Hello Everybody and happy new year if I have not said so before.
I suppose some people may be wondering what I've been up to since my apparent stream entry last year. Short answer is a case of the H1N1 flu. Nasty, not recommended.
Unfortunately, this has pretty much put a stop to my formal practice. Also I've not had the energy to put together any kind of account of what has happened since then. But something is happening that I would like some feed back on.
Although I've not been doing much formal sitting, my mind does seem to want to find its way back to some variation of no-mind or "the watcher" or bare awareness when I'm bumbling around in my normal life. This started happening just after Christmas. I pretty much gave up on any kind of practice over this period; too much to do, too many people around etc. Any kind of mindfulness or spaciousness just got buried. As soon as the season was over my mind just started popping up in to no-mind or whatever, rather like a cork in a bathtub. Then I got the flu and it went again, only to pop up again as soon as I started to recover. Obviously this is great, and I am now working this angle. I drop in to this state about an hour after rising and am in and out of it all day, busy or not busy it does not seem to matter, but a little bit busy is probably the sweet spot.
When working this, I try to incline towards Tarin's advice of a month ago.
just a suggestion - 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).....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). 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.
Initially, this advice produced deep feelings of peace of a rather narcotic intensity. Which caused me to bliss out all the time. Nice. Also some odd chakra activity.
Both of these effects have faded now, but can still be accessed. Still nice.
The new thing that is happening appears to be a direct result of my continued utilization of this technique. After about ten minutes of good quality attention. I started to notice that all sensations were silent. This is an inadequate word to use but is the best available. Well, actually its not, "empty" is. But I hesitate to use this word as it is so laden with conceptual baggage. Suffice to say that all sensations appear to be separate and discreet but also causal; come from nothing but also exist as a continuity; have significance but are empty; be unpleasant but also have a softness to them.
To begin with, this duality bothered me, I started to look for a the separate sensations of softness, or silence or causality or meaning. Soon I realized that all these sensations/concepts/qualities are just as empty and anything else, so I'm not so vexed by this now. But the question still remains. Is the silence or emptiness or discreetness or what ever you want to call it a natural component of any given sensation or is it a separate "thing?" Further, is it in fact THE THING, if you know what I mean. Of which everything else is a manifestation.
Uh oh! I predict much debate in the near future. Which is, of course, very welcome.
I'm more interested in getting a closer look at this phenomenon. At present I have to catch it in my peripheral consciousness. It is a product of a practice rather than something I can look at directly. Well actually I can, but not for long, as it starts to fade if I look at it too closely.
Any suggestions? This development has been just another in a long list of pleasant surprises that I have stumbled across since accessing this community and you all have my most heartfelt and grateful thanks.
Howard
