| | Brief summary of where I'm starting out: I lead a layperson's life in the USA, working part time and generally keeping the 5 precepts. I had SE a little over a year ago and gave up regular, daily practice about 5 months ago. For the last couple of months, I have been trying to stare at a kasina, but I would usually find myself just closing my eyes and getting cessations after a few minutes. When I have a break, I like to sit down or lie down for a few minutes and have cessations. I realized only very recently that those are "real" cessations, that I'm actually recalling them like one is "supposed to" be able to. I discounted them for a long time because they did not have "bliss waves" attached to them like the couple of "big" ones I have experienced so far. However, the fact that my mind prefers those over anything else, be it everyday life or samādhi, eventually led me to admit to myself that I'm not just constantly tired to the point of nodding off whenever I close my eyes for a few minutes. Now that all this is relatively clear, I want to again start formal, daily insight practice.
Inspired by SN 1.1, I want to make sure to practice at least daily (not to "stop"), while at the same time avoiding any "straining:" For example, I will not vow to sit at least two hours a day right from the start.
I just did my first "test session:" I sat straight, with my eyes closed, truly making an effort to investigate rather than just doing the same old thing. I used explicit mental notes only every few seconds, to make sure I wasn't getting carried away for too long. Between notes I stayed with the experience itself, directly, intimately, trying to be completely nonreactive.
The most noticeable difference to my insight practice from before was that I seemed able to have much less perception springing from sight-contact. I think this was a result of my recent attempts at kasina practice. Actually not just sight-contact, but all 5 external senses seemed that way. This made the session much more pleasant than I remember vipassanā, but kind of viscous, almost solid. I perceived about 1 to 2Hz vibrations of seeing and/or thinking, back and forth between left and right. After probably about 10 minutes, much faster vibrations of the sense of touch started appearing, the kind I remember from months ago. Not many of them appeared, though. During the last few minutes of the session something started creeping in that I didn't properly recognize/acknowledge, and it led to the desire to end the session, which I then did. I checked my watch, and it had been a total of 20 minutes.
The plan now is to sit at least once a day, each day for one minute longer than the last, starting with 21 minutes tomorrow, until I get to 45 minutes, at which point I will re-evaluate.
Other notable experiences from this session: At one point, for a couple of seconds, a fairly clear visual of my kasina (blue disk on black) came up; and a couple of times that pleasant feeling (in the sense of touch) that comes before jhāna appeared. (I usually note it as "rising energy.") |