| | Hey, I'm very happy to have found this forum and this thread, I really hope you all can help me!
My question is sort of twofold, first I'd obviously really, really appreciate being diagnosed but also, and although unrelated to the forum I'm posting in, I'd like to know if I'm practising vipassana correctly on account of never having actually met any Buddhists, been to a retreat or really having ever had any profound vipassana discussions.. My experience with Buddhism through literature and forums has always been more about the religion than insight, frankly and unfortunately. I think a lot of my problem is that all my experiences aren't by the book, and this is probably due to the fact that my approach isn't by the book either.
I started meditating over a year ago without really knowing what to do, I would focus on a fan, actually, and after meditating frequently and for a few weeks I experienced something weird (great rapture, intense body orgasm, sometimes accompanied by a rapid spinning feeling, blah blah), Googled it, and I think it was the first jhana. This went on for a while, while I thought this was profound at the time it was just concentration meditation, the good thing is that I've developed good concentration.. after getting into formless jhana territory for a bit and clearly being a jhana junkie it got much more difficult to attain jhanas, and then I had a fit of destructiveness and stopped with Buddhism in practise and on the forum I'd frequented. I don't know what was up with that, maybe I was being an ass, maybe I got into some Dark Night stuff, dunno.
Anyways, after having had a long philosophical bent for these last few months, and then tiring of that suddenly Buddhism came to demand my attention once more. This time with more vulnerability I think, as I was capable of admitting my faults and starting from scratch making the first vipassana jhana my goal.
Either that philosophical bent I had is marring my meditation with delusions of what insight is or it has greatly facilitated my practise. My approach has been a no-self one, I start off trying to calm my mind (and I like to concentrate on a fan still when my mind wanders too much, I just suck at the breath) and I focus on, basically, discovering that I am purely awareness. I try to divorce first the sense doors from myself, then feelings and such, emotions and mind objects, etc. with the latter bits getting difficult, then I will get meticulous and focus on things like noticing the back of my eyelids, then the act of noticing and then the act of deliberating to do these things, deliberating to deliberate, etc. At this point I descend through what I believe are jhanas, however, this Dark Night junk doesn't affect me. And since I've never read an approach to insight quite like this I don't know if I'm doing it right? Anyways, this approach will allow me to dip in and out of pure-ish awareness here and there, and I try to remember that feeling intuitively and bring myself back to it, as, for example, deliberating to not deliberate is counter productive, it only takes you so far. Another point, like in Daniel's book I'll note that I'm using memory, or at a certain point being too aware that I'm in the present means I'm probably a split second in the past.
So.. after a bit my awareness of space and time seems to dip in and out, sometimes for several minutes or more.. I think that might be a formless jhana, dunno. Anyways, that leads to last night, I seemed to have hit a wall, normally the jhanas present themselves with a bang, like I've shifted into them, rather, last night, it was more like a slow evolution. I was meticulous, my craving for them, the bliss from them, the interestingness of the formless, the wonder, deliberation, it was all no-self to me, I wanted to discover who I really was, the awareness. It seemed like I hit a wall though, I just rested in this place that reminds me of descriptions of the sediment in a lake floating to the bottom, leaving pristine water without a ripple. I was wondering if that was the fourth nana? But I thought it was beyond (I usually characterize the A&P with seeing little lights and junk, rapture and something around the body orgasm sort of feelings, deep in the form jhanas), but I don't want to get ahead of myself, as I'd be pissed to discover I'd only made a fraction of the progress I thought I had. Well, I was thinking, maybe I'll try one last thing, since I always progress through meditation with the lens of no-self, let's try impermanence. Honestly, I thought it sounded less profound and too obvious. Well, my mind starts chugging along again very rapidly, and suddenly, and this might sound cheesy? It's like I come face to face (yeah, its formless) with my awareness at loooong last, and I clearly see who I normally associate myself with, but without, as Daniel would say, all my "stuff", just the bare kernel of this guy I've always associated with since a little kid. He hasn't changed much. But it's just an association, a fiction, I see it practically, at the core, far deeper than all the other layers of "stuff", here lies the deepest layer, the association, and then I clearly see dukkha finally, I see how I grasp for it. It becomes as clear as day, interesting because philosophically it makes clear sense too, not beyond the imagination, but I guess to clearly see it makes all the difference. Then it occurs to me to do something Daniel said, combine the no-self and impermanence into one. BANG! It's like an ultra-jhana feeling, a coldness descends upon me, my heart is racing, it's like I nearly merge with infinity or something, it felt like I completed what I was trying to do.
As I implied, I've been accustomed to using intuition, whether this is good or bad, I don't know, probably both, and my intuition has taken me this far and last night my intuition told me I got what I was seeking, but the ego (Daniel doesn't like this vagueness huh? ;) ) is a powerful thing. It sounds like a number of different nanas in one. So I'm very confused.. I had a lot of afterglow from it last night, but after waking up I'm basically the same, though I'm different in my conviction of no-self and I feel like the ultimate goal is to make that experience as fresh and strong as possible as often, I wonder if enlightenment is to be that permanently? Dare I say, was that a fruition? Or was that just A&P? Or just some nutty nana?
This was a bit long and often irrelevant, hehe, sorry about that. I'd realllllly appreciate any help please!! |