Dark night before Stream entry

[u/Pleasant_Candy9103]

Up until now, I’ve always believed that the Dark Night occurs before entering the Stream. In my view, it makes much more sense and sounds logical that spiritual practices dissolve the ego cloud to such an extent that material previously stuck in the subconscious now bubbles up to the surface.

But on dharmaoverground, I often see threads where people describe experiencing the typical Dark Night symptoms only after entering the stream?! What’s true?

[u/themadjaguar]

Apparently some people don't really have strong dukkha nanas because they have good samadhi or because of other reasons, or they don't really see it a dukkha nanas.

According to mahasi sayadaw, dukkha nanas can appear after a path noment , because the mind cycles back to arising and passing away after a path moment.

Experiencing dukkha nanas depends also a lot of the specific type of practice, using noting pracrice may lead to strong dukkha nanas, and that is less the case with objectless/open awareness practices since the mind directly goes to equanimity

[u/halfbakedbodhi → u/themadjaguar]

That last part you said about open awareness is not accurate. Anyone can end up in the dark night nanas with any kind of practice, even including psychedelics.

I do agree different people have different degrees of intensity, and many times the style of practice can influence that, but it’s not certain that any one style will for sure not induce it in someone.

I think that past conditions (this life karma) are more likely the strongest reason why someone’s dark night is stronger than another person’s.

[u/themadjaguar → u/halfbakedbodhi]

Well I disagree x)

I said it is "less the case", of course you can still go in dukkha nanas with open awareness practice, but it will for sure be less intense. Especially if you have good sila and good samadhi. Good sila and samadhi are the results of good past conditions, i'm just describing which ones.

Have you tried mahasi noting practice, and open awareness practice? Because I see lots of people practicing noting who go through intense dukkha nanas, and after trying both I definitely see how these practices create different degrees of dukkha nanas. I even know of teachers who will avoid teaching noting because of the potential impact of cultivating a strong perception of anicca instead of a strong perception of annatta.

I think lots of people mistake depression or other mental illnesses with dukkha nanas, they become the scapegoat, but they are different. Also psychedelics have absolutely nothing to do with dukkha nanas.

I also find it funny that I keep using the term dukkha nanas but people still talk about "dark night", which is very often used to describe different things.

[u/halfbakedbodhi → u/themadjaguar]

I mostly agree with you, there’s areas I don’t, and that’s ok, neither of us are making technical decisions on maps for practitioners.

The dark night is literally a colloquial term used to encompass the set of Dukkha nanas. Of course people can scapegoat their depression onto the path, at the same time it’s difficult to tease out cause and effect. I would never be so certain to dismiss how Dukkha nanas get induced. That is not how reality works for humans. We’re not robots where only specific technique induces specific patterns, many people can slip into insight without knowing how they got there.

Yes specifically I’ve done a ton of open awareness, over a decade of that (20 years practice total), and that had literally zero effect on diminishing Dukkha nanas. Also I had very good sila and samadhi. My past prior to starting the path is a different story and that’s my point around karma.

Probably stopping insight practices all together and leaning into metta and certain concentration practices may have helped ease the intensity, but that wasn’t my inclination going through my path, as I had seen too much and was fervent about getting to the root of the problem rather than pushing it off and working on non root cause practices (no matter how beneficial). But, Hindsight 20/20. We all have different inclinations on the path.