Can You Get Stream With Kinda Crap Concentration?

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Alan Smithee, modified 11 Years ago at 12/10/12 3:01 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/10/12 3:01 PM

Can You Get Stream With Kinda Crap Concentration?

Posts: 310 Join Date: 4/2/10 Recent Posts
CONTEXT:
[Note: To give context to my question I cut cut and paste some of what I wrote in another thread called "Sense of Self"]:

"'I'm pre-Path but getting low Equanimity regularly. I recently [as in last week] started meditating again and my goal is to sit every day for two or three hours [more if I can get it] until I get stream. If I don't get stream at home then my hope is I'll nail it at a ten-day retreat I'm planning on attending this upcoming summer. When I can I try to note off the cushion and/or focus on my breath.My concentration is not nearly as strong as it was when I got off retreat this past June but my goal is to build it up again via daily sittings/off-the-cushion notings, etc. On retreat I was getting high Equanimity and feeling the sensations pretty powerfully like poppings/pulsings/waves/vibrations etc., whereas now I barely feel them. When my concentration was at its strongest I'd feel squeezing sensations at my temples, throbbing and pulsing of various speeds between my eyes, and a heavy pressure on my head like someone had placed wet clay there. Now I just get some squeezing at the temples. I feel that I'm getting low Equanimity in my daily sits, however, because I can quite comfortably sit for an hour or two sometimes with relative ease, so I think I'm getting a really weak watered down forth vipassana jhana. At times my focus gets spacious and wide, and I then try to investigate aspects of the mind, such as the "sense of self."

One of the reasons I stopped sitting for a few months after my retreat was from a sense of frustration that I could feel the concentration I'd built up while on retreat dissipating. I convinced myself that progress can only really get made while on retreat. Meanwhile, I spoke with a friend with whom I had gone on retreat and he had never ceased his daily sits. He really encouraged me to continue my daily sits. I asked him about his progress and concentration abilities and he wrote: "You don't need 'super-powered concentration' to develop. The best thing to do about this stuff, always, is to get our buns on a cushion NOW and start noting. I have also been noting off-cushion as consistently as possible at work, at home, everywhere. Doing the noting practice with the focus that you have now will naturally develop you concentration to the point that makes a difference [...] Again, you just have to get your ass on the cushion, however anemic you feel that your concentration is (I'm sure it is a lot better than you give yourself credit for) and start noting. With good noting practice, concentration develops naturally as part of the alchemy of this process [...] I've come to realize and experience that the stages are A LOT MORE SUBTLE than I was expecting and that I had been going through them all along. I actually hadn't noticed them in my daily practice. It was only when I started keeping a journal that I started realizing that this stuff was happening to me. I was bringing expectations of fireworks to a candle flame. Once I realized this and read back on my meditation journals, the subtle sensations of A&P, Dark Night, and all the rest have become pretty apparent."

And I believed him and have since noticed that hss observations seem to be correct: Although my concentration skills are not nearly what they were while on or just after retreat, I still seem to be getting into some watered down versions of Equanimity. Meaning, you can climb to your highest nana even if your concentration isn't hugely terrific developed. This surprised me. I figured I would have to work darn hard just to get through the A+P again, etc.

My goal is to meditate two or three hours or more a day regardless of what answers I get but is it possible to get stream without feeling the powerful sensations/pulsations/vibrations/etc.? If I am feeling vibrations on the border between gross and subtle, and I am getting into Equanimity, is it possible to get stream at this point? Or should I really expect that my concentration should get much stronger before anything of the sort might happen? I've heard that sometimes in Equanimity the concentration starts getting stronger and strong almost of its own accord, so my thought is that, if you are getting Equanimity in a kinda crap way, but staying there for long periods of time, noting and noticing, investigating and probing, might it be that you could nail stream from there?
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Jane Laurel Carrington, modified 11 Years ago at 12/10/12 3:21 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 12/10/12 3:21 PM

RE: Can You Get Stream With Kinda Crap Concentration?

Posts: 196 Join Date: 12/29/10 Recent Posts
If you sit for hours a day you will get those powerful sensations again. It is always a letdown to come back home after a retreat. My practice seems to take a hit immediately after and then it's a pain getting it going again. But don't let this kind of discouragement stop you. And don't fall for the belief that you need a retreat to get stream entry.

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