This came up in a conversation I had with Yadid.
Mahasi Sayadaw suggests that one who has attained stream entry should practice to lengthen the duration of their fruition attainment, extending fruition to a half hour, an hour, or even more.
* Has anyone tried this or trained in this way, or known of someone who has? If so...
* How was it done, what were the benefits, etc?
* What is the difference between NS (as explained in MCTB ) and a lengthening of fruition attainment?
* The Visuddhimagga seems to say that fruition attainment occurs as a form of jhanic attainment; one reaches a path, and on the basis of the jhana involved with that path (depending on how one was practicing), the fruition attainment associated with that path involves the jhana factors of the relevant jhana in some way. (Bhante G has an accessible discussion of this.) What is the relationship between fruition and jhana, however you understand those terms?
Not sure if this will be a productive thread; I suspect not many people here do this kind of thing nowadays. But perhaps I'll be surprised!
Is 'fruition' according to Mahasi, conscious or unconcsious (as in the infamous momentary blip/black out/conk out)?
It has already been stated that phalasamapatti (fruition attainment) first begins to occur when arising from nirodhasamapatti. This phalasamapatti being free from raga (passion), etc., it is also called suÒÒata(the Void). As it is free of rÊga-nimitta (one of the attributes of sentient existence), it is also known as animitta. Moreover, as it is free from passionate desire such as raga, etc., it is also called appanihita. As such, phassa which is also included in this samapatti is also known as suÒÒata, animitta and appanihita. As phassa (contact) takes place by dwelling upon Nibbana, which is known as suÒÒata (the Void), animitta (the Unconditioned), and appanithta (freedom from longing or desire), with attentive consciousness of mind, it is called suÒÒata, etc. The answer, therefore, is that the three kinds of phassa, viz: suÒÒataphassa, animittaphassa and appanihitaphassa first begin to take place.
For better understanding, it may be stated that when arising from nirodhasamÊpatti,contact takes place with suÒÒata-nibbana, a condition devoid of kilesa-sankhara to which the mind has been directed as its sense-object. Contact is also made with animitta-nibbana which is devoid of or free from any sign of nimitta. Then comes mere awareness of contact with appanihita-nibbana, a condition free from vehement desire, which is the sense object that has been contemplated.
Here it seems he is talking of what is occuring directly after nirodha. Is nirodha the cessation of senses? Is phala, i.e. fruition attainment, a conscious experience? Conscious or unconscious? This may influence the answers to your questions.
I did this for awhile: http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/yogi-toolbox-lengthening-fruition.html. Is it the same thing?
Bill used to talk about extended Fruition duration. I chased it for years and totally failed to have Fruitions that I could be certain had any external duration of any appreciable timeframe except this one time long ago (circa 1997) where I thought maybe...
There seems to be individual variation on how Fruitions happen for people. Some can get multiples, some can only get one/day max, some seem to describe duration by external time measures but the gap for them is the same, meaning there is just the in, the out, and nothing in between beyond the sense on retrospect that there was a discontinuity, like some frames of reality were edited out and the thing was spliced back together. Some can get Fruitions only after long practice on a cushion, others in daily life sometimes, others in daily life easily, others by mere brief inclination, and this may vary by the phase of their practice.
Bill used to really strive for duration, and apparently would spend hours calming and restraining and stabilizing the mind to achieve it. Kenneth Folk would know more about his practice and might be worth asking about it.
Within this 60 minutes sitting period, may the Phenomena of Arising and Ceasing appear as often as possible.
If we were successful - i.e. if we felt that time was somehow "missing" when the bell went at the end of the sit, we could change the resolution to 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 60 mins, incrementally. I didn't manage this at all, but it sounds a lot like what you might call extended fruitions.
Joining this thread a bit late, perhaps with some useful information.
The Ajahn Tong tradition (Mahasi with noting, with variable session length, from 20/20 up to 60/60) puts a strong emphasis on making wishes before each sitting session. On retreats (after the basic course), one is instructed to make a wish about attaining certain Òana (perhaps without actually knowing what nibbidaÒana actually means, does not matter). The same applies to the last part of the retreat called "determination" (in the sense of resolution or strong wish) coming after equanimity. One practices round the clock with the resolution of (first night) experiencing arising & ceasing as often as possible (manifested as head dropping down or such, a "jerk", plus consciousness disappearing very shortly); and the resolution (second night) experiencing the state of mind without the consciousness of external phenomena (i.e. without body & mind phenomena; = fruitions) for increasing amount of time (5, 10, ... minutes, up to one hour).
I my own practice I had a clear fruition on the 3rd retreat (I even remember, in hindsight, extremely unpleasant moments preceding it, which seem to fit the description of the Three Doors as Daniel describes it in MCTB; as if suddenly being hit with an axe into the head from behind three times during the walking practice, in three successive moments, going onto the ground during those moments, then losing consciousness for at least 20 minutes, judging by the practice timer I looked at when I woke up again), and then on all the following retreats. It happened always during high equanimity plus sleep deprivation (which seems to be specific to the Thai tradition, and as much as I hate hatehate being sleep-deprived, I can attest to the efficiency of it in the context of high insight practice); sometimes the fruition felt a bit like falling asleep (body relaxing before entering that state and such), though the thing itself was never sleep-like (perhaps like the very deep, narcosis-like sleep), sometimes it was just time missing (20 minutes away, noticing just by looking at the clock, the body not moving during that time). Once I had a sitting practice that I sat down onto the cushion and the hour was over literally in the next instant, I felt very strange, like back in the misery/disgust/... state; and I did not realize that blackout until a few minutes later when I recalled the sitting session was simply missing!
I was also told by some that the duration of fruitions has become a bit of sport among some practitioners in the Ajahn Tong tradition and was warned to not attach to it too much.
From what I understood, extended fruitions do "more damage" than non-extended ("instantaneous") ones, but that is not something I could verify in my own experience (too little empirical material here).
Just from the text: first, extended fruition is attainable to anyone, NS only to anagami and aranat (according to MCTB, though it is partially disputed in there). Second, fruitions happen in high equanimity where NS happen after samatha jhanas and "Unlike frutions, one exits this attainment in the reverse of the way one came in." (MCTB, last page) In Chom Tong, there is (allegedly, but I've heard it from several people who lived in the monastery there) a nun who does NS for 3 days.