Mike James Brown:
I think it might clearer if I explain it this way:
1) I begin meditating with the aim of sitting for about one hour;
2) I concentrate on the in/out of my breath on the space just below my nostrils;
3) After about 5 minutes I feel 'locked on' to my breath and all thoughts/distractions are weak and on the periphery;
4) A pleasant feeling pervades and increases as my breathing becomes shallower;
5) Another 5 or so minutes after this the pleasure is quite strong and my eyelids beginning to flutter;
6) I switch focus onto the fluttering of my eyes (my breathing feels suspended at this point)'
7) Although the overall sensations are pleasant and there is a feeling of impending bliss, the fluttering of my eyes is quite painful because it also feels like they're being squeezed shut;
8) The feeling now is like I'm reaching the top of a roller-coaster of bliss and... ... ... WHOOSH - I'm there! Vibrations, bliss everywhere, and for a few moments I'm just going along with the ride as I can't do anything about it at all;
9) Still really blissful but the crescendo has passed (my eyes have relaxed) and I can just 'sink into' just being (I also find that I am smiling here);
10) This lasts maybe 5 mins or so and now begins the equanimity which is free of pain and the intense bliss/pleasure, but there is still that feeling of being dipped in honey. Maybe that is too strong a description. A warm contentment might be a better description;
11) Now this is the interesting part (I haven't come across another account of this yet). If I stay with the equanimity and just follow my breath again, the whole sequence above recycles again. It isn't really any different but maybe a bit 'deeper' by a factor of one;
12) I pull myself out of the sit and find time has flown (about 60-80 mins) and I feel like I could probably sit for a couple more hours. The contentment lasts for many hours after.
Well, don't wanna end on a 13) so I'll leave it at that. That process of itemising was actually quite useful for me so I hope it made sense and makes things clearer. M
ah awesome, it makes it a lot clearer.
it sounds exactly like you've reached stream entry (you're partially enlightened, wooo) or some later path, and you're in the review stage of that path. what happens is you sit, you go through the insight cycles, you get a fruition (likely the WHOOSH you talk about), then it subsides into a really blissful feeling (warm contentment), you chill out in the post-fruition glow for a bit, then the whole cycle starts again from the 4th nyana (the one with lots of fluttering/energy/excitement etc). especially the feeling that you can sit for as long as you want with no problem is very common in a review stage.
i recommend reading the 'progress of insight' chapter, the 'three doors' chapter, and the 'was that emptiness?' chapter that i linked earlier, from MCTB, if you want to learn more about it / verify it for yourself.
if you want to look for some cool things, pay attention to the WHOOSH (the fruition, i suspect), or more specifically, what happens right before and right after. is there a gap or a discontinuity of some kind where all of reality blinks out + in, but you don't perceive the blinking out (cause how could you since
all of reality has blanked out - there's no one to perceive)? in particular, the entrance to the fruition can manifest in one of 6 ways (read the 'three doors' chapter for more), and it can be a lot of fun to watch just how reality collapses. in particular you're probably going through the impermanence/no-self door, as you dont describe the whoosh as unpleasant, and you're focusing on the flickering of your eye-lids which is quite impermanent. maybe next time, try focusing on how sensations are happening on their own and how they're quite unpleasant, and see if focusing on those leads you into a WHOOSH as well though with a different entrance - i like that one in particular.
in particular i'd pin it down to this event:
Mike James Brown:
Sitting that evening I noticed a fluttering of energy in my solar plexus area and just put it down to a bodily response to my emotional state. Then after about 30 minutes the fluttering expanded to fill my whole chest cavity in a blueish-green explosion, my heart stopped (I really thought I wasgoing to die there on the cushion!) and a bolt of golden energy burst up my spine and exploded into a flowering, white fountain of energy in my head. This was accompanied by a vibration that felt as tho a gong had been struck inside my head. All thinking ceased and there was no "I" to even witness what was happening, but paradoxically I was aware of a bliss that I thought would literally kill me.
fruition probably happened around when the heart stopped. huge bliss wave afterwards is characteristic of a fruition.
Mike James Brown:
Since that retreat, I have found out about the jhanas (not once in 10 years of Zen did I come across the literature and when I've discussed anything about my experiences I've been told to dismiss them as 'makyo' (worthless hallucinations). In these past 2 weeks I find that I can access the jhanas in about 10-15 minutes by concentrating on my breath only.
sudden access to jhanas with no prior training or particular expertise also tends to happen after stream entry. you seem to have a lot of concentration (as you mention feeling all the effects powerfully), so maybe you can even get the formless jhanas (5th - 8th jhanas), check out
this link for a description of them (which should be enough to try to cultivate them), though i didn't get very clear 7th jhana until i had a bit more experience, personally.
the question is, now what are you going to do?