Dear meditators, friends,
During last several weeks I’ve started kasina practice. The practice was inspired by this thread
Any context and comments are very welcome, as I am very new with Kasina practice.
I’ve done lots of Goenka and Mahasi Vipassana practice, but never samatha. I hang in something resembling Equanimity.
I’ve took a 3x4 ft white carton paper sheet. A 9 inch earth color brownish (ceramic color) disk was painted in the middle.
I stare at it in a relaxed way, focusing behind the image. This way I can see the entire circle at once, not parts of the circle.
Being in Equanimity sometimes is not natural to have a narrow focus.
After a few moments a yellowish-bluish counter image appears. The counter image is the same size of the brown disk, mostly overlaps it, making the disk less dark. The overlap is almost complete, but usually a left or right side of kasina disk has a narrow crescent of brown color while on opposite side there is a bright light narrow crescent on the white paper, just next to the disk. It looks like the counter image a tiny bit shifted to the right or left of the disk. If I to watch the counter image closely (to focus on it), then it would move around, to the right, left, up or down.
If I am to close the eyes I either see only the darkness or a yellow light blob. It would stays for about 10-15 seconds, sometimes moving and disappearing, just to reappear few seconds later, to last few more seconds and to disappear for good. Often A&P tingles in the area of the third eye will show up.
If I am to look at the disk again, then the disk shape would change: it wouldn’t stay perfectly round, but it would dynamically change the shape, being a little squished in several spots. Sometimes the squish spots are moving along the edge of the disk.
The disk would appear on the bright light background, just like a moon would eclipse the sun. A bright white light would come from behind the edges of the kasina disk. Kasina dark disk would become alive, sometimes expanding and contracting in synch with breath, sometimes becoming 3-D, gaining a depth, creating impression that it is closer to the eyes than the background white light. The most of white background would become dimmer, like being in a shade, except for the area in immediate contact with the disk. This area would shine white. Sometimes the counter image colors starts to change in waves: yellow, green, blue, white, etc. It is like waves of a color moving from one side of kasina to another, for example from the right to the left, changing from color to color.
Sometimes the entire dark circle would disappear, to be replaced with a very bright and dynamic yellow and blue light. After a few seconds the dark disk would reappear.
Sometimes the entire white page would become gray, like it would go in a shade (less contrast between disk and background). The disk will become brighter, getting the same grayish color as background and completely disappearing from background. It seems that the entire visual field disappears, no particular shapes are seen, just like someone turned off the lights during late evening, but not night (but not completely black). After few moments the disk and paper would reappear, but there will be not much contrast between the disk and paper.
If I to close the eyes usually I would see the black square shape of the paper (counter image), sometimes with yellowish circle in the middle. This black square is very solid, stays persistently for a while. If now I to move the head (with eyes closed) then this black counter image will not move with the head, but the black square would stay in the same position where the paper used to stay. It seems like the mind somehow compensating for the head movements.
If I to practice longer, like 30 minutes, and after that to close the eyes for few minutes and to open the eyes, briefly glancing to kasina, 1-2 seconds glance, then the yellow counter image will appear and immediately very quickly expand to the entire visual field. If I to dive into it. At this time there are no separation between counter image and the rest, as it seems that the entire visual field is counter image.
I also tried a white plate as kasina. In this case the counter image was dark gray. The plate would become alive and 3D with a depth. Sometimes waves of color light would move over the plate: green, yellow, blue, etc.
Any context, comments and advice are very welcome.
Thanks you very much.