I did some kasina practice and...
I'm convinced that last night I touched upon first jhana for the first time. My main reason for believing this is the physical sensations that suddenly appeared: mildly intense, pleasurable tingling/prickling on the surface of my skin, especially on the contours of my body, upper arms and cheeks. This was a very exciting moment for me but I found myself in a situation where I didn't know what to do next. I quickly lost the state, regained it, and then lost it again.
At the end of the post I'm going to go out on a little mystifystical limb here and ramble on about what I learned from this in the hope that someone might understand and guide me on.
But this post is mainly about a question I have: how do I get back to where I was?
This thread has been a great resource for me and most of what has been written there I have found to be true. A good place to start kasina practice!
I realize that most of the visual phenomenon that will happen during kasina practice is highly subjective (maybe not in the way it is experienced, but definitely in the way it is expressed), so I'll try and steer clear of that.
I very easily and quickly get the "shift", probably as I have been doing this kind of visualization exercise by "accident", and without knowing it, for as long as I can remember. After the "shift", I close my eyes immediately and find the round after-image. It is very clear and bright, but my problem is that it never stays for longer than barely 10 seconds. It doesn't matter how long I look at the kasina and try to reinforce the after-image by prolonging the gazing. I consistently get the shift after about 12-13 seconds (I timed it) without any prior concentration practice but the after-image will vanish after the same amount of time whether I gaze at it for 15 seconds or 15 minutes (I tested)!
What I make of this is that I might be wanting and trying too hard to get back to where I was. It might also be the case that I'm over-confident and all I need is more concentration, but for some reason I doubt that. Is a quickly vanishing nimitta a sign of low concentration?
Warning! Mystifysticallity ahead!In the metaphor of (1) finding and then (2) opening a door, it seems I have found out how to open it, but I can't find the door (except for my little mishap described above). In another metaphor, it seems I now know what muscle to contract, but not what weight to lift. Actually, it is very interesting to "use" this "muscle" without any weight. It feels as if I will my way to a different mental plane, but because there is nothing to hold on to
on that plane, as if I haven't developed my sight sufficient enough to see anything to hold on to on this plane, I quickly go back "down".
I also had a strange and frightening experience with this:
What I actually did to reach what I believe to be the first jhana was to exercise a certain pressure/attention/concentration on the after-image of the kasina. To use the previous metaphor, I flexed the muscle in a certain way. I have tried to do this a number of times afterwards, on the quickly vanishing nimitta, and this one time I brought myself to this "other plane" that I have described (I do not get the pleasurable physical feeling here) and it felt like something very grand, in the way of size, was descending on me. While this was happening which in itself wasn't very scary, what
was really scary was the intense feeling of my eyes rolling harder and further back into my head than I have ever experienced. This intense experience of the eyes was incredibly scary, because it seemed I had no control over it. In pure fear I somehow stopped myself from going any further, and I don't dare do it again. What the hell could this have been?