oo fun stuff, now i can pick apart your descriptions.
Abingdon .:
I guess what help I'm looking for is that whilst I feel like I might be well into an insight cycle (I think I rise to Equanimity, though I probably settle back down into the dukkha ñanas when not practicing), I don't feel like I really get the earlier ñanas. I don't think I completely grok the 3Cs, for example. I understand impermanence in an intellectual sense, and I see granularity in vision, touch, etc, I can't point at anything and say, "That's a vibration!" Daniel states in MTCB that the different ñanas are recognizable by the frequency of vibrations, but I've yet to really see anything about which I can say has a frequency. It's all more like white noise -- randomness without frequency or periodic component. Likewise, I understand suffering intellectually, but I don't feel I've actually seen it directly in sensations.
i know what you mean. i felt the same as, for example, i passed the A&P, yet noticed stuff like cause&effect and mind&body and that confused me cause wasn't i supposed to be 'done' with those insights? (past those stages)
yet if you are past a certain nyana you have grokked it well enough to move on. it's not like you are ignoring the 3Cs - you are observing them with every note you make. and you won't fully grok them until 4th path, or perhaps AF, or perhaps even after those there is still more to learn about them. so don't worry - you can't rush insight =). you move on when you move on, often slower than you like, often more quickly than you'd like.
Abingdon .:
o I sit with my eyes closed, so visual sensations are generally random flashes on a grey background. Usually, as the sit progresses, I will begin to see concentric arcs of yellow-green spread outward like rings around a pebble thrown into still water.
mm is that a pleasant spreading? sounds like 1st or 2nd vipassana jhana. do you get to the point where they stay spread outward without anything in the middle? that would be 3rd vipassana jhana.
Abingdon .:
o Often, shortly after this, I will note a subtle sense of anxiety. I think that this indicates that I'm progressing through the A&P & into the dukkha ñanas.
o The anxiety usually passes and I settle into the longest part of the sit, which is usually just noting.
hanging around in later dukkha nyanas or equanimity.
Abingdon .:
o While noting, I generally float back and forth between the 3rd & 4th samatha jhanas. Sometimes I get farther into the immaterial jhanas and can tend to space out a bit so I tend to try not to stray into that territory very much.
spacing out is an indication of equanimity, which also has immaterial aspects.
Abingdon .:
o Sometimes I feel energetic raptures. During my last sit, about 2/3rds through, I felt energy rising that at the time I thought of as feeling like a bush or Christmas tree -- feathery and intricate and fractal. As it rose through my awareness and body, it rotated. Later, during the same sit, another energy sensation rose up -- this one smooth and undulating, like a lava lamp. I try not to get too caught up in these raptures, but on the other hand I feel that if I don't pay attention to them, I am instead suppressing them. I've not found the balance of just letting them arise & pass without interference.
feathery & intricate & fractal sounds much like A&P. could you focus really intently on all the fractal aspects of it? smooth & undulating sounds pleasant, so probably Dissolution.
hey you said you didn't notice vibrations? what is undulation if not vibration? =).
about the parts I bolded - don't try to avoid territory. e.g. you seem to be avoiding "spacing out" territory, yet that territory could very well be equanimity, in which case the spacing out, what causes it, coming back to it, what's going on in there, and other stuff around there is exactly what you should be investigating, not avoiding! "not getting caught up" is a better way to do it. don't repress/suppress them by trying to make them go away. don't avoid them by ignoring them. and don't excite them by augmenting them. just not(ic)e them arising&passing.
Abingdon .:
Does this help answer your questions?
indeed it does. the more details like this the better one can assess where you're at and provide hints as to what you might be missing.