What Nana?

William David Bodell, modified 14 Years ago at 2/16/10 3:24 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 2/16/10 3:24 PM

What Nana?

Posts: 20 Join Date: 11/28/09 Recent Posts
During retreat whilst meditating I had the following experience:

An area on my face of about 1 cm square dissolved - a place of 'emptiness' arose there. It was empty but filled with vibrating 'strings'. I had the following thought that 'this was not self, could not be self' and for 1st time realised anatta experientially (penetrated the object). I also thought / accompanying image that if my whole body was like that 'I' would be but 'there would be no I'.

The hole / empty space lasted about 3-5 mins - what nana? Fourth?
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 14 Years ago at 2/17/10 12:13 AM
Created 14 Years ago at 2/17/10 12:13 AM

RE: What Nana?

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
I would need a lot more context, but vibrating things in one localized place at center of attention is typically 2nd vipassana jhana territory. People in 4th tend to be talking about big, wide, open, panoramic fluxing like-things, large 3D images that seem alive, formless realms, profound, easy peace, and the like, though there is much more to discuss about either of those.

What happened before it? What practices are you doing? What happened after?
William David Bodell, modified 14 Years ago at 2/17/10 12:17 PM
Created 14 Years ago at 2/17/10 12:17 PM

RE: What Nana?

Posts: 20 Join Date: 11/28/09 Recent Posts
Doing body scanning on goenka retreat. I was experiencing lots of sensations, areas of vibrations and occasional whole body vibration / hums. This seemed qualitatively different in that the 'strings' were occurring in a place of emptiness not in the body as such - a small area in which the body absent. The spontaneous arisen thought was of Anicca. My affect at first was peace, no death if my body was empty apart from theses strings. But I though maybe I was adlibbing conceptually after that point. Then I got annoyed with the sensation as I had to proceed with the scanning instructions and the empty space kept pulling me back.

Sessions after this seemed easy / comfortable for a day after this.

I seem to have experienced the a&p event nearly three decades ago when not practicing in a buddhist context and so am not sure what it would be like now (only returned to practice several months ago). I did consider it in terms of the three characteristics nana but wasn't sure. I had experienced geometric imagery outside of meditation with eyes shut but no <big, wide, open, panoramic fluxing like-things, large 3D images that seem alive, formless realms, profound, easy peace,>.

Thank you for attending to my post - I am aware that my retreat didn't provide anything spectacular and that I could easily be craving something profound to justify the effort, but disappointment is better than delusion.