Hi Steph,
Yes, what you said. I did read those parts of your log and it reminded me of that.
I'd love to talk about it, it's not everyday that one gets a chance.
What happened resembles what you are describing here. I started experimenting with this particularly with the visual field, sitting under a tree, trying to see all of everything at the same level, without specifying any center point, and just trying to unify movement and stillness, which started working, and giving me all kinds of insights like "strictly speaking, if everything is moving, then nothing is moving...", and then at some point this gave rise to a full-blown timeless experience, as you describe. This intensified radically, as I was on retreat and possibly right after second path, and gave rise to the most incredible opening of my life, which I described in my journal - I could link that here if you want. I guessed at the time, from having read
DreamWalker's framework of awakening and recognizing things from other people's journals that it could be the A&P of third path. It changed my visual perception seemingly permanently, but it had such a "wow" factor to it that I can hardly think it wasn't some kind of A&P. Although, from a post I read by Daniel yesterday, it sounds like it could have been a PCE. Malcolm mentioned rigpa at some point... Well, I didn't get much rection from more experienced meditators, so I don't know, and it doesn't really matter.
But I was left with an appreciation, I would say fascination for a while, and much deeper understanding of the notion of eternity. Also I had rainbow vision for a while, which contributed to the entrancing nature of the thing.
I agree with your practical-reflexions, if you think about it, time cannot exist without timelessness. So I guess experiencing time is experiencing timelessness. Moving beyond notions of time and not-time would be the deeper, nagarjunian thing, is my guess.
When I remember this opening experience, I would say it was indeed between time and timeless, in a way, not of time....
You can imagine the reaction I got from my mom and brother when I explained this eternity business after the retreat, and that I could see glowing light everywhere

Actually, they were very understanding and respectful.
I've played with that since then and gotten similar effects but on a much milder scale of intensity. The way I get to that usually is by getting into this kind of mahamudra attentional mode, where I try to see all the branches of the tree at once, let them show themselves by themselves, and just chill out to the max. I've been told that this stuff would start infusing daily life, and it kind of is. But my practice and life right now are really more like, nothing stands out in intensity that way, and it's all good. In retrospect, I had kind of made this into a big deal for myself, and even developed identification, and conceit, with theorized attainment. A wieght was lifted when I saw through that, actually on a later, shorter mahamudra (well, "mahamudra"...) retreat in the same retreat center - thank you Stirling Campbell. Hey, perhaps I should write on my log a bit, it's been a while !!!!
Have you ever had this kind of intense version of the phenomenon ? It was really something and I remember it very fondly. Now I'm more interested in really banal things, like, most recently, the fact that "I" can perceive many different things at the same time, which really makes it obvious that (1) i'm not doing the perceiving and (2) these things are not actually really different and (3) they are kind of all in the same place. But it seems totally, totally banal, and I like it.
Good stuff Chris ! You were such a rocket. I feel like, of ALL the journals i've read, the ones who seem to be fastest are "older" meditators (meaning : who've had kids, which I'm sure is in itself pretty serious spiritual practice). Thoughts ?