Deeper, more subtle equanimity. - Discussion
Deeper, more subtle equanimity.
KundaliniLinguini, modified 5 Years ago at 3/19/19 9:34 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/19/19 9:34 PM
Deeper, more subtle equanimity.
Posts: 39 Join Date: 1/9/16 Recent Posts
In my practice, it seems that the first few years, a small attempt at equanimity would have huge effects. I would sit and just try to face reality moment to moment and would have all kinds of spiritual experiences.
Eventually, I had experiences where I saw directly that the world was the mind, the "I" did not exist, etc... I have spent years now with all kinds of weird painful energy sensations in the head etc...
It seems now that I sit with what feels like almost perfect equanimity, and yet I have no spiritual type experiences whatsoever no matter how long I sit. No Jhana, no bliss, no loss of center or boundary, no feeling of movement or traveling, no loss of control, no light, no love, etc...
I guess I just keep sitting? Does practice get more difficult as you "progress to higher levels"??? Did I enter the stream before and am now on the path to the higher levels and those paths are more challenging and take longer? Thanks for the input.
Eventually, I had experiences where I saw directly that the world was the mind, the "I" did not exist, etc... I have spent years now with all kinds of weird painful energy sensations in the head etc...
It seems now that I sit with what feels like almost perfect equanimity, and yet I have no spiritual type experiences whatsoever no matter how long I sit. No Jhana, no bliss, no loss of center or boundary, no feeling of movement or traveling, no loss of control, no light, no love, etc...
I guess I just keep sitting? Does practice get more difficult as you "progress to higher levels"??? Did I enter the stream before and am now on the path to the higher levels and those paths are more challenging and take longer? Thanks for the input.
Bailey Nolan Tran, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 9:23 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 9:23 PM
RE: Deeper, more subtle equanimity.
Posts: 6 Join Date: 3/20/19 Recent Posts
After a certain point in meditation I believe that the abandonment of meditation is necessary. I found this out after cycling through the 9 jhanas a few times. An arhant is freed even from the formless realms of meditation absorbtion. Meaning without any concentration at all the the arhant is in a high state. I would recomend that if you are not gaining anything from sitting. Than you should go use your time bettering your life and others lifes in a more meaningful way.
john paul komperda, modified 5 Years ago at 9/12/19 1:44 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 9/12/19 1:36 PM
RE: Deeper, more subtle equanimity.
Posts: 6 Join Date: 4/27/13 Recent PostsKundaliniLinguini:
In my practice, it seems that the first few years, a small attempt at equanimity would have huge effects. I would sit and just try to face reality moment to moment and would have all kinds of spiritual experiences.
Eventually, I had experiences where I saw directly that the world was the mind, the "I" did not exist, etc... I have spent years now with all kinds of weird painful energy sensations in the head etc...
It seems now that I sit with what feels like almost perfect equanimity, and yet I have no spiritual type experiences whatsoever no matter how long I sit. No Jhana, no bliss, no loss of center or boundary, no feeling of movement or traveling, no loss of control, no light, no love, etc...
I guess I just keep sitting? Does practice get more difficult as you "progress to higher levels"??? Did I enter the stream before and am now on the path to the higher levels and those paths are more challenging and take longer? Thanks for the input.
Eventually, I had experiences where I saw directly that the world was the mind, the "I" did not exist, etc... I have spent years now with all kinds of weird painful energy sensations in the head etc...
It seems now that I sit with what feels like almost perfect equanimity, and yet I have no spiritual type experiences whatsoever no matter how long I sit. No Jhana, no bliss, no loss of center or boundary, no feeling of movement or traveling, no loss of control, no light, no love, etc...
I guess I just keep sitting? Does practice get more difficult as you "progress to higher levels"??? Did I enter the stream before and am now on the path to the higher levels and those paths are more challenging and take longer? Thanks for the input.
It's interesting. I've followed your posts and my process was similiar to your process except in reverse. I started as abiding as pure consciouness in pure subjectivity and nothing ever changed. I would sit for many hours over years and there wouldnt be a single fluctation in this particular state. There was a sense of arrival, completion, etc.. During this period existential questions who come up and I would simply ask "who cares" and they would fade. All ideas of reincarnation, life after death, existence after death all became meaningless, this was the one area that I never worked through however---because the idea that perhaps nothing exists after death entered consciousness and did seem like a possibly, whereas before I never entertained the idea with my excessive "spiritualism"
Like yourself, I would ask, what's next? For me I had a crown chakra awakening that has caused all sorts of manifestation and difficulty(like you mentioned in some of your posts) is what followed. BTW, I would really like to connect with you if that is possible.
shargrol, modified 5 Years ago at 9/13/19 6:02 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 9/13/19 5:39 AM
RE: Deeper, more subtle equanimity.
Posts: 2750 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent PostsKundaliniLinguini:
In my practice, it seems that the first few years, a small attempt at equanimity would have huge effects. I would sit and just try to face reality moment to moment and would have all kinds of spiritual experiences.
Eventually, I had experiences where I saw directly that the world was the mind, the "I" did not exist, etc... I have spent years now with all kinds of weird painful energy sensations in the head etc...
It seems now that I sit with what feels like almost perfect equanimity, and yet I have no spiritual type experiences whatsoever no matter how long I sit. No Jhana, no bliss, no loss of center or boundary, no feeling of movement or traveling, no loss of control, no light, no love, etc...
I guess I just keep sitting? Does practice get more difficult as you "progress to higher levels"??? Did I enter the stream before and am now on the path to the higher levels and those paths are more challenging and take longer? Thanks for the input.
Eventually, I had experiences where I saw directly that the world was the mind, the "I" did not exist, etc... I have spent years now with all kinds of weird painful energy sensations in the head etc...
It seems now that I sit with what feels like almost perfect equanimity, and yet I have no spiritual type experiences whatsoever no matter how long I sit. No Jhana, no bliss, no loss of center or boundary, no feeling of movement or traveling, no loss of control, no light, no love, etc...
I guess I just keep sitting? Does practice get more difficult as you "progress to higher levels"??? Did I enter the stream before and am now on the path to the higher levels and those paths are more challenging and take longer? Thanks for the input.
It would help if you were more specific about your years of practice. Unfortunately people often understate or overstate the extent that they practice, so it's hard to interpret general statements...
But basically you are describing something that is vaguely consistent with going through the stages of insight into a state of equanimity -- so where is the problem? Even if you are already a stream enterer, the stages of insight as still generally applicable as a framework for noticing the refinement of states of mind...
Higher levels are not really more difficult, but they are more easily thwarted by greed, aversion, and fantasy. If you are greedy for spiritual experiences, adverse to what is happening, and fantasizing about something different --- then progress rarely happens.
Seems like at this point you need to get used to being in deeper, more sublte equanimity. Or you could say, you need to use this equanimity to notice subtle habits of greed, aversion, and fantasy.