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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
do you feel like you can consciously funnel things into the roof of your mouth? like you can focus on it and that amplifies the sensations there/shrinks the body more?
I think so - that seems to be the trick to maintaining the state.
alright. the advice i'm about to give is just from my own experience: don't get too attached to that! i might even say not to cultivate it at all.
before stream entry, i started getting such a feeling, only it started persisting even after i stopped meditating. 'awesome!!' i thought - 'a sign that meditating is doing something!'. i'd wake up in the morning, notice it's not there, then 'look' for it, then it would appear, and i'd latch on and keep it there. soon i couldn't not feel it.
i developed quite the relationship to that thing... i would focus on it when meditating and it would get me into jhanas. it would become really painful during dark night. lots of aversion towards it. it got really painful. i would blame 'it' for not being able to concentrate. it got to the point where i simply couldn't meditate anymore, because as soon as i sat down and closed my eyes i would immediately start cringing and going into it.
these sensations seem to be a common thing among meditators.. so it might not be the sensations themselves that are the problem per se.. but the relationship to them can grow to be quite a painful one. be calm, be equanimous, don't attach or cling to it, don't focus all your energy on that spot, as in my experience it doesn't lead to good things in the long run.
note: i still have those sensations now, but the aversion to them is basically almost gone. took a while, though. they also aren't there in a PCE, and fade as PCE is approached