Hello Tarin,
Long answer to a short question I'm afraid.
Tarinwhat do you notice while here?
Several things, I've sat couple of times since last posting so I will give a summary.
If I do just this;
Try opening up your field of focus so that it's more inclusive of your whole body, or at least more of it. could be helpful to feel the effects of breathing on the body more thoroughly. (no special effects in particular, just how the fact of breathing can be felt throughout the body).
I get strong lower body chakra activity, strong pulsing and throbbing. Base, belly and solar all like large pounding hearts. Strong whole body bliss waves on both in and out breath, though much stronger on the out. These bliss waves are available off the cushion if I so incline my mind. Chakras not so much. On the cushion this is very seductive and spent one session just relaxing here. Relaxation is very pronounced.
This feels like part two of a process that started before Christmas. I had something very similar but only heart, throat, and brow. I went through a period of intense crown activity too. Now its all about the bottom 3.
These sensations are variable, during my first session yesterday they were not so pronounced, but much more so later. I feel is if I have some control over the intensity, but that it is easier for me to intensify them than to diminish them.
This;
and maintain the intensity of your awareness (like you're an animal in the woods that just heard a rustle in the bushes nearby and so are keeping both still and keenly alert at the same time)
needs this;
try opening up your field of focus so that it's more inclusive of your whole body, or at least more of it. could be helpful to feel the effects of breathing on the body more thoroughly. (no special effects in particular, just how the fact of breathing can be felt throughout the body)
to work, but doing both at the same time is more difficult than I first thought. Its like learning to drive stick-shift or manually tuning a radio. I am familiar with this kind of learning experience though, I think its just a matter of practice.
So in answer to your question I am noticing the management of the process itself. A fair amount of verbal commentary, and anxiety sensations which are counteracted by this;
if you find your head tight and buzzy, pay more attention to the lower parts of your body, such as where your seat contacts the cushion, and relax more with the breath, particularly on the exhale.
which works very well, too well in fact. It shuts down the anxiety and commentary but also the tuning/balancing that I am trying to achieve. The bliss waves are just too strong sometimes and I have a pronounced craving for them.
I am also having problems accessing this;
and maintain the intensity of your awareness (like you're an animal in the woods that just heard a rustle in the bushes nearby and so are keeping both still and keenly alert at the same time)
I use a visualisation of me as a deer, in the woods, surprised ect. or trying to "hear" with my whole body, works too. Which is a lot of effort at the moment and takes me away from the other elements of the practice. I know that in time i will start to remember this sensation and just "go there" but at the moment its all work. I also know that I can just open my solar chakra with an act of will and make it happen. However experience suggests that this is not the whole story and will not capture all the nuances of the sensation. Also, this may work in the short term but will corrupt the practice eventually.
I think what you were actually asking about, is what I see when all the bits are working together properly, rather than all of the above. Truth to tell, I spend most of the session trying to get to this fully functioning state. When I do Its much like "normal" equanimity but stronger. Normal equanimity is like this:
It feels like being under the sea or at some kind of other great depth and pressure. I feel pressure all over my body.
The light changes some how. I have avoided describing this for a long time because I've not wanted to sound like the hundreds of spiritual books I have read over the years. How to make it sound fresh and not too new agey. I think matter-of-fact is best. Bullet points, why not?
- Its like everything is its own colour but also yellow/gold and a lighter shade. Both things at once.
- All objects have a "standing wave" around them. Like when a object vibrates so fast it appears like it has two edges. Exactly this.
- Sometimes everything looks like its made of putty or clay. I could push my finger through it. But also not. Everything is solid.
- Light comes from a point souce but is also diffuse. The point source of light is more of an idea than a fact.
- Things do not "glow", but the light comes from somewhere. Oh all right then! The space between things glows a bit. Happy now!
- Space between things feels not so much solid but "full" like soup or treacle.
- Neon effects at the center of my vision.
- Depth perception goes, my vision goes "flat."
- Objects loose their meaning and become just shapes.
- Occasional "white out," like stepping in to the sun from a darkened room on a mid-summer's day.
- The flickering thing I described before was a one off.
- My eyes feel bigger and fuller and are pressurized from within.
- Objects or bits of them "blink" like pixels flashing on and off, the pixels vary in size. The deeper I am, the bigger the pixels.
- Everything shimmers a bit, very faint. Like a heat haze.
- My vision judders with the effect of the blood pulsing in my eyes.
- The edges of my vision, i assume the edge of the lenses in my eyes, becomes very clear and sharp. Looking out from two portholes. This is one of my reliable markers for equanimity. Always happens.
- On one memorable occasion everything became glistening/golden and all objects became a continuity with individual sensations pushing out from the fabric of reality like bars on a graphic equalizer display. Then some kill joy asked me a question (I was in a meeting) and ruined it for me. Some people have no respect.
I think that's quite enough of that.
This is by no means a full list and all of these effects do not necessarily present at each visit to equanimity. But all of these effects are much more pronounced since I started to follow your most recent practice advice. Also a lot of these effects are present in daily life to a greater or, mercifully, lesser extent.
I have tried to test these sensations to destruction. So much goes on with the vision sense that we are not normally aware of. The eyes are always moving and focusing/refocusing. We blink a lot more than we realise. Diffraction effects from eyelashes. Changes in ambient light. Also the eyes are not perfect. The are marvelous mechanisms, but are also physical processes with clear functional limits. A lot of what I first thought of as funky and exciting turned out to be just me noticing the physical limits of the vision sense. Interesting, but I'm not sure if this qualifies as liberating insight.
I'm fairly sure that the sensations I have described above appear to be more than just the eyes doing their thing. In any case, in equanimity eyesight appears to be much more stable and less prone to jumping about.
But something that I have noticed about all of the sensations is that they are directly effected by my attention. As equanimity deepens I have to work harder and harder to maintain "normal" vision. If I keep my focus tight some effects come to the fore if I loosen my attention others manifest. But "normal" pretty much disappears. More flux, less stability, more ambiguity, less sharpness.
As I said before I have deliberately avoided talking about any of this precisely because it is all so hard to pin down. Maybe that's the point, maybe that's exactly what I am supposed to notice.
Regards
Howard