Hello, everyone,
I'm a newcomer to both this forum and meditation. Today I had a weird experience that I would like to get "diagnosed."
Background: a few weeks ago I started breathing meditation under the intention of improving my concentration. I've been doing this for about 20-60 minutes a day. Sometimes I sit in a chair, other times I slowly pace. I'm surprised by how much I'm getting out of it --- I've really been noticing the fine motions of my muscle contractions involved in my breaths and have been generally been more aware of my body sensations. It feels like everytime I breathe slowly during meditation I'm somehow pushing some energy throughout my body.
Yesterday, I had an urge to finally just suck it up and sit down semi-crossed legged (my flexibility is horrible and I generally hate sitting on the floor). I sometimes have to switch my legs around but I'm surprised by how much discomfort I'm able to endure if I just focus on my breathing. I've also been starting to concentrate on the element water, which I have an affinity for. I enjoy this new technique even if it's more difficult.
This afternoon, I continued the semi-crossed leg breathing/water meditation. I had one round that lasted like an hour, intersperced with a bit of pacing, and it went quite well. Then I tried again an hour or so later. Perhaps about 50 minutes into my session, I starting feeling what certainly felt like third eye movements --- just a pulsating around my forehead like I've never felt before. I also felt what felt like some sort of chakric activity in the middle of my chest and a feeling of joy and goodwill for all sentient beings. I'd stop feeling the forehead vibrations when I open my eyes and the feeling returned when I closed them. Eventually the vibrations went away and I just felt, well, good. The discomfort in my legs, that otherwise would have been close to unbearable, went away. I was very excited because it was my first dramatic breakthrough and I suspected that I might have reached the 1st jhana. This lasted for about a minute or so. I then got up and felt great happiness for another half hour or so.
After that half hour, in the evening, some unexpected weirdness arose. The "good" feeling gave way to a certain sort of dissatisfaction. I became conscious that part of me, some aspect of my body, was in emotional pain/turmoil. Like I could sense a part of me that was experiencing anger and frustration. I wasn't THAT bothered by it because I somehow felt removed from it, but I nonetheless missed the rapturous joy I felt earlier. Eventually I started becoming increasingly affected by this emotional pain and went back to meditating (the same semi-crossed position). I kept saying to myself "I'm tired of suffering" and kept perservering, in spite of the leg pain from the sitting pose. I did this for about a half an hour and the pain eventually gave way to tranquility, but it was nothing like the rapture I felt in the session earlier in the afternoon. I feel like the lesson I learned was "pain has to be confronted instead of evaded."
I really don't know what happend. I thought it was 1st jhana but I never heard of 1st jhana being followed by some sort of mini dark night. If anyone could give feedback, that would be grately appreciated. Thank you!
EDIT: I just read http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5563483 and that experience sounds quite similar to mine! Perhaps I have entered the dark night/equanimity, all very rapidly?
