| | Sorry I have been gone for a while. I have been helping to coordinate the building of a straw bale house and trying to pay for it.
Going way back to the beginning, to the original post, I am going to take a stab at what those stages were and guess the following: initial bliss, ease, peace, niceness stuff: likely 1st ñana (mind and body); then tension, breath interfered with stuff: moving into 2nd and 3rd ñana (cause and effect, three characteristics), then something seeing to suck one in, with it happening on its own, both seem to smack of 2nd vipassana jhana stuff (early, not well developed), aka early A&P territory. Keep going, not harmful, explore, enjoy, watch out for what comes next, beware of both underestimating and overestimating your practice, learn the maps well, so you have a heads up for side effects, and go on retreats if possible, preferably with teachers who know and will discuss this territory in straightforward terms.
As to the whole samatha/vipassana thing, I agree wholeheartedly with everything Vince said. In summary: in the beginning, having a clear distinction is helpful. In practice, they do tend to oscillate back and forth, even if we are doing insight practice. We stumble into something seemingly somewhat stable, then break it apart, then the next phase has stable elements, we break them apart...
As to the hardcore jhana standards of many, they are interesting and useful if we have that sort of bent, interest, time and guidance, but as stated, do not always lead to insight without adding an insight focus, sometimes lead to people getting fascinated with how profound those states can be, and take way more concentration than is needed to simply get enlightened. |