| | Hi
Having read your post a couple of times, and having thought about it:
While I can't tell you where you are with any great degree of accuracy, the descriptions you give indicate A&P territory, as you yourself suggest.
So, if you assume A&P, what you could try to do is question your experience of good, effortless, pleasurable, balanced meditation. You know, this sense of "hey, this is going really well", the sense of being an accomplished meditator, of being impressed with how well one is doing. (Don't get me wrong! You are doing well, and are accomplished, and now it's time to take it to the next step). The corresponding teaching is called the "ten defilements of insight", and what you can try to do is adopt a more skeptical stance, instead of going for the balance you try to notice the tendencies that might be off-balancing; instead of noting the bliss or pleasure, you place your attention on the not-so-blissful and unpleasureable, to counter the sense of accomplishment you give more attention to all the things "out there" you haven't noticed yet, which aren't under your control, etc. In other words, make your noting more inclusive, all-around.
For me, it was fascination with seeing lights, bright, diffuse, patterned, on the back of my eyelids. To move on, I started to divide those patterns or lights into fields, to break up the sense of coherence and unity. Also, at that time, I started to use the nada sound as an object for noting. Since it presents so strongly for you at the moment, have you investigated it? It's made up of many "strands" (at least for me), a bit like a braid - one strand will become dominant, and can be followed for some time, but at one point it's gone, and there is a sense of having to feel for the next strand? That was useful to me.
So in summary, don't be afraid to knock harder, note more aggressively and inclusively, take a skeptical stance, and so on. Incidentally, exactly the same skills are useful in equanimity. If you're actually there, it's still a good idea to examine it really closely, with an attitude of "if this is equanimity, I can't destroy it by looking too close or questioning it too hard".
Finally, you mention how you often can't remember your sit to give a detailed report. Have you tried to make a formal resolution to gain more clarity? Resolutions like that are quite powerful, in my experience. Also, you mentioned your pranayama warm-up. Can you describe your experience of that exercise?
Helpful? If not, keep asking!
Cheers, Florian |