katy steger:
Morgan,
Thank you so much for sharing that video of Shinzen. If I had a chance --- or if anyone wants to speak to it --- I have only one question***:
He seems to separate jhanas from the investigation he discusses in the second half of the video excerpt (the exponential and linear sensations and the arising personhood and emotional receptions/elaborations/normalcy of the human mind's reactions). To me, that experience is very much a fourth jhana experience (there being many, many offshoot experiences from 4th) and the exponential experience of it is when fourth jhana (equanimity) is unstable and the linear experience of it is when fourth jhana is stablizing. and then there can be the apura jhanas launching out of that 4th jhana "field" and I feel he touches on this a little here.
I just moved to northern Vermont so maybe this is a question I can ask him. If anyone is in the area and wants to meet up, that'd be nice, too.
Katy
***and it may be more of a "what's in a name" versus a question of real content; meditation gets into some fluid areas where everyone's naming system would not meet up exactly
I also had a feeling that what he described and the way he described it made it more fit for equanimity.
By the way, I'm from Quebec. Montpelier is less than 2 hours 30 minutes from here. I sure would appreciate meeting fellow yogis.