, during the third of those non efforting sits, where it seemed that after each formless state there was a short touching base at 4th (things would go bright white for a bit before the next state developed), there was going up and down the arc several times, going out into what seem to be the pureland jhanas, and somewhere in all that going back and forth, where at some point I lost track, suddenly there was a massive state shift with a thick, sirupy afterglow. Tranquility and clarity mixed in a way that was at once drug like in its massive relaxation and too good to be true. Lasted for about 20 hours, into the afternoon of the next day. Countless times during those 20 hours I marveled at this absolute deluxe version of a state. Like a path attainment, only without the perceptual changes and if path attainments were super chill and no at all woo-hoo honeymoon-ey. 

I am very much inclined to say that that was nirodha sampatti - if it weren't for criteria like "only true formless realms, no form elements mixed in, and clear perception of the three phase power down and three phase power up, else it wasn't real NS", as has been stated again and again by some people. 

Now, I don't need to hardcore have this pan out as being NS to hang a diploma on my wall,  I just never have experienced anything that even came close to that afterglow, that singular mix of deep, tranquilizer-like, to-the-bone chill out and that serene clarity of mind that lasted for so long. I haven't found anything in the literature that checks those boxes but NS.

But the formless states where nothing near purely formless (still aren't), and the entrance and the exit to NS(?) weren't clearly perceived. 

I have been going up and down the arc in every formal sit since then (wich was three weeks ago), and just doing that doesn't produce anything like that afterglow. 
I seem to have hit NS? once again since then, when I was going through the washing machine/roller coaster state and it suddenly shifted out into this effortless, wide open clarity that didn't feel like going into a another jhana and again, hours of that same afterglow. No clear sense of a discontinuity, but I also only ever had one clear three doors fruition in all my practice, and working on that didn't seem to make me better at microphenomenology. So I am generally not very gifted at the minutiae of unknowing events, it seems. All of that makes we wonder about the range of experiences people are having with this. 

Ah, seems like those events brought about a new progress cycle, something wich also gets mentioned as something NS usually does at the anagami stages. 
Then again, all that concentration work would do that by itself. More questionmarks...


So I just wonder about this and would like to compare notes. How formless have your formless states been the first few times you hit NS? And was the entrance and exit clearly perceived? Are near miss fruitions in NS jhana runs just like fruitions, or do they hit different? 

Feel free to ask clarifying questions, forum posts and describing my practice are still kinda akward and new for me. 

Interesting. For me, I do feel jhanic afterglow for quite a bit, and have done so pretty much from the beginning (always wondered about Brasington, etc. saying that the effects of Jhana only last a short time), but on those two NS? occasions, there have been sudden state shifts, not the "jhana morphing into another jhana", and like I said, without those, the afterglow is "just" what deep jhana brings. Those two times, the afterglow was... different in kind. So of course I wonder if that may have been NS, because the pure abodes are quite something, but are still jhana in type and aftereffect. These two times that didn't seem to be what was going on. 

Maybe I should have added that after what I think of as 3rd path, I deliberately worked on concentration to attain NS, reasoning that upping my concentration game again will come in handy, third path or fractal 2nd whatever, and should I get NS, that is one criterion that the texts speak of that would confirm third. So I had been doing all the priming, reading, resolving, etc. Sitting 90 minutes and longer every day for four weeks, going back to core concentration work, using the breath to stabilize the nimitta, etc, see above. And then, on the third of the sits where I dropped the effort (thanks to what read KF recommending in your practice diaries, Chris), this thing happened that was this total head and shoulders above all the known temporary states thing. 

Wich, again, for me brings up the question of how formless are the formless states for you guys? Or rather, how formless have they been when you first got them?

I mean, if NS only happens after super pristine arupas, where there is just space, just infinte consciousness, etc., then whatever this was wasn't NS. Could be. 

My general luxury problem here is that there is an abundance of reports of how stream entry happened for different people, etc., but (to my knowledge), very little on the variety of third path territory. And Ingram, well if there is one thing that is difficult for me with his writing, is that he on the one hand says it's more sensible to conceive of jhanas as a continuum of depths (wich matches my experience), only to then, when NS gets discussed, say that formless states are only true formless states when there is no remnant of form. When it comes to phenomenology, he seems to sometimes, when the moonlight hits him, turn into a were-B.Alan Wallace. Understandably so, given the diversity of the posters on the Dho. But that is a bag of mixed messages for someone like me, without a teacher, developing this as a layman in home practice. And I haven't found much (yet) that is useful when it comes to degrees of the formless states coming online. 

To me right now, it seems like I am a beginner at the formless states, and they aren't clean, and sometimes I seem to stumble into NS, more or less despite of my still only unfolding technical skills. Wether or no, practice continues, and the really interesting stuff happens in walking around reality, for want of a better term. 

Up to now, what questions I had ususally resolved themselves through forum research and further practice, and I guess it'll likely be the same with this thing. 

Still, it would be nice to get more reports as to how much mastery there was of these states, how much or little body sensation, etc. before NS happened, and what it was like entering and exiting. 


And yeah, concentration has been a fun ride from the start. Got the rupas before SE, and they were immensly helpful. And as Crowley wrote, "The phenomena of concentration are very varied and curious." Two times now I have had the sudden sensation of something like a hand pressing on my head, that classic "perfected shamatha" experience, both in EQ leading up to path. Just don't tell B. Alan Wallace that it happened at home, on two hours of practice, not sitting in an orgone chamber in the Himalayas for six months, rolling my tongue into my ears... But that is another thing where I chanced upon an experience that is said to only happen in these oh so perfected cirumstances and my practice just indicates something (possibly) different and I have no info of other practitioners and a possible range, so as to come to something of a more rounded view on this. 

That's sort of my experience as well. When I first got fourth, it wasn't quiet and still all round. I suddenly felt like I had touched down into some eye of the tornado where there was quiet stillness, but all around there was still things moving, the water was wavy above. But there was this stillpoint of quiet equanimity. And that "core" of the jhana seemed to be the relevant thing that was different from third. What changes in what I think of as the formless states is the preoccupation, the dominant theme. And the deeper the concentration, and the more runs I do, the more these themes come to the fore, more signal, less noise. 

“And yeah, concentration has been a fun ride from the start. Got the rupas before SE, and they were immensly helpful. And as Crowley wrote, "The phenomena of concentration are very varied and curious."

Just to share my experience which might be helpful or not concerning pre-SE possibilities. 
I’ve got SE in 2019 and first time got into 5th Jhana in 2009 after several months of daily Aikido Ki-breathing meditation. 
I had no clue about what Jhanas are at that time of my life. I just wanted to relax and be centered in the dantien (one point in the lower abdomen). 
It seems one can chance even into arupa Jhana pre SE. 
For me this 5th Jhana was very healing (it healed a huge chunk of my PTSD induced severe paranoia and panic attacks). 
That sense of that Infinte space being wrapped around that Infinte small sense of self in the midst of it. I’ve never experienced such immense safety in my life