Hi Stain,
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland:
My question is if this experience was the counterpart sign or something else. I am reluctant calling it anything else because it seems utterly crazy to think it was something "higher/deeper", even despite my enormous craving for deliverance.
The quick and short answer to your question is: no, that "white, puffy/fluffy, cloudy kind of energy" was not a counterpart sign. It's not even important in the overall scheme of things, either. Just more stuff to let go of. If it helped to give you confidence in the efficacy of meditation, then use that confidence to try and accomplish something of more lasting significance.
If deliverance is what you are after (and this
would be of more lasting significance), you would need to be practicing contemplation on the constituent parts of your mental experience in order to see it as it actually is. As impermanent, dissatisfying, and ultimately without self (or as the Buddha was fond of saying: "this is not me", "this is not mine", "this is not myself"').
I've discussed my take on "access concentration" (and hence, counterpart signs, since a counterpart sign is said to foretell the emergence of access concentration) in the following thread "
the difference between Access Concentration and the 1st Jhana," if you care to read an expansion on the subject.
When people first take up a practice in meditation, all sorts of weird experiences can occur, leaving the practitioner to wonder what just happened. In most cases it was only the mind attempting to maintain control over your experience of awareness by presenting you with a distraction which might keep you going around in circles for who knows how long. In other words, just stuff to let go of. Once you begin to clear all that "stuff" out of your system, then you can get down to the business end of meditation/contemplation. Which means, then you can begin to concentrate on achieving something of lasting significance aimed at relieving the mind of
dukkha, recognizing and letting go of delusions, and bringing the mind to tranquility and peace. In the case of these latter three pursuits, it would be most efficacious to practice
satipatthana (or the four establishments of mindfulness) as this is explained in the two
Satipatthana suttas of the discourses of the Buddha.
An excellent book on this ancient practice can be found in Ven. Analayo's treatise on the subject titled [url=http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/0861714911/thomelio-20 title="Satipatthana, The Direct Path to Realization"]Satipattana, The Direct Path to Realization. Another book on this same subject which is aimed at some very eye-opening practical instruction on bringing the mind to quietude through the use of a practice called "bare attention" is the book [url=http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/0877280738/thomelio-20 title="The Heart of Buddhist Meditation"]The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, by Nyanaponika Thera. Both of these books are classics in Buddhist meditation and well worth reading and investing time in.
In peace,
Ian