| | Background I meditate in the Mahasi Sayadaw noting tradition with the abdomen as anchor and sometimes I practice 'choiceless awareness'. During my first 10 day retreat I experienced a lot of pain during the first 3 days because I didn't had a proper meditation cushion and my legs didn't had support. So I suffered great pain, but suddenly in the evening of day 3 a shift had taken place during meditation. Almost all the pain was gone in just a second and the pain that didn't go away was reduced by at least 50%. I was calm and felt great. I quesss this was the 3th nana. Before my second retreat I meditated a lot and noticed that I could see everything arise quickly. During my second retreat I was meditating and suddenly I had a black out. When I came back I was overwhelmed with enthousiasme, rapture and bliss. Maybe 4th nana A&P. After my second retreat I had a year of really changing moods in the negative way. I didn't want to go to school and work, but I just did. I told myself everytime 'everything is changing' 'this too shall pass'. During my third retreat I prepared by meditating 6 hours a day a week before the retreat(offcourse I did also meditate one hour a day over the entire year) so I already had momentum during the retreat. But during the retreat I experienced a lot of sleepiness because I spend to much effort. It was like Sayadaw U Tejaniya said in 'Food for thought': 22. The more you concentrate or focus on an object, the more energy you use. This makes the practice diffi cult and tiring. Your mindfulness may actually slacken. When you then become aware of this, you will probably try hard to build up the level of mindfulness again. Which, of course, means using even more energy, and this snowball effect burns you out during a long retreat. 23. When you put in too much effort to be mindful, you will spend your energy too quickly and therefore you will not be able to maintain mindfulness throughout the day. If you practise in a relaxed way, you will conserve energy and be able to practise for long periods of time. If you are a long term meditator you cannot afford to waste your energy. Meditation is a life long under taking; it is a marathon, not a 100 metre dash. 24. See each and every moment as a valuable opportunity for the development of awareness but do not take the practice too seriously. If you are too serious about it, you become tense and are no longer natural.
I took the practice to seriously and spend to much effort. That's why my mindfulness slacked and I became sleepy. The teacher could not help me, and said that it had to do with the first days on a retreat. But I already had momentum because of the intense practice before the retreat. So I decided that it was better to leave the retreat at day 4.
I have had pain in my butt, upperback and neck for more then one year(on and off). In my meditation I just got straight to my abdomen as anchor or was practicing 'choiceless awareness.' I accepted the pain and it was never as painfull as in the retreat so I didn't bother to investigate this pain for a long time. Sometimes I looked at the pain but never longer then a few minutes.
EDIT: I wrote more detail on the background after reading this: http://alohadharma.wordpress.com/the-map/equanimity-2/. I thought that I was in 3 nana, because of the pain and stifness, but I read that this can also be the lower equanimity. This made sense when I thought about my past experiences. I can look at the pain and then there will be vibrations, warm, moving. I can sit for more then one hour. There is much stifness but it doesn't bother me that much just as I descripted above. I never saw lights, so I assumpted that I wasn't that far. The meditation sometimes was boring during the second retreat after the black out because I could note very much but there was nothing special after that. Maybe because the nana's/insights were not so spectaculair and just subtle I felt like I didn't made progress. I am still insecure though but can see the thougts and feelings and laugh at it. Sometimes I do things even if I feel insecure, I don't identify so much with my experience. But sometimes I still get a red head or are sweeting when talking to many people. Hmmm....what do you think?
21 March 2014: Today I read 'the progress of insight' chapter in the book MCTB from Daniel Ingram. I noticed that the pain could be the 3th nana again to learn more about the three characteristiscs. So I did as mentioned in the chapter and investigated the pain and how it arises and passes. In two sessions the first was 20 minutes and the second 60 minutes. During both sessions I saw that the pain was constantly changing as wel in intensity as in place, as in warm and vibrations. During the second sessions the pain became less and I focused again on the abdomen. The breath became shorter and shorter and then I couldn't sense my breath anymore. During this there was pressure on my chest and there was a unpleasant feeling like I needed to breath. Because I didn't breath at that time.Then the breath came back and was very short. Then I needed to get up to do my duties unfortunately. |