| | Hello, Chris!
I haven't had the exact experience you're talking about, and I strongly doubt I've ever even crossed the A&P event. So, to mix metaphors, I have no ground to speak on, so I'm pulling this out of thin air. That said, it might be valuable to you or someone else, so I'll share it on the hope that it will be.
What you're talking about sounds like an important realization to me! It kind of reminds me of an experience I had about a week ago. I got high with a few friends (yeah, I know that goes against the precepts, but I personally think the practice benefits of that precept would be much more important on a retreat or during some other time when trying to have really strong and focused practice). Whatever she had was intense. Like, really intense. I didn't expect that level of intensity. But, this happens sometimes. To get on with the story, I went to the local gay club, Dick & Janes. I had never gone before. Wow, why did I do that? That place was TRIPPY. I should have gone tipsy, not high! There was this laser light show thing going the whole time, and it was pulsing like a strobe light in time with the bass line. Anyone who has ever gotten high after having learned about vipassana knows what's coming up: The first three insight knowledges. Ouch. Two hours of my entire visual field pulsing (synchronized with the strobe/bass when I was on the floor, but still flashing in a more normal I'm-doing-vipassana-and-reality-is-strobing-in-and-out way even when I was away from the lights and music)! The three characteristics (well, really just dukkha and anicca) forced themselves onto me! I know it sounds really crazy, but I was seriously dancing on the floor with my friends, seeing how unsatisfactory reality is because of the impermanence. If they played a good song, I couldn't get into it because it didn't have any substance. It was just made of a stream of reality pulses that arose, stayed, and passed away every half second or so. There was a sense of utter powerlessness to stop the mass of suffering, almost all of which was very mild, but was still suffering. I seriously think if I had started directly perceiving anatta the way I was perceiving dukkha and anicca, and if all of my senses had been strobing instead of just vision and audition, I would have hit A&P. Thank god I didn't, because the gay club is not the place for the A&P!
I'm glad I had the experience because any opportunity to have even the faintest direct experience of any of the three characteristcs is probably useful, but I really wish that it hadn't happened on my first trip to the club here. I thought I was going to have a fun night of dancing with my friends, and instead I got a brainfull of dukkha! (Clearly, I'm still stuck in the content of the experience. I'm okay with that, because I don't know that I really want to get into the dark night quite yet. It's kind of scary, knowing that some unknown depressive thing is going to happen and not knowing how well I'll handle it, if I'll mess up my grades or friendships, and not even knowing how long it'll last. But that's off topic.) I guess that's how it goes...
But to talk more about your story, I think you're so right. We ~are~ animals. When you study cognitive psychology and neuropsychology, you find out that we aren't Homo economicus at all. We aren't always operating on rationality. Oftentimes, it's emotions, or other stuff we don't have any conscious access to, that drives our decisions. Sometimes, it seems like the thought process is just an afterthought, a process of coming up with a good reason to do what we already decided to do.
What possibilities are you considering in terms of what this experience could be in the stages of insight knowledge? Or have you not been giving much thought to that?
One last thing: the not being able to recreate a mindset, I'm totally with you on how that part sucks. All though this week I still haven't been able to directly perceive any of the characteristics the way I did that night, or the other times I've gotten high and hit cause and effect and the three characteristics. It kind of sucks, being stuck with an intellectual understanding and knowing that what's useful is the direct perception. You already know that the answer for that is just keep practicing. Some practice sessions are good, and some are not. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, except replace the "swimming" with "practicing." If you get discouraged and/or frustrated by what feels like under-powered meditation after a powerful experience like that, just imagine Dora (as voiced by Ellen DeGeneres) saying "Just keep noting, noting, noting, Oh YEEES, I LOVE TO NOOOOOOOOOTE..." like from Finding Nemo. The part in all caps is supposed to be fake sung in a pseudo-operatic voice. Ridiculous? Yes. Effective? Definitely. Do I look like a complete goon by this point? I don't even want to think about that. But it's way fun. (Plus, it keeps frowny-faced argumentative people away, because they hate shit like this. As far as I'm concerned, they can go practice the brahma-viharas until they aren't bothered by it.) |