Hiya Jim, welcome to the DhO,
Based on your post I think you've already got a decent handle on where you're at, it's just a matter of knowing the most effective way to practice and how to deal with some of this unpleasant stuff skilfully i.e. without harming yourself or those around you. As far as I can see from your writing, you've got your head screwed on and have had enough experience of observing this stuff to be able to make progress. I'll go through your post and see if there's anything useful to suggest...
I was doing Mahasi-style noting, and after a few minutes of this, the “noting” part of my mind kind of “broke off” and I could see it sitting “out there” with the other thoughts and sensations. There would be thought, there would be the noting of the thought, and I’d “see” both of these....I’m guessing this was Knowledge of Mind and Body.
Aye, you've got it. Good description too.
A few days after the retreat, I began to notice mild dread – the sensation in the stomach. I wasn’t sure what the dread was connected to, but I guessed it had to do with two doctor’s appointments I had that week. I didn’t really analyze the feelings, just kind of felt where they were physically and kept an eye on the relationship between thought and sensation. This is bread and butter MBSR stuff, and I find it helps.
By the way, is that Knowledge of Cause and Effect?
Sounds likely, and given that you describe this next...
Bad stuff unrelated to meditation happened during the week, leaving me kind of emotionally vulnerable, but I had a pretty good meditation session on Saturday. I did 2.5 hours of sitting and walking. I experienced a lot of pain and impatience in the second half. I was alternating between a racing mind and falling asleep. There were flashes of hot and cold up my back. I had a bad tension headache which seemed to go away as soon as I got off the cushion. I felt like shit, but I stuck it out.
...which sounds very much like Knowledge of the Three Characteristics, then it's pretty clear.
Fast forward to this morning: I did a short session: 10 mins walking, 20 mins sitting. Lots of weird sensations as soon as I sat. At first I couldn’t tell for sure which way my head was pointing. It felt like it was pointing at the ceiling, but I was looking straight forward. The breath felt tight in my chest. There was a lot of itching, a lot of thinking and picturing. Just a swarm of shit going through my head.
Late 1st vipassana jhana a.k.a. still in the late stages of 3rd ñana, Knowledge of the 3C's.
But I just kept noting, kept going back to the breath, and about 5 mins in, it broke, which I’m used to, and I had a relatively calm mind and I was with the breath.
Excellent.
The breath came across as more “granular” that usual, though. Hard to describe exactly, but it felt like it had texture. (I’m not congested or anything.) And experiencing the breath felt really, REALLY good. In a way I’m not used to. I felt warm in the center of my chest, and I switched from the breath to just feeling the warmth, and for about two or three minutes I was just really happy. I didn’t care how long I was sitting, I just wanted it to go on and on.
Two possibilities here: Either A&P
or you got too absorbed in the breath, shifted to the pleasant warmth and ended up in 1st samatha jhana. I'm more inclined to go with the 1st jhana idea for a few reasons which I'll point out...
But this only lasted a few minutes and then subsided, and there was a flurry of thinking again. I started to feel some worry about what I was doing, but for no good reason. The breath felt tight again. My shoulders tensed and raised a little. Itches and pains – especially behind my forehead – came up again. I could remain with the breath, but I was more distracted.
This sounds more like going back in 3rd ñana, 3C's, especially the bodily stuff even down to the areas you've noticed as being the most uncomfortable.
Now there’s this pervasive feeling of, I guess, jitteriness. I feel fragile, like experience is just superficially held together. I just keep distracting myself with things and not thinking too much about experience itself. Work is just not the environment I want to deal with this in.
This also sounds like the 3C's, it's definitely more of a fragility rather than a full blown dissolution of experience which is more common in, you guessed it, Knowledge of Dissolution.
Then again, I could be wrong and you may well have moved into Dark Night territory! Bear in mind that the best you're likely to get in terms of a diagnosis, based on a forum post, is an educated guess so don't take my word for it. Continued practice is the best way to ascertain where you're at.
So I’m guessing there’s some combination of three characteristics, A&P, and dark night stuff in here, but I’m confused by the relatively non-linear nature of the whole thing.
I've found that the maps are useful as a framework, they're wonderful to know about and can normalize some of the shitty stuff, put it into perspective and remind you that it's all just causes and conditions. Be aware of expecting to experience things in the way you've read them described, or that one persons unpleasant experience will necessarily be experience by you in the same way.
If I’ve been in dark night (maybe since adolescence?), then why would I start meditation at Mind and Body?
It's pretty normal if a long period of time has elapsed since you crossed the A&P for the first time, don't get too hung up on the technicalities of the maps as it's not very useful in practice. Your notes suggest to me that you're practicing well and that you've got a grasp of the basics of the thing so keep on doing what you're doing and all the technical stuff will become
much clearer in time. Don't overthink this, it's experiential and needs to be understood through direct experience.
What about the positive experiences I mentioned, like feeling perfect/compassionate/capable and the warmth I experienced this morning? Is that jhanna stuff? Nana stuff?
The positive stuff could have been anything from a jhanic experience to the often mentioned PCE, the fact is that it's been and gone, it's not happening right and so it's not actually happening anywhere else other than in your head. I don't mean that to sound curt, it's just more useful to pay attention to what's going on right now; what sort of feelings come up when you think back on those experience? Is there a tension you notice anywhere? Investigate!
I've deliberately avoided anything to do with your experiences of depersonalization as I don't know enough about the clinical side of things to say anything useful, what I do know is that it's something I've experienced through these practices but that it gradually takes on a different tone and can be quite revealing.
Overall, it sounds like you've got a decent level of practice going and your descriptions are clear. A few practice suggestions:
- Have you tried more detailed noting? Check out
Kenneth Folk's site for some good info on this, it helps to minimize the mind wandering by engaging more of the attention. Also, you mentioned that you're interested in maybe finding a teacher who knows their way around the maps. Kenneth is y'er man, he's a good guy and his approach has been very, very useful for me in the past so I recommend having a read at his site.
- See if you can catch how a sensation begins. Look how it comes up and watch how it behaves, how it comes to be noticed and the instant it stops being noticed to be replaced by another one. Watch what happens in between two sensations and see what's going on there...
- Check out
The Hamilton Project and this blog in particular. Solid pragmatic tips on noting and it's benefits. The whole site is a goldmine and I recommend it highly.
- One of the best pieces of advice I ever had was this: Be mindful before your arse hits the cushion.
Best of luck with things and hopefully you'll stick around to keep us updated on how you're getting on.
A'ra best,
Tommy