Simon Ekstrand:
On to the question. During my sitting today, perhaps 20 minutes in, I noticed a pleasant tingling sensation in my stomach region (I think). I semi-focused on it, still trying to keep hold of my breathing also, and after a while it spread in my body, growing in intensity. The feeling was very intense, in a good way, at certain points almost slightly sexual in nature. After maybe 20 seconds I lost my concentration, thoughts flooded in and the whole thing dissipated, leaving me actually sort of shaky. The same thing happened maybe twice more during the rest of the sitting, though not as intensely, as I had a hard time keeping my focus up, not least because i found the whole thing both exciting and somewhat intimidating, it was very much outside anything I've experienced before.
So, does anyone have any idea what I experienced? Should I keep trying to focus on it if it comes up again? Was it simply a nice feeling from becoming very focused (relatively speaking) or perhaps a peek at the first jhana?
Hello Simon,
It's not such a foreign experience to have. Nothing to be intimidated about either. Such experiences are common among most meditators making progress in their practice.
Ironically, you have stumbled onto the answer to your own question: "Was it simply a nice feeling from becoming very focused (relatively speaking)..." Yes, it was.
The purpose of meditation is to assist the mind in being able to become calm and to sharpen its concentration on an object. Prolonged practice of this eventually has a two fold effect of reconditioning the mind, not only increasing concentration but also mindfulness off the meditation cushion. A concentrated mind becomes malleable, workable, established, and having gained imperturbability, it is able to be inclined toward knowing (clear knowing or understanding) and seeing (insight).
One way that this can happen is when the mind experiences a pleasant sensation (which could be literally anywhere in the body) and the mind, undisturbed by distraction, can become fixed on that sensation in the pursuit of greater concentration, which concentration can eventually be transferred to any other object in the pursuit of insight about that object. One passage in the discourses describes an example of this in the practice of samatha meditation on the way to jhana. It can be found beginning at the section "
Habits & practices" through to "Doctrines of self."
If you of a mind to, you can use this sensation to help you pursue absorption in the same way as described in that passage.
I use the breath as my meditation object and experience any one of several bodily sensations that tell me or indicate the strengthening of mental concentration. It can be a tingling sensation in my head, or more often than not these days, a kind of pleasant pressure in the center of the forehead between the brows. Using the breath, whenever I want to settle the mind so that I can observe another object, the breath can remain in the background (or on the periphery, so to speak) while I focus on the object I am seeking insight about. If my concentration ever wanes, all I have to do is refocus on the breath and the concentration returns. As you might imagine, it takes some dedicated practice (along with increased moments of insight) to be able to get to this ability. But it is by no means
not unobtainable.
In peace,
Ian