I recently sat a retreat with Ven. U Thuzana, who teaches in the Mahasi tradition (currently at Tathagata Meditation Center in San Jose). He encouraged me to "note more objects" while noting during my walking meditation and I believe that this was very helpful for me. First it got me to drop words ... words slow down the noting, and are useful only when the concentration is not good to try to keep you on the object. When you want to note more objects it is enough to look at it, or feel it or whatever and just know what it is without naming it. So ... with this in mind, he also encouraged us to look very carefully at bending of limbs,etc, so I walked in a way where my heel came up completely before I lefted my foot from the ground. After awhile in walking this way I started to distinguish individual "tugs" in my foot, I guess about 2 or 3 of them as my foot bent. I had written this off to just the bones in my foot articulating as I had many times before (this was my second Mahasi-style retreat and I had done a lot of walking meditation walking in this particular way), but at some point it dawned on me that this is exactly what he meant when he say that time was not continuous but was discrete (at least as far as noting goes). For me this was a huge revelation, and after awhile of noting this sensation in my foot and giving it some significance, I started also feeling tugs in other places ... for example when I walked a bit faster I could feel tugs in my calf muscle, and with a lot of practice I could walk even faster and feel the tugs going up my leg (in my achilles tendon). I was really able to build up my concentration by attending to these sensations, and this really pulled me through the rest of the retreat when my sitting practice seemed to lose its momentum. At some point I really did bring this back to my sitting practice though, as I could feel similar tugs in my belly as it expanded to take in my breath, and did make me realize that most of the "sensation" of the belly rising and falling was an illusion ... in reality there were these tugs and then when I let the breath in, I could feel a few touch points on my torso from my shirt shifting when I let the breath out, but really not much else! I was perusing Mahasi's "Fundementals of Vipassana Meditation" during periods where I couldn't make myself just note, and I encountered a phrase about the belly rising and falling where he refers to "absurd abdominal shape" in reference to how "ignorant people" observed the belly rising and falling and realized that I had been one of those people upto that point. So, I became aware of most of what I was doing when I was trying to follow the rising and falling of the belly was just following some mental image I had of my belly whenever there were no sensations to latch onto. Very interesting! I would never have noticed it, if I had not tuned my mind into this "noting frequency" of about 4-5x per second which most of the muscular sensations seem to operate at.

That's basically what happened to me right before I crossed the A&P. "None of this stuff is solid!"

Thanks! Yeah, after I was tuned into this noting frequency I did "attain" some state where, visually, the world was flashing at me at about 4x per second ... it was preceded by a strong vibratory sense at the temple and was not intially stable as I doubted it a lot, but when I took it outside (get out from the flourescent lights) and really looked at it, I became absorbed in it to some degree. I walked around went into my room to put on my warmer jacket, walked over to the dharma hall, sat down, picked up the chanting sheet and looked at it. ... all the while everything flashing at 4x/sec. I think after we chanted it went away, and after that I only got brief hints of it for the rest of the retreat. In my subsequent teacher interview, U Thuzana seemed to think that this was the arising and passing experience, or at least I think he did (I said it, he didn't contradict me). He had previously talked (or maybe I had read) about dissolution as the next insight/experience and so I also mentioned that. I will be very intrigued to see if it all comes back on my next retreat (one year off, unfortunately, as I have a lot of stuff to do this year!!!). I would also like to see a similar impermanence in auditory senses as my primary meditation object these days is mostly inner sound (probably a capillary near my ear allows me to hear my blood flowing ... it sounds like a tiny bell that rings once per heart beat ... on a previous retreat I disected it down to the level where I was pretty sure I could make out 4 pulses ... the 4 valves of the heart, presumably). Now clearly the sound gets broken each time time heart beats, but I would like to see it being broken at this noting frequency as well. Alternatively, if I got the visual effect to last for a lot longer than 15 minutes ... ah well ... desires!!! (wholesome ones though, I think) It was a real surprise to me, however, how important the walking meditation was in all this, since so many people seem to be focussing on their sitting practice (and I noticed this in the other meditators at the same retreat, very few were walking as much as I was ... were they hearing the same instructions? Had they already attained this so they didn't need it any more? The mind always wants to compare, doesn't it?)

Have fun trying to sleep the next few nights! :-)

Interesting you are mentioning this. I have had trouble sleeping the last two or three nights, because the visual field and the body are flickering (and the sessions start at AP). The only reasonable way to handle it seems to be to meditate yourself to sleep.

Yeah. I remember during my first A&P, I'd get jolted awake in the middle of every night, like someone had just touched me with jumper cables. It was fun at first, but it eventually came as a relief when the cool fuzziness of Dissolution kicked in.

I remember the beginning of the second path announced itself with a profound dream experience in which I felt every cell in my body surrender and dissolve. I awoke to powerful kundalini energy rushing up and down my spine and a feeling like I was being loved by something outside of me. Incredible bliss and joy.

Just this morning I was having a lucid dream in which I began to meditate. I figured, since this is a dream, I bet I could dissolve myself into atoms just by willing it - which I did. That kicked off an A&P which woke me up.

Lots of interesting experiences along this path!

Hmm ... not me, or not me this time. I guess we'll see what comes next time I go on retreat. Have not had any of these experiences since I returned to "normal life" and next retreat is next year, but the curiousity has certainly been aroused! Basically, what I did have was 15 minutes stable of this experience towards the end of my retreat when my mind was getting very distracted about things about normal life. And if that, just hints of it from time to time while staring at a blank wall. Sometimes I will look at something though, it will seem to shimmer a bit. Need to work on my retreat discipline! Thanks for all your comments!