Hi all, I had something unique (at least within the confines of my practice) happen and I REALLY need some advice as to what the heck it was! Because I think it is something, but i am not one to say one thing or another without first conferring with people who are perhaps a bit more pragmatically minded and removed from the experience. 

So if you look at my previous posts you will see I have been blessed with the opportunity to practice at home anywhere from 3-5 hours a day. On top of this, sometimes I have what i call  "Dark Retreats" where I basically cover all the windows of my meditation room so that it is pitch black and try to stay in there and engaged with the practice for atleast 24 hours. Generally works a charm and leaves me feeling more focused and inspired to practice.

My wife is away in Seattle at a work conference for a week so I thought this was the perfect time to really test myself. I prepped simple meals that I kept in a mini fridge in the corner of the room, and the bathroom is connected to the meditation room, as well i layed out a small  yoga mat to sleep on. I decided to have a 3 day, 3 night "Dark retreat". Alternating 45min sitting meditation, 15min walking meditation, only taking small breaks to eat, use the restroom, and go to sleep 6 hours. 

It was going wonderfully, I was in a sense "knocking it out of the park" so to speak, my attention was sharp, incredibly sharp! I was noting like crazy, getting to the point where I wasn't even using a mental notation but simply noting by the fact of arising, instead of having something arise and then noting it as two seperate events.  

On the third night I was about to lay down to get some sleep but felt like going for a little longer. So I pressed on, my attention incredibly sharp, noting like crazy, then all of a sudden almost it was like the power to a large building got turned off and all the large machinery started to cycle off and down. in more direct terms I was practicing, there was a "Blip" of sorts, followed by sensate reality totally disappearing for a few moments, and then coming back online. 

At which point I was filled with energy, directness, onepointedness, and a muddy but entirely noticeable sense of what I think is equinimity? My Practice after this point has just been through the roof and running on all cylinder, I can turn my mind toward something that previously confused me about the Dharma and seem to grasp it with ease. 


I come to this site in humbleness and humility, I have never felt so inspired to keep practicing, never been so continuously energized to keep practicing, and never had my practice running on all cylinders like this, so much so that I am finding practicing throughout daily life is coming much mich easier because it feels like a bit of the thicket of mind has been cut away.

What happened? what is this? Any advice at all would really help me!

I’m not in a position to tell you what it was, but I certainly understand that you are asking.

Very best wishes,
L

Thanks Linda! Your support is always appreciated

I don't know you or your practice so you need to take my comment with a grain of salt, but this description is reminiscent of cessation/fruition. The thing to do is to keep practicing as you have been. Does this experience repeat? What are the longer term effects - not in terms of hours or days, but in terms of weeks and months? 

That said, the massive energy, practicing very fast mind, extreme sense of power, very inspired to practice, and dropping down into something that feels like the power is shutting off all sound to me very much like the A&P with a Slow Variant added into it in the deep drop down part. In fact, given that the vast majority of "Wow, that was Amazing!" events are the A&P, it would take a lot of other evidence to the contrary to convince me it was something else.

Yeah, skepticism is always of value.

A video about the A&P.

 The part that makes me think that it might not be A&P, and take this with a grain of salt and the fact that I might be totally and completely wrong, is that compared to the rest of my A&P experiences it wasn't quite a "WoW! This is it this is so great!" or a "This is an incredible feeling I can understand everything yada yada yada", but more a slow persistent pulse that is sustained. It feels more like a phase shift into a different "thing".  

Sitting the past few days after that experience I have been able to get back to that muddy state of what i think is equinimity again with much less effort. Yet again, I might be totally and completely wrong! Would love to be asked specifics though, becuase it feels like new water compared to how my practice has been for the past few years

Well, the thing to do is give it time, as Chris rightly points out, and performance test it to see what occurs.

Read all the criteria for stream entry, if that is one of the things you think it could be, and see if it measures up well to them all well and reliably without having to rationalize or think too hard about it.

Watched this again, and it doesn't quite seem to fit any of this.... Though I am still skeptic of my experience. Would love to have a more one on one conversation about it if possible anytime

This is what I will do! Thank you!

Hey I’m highly curious if you’ve got any more convinction one way or another of your experience. Was it the A&P or Fruition?

hey Travis, my conviction I think could be that it is somewhere in low equinimity. Just by continuing to note it and sit with it, this is my observation. Honestly, I have had to recognize it as a "Silver Chain" of sorts. Meditative phenomena that while interesting and repeatable only holds back my practice. It may have some use later on in the path or may be a stranger personal thing. Regardless, I push forward

Does it happen again? 
How many times in One Session?
Dose it happens after how many sessions? 

BUHMI

• The sixth bhūmi, the Manifest. (Skt. abhimukhī) in which supreme wisdom begins to manifest;
• The seventh bhūmi, the Gone Afar. (Skt. dūraṃgamā), in which one rises above the states of the two vehicles (time and space)

Your body went fully asleep, leaving your mind to rise above time into your individual mind apart from the body and manifest world.  The lower six realms mentioned in nearly all sutras is as follows on the 10 dimensions list below.  They engage Line, Branch and Fold.  As a tree grows, so the mind is folded, branching and then a root into the world we see.  Roots into Samsara.  Branches and fruit above.  When you reached Learning (7), you brought back an update from your higher mind, which is the part of practice that is the fruit dropping on new ground.  Below, notice you are on the 5th dimensional plane when awake.  When asleep, you enter 6 (astral) as a dream plane of all possibilities.  Also, you enteract with others on the same plane of the dreamscape between mind and time.  The reason the images do not appear in the world is because you are asleep, reflecting the light into mind.  When you meditate, you shut the body off and leave the mind to refelct both ways.  Shine the light toward the one perceiving and you illuminate and wake up the inside (enlighten).  Insight follows (sight inside).  Realization is 8 on the list below.  From this, just two more steps of realization before you reach the top.  

This experience scared me the first time it happened.  I fell away from the body, then suddenly came right back.  It wasnt fear, but surprise.  Relax when it happens and keep from thinking thoughts about it.  Just Be.  Literally, you entered your being (not becoming).  True Being is Sattva, or the top Mind you entered.  

FORM

1. First dimensional line
2. Second dimensional plane
3. Third dimension of form where all the objects around you are in the state of imperminant change

Note that it starts with Line, then Branches, then Folded Form you can see. 

TIME

4. Timelines
5. Branching time.  The is where the mind resides and makes choices into timlines.  Timelines then collapse into the world we build with the mind, which is what shuts off when you meditate to the level you reached.  
6.  Folded timelines.  This is the infinite range of potential timelines your mind can select from based on the law of cause and effect, along with laws governing your choices.  

MIND

When you shut off the world, your mind rises above 6 into the line of mind.  Every mind operating in the world from absolute mind is a line of mind entering time and space (lower six realms).  Look up the 10 worlds of Buddhism.  Also see the 10 Buhmi and the 10 Ox herding pictures.  All of the are the same. 

7. Learning Mind is the line of mind into time. 
8. Realization Mind is the branching of mind from absolute mind.
9. Bodhisattva Mind has reached the last aspect of mind before Buddha, or the folded mind of Absolute into the manifest. 

BUDDHA

10.  Unmanifest Mind of all Existence (Emptiness)