| | Forgot to actually answer your questions.
If you don't want to have reactions like these if you're around other people right after you meditate, then you should stick with pure shamatha meditation. Of course, pure shamatha does not lead to enlightenment -- it's just really enjoyable.
It can be hard to explain the difference between the pure shamatha technique and the shamatha-vipassana technique. But it's worth the trouble to really figure it out. One thing that helps clarify the difference between the two techniques is to translate their names into english. I use different translations than most others, but there's a reason for that.
Shamatha = serenity meditation, or peacefulness meditation. (Literal: "calm abiding") The idea is to maintain a very light, peaceful "touch" with the object of meditation. If you're using the breath at the nose, then you should maintain attention at that spot in a very gentle way. The point is NOT to notice or experience anything about the breath in particular. The only thing you should be doing is peacefully attending to that object. Do not examine the breath, or attend to differences between inhalation and exhalation, or notice phases or cycles in the breathing, or notice what things lead to other things. In other words, don't do anything that resembles investigation or picking apart the breath into components. Not even 2 components, such as in and out, or pleasant and unpleasant. Just put the mind there in such a way that you gradually become more peaceful, calm, and happy as the meditation progresses.
Why should you do that? Well, vipassana literally means "seeing through." A more common translation is "clear seeing." This process, whatever you call it, leads to enlightenment, It isn't necessarily unpleasant if you're doing it at the same time as serenity meditation. But if you don't want to deal with what happens when you quit doing the serenity meditation and you're still in unpleasant insight stages, then you have to learn how to let the mind settle down onto the concentration object without looking at details about the object: how it changes, how it doesn't have a "core" that you can really latch onto, how it isn't ever 100% pleasant.... In other words, if you keep looking at the object and realizing things about it, you'll start realizing the three characteristics sooner or later. If you just want to have some fun, then your ONLY job is to sit the mind down on the object and chill out. Seeing things clearly, or seeing through things, will trigger the progress of insight.
Consider yourself lucky: it's good to be naturally good at combining shamatha and vipassana. Pure vipassana is the fastest method for certain people, at least in the beginning of practice. But it can be miserable, and thus punishing (in the behavioral sense of the term, as the opposite of reinforcing/rewarding), and thus people often roll up the mat because the meditation sucks. If on the other hand you can enjoy your insight meditation by making it serene, then from a behavioral standpoint, you're less likely to quit meditating when you hit the stages that suck. You'll still encounter the insight stages outside of meditation; sticking diligently with a concentrated insight practice will help you move through them more quickly =)
So my suggestions are as follows: -Learn how to do pure serenity meditation. The litmus test for this is that you love meditating, and the afterglow from a meditation session is enjoyable. -More importantly, do the combined serenity-insight technique you're already familiar with so you can get to stream entry. Perhaps seek some help to refine it so that you can get stream entry as soon as possible. After all, you're a dark night yogi now, and the best thing to do at this point is to maintain forward momentum in the practice that brought you across the A&P. The cure for your current symptoms is stream entry, whereas pure serenity meditation is temporary symptom relief. Don't hang around in the dark night long enough to find out all the ways it can suck -- just get to the other side. Best of luck, and bring us all your questions! |