Agony and Ecstasy

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stillness of thought allows a spontaneous revelation of truth as it
is. When the mind is pure of all defilements (āsavā), it will not be
hindered to see things as they actually are without the intervention
of a beclouding self-interest. Then ‘self’ is seen as the reflector in
which events are distorted, in which experiences are presented as
it were in technicolour, showing not what is actually experienced,
but the mind’s reaction thereto. When reason has stopped all argumentation
and sustained application of wilful thought, then in that
tranquillity appears what is true in itself: the impermanence of all
experience, the non-reality of all conflict, the worthlessness of all
striving.
It is at such a stage of awakening that the mind would start a process
of revaluation of experience. If, whatever has been known so far
is now approached anew, avoiding distortion and conditioning, then
even the objects of concentration, their impressions, after-images,
their limitations, their effects will have to be seen as they are, and
not to be judged according to the results produced in ‘me’, the subject,
the creator, who has produced them. Thus, the emphasis of
concentration is being shifted from the object to the subject, away
from the reflected to the reflector. But it is frequently a long way
for the ‘self’ to discover that there is no self, even though it seems so
near at hand. And so, although with the final attainment of mental
absorption in the world of matter, of form, of beauty, the last of
the five hindrances on that path of peace has been lulled to sleep,
the mind will soon realise that this tranquillity is conditioned and
conditional to the continuation of absorption, which is not possible
in a material world (rūpāvacara). With this appreciation is then
felt the need to transcend even the absorbing states of ecstasy, to
transcend matter in any form, to transcend form itself.
And thereby one enters the realm of the formless (arūpāvacara).