I just returned from a 10 day Goenka retreat. I went in to the retreat intending to mostly follow the technique as taught, but also with the goal of exploring stream entry territory if the opportunity arose. I ended up deliberately breaking the technique at times, and also inadvertently used wrong effort for most the the retreat. The results were cosmically explosive to say the least. I decided to not try to map anything while at the retreat, so now here I am on the other side needing to pick up the pieces and figure out what the hell happened. Here is a detailed log of my retreat broken up by day. I'm more than happy to take input from any of you folks who might be more familar with some of this territory than I am. 

​​​​​​​Log
Day 1-3: Anapana meditation. Moved towards a fairly concentrated state. By the third day I noticed significant piti on the hands. I momentarily directed my attention to it and it flared up. I then returned to the meditation instructions. I noticed a concentrated attention acts on sensation like a wind acts on a fire. That evening I felt vague uneasy as if I was on the come up of a mushroom trip.
Day 4-5: Vipassana meditation began. I started with a significant aversion to gross sensations related to my posture, but I quickly was able to flip into what I called “searcher for sensation” identity. This allowed me to quickly build up my equanimity towards gross sensations.
Day 6: I had gross and subtle sensations throughout the body. I decided to momentarily take an overview perspective after the completion of a scan. Instantly, 80% of my body became a blank space. I could only feel part of my leg, several parts of my head, and my heart with surrounding areas. My heart began pounding and I afterward felt as if I’d been given a brief glance through the gates of heaven. Slowly sensations returned to the blank space, and my body began shaking uncontrollably. It took about 40 minutes for my body to stop shaking. Through the entire experience my mind remained completely at ease and equanimous. I afterwards felt light as if I was walking on air, and completely elated. This gradually returned to normal and that night while lying in bed my thoughts turned dark and fear began forming in the pit of my stomach. I continued to practice equanimity and went to sleep.
Day 7: I spent the morning focusing on developing my awareness of impermanence. Not only directly with individual sensations during my mediation but always with the totality of sensations both while meditating and while on breaks. I kept pointing out to myself that it is always “right now” and my conceptualizations of both the past and present are always just a part of that “right now”, and every moment a new right now materializes as a completely distinct and separate entity.
During the afternoon sessions I became curious about sensations related to the watcher who was “the searcher for sensations”. This searcher seems to be somewhere in my head so I momentarily set aside the technique and I plunged my attention into the center of my head. Inside I found a tight ball of densely packed subtle energy vibrating with a great intensity. It began pulling my attention toward it, and I felt it was extremely dangerous, like it had high voltage. A tremendous fear sensation exploded in my chest and I immediately yanked my attention back to my body. My attention split into two, however, and I had to physically move my head to shake my attention off of the object.
At this point I completely lost my equanimity. I suffered greatly for about an hour while I contended with the fear. I finally reached a low point where I begged and pleaded to surrender to the reality of the fear if only so I wouldn’t have to carry it with me. At this point my equanimity came back and I moved my attention to examine the fear.
The sensations of fear began to swell up and my attention automatically moved up to my head, where it proceeded to unfold like a flower. All the sensations on my body peeled back and I stood like a flower facing a great expanding emptiness that was light (as in opposite of heavy) and ultimate love and peace shined down on me from above. I basked in this for an unknown time, and then I began scanning the empty space for sensation from bottom to top. As I scanned, the sensations of my body zipped back up from feet to head, and it was as if a bubble of lightness, peace and love from the space had been caught in my body.
Throughout the evening my body returned to its normal state, but I was left in wonder and awe over my experience. In the evening sessions I cautiously explored the same area in the center of my head. I found my attention being pulled in and wondered if the dense sensation would still be there. I felt intuitively as if my mind was giving me a choice; did I want it to be there? I decided to leave it up to dhama and I pushed my attention through. It came out into a confined, empty space. Nothing was there. I attempted to return to my scanning but found I couldn’t pull my attention out of that space. I could get it some ways out with great effort, but the further I got the harder it became and if I relaxed my attention would snap back into it. At that point I realized my attention was in my eyes. Suddenly it all made sense. Somehow, the Anapana had created a neural pathway connecting my sense of touch to my visual system. I had been moving my attention with the same muscles I use to move my eyes, and my eyes were even following my attention around the body.
 I spent the rest of that session just sitting in my eye since I couldn’t get it out. Will walking out of the hall during break I noticed I had a much more normal disposition compared to the zoned in, highly concentrated state I was used to. I noticed it was significantly more difficult for me to navigate the movement of students through the shoe hall as well all prepared to go outside. After the discourse, I sat again and found I was easily able to return to the technique. That night I had disturbing thoughts similar to the night before, but when fear came, I observed it with equanimity and the fear went away.
Day 8-9: At this point equanimity seemed to come easier than ever and I felt my work for this retreat was done. I considered abandoning the technique and playing around with concentration, but ultimately decided it was a better use of my equanimity to clear up as many sankaras as possible. With this I began to work with enthusiasm again, breaking up gross sensation after gross sensation. I began putting so much effort into concentration on the gross sensations that I lost my capacity for general awareness of my body, so once my attention passed an area if it was subtle it would return to a blank space instead of being captured in my attention as a subtle area. This meant I had no reference for how deep I was working within my body, and I followed gross sensations wherever they went, breaking them up as I worked.
By the end of the 9th day, I had cleared out every gross sensation I could find. I eliminated the final one on my head and was left with nothing but a continual blank space. Immediately, my attention automatically moved to the top of my head and then by itself scanned my entire body from head to feet in one sweep. It created an outline of my body as I went and I was left with the distinct question that if there was this space inside the outline of my body then what was the space outside the outline? I briefly moved my attention there but remembered the instructions to always work with the framework of the body. Having gained tremendous respect for the power of the mind, I quickly returned to the body and felt nothing but the numbness of my foot being asleep. 
I figured the session was over since I didn’t know what else to do so I got up and walked to the dinning hall to make myself some tea. Initially I felt great, and was walking with great confidence. As I approached the dining hall however this great sense of dread and apprehension began filling my body from the feet up. I sat down to drink my tea and all at once it was as if the fires of hell were rushing up my legs and into my stomach with a searing hot intensity. My body began thrashing around wildly.  My initial reaction was to panic, but my better senses knew if I didn’t remain equanimous I would surely have untold damage to contend with in the aftermath. I reminded myself that no sensation can hurt us, it’s only our reactions which cause suffering, and I proceeded to helplessly thrash while my mind remained completely level and equanimous. 
The dining hall was mostly empty but my shaking caused my bowl to drop from the table and shatter on the floor. A server came to me and told me he would get me help. I reassured him I was ok, but he was understandably not convinced. Just about the time the assistant teacher came my body thrashing had subsided to the point where I could drink my tea. The teacher could see I was fine mentally but warned me against applying wrong effort, and suggested I relax for the rest of the evening. I then chatted to one of the volunteers for an hour and then went to bed after the discourse.
Laying in bed, I couldn’t relax my body. There was still a substantial amount of energy moving through my legs and I was twitchy. I decided to rest as best I could and relaxed my eyes allowing my attention to rest on my right cheek just below my nose. After about two hours my body suddenly went limp and the top half of my mind space went completely blank. I realized in a flash that my body and conscious mind were asleep, but my attention had stayed in my subconscious mind. Experimenting, I found I could open my eyes and mouth, breath and swallow, move my hands easily and move the rest of my body with difficulty. I could think, but not with the same flow as conscious thought. It was more like knowing rather than thinking. I felt effortlessly equanimous.
I realized I needed to pee, and recalling that people commonly sleep walk I wondered if I could go to the bathroom without waking myself up. And I was able to successfully. After laying my body back down, I then became curious about the cycles of sleep. By and by, the cycles began to proceed. My body got more and more numb and then became totally paralyzed. My attention moved by itself to my eyes and looked outward. My eyes darted back and forth and then up and down. Then a screen appeared in the distance as if through a mist and disjointed imagines with no narrative or context began appearing. I saw trees and a lake and mountains and birds flying, and a sun constantly setting and rising in the same spot. Then the screen disappeared and my attention dropped back to my cheek. I could then feel a variety of gross sensation appear around my face and could feel different physical cleanup processes engage in my sinuses. Liquid then began dripping from my ears. Then everything got very dark and quiet for sometime, until the whole process started again.
This continued throughout the night until the wake up bell rang. Adrenaline shot through my body, but I kept myself asleep thinking I’d just rest more. I eventually faded into another dark period and was woken up normally by the breakfast bell.
That morning I struggled significantly to remain equanimous. My legs were still burning with a significant degree of discomfort. I reminded myself that no sensation lasts forever. But how long would this sensation last? It was the last full day, then I was leaving and I needed to work the day after. How could I function normally if this was my new reality? I struggled with these thoughts and didn’t engage in the morning mediation but instead sat on a chair in the back of the hall. Finally, just as the first Metta session began, I concluded that if this sensation remained I would just have to do my best to use it as a tool to practice equanimity. The sensation then gradually resided and by the end of the metta session was completely gone.
I was left feeling extremely fatigued but was energized because the silent period was over. I spent the day chatting and exchanging experiences with other meditators. I left the center the day after, and felt generally at ease but quite tired. I realized the sensations of tiredness were on my face so I kept my attention on my stomach and was able to function normally throughout the day.
Immediately After
I’ve decided to take a break from my meditation practice to see how my way of being stabilizes as I integrate these experiences. I have significant difficulties sleeping. Closing my eyes at night draws my attention to my body and it’s difficult to stop myself from scanning. I generally wake up several time in the night with considerable sensations related to anxiety as I realize I’ve been scanning in my sleep. The anxiety surrounds the possibility I might inadvertently trigger another round of white hot energy and body thrashing, which wouldn’t be conducive to my stability of mind to carry out my duties Dp the following day. During the day, back to work, I felt mildly high and somewhat detached from both my body sensations and the activities of the day, but was very balanced with good energy and a general feeling of ease. I wonder how long it will last, and what my new normal will be?    

That sounds intense! I'm glad you made it back OK and that you are feeling energetic and easeful now. 

I cannot tell you where you are on a map because I'm not good with maps but, even if I could, it wouldn't change where you are in the terrain, and it wouldn't really change how you should practice. People with a better feel for maps will help you out but as I have had similarly intense retreat experiences and been in the post-retreat world of wondering what to do now that everything has been changed, I thought I would offer what worked for me. Exercise, especially walks in parks/nature. Heavy food. Swimming. Being around people, such as in cafes or on streets. Not trying to find meaning. Just resting, like a marathoner after a big race, who lets the muscles and sinews recover by taking it easy and eating well. Nature knows what to do and our minds are just as much a part of nature as the marathoner's body. 

+1 for Martin's advice

Nothing you described seems unusual to me as far as experiences. I believe that you are picking up the pieces of your broken expectations and that trying to find correlations between your experiences and a map is premature. I suggest you decide what technique you intend to practise. Then you may want to find some map that fits your experiences within the context of your practise, if you must.

I don't get the feeling that these changes are causing a lot of distress, just apprehension. I believe that is natural; I no longer feel as I once did, I think. Everything changes and being aware of that all the time is new for a lot of people. I've gotten used to it and Martin's suggestions help in normalizing everything into your new context. Taking a break will help to.

With metta: You should not go to a retreat with the intention of not following instructions. Sila is important. You should share your concerns with the AT. They may be able to provide insight in a timely manner.

Be Well

Martin,

Thanks for the sound advice. I'm going to take it to heart.

Kevin,

I'm glad to hear your opinion that these experiences seem to be somewhat normal in the context of getting washed into the deep end of the pool. My expectation were definitely shattered. It's kind of funny now, because I'm not sure what else I expected!

And, yes, I can see now my deliberate disregard for the meditation instructions was indeed reckless and irresponsible. My appreciation for the importance of Sila has increased dramatically. Perhaps a practice meant to address Sila is even more important than one meant to address Panna. It certainly is more foundational. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

mg,

Out of curiousity what did/do the bolded words mean for you? I'm curious about how you thought you might recognize stream entry territory and what you anticipated doing to explore it.

I'm asking because I'm sure you're not the first person to go into retreat with this plan... and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this idea both before and after your retreat. I have a feeling that it might help people prepare for retreats.

Shargrol,

That's a great question! Going into this retreat I had myself mapped out as somewhere in a decade long Dark Night triggered by A&P events associated with psychedelic experimentation. I wasn't quite sure I knew what stream entry was, but I figured the territory would look something like 1) experience a dramatic increase in dukka surrounding the practice, 2) continue with the meditation until dukka was replaced with equanimity, 3) experience formations (wasn't sure what those were), 4) experience some sort of momentary return of dukka, 5) notice a "doorway" or pattern of experience related to either impermanence, suffering or no-self, 6) cessation or fruition (wasn't sure what that might be like) 7) relief from suffering (or more naively a relief from pain meaning I'd feel good!)

I figured I would notice the territory if dukka arose strongly after i initially got established in equanimity. At that point I would abandon the technique and try to notice the truth of impermanence, suffering and no-self in the dukka itself.

Looking back I can see perhaps something of this pattern played out. What seems quite clear to me now is that no degree of attainment, real or imagined, is going to deliver us from our pain. In fact, much of the "dark night" pain I've been contending with over the past decade is stronger now than ever because I've stirred it up from the depths of my body/mind. That being said, (and this is only several days out so who knows where things might stabilize), I do feel I suffer significantly less because I've accepted liberation isn't being free from pain, but being free of the need to be free from pain. 

My thought on stream entry now is that it's only real value is potentially as a tool to help refine plans for further practice. For example, if I'm indeed now a "stream enterer" maybe it's a good opportunity to quit while I'm ahead, as it might be put, before 2nd path cruises in with another dark night of unknown intensity. More practically, I think the serious consideration is the question "am I prepared to face the pain of my day to day life, regardless of its intensity, with sufficient equinimity that I can take actions and interact with myself, my relationships and my community in ways that lends to happiness for all"? Yes or no, what practice/practices might help me move towards this goal? From this point of view, some label as stream-enterer or other has very limited value indeed.

Okay, so you had a good understanding of the basic map... except maybe you had a optimistic sense that equanimity would lead fairly quickly to formations and cessation?  

Most people tend to underestimate the kind of refinement that is needed to dwell in EQ. In general, if people aren't really relaxed, calm, receptive, and accepting, etc. then it is very common for someone to go from EQ back to A&P because A&P is the closest thing to SE. An ambitious heart can't settle into EQ and it wants something to happen and it already knows A&P, so if the ambition/investigation is agressive, it often will jump back to A&P.

​​​​​​​For better or worse, the EQ nana can be vast.

So here's my main question --- and I haven't been on Goenka retreats, so I'm truly curious -- what about the retreat practice methods would prevent you from noticing the truth of impermanence, suffering, and not-self?

For what it's worth, it kinda sounds like you might think that there is a kind of"equanimity dukka" that requires special treatment in some way? I'm kinda keying into this because one of the major challenges in EQ is the meditator starts trying to manipulate or game the meditation to make something happen... and they overlook that this is another level of selfing, so to speak. They often to forget to notice/note that there is "investigating, manipulating, trying, working, exploring, attempting, planning, judging, future thinking, hoping, controlling, comparing," etc. which is happening and these happenings can be witnessed and are not-self, too. In a funny way, what happens in EQ is very similar to what happens at the beginning of developing a meditation practice: we act like we're in control and need to make things happen.

Sounds like it was a very interesting retreat. As you kind of digest the experience and assess the nanas you entered, also consider how much some of your experiences were jhana. Body disappearance and experience of space aren't necessarily diagnostic of nanas, they can be the result of having strong centering (concentration) and entering into jhanas regardless of the nanas you are in.

Definitely take time to digest the retreat experience. Best wishes!!

All of that sounds pretty cool and trippy, it was fun to read.

I would re-read the part about equanimity in MCTB. 
Also, like Shagrol says the territory before Streamentry can be really big.
Or it can be right here. Remember it's this present moment where you can wake up. Not any moment on the future. The part in MCTB about content and how to skillfully use the maps are also great at each level.

Don't worry though about doing too much in equanimity if your mind does too much the dark nights will teach it to stop. They are great teachers.

In regards to you having stream entry it's not impossible but I would operate under the assumption that you don't. Practice goes on either way. The other way around people usually try to shape their experience in some way they expect it to be after the specific attainment they think they have and aren't brutally honest with themselves about what's going on which is the one crucial thing to do.

I wonder if the body movement and energy stuff could be reduced by using a wider attention. Instead of focusing on one point https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/ekrscz/samatha_practices_to_balance_attention_and/

Shargrol,

I appreciate your input here!

you're right I was hoping I'd be able to hop skip and jump through EQ. It's funny, I kept thinking I'd maximized my equanimity and then it was like a new level of sensation would open up. I realized that EQ is always in relation to whatever sensation one is feeling at the time. I definitely started out with a good deal of ambition, but to be honest the head opening experience kind of left me free of that. The rest of my work was mostly out of a desire to use the EQ I felt I'd built up in the most productive way possible, but I certainly wasn't trying to force another experience. The whole auto scan and fiery energy incident was quite by accident.

im very intrigued by your suggestion these experiences might fall more in the realm of Jhana than Nana. The thought had crossed my mind as well, but having no prior experience with either it's difficult to say.

with regard to the Goenka technique, my skepticism with it going in was mostly along two lines. First, it focuses solely on body sensations and so cuts out all mental sensations such as thought, images and emotion to whatever degree they don't manifest themselves in the body. Second, one is always moving the attention from one limited area to another and never taking time to widen one's attention to survey the entire field at once. It was my assumption, when dukka arose, it would be most productive to sustain my concentration to practice EQ on the sensations directly related to the dukka.

looking back I can see it both way. My first observation is that in pretty much every case, when shit got real my attention actually moved to where it needs to be all by itself, it's like I became another level removed and became the watcher of the searcher for sensation. With this in mind, it seems the constant moving of excluded attention is a perfectly valid technique. Secondly, because I had been excluding mental activity from my attention, I can't really say with certainty if all sensation paused at any point during the fireworks or if my mind was still constantly producing thoughts or any of the another mental activities related to selfing that you mentioned. So this definitely makes it more difficult to map things out. From the point of view of the Goenka folks, all that really matters is that one just continues to purify the mind of sankaras and everything else is just gravy. I think there might be something to that, to be honest. Just pay attention with right effort and let Dhama figure out the rest.

Stranger,

thanks for the reading recommendation. Something tells me I'll be spending a significant amount of time studying MCTB for the rest of the winter, lol. 

also, I agree about SE. I am curious to see how my baseline reality has changed. I'm definitely hyper aware of the reality of impermanence and suffering in my moment to moment experience, but other than a significant reduction in identity with sensations on my body (still not sure about thoughts as my mind is still super quiet in the aftermath of the retreat) I can still say I have a strong sense of having a self, but that self has become the observer of sensations rather than all messed up in the fray. 

The experience itself was certainly cool and trippy, but I was mostly holding on for dear life, lol. It was definitely a wild ride, but not sure I'd want to do it again deliberately. Like you pointed out, the true dhama is in the normal everyday experience as much as it's in the churning untamed depths of the subconscious mind. 

im considering trialing zen zazen practice once I feel recovered enough to start a practice up again. I think it's focus on total acceptance of the present moment could be quite beneficial.

thats a great thread about balancing attention and awareness. I was using wrong effort in the Goenka technique even what I thought I was doing it correctly. I didn't understand why I was getting blank spaces instead of subtle sensations, but now I understand it was because I was putting all my mental energy in attention rather than awareness. I suspect I could've dealt with a lot of that white hot subtle energy piecemeal if I'd only be aware enough to bring my attention to it, instead it exploded in dramatic fashion.

Very interesting thread, for the advice given by various contributors. If someone feels the need to manipulate his own sensations for any reason, it means he is not yet in the Equanimity stage.

Aside from what Shargrol wrote, one of the challenges on the path to equanimity - particularly for meditators in the body scan tradition - is boredom: bodily sensations may become homogeneous, uninteresting, increasing the risk of distraction. In such cases, it is recommended to strengthen the attention and inspect, for example, the heart area.

It can be useful to read the Insight map descriptions as presented in this lineage. Goenka's commentary has been shared here:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/14719066#_com_liferay_message_boards_web_portlet_MBPortlet_message_32762113
The following is from a text of another lineage of U Ba Khin, also interesting:https://archive.org/details/UChitTinKnowingAniccaAndTheWayToNibbana/page/n263/mode/2up
It is also instructive to listen to what U Ba Pho (a student of U Ba Khin) said in Talks 10 and 11:
https://archive.org/details/vipassana-UBAPHO-UBAKHIN

If I may add a more personal contribution, in my experience during a ten-day course it is possible to go through the various Insight stages even without experiencing a dramatic bhanga, understood as the dissolution of the entire body. The way Goenka describes it, this phenomenon always seems pleasant - it would align more with an "A&P Event" in Daniel’s terminology rather than the beginning of a Dark Night.

In any case, I also suggest following the instructions given during the course: if you stick to observing the disintegration of sensations and the corresponding perceptual processes, you are moving in the right direction.

> If someone feels the need to manipulate his own sensations for any reason, it means he is not yet in the Equanimity stage.
I kind of disagree. There should be a noticable change compared to Re-Observation and not just in not wanting to manipulate sensations but also in the structure of attention and some other aspects.

There is also a meta-level to equanimity where the need could arise but it would be fine. Though these meta-levels are confusing.

If you would say that fineness with being ok "even with e.g. wanting to change the sensations" is the not wanting to manipulate sensations I would more agree. Though even then there will still be subtle dualities. 

This resonates. It's like there's always another level, where the lower levels of identity feel perfect EQ but the meta identity is still "selfing" with all the intentionality and preference that goes along with that. 

even in the cases where I saw my attention move of its own accord, I no longer identified with that attention but was knocked back into a higher level of meta attention that still had its own set of preferences (e.g. "oh no, I hope this works out ok")