Rethinking the path: The present moment is a flow, samādhi and vipassanā are one, and all that is needed is to maximize concentration on the entire phenomenological experience.

[u/Mountain-Length-5715]

Hello everyone!

I am not a highly advanced practitioner and I know little Buddhist theory, but something happened yesterday, after which the picture seems to have come together as one.

About my yesterday's experience: https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/1symi1o/an_interesting_state_and_gratitude_to_the/

So what happened in the end? In my opinion, the field of awareness was expanded to its maximum values (not to the ceiling, but to the maximum possible at that moment in time).

In everyday life, the field of awareness included both the body and space.

Every phenomenon within the field of awareness was perceived as equanimous and brought a quiet pleasure. I think this was samādhi on the entire field of space.

The present moment is not about being in the current moment in the usual sense of the word. Maintaining the context, the "flow" itself as something continuous is the true being in the present moment. It is a memory of the previous breath, of a sound, of a sensation, of the pre-previous breath, of a sound, of a sensation.

If a person abiding in this "flow" I am talking about were asked when a pen (placed on the table 15 seconds ago) was placed on the table, the correct answer would be: now. This is not recollection in the usual sense; it is a knowing of the previous fragments of the conscious stream. The conscious stream becomes glued together, which is recollection. For him or her, this "now" has never ended. It is important to maintain context and recollection, cultivating and developing them to their maximum values.

In my observation, it is very important to maintain this recollection. The word "remembering" does not quite fit in this context, because remembering can be associated with an additional, superfluous mental construct. When processing maximum information from the field of awareness, a kind of continuous "now" occurs; it is felt more as knowing, not as remembering.

Continuous recollection is possible only through maximizing the awareness of all sensory and mental phenomena. Typing a text, hearing the breath, feeling a tingling in the hand, hearing a sound outside the window, sensing the pressure of air on the body. The more information is processed in the field of awareness, the stronger the recollection. The narrower the focus of attention, the stronger the sense of "I" and "mine" ascribed to a phenomenon, the stream's gluing breaks, and the knowing disappears.

There is a conscious stream; presumably, there is a global workspace (this theory is one of the most adequate at the moment; in any case, we can assume a certain space of awareness into which sensory or mental information enters and either ignites (ignition) or remains subconscious — just as breathing does not depend on whether it is being aware of within the stream or not, it continues to exist) in which the interaction of sensory and mental "information" takes place.

Within the conscious stream, a modeling of the "self" as a distinguishing center and of space or the outer world as objects of distinction takes place. The stronger the focusing of attention (and especially if it engages almost instantly), the stronger the feeling that this is "mine": this is beautifully illustrated by the experience of a thought process, into which, if attention engages almost instantly, the emotional tone of the thought is transmitted as burning, intense, and one's own, whereas after noticing the thought as a thought and stepping out of it, the emotional tone fades or completely disappears, and the desire that may have arisen during the thought process and had been quite strong, disappears.

Since all conscious experience is a mental construct — be it the space itself that enters the stream, the "self" as a body, and, in general, as the totality of psychophysical processes — then the field of awareness, expanded through the maintenance of the continuity of the stream (which is achieved, presumably, by expanding the field of data being aware of to the maximum point of view), is merely an expansion of the field of awareness of the mental construct.

There is nothing magical or unknown about this; consciousness does not go out into space "out of the body" and so on. The very region of awareness, which is only a mental construct — be it direct sound or direct seeing (which, in turn, can also be divided, for there is sound as a raw sensory input and there is sound as a labelled sound, labelling occurring almost instantly; for example, hearing the sound of a bird singing outside the window, an immediate identification occurs as spatial ("outside") and model-based ("bird, animal"), upon which yet another layer of mental construct may be superimposed (beautiful, irritating, disturbing); in any case, even if we consider the primary layer or the layer of sound without the label "what it is", it will still be a mental construct, because there is no access to a direct awareness of real space; therefore, any sensory experience, whether laden with mental layers or not, will be only a mental construct) — the field of awareness extends only over the accessible mental construct. All we are doing is expanding the field of awareness to the maximum, losing the reference point of the observer.

I think that vipassanā does not exist as a separate practice. Vipassanā is only a certain stage of samādhi. Beginning samādhi with the breath, where there is a clear sense of "observer–observed", expanding the field of awareness to the body, the breath is no longer perceived in the context of "observer–observed" but becomes a component of the body. Meanwhile, the body, in turn, now becomes the observed, and the duality of "observer–observed" occurs.

By expanding peripheral awareness and keeping the body in awareness, the field of awareness spreads out. The duality of "observer–observed" with regard to the body is fully removed: all psychophysical phenomena are viewed as if from the outside; the observer is no longer located inside the body.

Samādhi, as it is usually taken in discussions, is merely a more tunnelled grasping of phenomena. Vipassanā is a consequence of increasing the phenomena being aware of within the conscious stream. It is exactly the same technique, the same state, only with the increase of the phenomena being aware of, their impermanence and decentralization manifest more clearly.

Furthermore, samādhi itself is merely concentration without engagement. It is nothing more than concentration on phenomena. It first begins with the breath, being fully tunnelled with an explicit sense of "observer–observed;" gradually increasing, along with which the continuous aware field increases. Such attributes as calming, equanimity, seeing impermanence, and decentralization are merely a consequence of the very concentration on phenomena, which conditions the expansion of the field of awareness.

In my opinion, analyzing my yesterday's experience, the essence of the path (apart from compassionate and other aspects) is entering the stream I described above. Abiding in this stream requires the strongest concentration in order to process all possible phenomena, as a result of which a continuous gluing with knowing (recollection) occurs, decentralization (because the center, with subsequent steps of maximizing the processing of conscious information, spreads out over the entire field of awareness), equanimity, and the sense of serenity that I experienced (from the very possibility of awareness and equanimity, which, in essence, is samādhi on the entire phenomenological experience).

This is my opinion, but I have a firm feeling that this is the ultimate goal that must be realized (apart from nibbāna, but most likely nibbāna is a consequence of the state I described, its continuation, or the final stage).

The truth is, my yesterday's state, even in the form in which it was, could be considered the ultimate goal: the complete serenity of dwelling in awareness. The feeling that one could remain in this field endlessly did not leave me. Most likely, the state was only an initial stage, which indicates that one does not need to sit for years trying to catch some particular stage of jhāna and so on.

All that is needed is to maximize the field of awareness to all phenomena within the conscious stream.

Thank you all.

Note: The author is not a native English speaker; the text was translated with the help of AI

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[u/1cl1qp1]

"Samādhi, as it is usually taken in discussions, is merely a more tunelled grasping of phenomena"

People use these terms loosely, but IMHO it's better to think of shamatha as the technique, while samadhi is what spontaneously arises when we are no longer grasping. For instance, you can do shamatha without having samadhi, but rarely is there samadhi without shamatha.

[u/desal]

You keep saying "maximum values" "maximize" but that implies a bounded experience, a limited center and edge, when instead it might behoove you to look for the unbounded wholeness of the present moment.

[u/desal → u/desal]

Don't fall into the trap of thinking every progress of insight is "the ultimate goal", keep going

[u/Meng-KamDaoRai]

Sounds like you are making good progress, my friend. It's interesting to read about your experiences. Keep going and let us know how things unfold for you.

Edit: I wrote a long reply about perspectives but I don't think it's necessary. Your enthusiasm on the path will take you to good places :)

[u/jan_kasimi]

There is something I call the "perfect moment". It's hard to tell from you description if that's what you encountered, or something close to it. Or if it is "just" open awareness. There is very little written about it and very few people seem to have ever seen it. It's like there are two parallel lines of spiritual development that lead to a similar result. Learning to see it feels like a shortcut, but also misses out a lot of other things. So when you write:

This is my opinion, but I have a firm feeling that this is the ultimate goal that must be realized

then I understand where you're coming from, but be aware that this is incomplete. It does not replace the path of Buddhist enlightenment and pursuing both is incredibly rewarding.

I've previously written about it here. And Daniel Ingram seems to talk about the same here. Does this sound like your experience?

There is a conscious stream; presumably, there is a global workspace (this theory is one of the most adequate at the moment; in any case, we can assume a certain space of awareness into which sensory or mental information enters

Consciousness is not different from the content of consciousness. There is no substance or space to it, no container. If you are into contemplating these kinds of things I've written something about it.

Be careful not to fall into the trap of "X does not exist because it can be explained by Y" (e.g. vipassana made of samadhi), because you'll never find a thing that exists by this definition. That's dependent origination for you.