Rich N:
I spent an hour focusing on pleasent sensations in the body. I did get a sense it was "moving" a lot and tried to ignore that by only focusing on the pleasure in the current moment. I found it surprisingly easy to stay in touch with the sensation of pleasure - even if the mind began to chatter a little before I noticed it, it didn't really matter because I didn't lose touch with the sensation of pleasure for longer than maybe half a second.
The general levels of pleasure varied from about 2/10 (0/10 being normal "meh no pleasure but whatever") to about 4/10 (buzzing and kind of like a mild laugh feeling.
At one very significant point the pleasure shot up to about 7/10 (not "orgasmic" or "ecstacy" exactly, but definately very nice if a little intense) and my body felt like it was erupting. I still did not feel "at one" with the object of my focus or "immsersed", and in-fact I was still able to notice other things while maintaining my focus on the pleasure. For example I noticed that my heart rate had increased significantly, and that some of the muscles in my stomach had tightend. I also felt a sensation similiar to blood rushing to your head (if you hang upsidedown for example).
...
Anyway a few hours later I sat again (because obviously that was significant and I was kind of eager to repeat it). And I was able to repeat it with not too much difficulty. After 20 or 25 minutes I had the pleasure shoot up the scale again, and then lost it again after about a minute. Again I was surprised at how much background noise I was actually able to notice while cultivating these states, which actually leags me to question if I'm doing this right or not because surely if I'm noticing all this other stuff (rogue thoughts, random noises, my breathing doing strange things, etc) then I can't be all THAT well focused can I?
Does sound like 1st jhana, maybe getting into 2nd jhana, with bursts of piti. Do you have to focus to maintain the pleasure or does it go on its own accord at some point?
There are varying levels of jhana. You can get into it really deep and not notice much besides the pleasure, or you can notice the pleasure while noticing a whole bunch of other stuff. it takes practice to do it more & more deeply. But the background noise stopped disturbing you as much during the sit, no?
also once you start getting the jhanas, as you have noticed, it is easy to get back there. you know what to look for, now - that is good news!
Rich N:
One more thing... I'm still feeling a low-level warm buzz of pleasure in my body now (20 minutes after my sit) and it seems relatively easy to sustain - I barely have to focus on it, just be aware that it's there. It almost feels like a guilty pleasure.
Yea that will happen too. it happens to me sometimes just by reading stuff about jhanas, like right now. mmmmmm.
when i first was able to do this, i was surprised that, practically speaking, having bliss on tap (jhanas) didn't make me wanna spend all my time in that blissful state. they are quite nice.
Rich N:
This is quite a constrast to the insight practice I was doing previously, which, whenever I practiced regularly, caused me to be very aware, on a daily basis, of all the sharp painful and almost unbearable feelings going on inside my body many times a second, and as such was something I hated doing and found very difficult to do regularly.
ya meditation leading to states of absorption is calming&pleasant, meditation leading to insight is generally not. but being in jhana can really take the edge off insight-oriented meditation. kind of acts like a buffer between u and all the pain, like how when
shooting up both heroin & crack, the heroin takes the edge off the crack withdrawal.