Hi All!
This is my first post here, so I would like to start by saying THANK YOU to Daniel Ingram for MCTB – a fantastic gift to Humanity! Thanks also to all of you who contribute to this great site. I have spent a lot of time the last months reading many interesting and useful posts.
Since I have practiced without any personal guidance most of the time, it would be very valuable for me to get some feedback and comments about the many experiences I have had over the last months.
I have tried to describe my experiences rather than my interpretations of what state I have been in, but in some cases only the interpretations are described in my meditation notes.
I would be very grateful if I could get some advice about the following:
1.When I write “Fruition” below, I refer to the following experience: A discontinuity of about a tenth of a second at the end of three consecutive out-breaths. Is this a fruition, or is it something else?
2.At what stage on the Path am I?
3.Any recommendation for how to continue the practice? Should I dedicate some time exclusively for Samatha?
So, here comes a description of my experiences. I hope that somebody has the time and patience to read it and give me some feedback!
Best Regards,
Christian
-Summer 2006: I read the Book “Happiness” by Dalai Lama “by accident”, and I thought it was great. I got interested in Tibetan Buddhism and started to read a lot.
-December 2006-Januari 2009: A few hours a week of meditation at home and reading. Wanted to do a lot more, but difficult due to small children and very little sleep at night. I spent a lot of time reflecting about morality, based on the messages from Dalai Lama, and tried to be mindful and implement it in my daily life.
-January 2009: One day retreat with a qualified Vipassana teacher.
-February 2009-28th of May 2011: During this period I participated in one 4-day retreat and in 6 one-day retreats. I gradually managed to increase the daily meditation time to 1,5-2 hours. I also read many books.
-29th of May 2011: Started to read MCTB.
-30th of May to 18th of June:
The first revolutionary change from reading MCTB came from the sentence: “If you decide to do a concentration practice, stay on that object like a rabid dog until you have enough stability and skill to let the mind rest on it naturally”. This was a totally different language compared to the other books I had read! Instead of patiently accepting my bad concentration I decided to follow this advice and I had an almost aggressive attitude. I am not sure if this works generally, but it was what I needed at that time. My concentration increased and I could follow my progress through the first three ñanas when I read MTCB. I managed to increase to 3-4 hours of meditation per day.
-19th of June: When I meditated on the bus on the way to work I was suddenly, and totally unexpectedly, caught by a force I had never experienced before (or after): Extremely strong vortexes of “electrical” vibrations from the spine going up to the head. I don’t remember the details of the experience, but afterwards I felt that this was an experience I was going to remember the rest of my life. When I came to work I started to read MCTB to find a explanation to the experience. I went to the restrooms to meditate instead of working, and it took hours before I could do any work.
-20-26th of June: Increased concentration, light effects and explosions, rapid changes in the breathing pattern. Some experiences with a feeling that the world was vibrating and that I was sitting on an air cushion.
-27th of June-14th of July: Sounds of a helicopter in the ears. Inability to see the beginning and middle phase of the breathing and walking, chaotic breathing pattern, breating disappearing from time to time, pain in the teeth.
-15th of July: Started to feel the breaths from the beginning to the end once again
-16th of July: One and a half hour sitting meditation in the morning without interruption (longest sitting so far). Mix of good and bad concentration in the beginning, then a marked increase of the frequency of the sound in the ears. Difficulties to keep the eyes completetely closed, more and more light. Very concentrated meditation in the afternoon, with a soft light.
-17th of July: One hour and forty minutes of sitting meditation without interruption. The world was bright, soft and nice, with much better concentration than I had experienced before. At times I felt as if the world was only vibrations. Pain at the groin towards the end of the sitting. I put a strong focus on the increasing pain, and felt it as vibrations.
-18th of July: The same experiences as the day before.
-19th of July: The same experiences as the day before, but at the end of the sitting I had a lot of pain. I considered to stop, but then made a firm decision to just stay with the pain and fully accept it. The pain point and everything else were vibrations. Suddenly something happened. The pain ceased for a moment. It was something very special, but I can not describe it in detail. Then the pain was back, I stopped the medation, and I felt very good. When I lied down a couple of times later during the day, I felt a great peace and joy, and I saw light.
-20th of July: Similar experiences as the last days during the morning meditation, but I felt a greater clarity, somehow. I felt some very small spontaneous movements, which surprised me. Strange feeling that walking and other movements where “automatic”.
-21st of July: Stronger feeling of not being able to find a “self”. Especially clear when I moved one of the hands and looked at it - the hand was somehow moving without any connection to “me” in a way I had not felt before. Tried for the first time a get into a Jhana. After a very short time of concentation I got the feeling of rupture and joy. I now realised that this was what I had felt when I had just lied down to relax two days before.
-22nd of July: Did Samatha instead of Vipassana meditation. I could enter the first Jhana easily, and then move to higher stages. Strong feeling during the day that the sensations were “just out there”.
-23rd of July: Samatha practice in the morning. Not as easy as yesterday. Then I went back to Vipassana: Tried the advice to go from A&P and step by step up to fruition. To my surprise I could note up from A&P to equanimity and then get what I thought was a fruition, except that I did not feel ñana 7-9 clearly. I repeated this excercise in a few minutes and then got the same effect. Then I tried to get a fruition by just closing my eyes and following the breath, and it worked! Now I could see what was happening clearly in what I thought was the fruition moment: There was a discontinuity of about a tenth of second at the end of three consecutive out-breaths. I repeated this over and over again during the day (in total maybe 30 times), until the effect became so weak that I could not note it anymore.
-24th of July: Samatha meditaiton where I think I reached the immaterial states.
-25-26th of July: Samatha practice.
-27th of July: Review of the ñanas. It took around 40 minutes to get a fruition, then this was repeated one more time in 5 minutes. After that, I entered into a state I had not experienced before: It was Jhana-like, stable, at the same time as I was doing vipassana meditation.
-28th of July: Felt like I was back to zero in my mediation practice. Nothing interersting, only bad concentration.
-29th of July. Felt like a was back to mind and body, and cause and effect .
-30th of July: Clear experience of being back to A&P during the whole morning mediation. When I was lying down at night to get the children to sleep, I dozed off, and then I woke up suddenly experiencing light and vortexes. Then there was a discontinuity in the middle of the out-breath, and one discontinuity at the end.
-31st of July: Could only feel the end of the breaths and the steps. Anxiety and fear: I gave jumps only for a small sounds.
-1st of August: Same experiences as yesterday. Then the the breath became clearar and I was able to follow it from the beginning to the end. There was more and more light. Once again the right groin started to hurt (due to sitting for a longer time than I usually do), and I concentrated to feel all the sensations. Everything was vibrations, and then there was a stable light and I felt like I was sitting on an air cushion. Then I got what I thought could be a fruition, but I can not describe what happened. I lied down and felt very happy. When I did the evening mediation I got a frution, continued to note, and got into a state of the highest peace and pleasure I have felt. It was Jhana-like, but I could note the raise-fall of the abdomen, concentrate on sounds etc). I stayed in it for some 20 minutes, and then I had to stop.
-2nd of August: 5 fruitions during 45 minutes of morning mediation. The pattern was: A few minutes of light and vibrations, a few minutes of inability to perceive the beginning and the middle part of the breath, and difficulty to perceive the breathing in general, a few minutes of very good concentration and soft light, and fruition, and then it started again. Experienced 5 fruitions while I was waiting 5 minutes for the bus (with eyes closed). Now the pattern was: A short moment of very good concentration and then a fruition. Several spontaneous fruitions during the day. When I was sitting down meditating later during the dayI got several consecuitive fruitions, and after the last one I once again entered into the Jhana-like state of pure pleasure.
-3-5th of August: Many fruitions per day (maybe 20-30). Sometimes they came after only a short time of concentration with closed my eyes. Sometimes they came according to the cycle described the 2nd of August. I noted that the field of attention had changed somehow. It was like if the center point had become weaker. The difference between sensations coming from different sense doors had somehow become smaller.
-6th of August: Intended to continue the practice to note up from A&P, Dark Night, and Equanimity and Fruition, but it was suddenly difficult. I continued to note, and suddenly I experienced once again a Jhana-like state at the same time as I was doing vipassana meditation. After some 5 minutes in this state, I entered in A&P. I continued to meditate 30 minutes more with A&P. 2 x 30 minutes more of mediation during the day in A&P.
-7th to 8th of August. A&P, incl. A&P event, which was not very strong
-9th of August: Back to the experience of being unable to see the beginning and middle phase of the breaths and steps, difficulty to follow the breathing pattern, breathing disappearing.
-10th of August: Morning mediation with 5 Hz sound, many stray thoughts, and I could only feel the end of the breaths..During the day, the sight was flickering. Much stronger effect of only seing the end of the processes than I had felt before. When I looked at my knees when I was walking up the stairs they were flickering; I only saw the end of the movements. When I meditated later during the day, the breathing pattern was chaotic, or it disappeared. I got a very bad pain in one of my teeth for some time. Then, the clarity of the breathing started to come back. After a while I experienced high concentration and soft light, and then I got into higher concentration than I had ever felt before. It was only vibrations. Suddenly everything became calm, I dozed off a little bit, and there came three faint quick discontinuities at the end of the breath. Then after a while I got into a very blissful state with a lot of light, and in it felt like I was trevelling backwards at an incredible speed.
-11th of August: First lots of stray thoughs and nothing special happening, then there were suddenly light effects and vortexes of electrical vibrations, and the world felt coarse. Then the breath became unclear and I could only see the end of the breaths, I felt anxiety reacting with fear when there was a small sound, then the clarity was back and after some minutes there were three quick disoncontinuities at the end of the breath. This took about 10 minutes. This was repeated two times at a sitting later during the day, but with a longer duration (30 minutes in total). For the first time in a long time I did not feel much like meditating.
-12th of August: Same pattern as yesterday.
-13th of August: Sick, very little mediation. When I had gone to bed and almost felt asleep, I suddenly woke up, and experienced the three quick discontinuities at the end of the breath.
-14-15th of August: Sick. Very little meditation.
-16-17th of August: Breathing was very tight and jerky, bad concentration, boring, some pain.
-18th of August: Continued the same way as the day before in the morning, then the breating was suddenly not so tight anymore, there was more light, vortexes of vibrations, and moments of bliss.
-19th of August: Still tight breath, some light, some vortexes, some bliss.
