Hello Liam,
Welcome to the DhO.
You wrote: "Immediately I felt a sense of greater awareness of, and oneness with, what was going on around me. It felt a bit like bringing my head out of water so that everything was suddenly heard more clearly - though it was more a felt sense."
The descriptions of "a sense of greater awareness" and feeling "like bringing my head out of water" so that everything was "heard more clearly," if I'm reading these correctly,
could signify an increase in the intensity of mindfulness. If it was, that was a good thing. Something to work on becoming more consistent at.
The "I felt that during anapanasati all physical sensations had disappeared and I was left only with my thoughts" experience
could have been a deepening of concentration (absorption perhaps?), although without personally interviewing you and gaining further clarification it's hard to say. I'm not really sure where Bruno is coming from in his comment about this. If he's thinking it is an experience of
anatta, he may be reading more into this than is there.
The retreat experience where you mentioned being focused on the present "albeit with quite a fierce, not relaxed, concentration, with plenty of mind noise," is pretty indicative of the untrained mind needing to make a concerted effort to maintain mindfulness and concentration. Once you've been able to gain more practice, this should not entail as much "effort" as you experienced here. In other words, once you have a better hold on the mind, you should find maintaining mindfulness and concentration to be almost effortless. It just takes practice; a
lot of practice. Although learning about and practicing jhana states can considerably shorten the length of time needed to gain the effortless feel.
One of the first things you may wish to focus on before heading for deeper waters in concentration practice is being able to quiet the mind at will. Having this one ability will speed things up tremendously. Getting rid of "mind noise" is essential to cultivating an undisturbed and undistracted mind that can be used during deep contemplation.
"Towards the end of the retreat, while sitting, I became able to follow the breath 'all the way up and all the way down' without distraction..." Very good. Keep cultivating that same level of concentration. It's likely that you will have good days and bad days with this, though. But don't be discouraged. Keep fighting the good fight. Eventually things will gel and come together.
"After a while I became aware
that I was no longer controlling my breath and it was occurring on its own. It required sustained concentration, and thoughts felt very short-lived and peripheral." Letting go of controlling the breath is a typical ability that is learned during the beginning stages of a practice in meditation. It's something that everyone goes through. If at the same time you were also able to maintain your focus
on the breath during this time, that would be a plus, and an ability that could very well lead you directly into practicing deeper concentration (jhana/absorption) states. That thoughts were "short lived and peripheral" is also a very good sign, as the mind is beginning to incline toward calm and less distraction.
"I remember thinking that the mind was like an unruly and upset child that I needed to take care of." Yes. That is the whole point of the training and mental cultivation. Regaining control of one's mental faculties so that it goes where you want it to go when you want it to. Having this ability is a prerequisite to successful insight practice.
"Why do I practice? In a day to day way it's part of living better,
but I want to see whether it's possible to cut off the suffering that matters at the root, basically." That's the best reason in the world to consider practice. It is everything that Gotama ever said that he was intent on teaching: "Formerly, Anuradha, and also now, I make known just suffering and the cessation of suffering."
"Experience however has taught me the limits and drawbacks of purely mundane approaches.
Any gains are transient, usually involve just shifting the negative around or into a different form rather than eliminating it, and are laced with subtle suffering anyway - in other words, the three characteristics are very clear to me intellectually." Very good. This indicates you are paying attention to the nature of your experience and endeavoring to make some sense of it. The fact that the three characteristics are "clear" to you "intellectually" is fine and well, but that doesn't stop them from affecting you in daily life, does it. In order to go beyond the mere intellectuality of this process you will need to re-wire the mind's reactionary circuits, and this involves working with the
asavas (the mental outflows that are conditioned in the mind with regard to sensual passion, states of being, views, and ignorance). This is where the practice of
satipatthana comes in. There is a
sutta about this; two in fact (although they are virtually identical).
"I now think the highest benefit I could offer to others and myself would be to learn to work with the inevitable in a more skillful and meaningful way via the greater acceptance and understanding of it." Acceptance of what is and understanding it is part of the training. It is good that you recognize this at such an early stage of your training. "Working with the inevitable" means being able to remain mindful at all times and not letting the mind get away with it usual mischief of misdirection, distraction, and speculative proliferation of thought. It means being able to see things "as they are" rather than how one may have been biased or prejudiced to view them. In being able to accomplish this, one is able to deal with the real problem that faces one rather than running around in circles.
If you haven't come across it already, I would suggest that in order to obtain a more thorough overview of the Dhamma that you obtain a copy of Walpola Rahula's classic book
What the Buddha Taught. It may help to clarify for you many of the significant subjects on which Gotama taught. After that, a reading of the translated Pali discourses would probably help you to begin seeing the totality of the Dhamma that was taught in addition to covering a lot of ground that most people have questions about. There's also quite a bit in there with regard to training instruction in meditation and whatnot. Some of it needs further explanation; but if you have the
right books, the footnotes will do the heavy lifting for you.
In peace,
Ian