I happened upon DharmaOverground through the Buddhist Geeks podcasts, and am reading Daniel's book. This is the first time I've seen a description of what seems to happen in migraines that I meditate through - the pulsing, flashing fireflies, intricate vibrating kaleidoscopic patterns.

I began about 2 years ago, with mindfulness of the breath and tonglen. For the last 8 months, I've been doing an objectless awareness practice - open first to one sense field, then add them in to include everything; which has been wonderful - clear, crisp awareness, the ability to step into it easily. However, there hasn't been much change in the past 6 months or so.
My guess, from reading the descriptions of stages in Daniel's book is that I've been hanging out in Mind and Body for much of this time - and I'd love to get input from the more experienced practitioners here.

I have done the noting practice for the past 2 weeks - about 1.5+ hrs/day. After a couple of days, the sensations of tiny vibrations in my index finger (where I was focusing). However, this perception quickly spread to my whole body, with my arms, face and chest feeling a bright buzzing fire, with a thicker, slower pulsing flow within my arms, torso and legs. This has gone way past my ability to note individual occurrences, so I've noted any major changes as fast as I can.

What I'm wondering now (in addition to the "where am I? question) is how best to proceed. Should I stay with noting vibrations, switch to another sense?

Thanks,
Linda

Dear Linda,

Great stuff.

Vibrations in the 2nd vipassana jhana, aka the A&P territory, quickly get faster than we can note, but as you have noticed, they can be perceived really fast. Thus, noting them with anything other than some extremely stripped down, either mono-syllabic noting or just some following with a non-verbal noting pulse of something mental, is too slow.

Once the noting has gotten you to vibrations, stay with those, particularly all the way up and down the breath, and then wider and more inclusive.

If, once the A&P fades and you get into Dissolution and the other Dark Night stages, you need to go back to noting: do so. It can help.

Helpful?

Daniel

Yes, very helpful, thanks. It seems to be possible to attend to the vibrations even in odd moments, so I'm hoping to get in a lot of practice in the next few weeks - and note when possible.

Thank you!

Linda