I made a few changes in my routine before practice in an effort to move from Dark Night into at least Low Equanimity. Decided to use a seated posture instead of Burmese for various reasons, this had the effect of creating more contact points to note which proved interesting later in the session.

- Being seated did nothing to affect the shaking experienced during the move from 2nd to 3rd vipassana jhana. What was noticeable was the root of the movement in the coccyx area, obviously kundalini related goings on there but no Event like full-on arising of the sensations. Just something which is now becoming welcomed as a marker point rather than viewed as a distraction, it's all just sensation to note so acceptance sets in as I surrender to it and it subsides.

- I realised tonight that I have a soft spot for Dark Night. There's something tranquil and deep about it, a dryness like cracked earth but the terrain has it own beautiful flowers if we only had the eyes to see them. We don't experience emotion so deeply as during Dark Night, in my opinion. I noted sensations of "thinness", like a really fine membrane between observer and observed. There was a physical sense of "hollowness" when images of the body passed, like seeing zigzagging energy ricochet against these more densely packed "edges" of the body.

- Since working with samatha jhanas I can totally see how addictive they could be. I need to work on avoiding solidifying sensation, particularly thoughts, into jhana, something which occured at least eight times tonight and which did more to set me back than just stopping completely would have done. Very distracting indeed! There's a definite sense of the mind drawing itself to the jhana, a grasping for something solid. When I realise I'm in a samatha jhana there's a sense of the state blurring out as it fades before the sense of focussing on the sensation itself which clears the screen, so to speak.

- To avoid falling into jhana, I tried open-eyed vipassana. This immediately helped as I practice being mindul at all times during my daily life and led to literally seeing the flickering of any visual phenomena encountered. With open eyes I could bring up samatha jhanas as I noted which was something I've never tried before, the visual field could be made to open up, focus in and shift to see that shimmering effect I've mentioned before while still noting sensations of the space between my feet and the floor, the points of contact I mentioned earlier at my backside and thighs, sensations of pain in my lower back all seen to arise and pass.

All in all, a more clear and noteable practice than I've had in about a week. I'm just going to stick to what I've been doing and go with what comes. If anyone can offer any advice or opinion then I'd be grateful.

Cheers!

Could you describe how thoughts solidify into jhana?

I love the way you described this: " - I realised tonight that I have a soft spot for Dark Night. There's something tranquil and deep about it, a dryness like cracked earth but the terrain has it own beautiful flowers if we only had the eyes to see them. We don't experience emotion so deeply as during Dark Night, in my opinion. I noted sensations of "thinness", like a really fine membrane between observer and observed."

I could have probably phrased that a bit better actually, and also the point about bringing up jhana in the background too so I'll try to clarify what I was getting at.

When I mentioned solidifying thoughts what I should really have said was that I catch myself getting caught up in the content of a thought, usually after getting some insight into whichever sensation. Do you know what I mean when I say there's a point when the insight comes but you get the feeling that if you don't make an effort to "remember" it, it'll just vanish? It's at that point where I end up placing too much emphasis on concentration rather than the noting, slip into a nice comfortable jhana and then realise I've solidified these sensations rather than breaking them down. On realising this there's a moment where noting kicks back in and the jhana can be dismantled before getting back into vipassana properly. A more accurate description would probably have been that I find myself getting caught out by content, particularly when it's something non-dualistic or totally unitive. Daft mistake, I know but no point getting more caught up in it.

With bringing up the samatha jhanas in the background, I should have made it clear that this didn't happen in the same way as going into the formless realms ie. just noting enough to progress but not fully exploring the sensations. Last night there was a definite sense of the samatha jhanas opening up due to doing vipassana with open eyes, this wasn't solid like fully entering the jhana but the perceptual shifts were apparent and easy to examine like any other sensation but without the same sensation of being "in" as happened in the previous paragraph. If that makes any sense.

Is that any clearer?

Cheers Katy, glad you liked the overly poetic twist!

I think so. So by going into jhana you meant getting absorbed in it and not observing sensations. That makes more sense since some people recommending for example staying in 4th jhana when doing all your vipassana, so jhana isn't necessarily the enemy of vipassana.

I know what you mean about thoughts; the same happens to me. I don't slip into a jhana, though, I just get distracted by the thought and start chasing it around.

Exactly! It's the balance between being in the jhana as a base to operate from and getting absorbed in it. I agree that it's certainly not the enemy of vipassana, it's a wonderful ally but I can see how easy it could be to mistake the experiences of samatha jhanas for fundamental insight if mindfulness isn't maintained constantly. That's what I was getting annoyed with myself about, an insight into the sense of space and emptiness in the no-self sense and I let it myself get carried away in the blissful "eureka" rather than just investigating it.

Such is life and such is practice. No point beating myself up over it, I managed to complete sixty minutes practice tonight with minimal breaks, even getting clear enough to be able to aware of the entry to Fruition through no-self, the specifics of entry to Fruition have always been a bit unclear until now so obviously yesterday's practice had the knock-on effect of increasing mindfulness and stepping noting up a notch!