Stian Gudmundsen Høiland:
I was at a musical yesterday and during one of the scores I suddenly noticed a pattern of notes that I really like coming from a violin. It was one of those cliche sequences, but a cliche for a good reason, and it was one of those "golden sections" of tones. I tuned in to the sound of it, as I often do when listening to music, and I noticed that "here come the goosebumps" and my eyes automatically closed, as they often do when this thing happens to me. As the goosebumps started fading, I caught myself in a very mindful moment. And what I noticed is that I suddenly recognized the "goosebumps" as what is usually described as (at least first-) jhana.
Now, this specific kind of experience I have had countless times throughout my life. I usually just call it goosebumps, but this time I noticed that there are at least two components of this experience: goosebumps, as traditionally understood, and some sort of blissful vibrations on the skin. It dawned on me that I have been experiencing jhana very many times, mostly when listening to music (as I'm a very musical guy), but as I cross-reference this new understanding with previous experiences like this I find that also during very beautiful nature-immersions I get this.
Ohhh man... I'm so glad you made this post. When I first read it I thought "oh neat!" But then I remembered this very thing happening to me. It happens when I listen to a few trance songs I really adore, such as Made of Love. I get these tingly sensations and joyful feelings just listening to it.
I thought it was related to the fact that I took MDMA while listening to it / listening to trance, so listening to it sober reminded me of that state. But I think its effect was more of an "allowing me to fall into the music" effect. It taught me how to do it sober. (And I also didn't get such tingling while rolling, AFAICT.)
My friend just got some new high-quality headphones, and I just listened to that song again. This time I thought of the goosebumps/tingling differently and man... during one part of the song I was able to intensify it to such a blissful degree that I almost started crying. I can get a little bit of pleasant body tingling to some degree by focusing on my breath, but nothing like this... Now I really know what jhana can feel like!
EDIT: I figured it might be helpful to describe the experience a bit more.
As soon as the song went on, the tingling began, I think because I was expecting it to (and I also really love the song). It's more a kind of vibration along my neck, back of my head, and upper body, than a "tingling" like when your foot falls asleep and blood starts flowing back into it.
The intensity came and went, more or less following the contour of the song. It intensified when a part of the song that I liked was coming up, from the anticipation. As my mind started to think about describing the experience (as it often does when I am experiencing new meditation-related things), the intensity diminished. Re-focusing on the song kind of helped. I think "letting go" in a particular way is what works, but I don't know well enough. What also was fun / maybe helpful (not sure) was imagining each sound I heard as tickling the pleasure centers of my brain.
As to the point where the vibrations and bliss got really intense... I'm not sure what triggered it. I just felt it not only on the surface of my upper body, but also within it. I wonder if it is an example of "gross piti", which I read about from
this link:
The initial instructions for Anapanasati from Sayadaw were to learn to follow the breath for half an hour without getting distracted. Since I have been practicing Anapanasati for over 20 years in one form or another, this was not a difficult thing for me to do. When I reported that I could do so at my second interview, Sayadaw asked me to sit longer - like 3 or 4 hours per sitting.
Needless to say, such long sittings quickly built my concentration. And since, for nearly 20 years, I have been using Anapanasati concentration to access piti, I began having VERY STRONG bursts of piti. Luckily, these bursts only lasted 10 or so seconds - if they had lasted much longer, my head would have probably popped off, the shaking was so strong. I was not doing anything to induce the piti - it was showing up on its own after I got really concentrated. I reported this to Sayadaw, and he called it "Gross Piti," and said it was not helpful and to not do that.
Also the quality of the vibrations was very different from those I get by focusing on the breath. With the breath ones, it really is more of a subtle, pleasant tingling, with a warm and "comfy" quality to it.