What are these things?

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Bardo, modified 4 Years ago at 10/16/19 10:37 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/16/19 10:28 AM

What are these things?

Posts: 263 Join Date: 9/14/19 Recent Posts
What are these things?

When meditating there is a flickering of light in my eyes. It is more like a strobing effect but it seems to have a slight pleasantness to it. The strobing isn't sharp, instead it pours downwards like water. I've been having this for several weeks in about 60% of my sessions.

Two days ago when meditating I entered what appeared to be a juxtaposing space/non-space with two contrasting qualities. In the fracture that defined the juxtaposing space there was an impression of a Buddha but this wasn't visual, in fact, it would be difficult to define any of this as visual stimulus of any sort. I couldn't define a location but one side seemed dream-like and the other side seemed like nothing but the kind of nothing that made me intuit this: "I descern there to be a further escape." If I was to read into that myself with my limited understanding it seemed like a formation of some sort. Afterwards, my mind took to this with despair.

The flickering has been going on for some weeks now but the second instance came of the back of an event from last week where I hit a huge wall of very dense fear. I realised I needed to let go of something in my mind. I did this through speaking it out. The next day I woke to the most phenomenal laughter. I do not recall ever laughing in such a way before. It was a very sincere and meaningful laugh. I laughed in the face of tremendous fear. Before the laughter the fear was dense, grotesque and gnarled but as I was laughing it became like a child with a sheet over his head going "booo". It was very funny indeed. Afterwards, everone outside seemed like Bodhisattvas, all helping each other to escape the dream but doing so unknowingly. I've been hitting what I think to be A&P's fairly often - within weeks of each other. Now I'm back with suffering but it hasn't been able to hijack my thoughts for some months. My attention powers through it like a sword or something. There has been a lot a grief released through crying but strangely it is quite often accompanied by joy and sometimes right over the top of the greif or just after it. Quite an interesting match - a little like chewing on barbed wire while having an organsm not that I'm inclined to partake in such activities!

I wonder if anyone could say something about this.

Thanks.
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svmonk, modified 4 Years ago at 10/16/19 9:27 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/16/19 9:23 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 400 Join Date: 8/23/14 Recent Posts
When meditating there is a flickering of
light in my eyes. It is more like a strobing effect but it seems to have
a slight pleasantness to it. The strobing isn't sharp, instead it pours
downwards like water. I've been having this for several weeks in about
60% of my sessions.
Hi BC,

The strobing sounds a bit to me like the space between visual scenes, what Shinzen Young calls "gone". I did the "gone" practice for a couple years when I was studying with Shinzen, and it culminated in a retreat where my visual field was flickering between seeing something and a kind of gap. I tried to explore the gap by paying close attention to it through slowing down my noting of "gone" and experiened a long, maybe half hour path and fruit consciousness, followed by several days of fruitions. Then I fell into an A&P, the fruitions stopped, and things got a little crazy for a month.

So my recomendation, if you want to continue looking into it is pay attention to the gaps between the scenes in the strobing.

Don't know if this helps at all.
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Bardo, modified 4 Years ago at 10/17/19 1:27 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/17/19 1:27 AM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 263 Join Date: 9/14/19 Recent Posts
That's interesting because its persistence tells me that there's something relevant in the strobing lights. Your comment has thrown open something else. My thoughts often take the initial form of random particles like the static you would see on an old TV and those particles join together to produce a visual thought form. I can see this in my other sense organs - when I focus on my ears very intently sound and even silence seems to be composed of individual particles, same for bodily sensations. I've been overlaying anicca onto these events and looking for a self which I've never actually managed to find but still, the self asserts its presence like some strange phantom.
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svmonk, modified 4 Years ago at 10/18/19 8:50 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/18/19 8:49 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 400 Join Date: 8/23/14 Recent Posts
Hi Linda,

That's interesting. In Tibetian practice, consciousness is seen as bright particles called bindu. When you sleep, they gather at the heart. In fact, one recommended way to fall asleep if you are having trouble is to visualize the bindu descending to the heart. For myself, I cannot always see these, not even in meditation, but when I was doing intense concentration practice, and espeically at retreats, they would appear sometimes like tiny glowing fireflies.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 10/19/19 3:46 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/19/19 3:46 AM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
svmonk:
Hi Linda,

That's interesting. In Tibetian practice, consciousness is seen as bright particles called bindu. When you sleep, they gather at the heart. In fact, one recommended way to fall asleep if you are having trouble is to visualize the bindu descending to the heart. For myself, I cannot always see these, not even in meditation, but when I was doing intense concentration practice, and espeically at retreats, they would appear sometimes like tiny glowing fireflies.


Hi! I’m not sure exactly what part of what I wrote was interesting to you, but I find your input very interesting. I have really poor visualization skills, but I do see tiny bright particles, mainly in meditation or directly after a session. I have no idea whether they are what you are talking about. Once I did see brightly shining particles moving around playfully and seemingly driven by intentions in a waiting room, though. They looked like they were alive. Do you think they may have been bindu? That explanation is certainly more appealing than the assumption that I was about to go nuts at the time.
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svmonk, modified 4 Years ago at 10/19/19 8:31 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/19/19 8:31 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 400 Join Date: 8/23/14 Recent Posts
Hi Linda,

I think that the particles were probably bindu. If you practice concentration/jhana, then you are probably seeing them. They seem to be more visible to me when I am practicing concentration.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 10/19/19 9:05 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/19/19 9:05 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Thanks! This was actually very early in my practice, before I started my first practice log, but I guess it’s possible that I was having a peak in concentration. I did stumble over jhanas without knowing what I was doing.

I have seen Daniel write that he doesn’t/didn’t believe in any consciousness separate from sensations. I do have a hard time making sense of the notion of consciousness as a separate entity since stream entry, as it seems that the path is pretty much devoted to deconstructing and abandoning that view. Could it be that they are somehow magickal manifestations?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 10/22/19 5:48 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/22/19 5:48 AM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
When I google it, it seems that the belief system around them consider them the source for creation rather than creations themselves. I’m more prone to see them as creations, though, like everything else we perceive. And as long as we are still alive, some kind of creation/construction happens again and again and again. It’s not like we can just stop constructing, more than for short moments at a time during fruitions. I’m not planning on a premature death, so I don’t have any problem with consciousness existing. I do have a problem with it being deluded into seeing itself as a separate and continuous entity, though.
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Bardo, modified 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 1:36 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 1:36 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 263 Join Date: 9/14/19 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
When I google it, it seems that the belief system around them consider them the source for creation rather than creations themselves. I’m more prone to see them as creations, though, like everything else we perceive. And as long as we are still alive, some kind of creation/construction happens again and again and again. It’s not like we can just stop constructing, more than for short moments at a time during fruitions. I’m not planning on a premature death, so I don’t have any problem with consciousness existing. I do have a problem with it being deluded into seeing itself as a separate and continuous entity, though.


I can't seem to get notifications on who's replied. Am I doing some wrong? 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 2:08 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 2:08 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I don’t know how it works. I check the forum obsessively so I don’t need the notifications.
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Chris M, modified 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 2:12 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 2:12 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 5156 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
I can't seem to get notifications on who's replied. Am I doing some wrong? 

Proceed to the top of this topic page and click on the link that says "Subscribe." YOu will then receive e-mail notifications any time someone posts on this topic.
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Bardo, modified 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 2:39 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 2:39 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 263 Join Date: 9/14/19 Recent Posts
Chris Marti:
I can't seem to get notifications on who's replied. Am I doing some wrong? 

Proceed to the top of this topic page and click on the link that says "Subscribe." YOu will then receive e-mail notifications any time someone posts on this topic.
Thanks. It says I'm already subscribed. Just don't understand why they're not coming in. I'll figure it out at some point. :-)
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Chris M, modified 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 3:15 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 3:15 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 5156 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Check spam  emoticon
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Bardo, modified 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 3:50 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 3:50 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 263 Join Date: 9/14/19 Recent Posts
Chris Marti:
Check spam  emoticon


Jeez... That old chestnut!  And there are all the emails. (Not sure how I missed that!). Thanks!
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 3:58 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/25/19 3:58 PM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 1682 Join Date: 5/5/19 Recent Posts
Bardo Cruiser:
Chris Marti:
Check spam  emoticon


Jeez... That old chestnut!  And there are all the emails. (Not sure how I missed that!). Thanks!


You can create a separate folder for the emails from this site, and put a label on it, and specify the email addresses that include this site address, and be sure that all the emails related to this site will go to that folder.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 10/17/19 5:32 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 10/17/19 5:32 AM

RE: What are these things?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
The kind of flickering that is pouring downwards reminds me of something I have noticed in the shifts between different jhanas. I think it isn’t movingd downwards for me, but rather away from me, but I tend to associate it with ”me” moving downwards from the surface. That is probably an entirely different thing from what you are describing, but as you added now that there also is a pleasantness to it, it thought there’s at least a small chance of it being relevant. I don't know where you are in your practice or how much you have investigated the visual field. I find that shifts between different states tend to manifest visually for me even though I'm not very visually inclined. Some strobing starts early on just because I'm relaxed (which often leads to purple swirls for me). 

Another phenomenon that I have observed that may or may not be relevant is that sometimes in the meditation I see the movement of the mind represented in the visual field in a very abstract way, and there is a pleasantness to being able to do that rather than engaging in the content. After a while, as I keep this distance to all the thought processes going on, it calms down. 

Yet another entirely different phenomenon your description makes me think of is when perceptions or thoughts dissolve into vibrations. 

You could use it to investigate impermanence ("gone" described above would be one way to do it). I don't think you necessarily need to know exactly what it is in order to do that. 
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