| | 12/03/2014
2hrs (ish) - This was across three sits total. I'm not certain of the timings for each, but there's beginning to be a discernible arc to my sessions.
First, I begin by focusing on the breath until the mind stills, and then relax into that stillness, letting concentration deepen. If successful, my awareness widens to be more inclusive of the entire body. Fizzly energy stuff and body-boundary obfuscating things tend to manifest here. Remaining in this state, the movements of attention itself become almost silhouetted against the stillness of mind. Noting the scanning, "spotlight" nature of attention as it passes from object to object is easy when it's the only show in town. If I follow these activities closely (both the arising and passing of phenomenon and the movement of attention in response), perception seems to widen even further as attention itself begins to wobble and finally relent. What remains feels like a single, cohesive field of experience, of which I am just one point.
From there, I either get shunted into first jhana (which is a drag in a way, as this mostly restores all the nicely dissolved perceptual boundaries) or I fuck it up in some way and concentration breaks. At which point I go back to the breath and start over again.
13/03/2014
53m - Had trouble establishing absorption due to some nagging physical discomfort. Still, got some good sati reps in.
1hr - Entered first jhana roughly 20 minutes into the sit. Then slipped out. Then went back in, and so on. Felt a bit like doing chin-ups with my mind. Piti and sukha were quite understated within absorption so I focusing instead on exploring the sense of solidity this mind-space presented. Soon it wobbled and -- pop -- 2nd jhana. Again, not particularly rapturous so I kept on with probing perception itself. Wobble, pop, 3rd jhana. Holy shit is that one ever different.
I recall reading somewhere that the method you enter absorption with will affect the absorption itself. So, for example, someone focusing on the pleasant sensations that present during access concentration and riding those sensations into jhana will have a more rapturous experience. Since I rode in whilst investigating perception, it seems logical that the range and quality of attention itself within the jhanas seemed to be the most dominant aspect. At first, 3rd jhana was incredibly strange. It was like the middle of my attention had just dropped out, or inverted in some odd way.
After the initial "woah," it quickly became really quite... ordinary. Extraordinarily ordinary, actually. Phenomena arise, then pass away. I must have heard that statement a million times, but it seems like only now that I've actually experienced it. I'm beginning to appreciate how the development of jhana is so helpful to the practice of insight beyond simply aiding in concentration. |