James:
I don't think what I've gone through has had any dark night nanas.
How do you know? From people's descriptions not matching your own experience? Isn't that what you are frustrated at cocerning what you are calling pre-Ap experiences?
One thing to keep in mind is that the experience of this and that nana can vary in how they present from yogi to yogi. One may not get kriyas at the 4th nana. One may not experience a "stubborn' experience in the dukkha nanas. It is best not to judge your experience too much up against others' desctiptions, though it helps when there are things we relate to to orient our practices. But when we deny our own progress because experiences are not 100% matches to this and that description, we simply set up a conceptual overlay which will influence what we do and don't do in practice , which may or may not result in further progress.
If this is the dark night, then I'm surprised because this is relatively pretty easy -- although it has been really miserable when I've sat, it's always felt like I am making progress during the sits.
Perhaps it is just 3rd nana, which with the very little info I have of your practice, is simply a guess based on a lot of reading others' experiences here as well as my own. Patterns need to be seen to make a more educated guess. Perhaps, only if you are truly interested, you could share your practice for a week or two in a designated thread, and described exatly what is occuring as you practice for 30 minutes to an hour each time? Up to you. Without patterns to be seen, it is hard to tell where you may be at, and all we can rely on is your own guess which may be tinged with your own objectification/proliferation/conceptualisation of what you are experiencing.
I've thought that the dark night would be stubborn in that regard, and much more chaotic.
It can be, and sometimes it might not be "chaotic" nor "stubborn". Depends on your past conditioning and how concentrated, stable, discerning your are.
All the insights that have come have come in a pretty organized fashion, like for that amount of time it was obviously just those insights that I was working with. I thought the DN would be more chaotic.
It is for a yogi lacking in a malleable, pliant mind. Perhaps you have different conditioning to yogis who experience it more chaotically. Perhaps you are talking about the 3rd nana. Need to see more patterns.
There also is no cycling through the A&P. There is just the tone of the general sensations that I experience which come and go in a fairly predictable way throughout the day. No wild kriyas, just a general state pretty consistent from one moment to the next.
Perhaps that nana hasn't matured yet and you are hovering around in the first three nanas. The point is, we don't know. And from the little phenomenological descriptions you have given, I doubt you are talking only about the first nana, which is more pleasant than not pleasant, which is why you can samatha-ise it into the 1st samatha jhana. Without seeing further patterns, I think you are misadiagnosing yourself, assigning meaning to experiences which dont match up to what is talked about around here , and then getting into a tissy about people not relating and talking about it as you wish. Sounds like classic post-AP yogi stuff to me actually. But truthfully, I need to see more descrtiptions of your experience to see patterns.
So I am thinking that all of this stuff, pre A&P stuff, is floating leftover garbage from the past on the level of normal habit patterns rather than the upheaval in the paradigm of perception like what would come out of an A&P event.
Have you ever experienced the mind and body buzzing like you were lying on a vibrating bed, perhaps buzzing like you had electiricity surging through all parts? Even without kriyas, and lights, and fireworks, I'd classify this access as post-ap. It doesn't have to be a huge perceptual change. That comes later on post-11th nana.
I am open to thinking more about this, though.
Good. And people here are open to taking you seriously. You just have to be a bit clearer and perhaps share a bit more so we can see PATTERNS!
If it turns out that what I'm saying is true, then great, it's great to have that clarity. If it's wrong for one reason of another, then I should know that too. More later
And you came to a place where we discuss this stuff openly and quite a bit. Trying to be clearer and less testy helps communication both ways.
My 2 cents are that you aren't talking about the just the 1st nana. But I'd like to make a more educated guess with patterns you share with us here at the DhO. If not, frustration may simply be the result.
Nick