What is this and how to use it in insight practice? - Discussion
Hi,
I have been doing concentration for a couple of years on and off and then ended up in a Goenka retreat in an effort to get out of a Dark night that lasted almost 2 years. The Dark night was, at least thats how I understand it now, precipitated by a very rapid series of insights induced in a shamanistic setting that I was totally unprepared for ('nough said :-)). I guess the saying "Be careful what you ask for coz you might get it" is very true :-). Anyway.
During the retreat I worked very diligently and I could feel by the 3rd day how sharp my mind was getting. I got the hang of scanning quickly and although I wasn't consistent in my abilities to run a scan things went well. I completely broke down on the 10th day in the morning after gaining insight into something that bubbled up. I knew that something changed in me forever in exactly the same way I knew it after my shamanic adventures. I kept up the practice when I returned home. Long Dark Night over!
Enough background :-).
Recently I started noticing that I can, for lack of a better word, "light up" my body with sensations. What I mean by that is I can move from one point concentration on the breath to a certain "diffused" kind of awareness in which I'm aware of all of my body vibrating at the same time (sometimes with blank spots, although these blanks are getting narrower by day). I can then move my attention to almost any very small part of my body and sense whats going on there. I remember Goenka talking about this in one of the discourses and basically giving the prescription to verify the state by attempting to pinpoint as I explained above and if I remember correctly there was something about running the attention along the path of the spinal cord (but I'm not sure).
Now, what is this state, how can it be useful? Its certainly pleasurable but I kind of intuitively feel this is a trap. How do I use it instead of it using me
?
I have been doing concentration for a couple of years on and off and then ended up in a Goenka retreat in an effort to get out of a Dark night that lasted almost 2 years. The Dark night was, at least thats how I understand it now, precipitated by a very rapid series of insights induced in a shamanistic setting that I was totally unprepared for ('nough said :-)). I guess the saying "Be careful what you ask for coz you might get it" is very true :-). Anyway.
During the retreat I worked very diligently and I could feel by the 3rd day how sharp my mind was getting. I got the hang of scanning quickly and although I wasn't consistent in my abilities to run a scan things went well. I completely broke down on the 10th day in the morning after gaining insight into something that bubbled up. I knew that something changed in me forever in exactly the same way I knew it after my shamanic adventures. I kept up the practice when I returned home. Long Dark Night over!
Enough background :-).
Recently I started noticing that I can, for lack of a better word, "light up" my body with sensations. What I mean by that is I can move from one point concentration on the breath to a certain "diffused" kind of awareness in which I'm aware of all of my body vibrating at the same time (sometimes with blank spots, although these blanks are getting narrower by day). I can then move my attention to almost any very small part of my body and sense whats going on there. I remember Goenka talking about this in one of the discourses and basically giving the prescription to verify the state by attempting to pinpoint as I explained above and if I remember correctly there was something about running the attention along the path of the spinal cord (but I'm not sure).
Now, what is this state, how can it be useful? Its certainly pleasurable but I kind of intuitively feel this is a trap. How do I use it instead of it using me
?
AT SkyWalker:
Hi,
I have been doing concentration for a couple of years on and off and then ended up in a Goenka retreat in an effort to get out of a Dark night that lasted almost 2 years. The Dark night was, at least thats how I understand it now, precipitated by a very rapid series of insights induced in a shamanistic setting that I was totally unprepared for ('nough said :-)). I guess the saying "Be careful what you ask for coz you might get it" is very true :-). Anyway.
During the retreat I worked very diligently and I could feel by the 3rd day how sharp my mind was getting. I got the hang of scanning quickly and although I wasn't consistent in my abilities to run a scan things went well. I completely broke down on the 10th day in the morning after gaining insight into something that bubbled up. I knew that something changed in me forever in exactly the same way I knew it after my shamanic adventures. I kept up the practice when I returned home. Long Dark Night over!
Enough background :-).
Recently I started noticing that I can, for lack of a better word, "light up" my body with sensations. What I mean by that is I can move from one point concentration on the breath to a certain "diffused" kind of awareness in which I'm aware of all of my body vibrating at the same time (sometimes with blank spots, although these blanks are getting narrower by day). I can then move my attention to almost any very small part of my body and sense whats going on there. I remember Goenka talking about this in one of the discourses and basically giving the prescription to verify the state by attempting to pinpoint as I explained above and if I remember correctly there was something about running the attention along the path of the spinal cord (but I'm not sure).
Now, what is this state, how can it be useful? Its certainly pleasurable but I kind of intuitively feel this is a trap. How do I use it instead of it using me?
I have been doing concentration for a couple of years on and off and then ended up in a Goenka retreat in an effort to get out of a Dark night that lasted almost 2 years. The Dark night was, at least thats how I understand it now, precipitated by a very rapid series of insights induced in a shamanistic setting that I was totally unprepared for ('nough said :-)). I guess the saying "Be careful what you ask for coz you might get it" is very true :-). Anyway.
During the retreat I worked very diligently and I could feel by the 3rd day how sharp my mind was getting. I got the hang of scanning quickly and although I wasn't consistent in my abilities to run a scan things went well. I completely broke down on the 10th day in the morning after gaining insight into something that bubbled up. I knew that something changed in me forever in exactly the same way I knew it after my shamanic adventures. I kept up the practice when I returned home. Long Dark Night over!
Enough background :-).
Recently I started noticing that I can, for lack of a better word, "light up" my body with sensations. What I mean by that is I can move from one point concentration on the breath to a certain "diffused" kind of awareness in which I'm aware of all of my body vibrating at the same time (sometimes with blank spots, although these blanks are getting narrower by day). I can then move my attention to almost any very small part of my body and sense whats going on there. I remember Goenka talking about this in one of the discourses and basically giving the prescription to verify the state by attempting to pinpoint as I explained above and if I remember correctly there was something about running the attention along the path of the spinal cord (but I'm not sure).
Now, what is this state, how can it be useful? Its certainly pleasurable but I kind of intuitively feel this is a trap. How do I use it instead of it using me
?I also experienced this growing subtle awareness of bodily sensations. Once I turned it on, I couldn't turn it off, ever. And I would sense sensations in every living part of the body regardless of the stage or state. Though what would become obvious is a clustering of sensations in a particular part of the body which would act as support for mental state of this or that. Due to that subtle awareness I think I had a better chance of breaking down the compoundings of mental states, emotions etc into their 'parts', mental and physical. * years practicing in the goenka tradition and I got very good at scanning and being aware of the entire body buzzing with vibrations. But I would miss the subtle mental overlays and mind movements and mind states that needed to be paid attention to in order to progress onwards through the stages of insight.
What is your current practice? Have you tried noticing (and perhaps noting) the mind states that accompany such experiences of the whole body buzzing with sensations? Such as noticing the mental pleasure? Or the 'intuitive trap feeling'? What does your current practice look like?
Nick