I might have gotten stream-entry, in which case it has happened outside of formal practice. I don't know if I can orient and navigate the nanas. I know that there is something happening, but I don't know for sure what it is.

Nikolai suggested doing ten 1-hour sits inclining towards "high e" or what I call "spaced-out ness". This is a recording of those sits.

First sit:
1. October 03:39 - 45 minutes

Open eyes. Visual field diffuse/blurry. Visual distortions (stretching/bending/bulging/moving). Visual "phantoms" (ghost images, lights, auroras/auras). Mild hallucinations, mostly faces.

Didn't pay much attention to the quality of attention (wide/flat/narrow). But it was not narrow, constricted or "small". Sometimes it felt like a band going around my head, projecting in every direction ("panoramic", I guess).

Thought picked up towards the end. In the beginning no thoughts. Thoughts are very coarse and sharp, intruding and "in the way".

Half-way through, I willfully directed attention towards the body as a whole (physically), which had not been included very much. Tingling everywhere. Interesting: the tingling became very pronounced when I moved attention over an area, like the upper arm and shoulder. Attention was like a flashlight and everything it lit up became strongly felt.

Not long after I put attention on the body a familiar pressure quickly built up at the nape of the neck. It was very intense ("my head is gonna pop!"), but I have had it before and was quite equanimous about it. Interesting: if I took attention away from the body, the pressure would go away and vice versa. I was not fully equanimous towards the pressure though and so a mild fear eventually stopped it and there was no "pop".

During the building of the pressure (but also before that) there was heat in the body. Lots and lots of heat in the body. I was sweating, but didn't care much of it.

After this I intuitively took a round tour of the chakras. I have never done this before and never experienced such relatively pronounced effects. Especially cool was the head, third eye, throat and heart chakra.

In retrospect I should have written more detailed about what happened with the chakras. Here's a summary:
- Head chakra (some distance above the top of the head) made the body and mind feel light, bright, happy, uplifting and there was potential for bliss waves.
- Thrid eye chakra sucked me in, blocked the senses and felt much like "falling into darkness" or the leading up to what my earlier possibly fruition was like.
- Throat felt contracted, like how stage-fright feels.
- Heart chakra generated in the chest some sort of sensations that felt like a mixture between adrenaline and love.

"Awareness" was very distinct during the sit. Body and brain felt spaced-out, but awareness was clear. In other words I was very alert.

There seems to be different depths of the state and I might also have been at the doorstep of some absorption.

It took about 10 seconds from intending to stop the meditation to returning to "normal" functioning, which felt very strange.

When I went to bed after this last sit, I kept inclining towards this "spaced out-ness". When I was about to fall asleep, the energy/tingling/vibrations in the body suddenly got more pronounced. (I remembered later on that my eyes started rapidly twitching/blinking/vibrating and I paid attention to that.) Then there was a very clear and distinct *click* in the front of my right brain - it was as if a nail-like energy shot through that location (no pain). Immediately following this *click* something descended upon me that I am 99% sure was Re-observation. It was amazingly interesting to witness such seemingly selfless energy feel so awfully bad. I kept a certain distance to the energy, it didn't stick, went away by itself and then I fell asleep.

Sitting here now writing about this, it seems that I am filled with a similar but milder energy. Especially prominent are the vibrations in my skull (mostly in the back) and the general unease that they bring.

1. October 17:12 - 30 minutes

Closed eyes, in the park.

Refreshing sit punctuated by insects, people and other disturbances. No negative thoughts/mind states. Hard to distinguish phenomena, but I was sitting in a very distinct "bubble" where the surroundings were quite muted. In retrospect it is obvious that there was "buzzing" on the whole sensate field. First half felt very heavy with effort, like heavily concentrating on/inclining the mind to a certain "place". Then I remembered to simply resolve (for "high e" or "spaced out-ness") and let go. Attention widened out and effort went away. Unfortunately I ended the sit shortly after this. It ended very abruptly by my own doing. It's like I have a mental timer of 30 minutes (almost on the second) that pulls me out no matter.

I feel very calm after the sit. Silently content. Whenever attention rests somewhere for more than a few seconds I "space out". Visual field is diffused/blurred, hearing is omni-directional and the body is felt as a whole.

Surprisingly no pain in the body and no trouble with posture (I had no cushion to sit on and have back problems). Neither unpleasant nor pleasant.

After the 30-minute session I sat with my eyes open for 10 minutes. This works much better for me. It is much easier to connect with and discern changes in the senses (not just vision) with my eyes open. The 10 minutes are basically spent "spacing-out", with the mind and attention directed nowhere in particular. "Awareness" is crisp. I'm very alert.


I don't count this sit against the ten 1-hour sits.

Second sit:
1. October 20:58 - 1 hour

Mostly open eyes (ca. 10 minutes of closed eyes).

My conclusion for this sit is that I took a tour of the nanas. I don't remember many specifics but it felt just like advertised/described elsewhere. Things that stood out:

I can't remember any fear.

I noticed that the quality of energy in the body kept shifting, but I can't describe it exactly. It was kind of like it changed color and/or speed of vibrating. During the whole sit I could notice, if so inclined, tingling, buzzing throughout the whole body. This tingling, buzzing is what had it's quality change.

Desire for Deliverance manifested as a mildly desperate attempt to let go. There had been turbulence before this point (negative thoughts, doubt, etc.) and I didn't want it anymore.

After actively letting go (as in "JUST TAKE ME!", hehe), zooming out from and developing some equanimity towards the negative phenomena, there was some calm before the storm to come.

Re-observation. In metaphorical terms it felt like standing at the busiest traffic intersection in the world, confused and disoriented by negative sense impressions. So much noise! I think it was during this time that I stopped to look at the timer: 27 minutes to go. I didn't recognize the territory I was in and didn't understand why I couldn't incline the mind like I had done earlier on several occasions. I was tempted to quit, but also strongly determined to continue.

I kept going and eventually the noise dissipated. The dissipation happened quickly but smoothly. Most obvious in the transition between Re-observation and Equanimity was how almost all the noise (aka. vibrations) in the skull area subsided.

As I transitioned to Equanimity it dawned on me what had happened. I was fascinated and had quite a bit of thoughts about the process I had just been through. The timer showed 5 minutes left. I spent those 5 minutes reflecting on the sit instead of exploring Equanimity, but I was squarely, clearly and recognizably in Equanimity, and would describe it exactly as the First sit of this thread. Most obvious was how attention seemed to be equally projecting behind my head as in front of my head (where vision is).


EDIT:


This was true for this sit as well. First/second vipassana jhana?

Also happening in this sit, but much, much less, was heat in the body. I sit topless


EDIT2:

This was a very exciting and motivating time for me, never before having seen the nanas unfold so clearly.

In the last sit there was some initial struggling with posture. I don't know how likely this is to have been Three Characteristics given several circumstances; amongst them the fact that I can't remember from the sit anything resembling the A&P or Dissolution.

Third sit:
2. October 00.57 - 50 minutes

Half of the time eyes open, the other half eyes closed.

Very serene session.

I spent quite some time pre-sit fixing the pillows and zafus that I use; that paid off as I felt very comfortable the whole sit.

Started off with "red, screeching" vibrations in skull. That faded within a few minutes. Full body (except torso) tingling. All the visual phenomena described in First sit. I speculated I was either in 4th nana or 11th nana. No pleasantness, but the center of the visual field was in focus as opposed to everything being diffused, so I concluded 4th and braced myself for some dukkha.

EDIT:
I remember that I had quite a bit of kriyas or involuntary physical movements. This suggests that it was 4th nana.

I think it was at this time that I had a very still, quiet, content period. It was serene and healing and exactly the kind of thing one imagines "meditation" to be when first introduced to it. Didn't see much of that dukkha...

I noticed that I had the "flashlight attention" mentioned before and proceeded to "wave" this around the surface of the body. I felt compelled to direct it towards the Third eye chakra, and did so. Half of the sit was spent closed eyed in what followed: attention contracted severely/I got sucked into where the Third eye is. There was this magnetic force dragging me/attention around inside my skull, looking for "the spot". I have no clue what "the spot" is, this all came to me intuitively. Moving around, looking for the right shape of attention, held in the right orientation and at the right location, "the spot" was elusive and I never found it. The process felt very healing, as if I was cleaning the inside of my skull.

I felt very absorbed. Every sense was very muted, but curiously also very accessible to attention. After having "cleared out" the inside of my frontal skull not having found "the spot", I "exited" the Thrid eye chakra and was back in my living room. I felt kind of empty and settled (in a good way) and the rest of the sit was pretty much just sitting there half-heartedly, maybe a bit bored, trying to progress through the nanas, but without any discernible movement through them. Tingling all over, diffused focus, difficulty caring about anything in particular.

There are things happening in these sits that I don't mention simply because I don't know how I would phrase it. Waves of spacial distortions that hit me, heaviness ascending on me - all kinds of weird stuff. I don't know how important these things are, but I try to stay with them as much as possible without getting caught off-guard. Getting caught off-guard always leads to some mild fear that prevents the phenomena from unfolding. If I find that something repeats and I can adequately stay with it and learn how to describe it, I'll post about it. That would be the exception though.

2. October 03.01 - 30 minutes

This sit felt 3x shorter than the clock said that it was (felt like 10 minutes).

Clearly Equanimity. Hard to concentrate and write this post. Resting attention spaces me out. Vision diffuses, attention feels like a band around my head etc.

Paid less attention to the visual field, and more to... whatever it was I was paying attention to. Points of interest:

Shortly after sitting down it was like everything was one big vibration. It doesn't feel exactly like it sounds. It's more like in addition to whatever is happening, there is a big vibration in the background. "Whoah-whoah-whoah". It's big in the way of size. It's seriously like one mega-sized vibration (vibrating downwards, actually). This thing is not new to me. I've had this countless times in the past. It's very tantalizing and somehow feels very subtly good. I couldn't stay with it for very long, and it eventually stopped.

What happened in it's place was equally interesting though. The breath started vibrating/oscillating in the lower half. Five vibrations/oscillations from the middle to end of out-breath, and five vibrations/oscillations from the start to middle of in-breath. This is also not new, but I can only remember this happening once before and at that time it sent me flying into jhana.

I'm unsure if this is correct but I might be feeling that some center-point is falling out sometimes. This is also very familiar to me, but it's too vague to put into words (yet). I will examine this more.

Towards the end of the sit there was a very cool, new thing happening. I happened to stare at a candle and subtly in the background there was a strange out-of-phase-ness: I couldn't really tell whether the candle was "out there" or "over here". This happened after experimenting a little bit with going back and forth between what I would call "normal functioning" and "investigative meditation". I would disengage the meditation and just look around, and then switch quickly back to engaging again. It felt absolutely surreal to have an object clearly placed and perceived "out there" but at the same time "feeling" "over here".

Definitely want more sits like this


I don't count this sit against the ten 1-hour sits.

There are two types of distinct "bobbing" that I notice sometimes during meditation. One, I speculate, is related to the heart beating, and the other to the lungs in- and deflating. The first type is a constant, short, "bobb-bobb-bobb", in tune with the heart beating. The other is more like a short sway, in tune with breathing, curiously going forwards on the in-breath and backwards on the out-breath. The first type seems mostly dependent on how relaxed the relevant muscles are, while the last type seems to be dependent on spinal posture.

I get stuff like that, and it's usually characteristic of where I am in the ñanas. Spacial distortions can vary, but the heaviness is something I can relate to in A&P. When A&P is building, I feel like I'm getting lighter and lighter, and it's quite pleasant, but when it fades into dissolution that lightness drops away and I feel heavy in my shoulders and it would feel discouraging if I didn't know that it was actually progress forward.

I'm in the same boat as you, trying to reach SE. My own humble advice, as it's what I'm working on now, is to apply the equanimity to EVERYTHING. At first, I was fascinated with all these energetic shifts in my head (third-eye stuff), and I thought they were the preludes to something big. I noticed that i was unconsciously feeding them, and therefore not being objective to them. Now I'm just trying to really surrender to everything. I'm still interested in what's going on, because it is really interesting, but my equanimity is becoming more true and total.

Just my two cents.
Good luck and Metta,
Teague

Fourth sit:
2. October 21.06 - 55 minutes

Mostly open eyes (ca. 10 minutes of closed eyes)

Good sit.

I think I started in A&P, with lots of visual "phantoms" (ghost images, lights, auroras/auras) that faded within 10 minutes. Generally felt very OK to meditate. Alert and good posture, no pain (during the whole sit, actually). Focus gently placed in the middle of vision. Passively observed whatever would happen on it's own, which wasn't very much. Some very mild energetic build-up in the thumbs (I get that a lot and have even adopted a different hand gesture during every sit to deal with it).

I tried to look at the tingling in the body, mostly in the hands, but nothing to investigate. I found that I could ask questions about general feelings though, and that would put attention to the location of the corresponding sensations; "what does this 'peace' feel like", "where is this 'silence' located". Peace was a batch of sensations in the middle of the chest, (sensations of) silence was located in the middle of the skull. I kept going about it like this, having a good time, feeling curious (this one was hard to locate) and a bit adventurous (didn't remember to "ask" about that one).

After a while an abnormal breathing pattern started happening, further suggesting that I was in A&P. Normal speed in, fast push/evacuation out. Stayed with it, nothing very interesting, then it subsided on its own.

EDIT:
I also remember that I had quite a few "dips" at the end of the out-breath. I don't know exactly how to describe this. It's like I become unconscious for a little while, but the only clue I have for that is that the breathing cycle have jumped a little bit, and each and every time I "come back" it's at the absolute end of the out-breath and, for some reason, I very clearly hear the last piece of air puffing out my nose.

I got more and more relaxed. Felt compelled to close my eyes, and did so. Entered some kind of absorption for about 10 minutes. It was calm and nice, no piti though, and practically no input from the "physical" senses. Other than that I remember no specifics. The exit happened after something that felt like falling asleep. Felt like I reached some kind of "center" or whatever, had a little blip, became curious about the blip, tried to be sensitive to any subtle bliss wave, then there was a surge of energy (didn't feel "blissful") that put me back into the living room.

At some point, either before or after the absorption, heat started appearing again. Does anyone know what this might mean? There's just so much heat! I try to stay with the sensations of it, but it's really not that interesting. I don't remember so much about this except that I had to take my shirt off.

EDIT2:
I remember now that heat in the body suggests Three Characteristics, but I don't know how much sense that makes considering the other things that happened in the sit.

Rest of the sit was kind of boring, except for what happened right at the end. There was a compulsion to focus my eyes in a certain way. Everything went diffused (not blurry...), very narrow focus (tip of the nose) and good stable feeling of solidity. Pretty much exactly first jhana, but without all the other jhana factors. Sat there feeling solid and safe for some minutes until it naturally dissipated and I ended my sit there.

The "internal alarm clock" might have been extended from 30 to 40 minutes, which is interesting, right?
EDIT3: It definitely has changed

Thanks for chiming in. I'll try to be excruciatingly equanimous next sit

I was lying on the floor reading some stuff when I suddenly noticed that I was in a freaking vibration frenzy. It was like a circus! Put the reading aside and focused on the vibrations, but what the hell was I supposed to do? Just kept with it all, no judging, no thoughts, just staying with it as I always do.

I'd get very into it, feeling spaced out (but not absent) and frequently "coming back" and having thoughts like, "did someone spike my blackberries?". Felt a bit guilty for indulging so obviously, then decided that that was a very stupid (or should I say "silly"?) thing to feel and proceeded to indulge

Don't think there are many contenders for this one: A&P.

Fifth sit:
3. October 02:42 - 55 minutes

Open eyes.

Eventful sit. Lots of stuff happened; I doubt I'll remember most of it.

Might have started off in very late A&P. I would say possibly Dissolution (because there seemed to be some general unease in the background), but there was a moment later on where attention "folded out" (became wider), suggesting a transition from second to third vipassana jhana.

Did some noting. That would be the second time for me ever. Just casually bouncing attention around, just as usual, but this time applying a label to things. "Pressure, thought, unease, thinking, seeing, that, that, touching, etc.". Interesting, maybe productive, but simply noticing feels adequate.

When attention "folded out", the periphery of vision came into clear focus. General unease grew, but sneakingly so. I didn't really notice how pervasive the noise of unease was until it eventually dissipated in Equanimity later on. Interesting: the quality of discernible vibrations (especially in the hands) changed from vertical pricking ("poke, poke, poke") to horizontal ripping. Much more unsettling, but not in any grand way. Also, it seems that a way to tell if I'm in the third vipassana jhana, aside from the unsettling stuff, is how much of moment-to-moment attention is "inside my head" - thinking, reflecting, etc - and not outside in "the world".

Transition to Equanimity happened, attention felt subtly integrated and the general unease wore off. I noticed that there was now a place to settle´without any unease (i.e. negative alertness - I know there's a cool word for that). The way the dark night is described as "unstable" seems very precise. I felt like "franticly looking around for dangers, knowing that it's gonna jump me at any time if I let my guard down" and then eventually finding a stable, solid-seeming place to rest.

In Equanimity, looking for stuff to do, I kept repeating to myself, "this is not me, only selfless energy governed by cause and effect", "no object of experience has ever (yet) brought ultimate satisfaction" and "no thing stays unchanged".

At some point I noticed a very faint "mega-vibration" and the oscillating breath described before.

Very speculative: the "waves of spacial distortion" that sometimes hit me might be attention trying to "sync up", whatever that means. It's like attention keeps flickering, trying to continuously "read" or keep track of "reality" but not really getting a grip on it. This is really familiar stuff that I've been experiencing in almost all my unsuccessful jhana-sits. I managed to "ride the wave" two times in this sit, and attention felt so solid and stable for a while after doing that.

Towards the end I had a compulsion to close my eyes. Third eye stuff... Don't remember much of it.

Lots of heat stuff, mostly in the period that almost certainly was Re-observation.

All in all a fruitful sit (and there was more than what I have remembered), if only because it is making the nanas more and more obvious to me. But I have still a long way to go in learning about them.

I decided to share a little story here:

I had previously talked to Nick about my possible stream-entry. He made it clear that to test for stream-entry one could incline the mind towards fruition. Having no idea whether I had had a fruition in the past, and therefore maybe nothing to incline towards, he said that in such a case one should still incline towards fruition and see what happens.

In the recent past I have felt a certain sympathy for descriptions of fruition. Very strange considering I don't have any experience like that to my knowledge. But this sympathy was very strong and there are vivid memories (which could be false memories) of a black vacuum of extinction which promise instant and overwhelming relief and bliss.

As Nick suggested I incline towards fruition, while still engaged in the conversation, I felt a strong pull towards a spot in my skull. It's hard to physically pin-point, it even seems to be in a physically contradictory location, but it's there none the less (Third eye basically). Nothing happened that day, but I was motivated to explore this very magnetic place in my skull.

The day after, I was sitting on a plane. It was about to take off and I became intimately aware of the physical reality this body was presently in. Like what just about anyone does in a new and/or novel situation. The next hour was spent hunting inside my skull for that seductive (that's a very good word for it) place. Through some persistent visual imagination and a constant re-run of a feeling-memory (of the bliss that ensues extinction) "it" eventually happened.

The entry was very "imaginary" or dream-like. I don't remember very much what stuff was going through my head. But the most curious of all things with this is a very simple thing. I was sitting with my head slightly bent forwards when "it" happened. And contrary to what usually happens with your head when you dose off - it bobs forwards and you wake up - my head jerked slightly upwards and backwards, straightening my neck, and then settled again in the forward position.

At the apex of that jerking motion there was a distinct unknowing event. "Distinct" because I was quite aware of the movement up and down again, but not the stop at the top. A subtle bliss wave followed, different from what I usually call a bliss wave in that it fully included my face. And something was different.

For two-three days afterwards I was very light-hearted and felt "free" and also had another very similar experience with a really cool "sucking" visual element to it (along with three other similar experiences, but these of noticeably lower quality, so much so that I don't know if they were even the same thing).

---

So what I'm doing here is trying to test if I might have gotten stream-entry, either on that plane that day or sometime before that. It relates to this story that I have been free of any gross suffering for about two years. I have said that "I always feel like a 9 (out of 10); If I'm sad, I'm a 9. If I'm annoyed, I'm a 9, etc...". I still sometimes get "excessively" irritated - something which always fades completely within minutes - and I recently got very upset regarding something in my family (and was completely done with it less than an hour later). Actually I found it kind of refreshing to be with my family - they were able to elicit emotions (bad ones) in me that I could then investigate.

---

There's no way I can try to formulate what happened on that plane without it sounding like a fruition, but I find it very puzzling that I might have gotten stream-entry with such an awfully bad appreciation of the nanas. Is it possible to have a fruition or any similar experience without actually getting path (if it happens for the first time)?

Had a heck of a vibratory night! While falling asleep, my eyes started rapidly twitching/blinking/vibrating and I recognized it as what happened earlier this week when I went into Re-observation, at that time also in the bed. It was much stronger this time, and I was frightened of "letting it run wild" but braced myself to let it be whatever it would be. I couldn't be completely with it though, my attitude going from "wuaah, this is scary!" to "HAHA, COME GET ME!". It eventually ended and I fell asleep feeling just a tiny bit defeated.

During the night I woke up many times to what I at first thought was a fly or something brushing against my skin. But I eventually found out that it was very pronounced vibrations. They did feel kind of unsettling - and I woke up a few times caused by doing some pretty crazy martial arts moves against the imaginary enemy in my bed - so I don't know if it was A&P...

Sixth sit:
3. October 18:10 - 55 minutes

Open eyes.

There was too much happening in the sit to mention even half of it. Main theme was "looking for 'me'". I kept seemingly dis-embedding from layers, until I eventually got to "the doer" and "intention".

Think I started in A&P, with some clearly A&P-esque things happening (sensations and thoughts just sitting there, up for grabs), but it also seemed a bit like Equanimity (sound was chopped up into pieces like the sound of a helicopter rotor for a little while). Attention "folded out" (became wider), unease set in and the energies/vibrations in the body clearly changed in some way. I blasted through the third vipassana jhana (with some noticeable heat), not even noticing the different nanas (and more than that not noticing how the hell I do it) and landed in low Equanimity.

Here I continued the enquiry that I had started in A&P and this is where I hit the wall of "intention". It was apparent that intention precedes any thought, and the moment a thought would appear I would cut through it/drop it immediately and see if I could notice what had come right before it. It was kind of comical, because all the narrative would cut off right at the start and it sounded kind of like when you quickly dial through many radio stations. What I found was a quiet gap - maybe with a subtle energy - that preceded thoughts, and it was located in the back of my head (perhaps I should look more at this next sit?). In the end I got an idea to look for "the looking for intention", and I'll try to do more of that the next sit (or maybe that will just lead to the hall of mirrors).

It's clear to me that I am not (most of) my thoughts, feelings and other kinds of energies that simply float selflessly in the mind/body governed by cause and effect (that doesn't mean that I can't sometimes temporarily identify with/become embedded in them though). But there are some core processes that I apparently haven't dis-embedded from. I remember not very long ago when the answer to a question I had been asking dawned on me: "attention" is not 'me' - it is the brains mechanism for gathering information that it puts together into a situational awareness. But "intention"... That I don't have an "answer" for yet.

EDIT3:
To spice things up a little: could the above be Mind & Body/Cause & Effect?

There was a noticeable different quality to enquiring deep inside the brains processes as opposed to "just sitting there". Sometimes it felt like I might be fooling myself with the enquiry, like I was just following some train of thought, trapped inside it instead of simply observing it. This leaves me a bit uncertain whether I should continue doing this or just keep going with that good ol' "just sitting there" thing that I seem to be good at.


EDIT:

During the first part of the sit, when sensations and thoughts were patiently waiting for me to pick them apart, I encountered the question of whether I felt like "the observer". The answer was suspiciously clear: no. It's just one part of the brain looking at/being aware of another part of the brain, and that makes a lot of sense to me. I don't know so much about how one's supposed to relate to "the observer" as one progresses (or hasn't progressed) through the paths, and I might just as well be fooling myself and still subtly identify with "the observer". Another related thought was that there is no observer, only observing, and I didn't have any problems with that. Anyone have any thoughts on this?


EDIT2:

I remembered that I have had a clear "emptiness moment" somehow related to the observer/only observing.

Seventh sit:
4. October 00:27 - 1 hour

Mostly eyes open (ca. 15 minutes closed eyes).

Very uneventful sit. Tempted to say "nothing happened", but there were a few things:

Most notable was my unwavering persistence. Didn't doubt for a second. And there was almost no thought (do I mean narrative when I say "thought"?) during the whole sit. There were four occasions where I closed my eyes and got mildly absorbed (I guess that's a liberal use of the word).

Think I started in A&P. Medium-large vibration in my chest seemingly connected with the breath (the breath vibrated along with it). A stage shift happened, attention widened out (barely noticeable) had a little bit of fear and then... pretty much nothing to report except for the "absorptions".

In retrospect there might have been a faint, general unease during almost the whole sit. Very, very subtle. Maybe...

Don't have much to say about the "absorptions". They start with some compulsion to focus in on a particular spot/feeling, I close my eyes and go ahead and do so, and then I spend some time relatively one pointed at that spot/feeling. Feels calming, and excludes to a good degree everything else that happens around me, but my intention is to be alert, not absorbed.

During the end I think I stopped doing some subtle expecting and remembered the resolve for that spaced out place that might be high Equanimity. Things started happening, mostly all the visual phenomena mentioned in the First sit. But... I don't know; nothing really happened.

Next sit: investigate possible subtle expectations.


EDIT:

There's still tingling all over the body if I "want" to see it. I just don't mention it because I take it for granted and have done that for several years.

Eighth sit:
5. October 02:50 - 50 minutes

Mostly open eyes (ca. 15 minutes closed eyes).

Are there cycles within cycles?

Well, I've heard it mentioned, but never cared to read about it. In any case, how is it experienced?

It seems I'm at different cycles at different levels in life. In the coarsest division it's like there's a macro and a micro cycle. It's all very vague and the most compelling evidence I have of this is that I'm just having the blues in general while seemingly moving through the nanas while sitting. This started two, maybe three days ago (both the feeling of multiple cycles and the blues), and while memory is a volatile thing, I don't remember feeling this bad (lol, it almost doesn't qualify for the word "bad", I'm such a wuss) in a at least two years.

More about the sit:

Am I starting a new insight cycle?

Sometimes I wish I hadn't read as much as I have. That way I would be much less prone to scripting my experience, not to talk about indulging in wishful thinking. And that really defeats the purpose here, since I'm out to confirm something. But seriously, does this not sound just a little bit like it:

The sit starts off in A&P. Not very noticeably so, but if I would have had to call it, I would say A&P and describe it as I have previously. Eventually there's a shift that happens and while once again all the symptoms are very faint, if I had to call it, I would say I enter the third vipassana jhana. But then seemingly nothing happens, and that's how it was last sit as well. Except, something did happen today!

I didn't pay much attention to what could have been first and second nana, but at some point (after doing about 15 minutes of what might have been very light first jhana "at/in" the Third eye - no/very little piti though) it became quite obvious that I was in Three Characteristics. Solidity. Pain in my jaw and the area between the shoulder and neck. Solidly so. I didn't even notice the first times when I disengaged the meditation to massage my shoulder, but then caught myself in the act.

Those are the rough outlines of the sit. There are as always elusive things happening, like the distribution, frequency and intensity of mental proliferation throughout the sit. I suspect that some of this mental proliferation is related to first and/or second nana and that's something that I will investigate further.

Probably what's most obvious about this is that I'm not even speculating hitting Equanimity. Have I regressed or progressed? How can I tell?


EDIT:

Reading the EDIT from the previous post I was motivated to see how pronounced the tingling in my hands are (they are usually very pronounced there). And while there's some shallow and faint tingling it is nothing like just two days ago. It feel very solid compared to the floating-in-space energy/vibrations that I had before.

Once again, things are falling so conveniently into place that I'm wary of scripting (why am I so reluctant to believe what might be the case - stream entry? Is there some mushroom stuff here?).

In-between the seventh and the eight sit, on the day of the eight, there was some very fascinating stuff happening with the body.

If you haven't read the thread on KFD on Tummo, I suggest you do. It is very interesting!

Anyway, how does that relate to what happened with the body? I don't remember all the specifics, but here goes:

I was compelled to lie down on the floor to relax a little. Lying there with my arms stretched wide open, embracing the universe, I noticed that if I stretched a certain muscle running down the side of the body by the abdomen, and I stretched it in a very peculiar way, involving retaining the breath in some way, I got a really good feeling in the solar plexus area. I proceeded to do this on the other side, really getting into it hardcore yoga style.

What this lead to was some progressively more unusual breath retention and muscle stretching exercises that I've never ever before seen demonstrated (and I can't say that I remember any of the instructions in the Tummo thread) by anyone. It just all came to me, ancient knowledge of the sages I guess

As I stretched those side muscles there began a contraction of the spine, somehow connected to a breathing pattern, that sent the body into very intense/violent and rapid shaking (as described in the Tummo thread, if I remember correctly). It actually felt really good.

Things got "curiouser and curiouser", and focus moved downwards towards the pelvis area and energy/breath in an empty space under the belly. Really cool stuff happened. There was a point where it felt like I was breathing bliss with the penis. Yes, this sounds very strange, but I can't tell you how awesome it was. If I were to take a stab at guessing what this was then I'd say that I was seriously messing with sexual energy in the body. There were many other aspects to this, penis-breathing being only one small aspect. I don't think I've ever held my breath as long as I did today or stretched those muscles (many more than the two on the sides that I mentioned), and the craziest thing is that I didn't even feel like I was doing anything - the body just kept doing more and more interesting stuff.

I reached one point that seems to line up with what I remember from the Tummo thread: there was a time where everything was very quiet. It was after a long exhale, (which was preceded by some seriously deep breaths) and I wasn't breathing. This thing is supposed to be an awake version of Cessation, if done correctly and my memory isn't failing me.

There's much more to this than what I have written here. I might have been doing this (without actually feeling like I was doing anything) for about 45 minutes. I get a nice feeling just thinking about it.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, then I would recommend reading that Tummo thread. Not because I followed any instructions from there, but it seems that the instructions in that thread is at least aimed at the same things, and those things were awesome. Actually, I think I might go do some more right now


EDIT:

And I should add that I was never into sexual energy, prana or any of those hocus-pocus-things. But damn, it works!

Ninth sit:
5. October 15:03 - 50 minutes

Open eyes.

Interesting sit. My overall conclusion is that I went from first to second vipassana jhana.

Of note is that "the blues" was gone when I woke up today. I might even say I felt good, but that could be only relative to the pervasive melancholy of the blues. In the beginning of the sit I was wondering if maybe I was in Equanimity, even though my working hypothesis was that I was actually in the lowest nanas. There was little phenomenological evidence to support this except for the general OK-ness I felt, and as the sit progressed it became less and less likely that I started off in Equanimity.

First and second nana: Mental proliferation was high. It was quite fascinating to notice how much narrative was going on in the background, and how I would identify with/become embedded in it much of the time. Eventually I had a clearly perceived thought that lead to a clearly perceived (negative) feeling in the body, and the causality there was also clearly perceived.

I felt curiously solid. Curious because it didn't make sense to me that I would feel particularly good when in the lower nanas, but that seemed to be the case anyway. Solid because there was no tingling anywhere and the core of my body felt solid. The whole body felt very, very quiet, and that was refreshing. Eventually tingling started appearing in my hands, but the rest of the body was dead still.

As the sit progressed, I entered what I would call "low A&P". No obvious energetic stuff happening, and it felt like "active Equanimity", as opposed to actual Equanimity where phenomena is not engaged/indulged in the same way. As this stage evolved there was a period that I found quite interesting:


And I was that king I was seriously saying "here, have some equanimity" and similar things whenever anything would come up. In retrospect I see that I was maybe noticing 8 things a second, really fast in other words! Also, it was very clearly the middle of mental and physical movements (aka. sensations) that was seen.

The whole body had by this time started tingling again.

EDIT:
I also remember that the pressure at the neck that I've mentioned previously started building, but it was very faint and went away shortly after it arised.

At some point there was an energetic movement in the spine that sent out a strong bliss wave throughout the body, but other than that I can't recall any distinct A&P event.

Tenth sit:
6. October 00:46 - 55 minutes

Eyes open.

Very good sit.

Solid, irritating uncomfortableness in the back. Spent 5-6 minutes doing stretches and bending the upper body to make it bearable. No tingling. Visual phantoms. Other solid-seeming sensations. Then a not-so-subtle shift happens, attention widens out a bit, lots of energy start swirling. Attention is powerful and sensations are clear as day. Breath is strobing/vibrating/oscillating like described before. Lots of visual phantoms. Uncomfortableness in back is entirely gone. Then a not-so-subtle-shift happens. Attention "folds out", energy in body become unsettling (and red, actually). I smile - this is really cool. Attention looses it's power, nothing to take a good look at, it all just slips like sand between the proverbial fingers. Fear caused by unexpected sounds and other general silliness. I keep up a really good alertness, not embedding or identifying with anything that comes up. I look forward to Re-observation (it's just a powerful marker to orient by) and smile at my subtle sadistic tendencies.

From there on things get a little murky. Maybe I hit Equanimity, fall back down through the third vipassana jhana and end up in A&P again. Other alternative is that I don't hit Equanimity, but fall back into second vipassana jhana, then up again into third vipassana jhana, and back down again. That intermediate step between the two times I hit the third vipassana jhana is not clear, but what is clear is that I ended up in A&P again; I had some energetic stuff happen and some bliss waves. The reason it might have been Equanimity is that attention integrated very nicely for a little while. Visual field was slightly diffuse, but all of it was very "there". But where did that Re-observation go?

EDIT:
In what might have been Equanimity the "mega-vibration" came back. I was really grooving, kind of in limbo between investigation and deep concentration and then I noticed a faint mega-vibration pretty much planted right inside my whole body. It went away when I got into the third vipassana jhana again.

Almost no narrative at all during the whole sit.

On the desire for validation:

Nick suggested I reflect on the obvious desire for validation (of stream-entry) that I have. On thinking about it, there's a "rushing" tension in the chest, not a good one, and that tension feeds a "sinking" feeling in the abdomen, also not a good feeling. Each time I think about it, this ensues. I probed deeper and asked why this happened. I didn't get a clear answer back, but what did occur to me is that no matter the "verdict", practice will not really change. So there will be a one-off event (the "verdict"), and after that nothing changes. What a silly thing to feel bad for... As of now, that "rushing" in the chest and the "sinking" in the abdomen are almost (but not quite) uprooted/weeded out. Good stuff

15 minute sit

Had a stage shift, maybe from first to second vipassana jhana. Not enough data to conclude anything (it was such a short sit). Lots of visual phantoms. This post will be a discussion of something that I noticed a while ago, related to these visual phantoms.

I think those visual phenomena are indicators of increasing concentration, and not much else. It seems that I have somehow been conditioned to regulate my levels of concentration without thinking about it.

Example: I will be sitting and not much is happening. But instead of becoming bored, I automagically get into some sort of "grooving", and then the visual phenomena appear. It's very fascinating to witness. I'll be sitting there, immersed in the visual phenomena, and eventually a stage shift happens or I become aware of a strong indicator/marker of which vipassana jhana I'm in. But there's another very important aspect to this. The trick is to have enough "awareness"/alertness/mindfulness so that I'm not totally captivated by the visual phenomena. I can feel that there's a certain disconnectedness to the visual phenomena, while simultaneously being very immersed in it. And this all happens very naturally - I didn't even know I was doing it (automatically increasing concentration) until I started having these structured sits.

In the model of the five spiritual faculties, this amounts to the three last faculties: mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. Wisdom manifests as the automatic progression through the stages, concentration manifests as the visual phenomena and mindfulness is that background alertness/awareness (the disconnectedness).

The two first faculties are faith/belief/conviction and energy/persistence/perseverance. This model totally makes sense to me.

I have, for as long as I can remember, considered myself, not in a patronizing way, to be much more mindful than anyone I've met. Of course, you might say, since I cannot tell how mindful another person is. But that is not true. When one is very mindful, others' mindfulness become very obvious. It's the small things, like how one notice small details, how aware one is of ones surroundings, how sympathetic one is in social interactions (not being caught inside ones own head) and countless other, minuscule things.

I happen to be an ENTP, for anyone who knows about the MBTI and/or Carl Jungs work. And while an ENTP does not have the ESTPs James Bond-like external, physical awareness, that extroverted intuition coupled with huge amounts of mindfulness is absolutely astonishing, even to myself, in how aware of the internal and external processes of external things I can be. It's one of my most cherished strengths - not because it makes me "better" than anyone else, but because it is such a strong foundation to build upon a strong appreciation of the world as it is. When I project (and it is always a projection) outwards, I feel like I don't have to relate to my own beliefs, and can instead meet people and situations on their own terms.