Hi all! 

I am fairly new to fire kasina, been doing it 30-60 minutes a day for the last few days.  

The problem I run into is that when I close my eyes there is a lot of background noise (seemingly random monochrome patterns), which makes it hard to track the afterimage.

After 5ish minutes, the red dot shows up. But again it's hard to track, as it is not a red dot on a black canvas, and more a tiny red dot on top of a moving monochrome Pollock painting. 

I considered just observing the background noise, but when I do manage to track the red dot, it seems to turbocharge my concentration, so that does seem worth it. 

This problem pops up in both completely dark rooms, dimly lit rooms, and without and with a sleeping mask on. 

Anyone encountered the same problem or have some suggestions?

Thanks a lot!

Sorry to be a killjoy, but... just a few days at 30-60 minutes a pop isn't long enough to run into the effects of this kind of practice. Keep doing it for a few weeks, maybe a few months.

Could you be more specific about why the red dot is hard to track?
Is it that it moves around (or appears to), is difficult to notice in contrast with the background, or is it that it is difficult to pay attention to the red dot with everything else going on?

I have always had a constantly shifting, kind of pixelated background overlayed on top of my visual field, and that appears to be the "screen" where after images of the candle/light show up. This was the case for me since early childhood without any meditation; it's just how that part of my brain is wired. What I can say is that fire kasina practice does change the qualities of that screen, but it's always there for me if I tune into it. Even with my eyes open in a well lit room, it is overlayed on top of visual input from the eyes. It did not make it difficult for me to track the red dot though during the fire kasina practice.

It might just be that you always had that and are just noticing it now. I've done maybe 50 hours of fire kasina total (30-90 minutes a day for a while) and this screen/phenomena did not seem to be super relevant until I got deeper into it; and only after the "red dot" became much more than just a red dot. Without knowing more (i.e. maybe you're saying you mechanically can't track the red dot), just ignore it for now but if attention goes broad enough to include it as well, that might be fine.

Edit:
"This problem pops up in both completely dark rooms, dimly lit rooms, and without and with a sleeping mask on. "

Interesting that you frame this as a problem. Why?

Being surprised by arisen stuff is kind of "the thing" Hope you pay more attention to "it"  

"Could you be more specific about why the red dot is hard to track? Is it that it moves around (or appears to), is difficult to notice in contrast with the background, or is it that it is difficult to pay attention to the red dot with everything else going on?"

It's that it's hard to notice in contrast with the background (with the background moving & alternating in brightness). I tried to illustrate it below. It is a bit as if I would put the candle in the middle of a fire: it is still possible to notice it, focus on it, but it is definitely a lot harder than if the background was neutral black/grey.

"Interesting that you frame this as a problem. Why?"

Because I have had some sessions when I just started with fire kasina where when I closed my eyes the background was more neutral black, and the red dot showed up easily, and tracking the red dot upped my concentration very quickly (I think due to it having an inbuilt feedback mechanism, if the concentration is weakish, it becomes less defined). However now with all this background noise, it makes tracking the red dot a lot harder, and concentration builds a lot slower and I space out more often.

"Being surprised by arisen stuff is kind of "the thing"  Hope you pay more attention to "it"  "
Yeah I think that's one strategy to just include the whole field in attention, and start observing it. But I feel like when I close my eyes, and it looks like below with the red dot superimposed on this messy distracting background, my concentration really isn't that strong yet. And if I would change something such that it makes tracking the actual afterimage/red dot easier, I think I could build up concentration much more before I start exploring the murk, and thus have less chance of spacing out. I'm also basing myself here a bit on what I read in MCTB: 'When the murk arises, initially it is very helpful to just open your eyes and go back to the flame or other object and cycle again. The more times we cycle up from the kasina object through the initial organized images to the murk, the more the murk will begin to organize.'.


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Neat, thanks for the illustration. 

I have that kind of thing all of the time regardless of meditation (though it would change throughout the meditation sessions). I was doing fire kasina almost two years ago and I was pretty new to my own jhana phenomenology back, but here is how I would try to retrospectively organize things using the samatha Jhana model:
- J1 dot is very prominent 
- J2 dot is prominent and washes/waves of light blue/green come in from the periphery, concentrate in the middle of the visual space, then disappate, dot changes colours quite a lot in between refreshes
- J3 dot is hazy and difficult to pay attention to, periphery becomes where attention wants to be, heaviness/sleepiness tends to hit here
- Beyond that shit just got interesting but not too consistent (like the hazy background turning into upside down triangles flying at me, the red dot having sort of asian looking characters in it, more panaramic awareness, deep equanimity a few times etc.). 

Not sure what to say beyond just be careful trying to map your own phenomenology to other people's (or your own maps haha). I shared my loose mapping as I found it helpful to learn how different our maps and phenomena can be but I don't know how/if it maps to your thing. 

"However now with all this background noise, it makes tracking the red dot a lot harder, and concentration builds a lot slower and I space out more often."

That makes sense. I would say though that I often have days in my practice where concentration builds slower and I space out more often. Learning to be okay with that, just keep gently bringing the mind back, and being okay with doing that patiently for the whole session, almost always ends in a session which is "good" if we're measuring it from a goal oriented frame. 

Perhaps one final thing to play with would be to try different sources for the light? I started out with a candle but eventually found that I love an amber booklight. 

Good luck with everything!