I've been milling over this question for awhile now and feel like its definitely time to reach out.  While the benefits and goals of insight practices are obvious and the positive side effects of jhana are also readily apparent, there seems to be a third thing that happens to me sometimes when I sit for a long while.

It seems that when I do a repetitive attentional technique such as a mantra or breath counting, I get a lot of mental resistance to the act of meditating for the first thirty to forty minutes.  However, even while in this resistance, various memories and other thoughts and realizations just bubble up in my mind.  I will frequently realize something I forgot or have useful conventional insights into the content of my life.  It is as if my subconscious mind is processing information when I give it the chance to do so by engaging my conscious mind with dumb, narrow effort.  Furthermore, at some point I feel my mind drop the resistance to the act of meditating.  I associate this sensation with access concentration.  It feels like I am open and surrendered and could sit patiently for hours.  Afterwards I tend to feel extremely grounded in a conventional sense.  My mind feels very slowed down in a good way and my whole life seems like it could be properly organized.

The interesting thing is that I can say for sure that these effects are not related to any specific nanas (while the dark night probably doesn't help the mental resistance, getting into equanimity doesn't solve it either).  They used to happen when I would go to meditation groups before crossing the A&P for the first time.  Also, I am usually not in any sort of absorbed state: definitely below the first jhana.

Has anyone else experienced such "positive mental processing" that occurs from prolonged, repetitive attentional techniques and specifically takes place in the absence of jhana and independent of nanas?

I feel like I should add more of a question to this:

Does anyone have an explanation for such effects within the framework of pragmatic dharma maps/culture or that of buddhism in general?

Am I wrong to think that being conventionally grounded, slowed-down and organized will be just as beneficial to my life as insight-type shifts such as stream entry?

I guess I'm trying to ask if this seems like a worthy thing to chase.

howdy noah,
without knowing your practice history its tough for me to chime in with authority but...

are you sure that the state you are referring to is not jhana?  when i first began sorting out the jhanas i was surprised at how normal they were.  it was clear to me at that time that i had most certainly entered the first few jhanas during sits before even if at very subtle, or shallow, levels.

the jhanas are the stable rungs of the ladder of insight but run parallel to them as you probably know.  i found the vipassana jhana model helpful in sorting out some of the steps and transitions i go through during a sit. 

some people focus on jhana and climb the ladder through those stable steps keeping the stages of insight well offstage.  others do the same with vipassana , keeping the jhanas at arms length.   when i sit, without a particular goal, i tend to blur the line between these diciplines and the result can be interesting if not clarifying. 

how is you jhana practice?  are you getting into solid jhanic states so that you know that what you are describing is definitely not jhana?

cheers

tom

I've noticed similar effects. During insight meditation I will often remember dreams that I had forgotten, or childhood memories. It *is* possible that this is part of the second nana, Cause and Effect, where karmic stuff can come bubbling up. But I think there may be more to it than that.

I'm not an expert on Jung, but from what little I've read, he regarded the psyche as a closed system. If one withdraws energy from the conscious, energy from the unconscious will automatically begin to flow. Hence the "processing" to which you refer.

Hi Tom, 

Yea, in terms of the vipassana jhanas, I do tend to get into 1st jhana at the beginning of a sit, which is directly linked to my passage through the first three nanas.  However, I do not typically get 2nd jhana stuff with the a&p or 3rd jhana with dissolution.  While in low to mid EQ (my cutting edge), 4th jhana does sometimes arise.  So that part is a mystery to me.  I haven't gotten stream entry so my jhana ability is pretty thin.

Its definitely true that there are not such clear lines between what constitutes a knowledge of a certain level of mind vs an absorption into it, although I seem to be able to get knowledges much more clearly than absorptions.  I don't think I'm getting soft jhanas without knowing it b.c I've done a lot of kundalini/AYP stuff that involved energy that really did sap me into strong jhanas.  I just don't get the same hit with mind-only buddhist meditation.

Eric-

I'm happy to hear you've had similar experiences.  I have some questions if you don't mind:
-What are the criteria for this 'info processing' to occur for you?  Like how long do you have to sit and what types of techniques do it?
-What are the positivie after-effects?  Are these effects stronger or weaker than afterglows of the a&p, strong eq, etc?
-In general, do you think what we're talking about is something that is not generally discussed on the DHO?

I usually have to sit a minimum of 20 minutes, usually 30 to 40 for this processing to arise. Both concentration and insight techniques bring it to the surface, though I'd say insight practice makes it more obvious. 

I'd say that the positive after-effects are mild, certainly weaker than A&P and EQ afterglows, but they are definitely there. A sense having insight into why I behave in certain ways, and remembering a part of myself that I had long ago forgotten, are the two big positive effects that I notice. 

Yes, I'd say so. In insight meditation the content of experience is not important. With experiences such as these-- memories, thought patterns, "deep thoughts"-- it's all about content. This type of stuff strikes me as being very useful in psychotherapy, but not very useful in insight practice. The same way that Jungian dreamwork is great for personal growth, but not that great for comprehending the ultimate nature of the sensations that make up reality.

I get that too. Pretty sure that's Equanimity you're describing.

JC,
It might be EQ for me, especially these days as it seems to be my cutting edge.  However, it used to happen before I even crossed the A&P which is why I was considering other possibilites.  

Thanks for all your answers Eric,
I think I'm going to try daily diaphragmatic-breath-counting for a few weeks in a row and see what kind of cognitive benefits I get.  I guess it ultimately doesn't matter whether these benefits are related to fundamental insight since they are ultimately very pragmatic for me in some sense.

How do you know you hadn't crossed the A&P yet? Maybe you had and didn't realize it.

Alternatively, it's either the benefits of a soft 1st jhana or just simply taking some space to clear your head / focus.

b.c the first time I crossed the A&P was like losing my spiritual virginity lol. It was a powersy experience at a retreat with the guru Amma (who has since been criticized in an expose) where I ended up having minor auditory and visual hallucinations for three days as well as extreme euphoria (amongst other semi-miracle-like experiences/ extreme synchronicities).

I think the best explanation is where you said "taking some space to clear your head" 

[quote=Noah
]

b.c the first time I crossed the A&P was like losing my spiritual virginity lol. It was a powersy experience at a retreat with the guru Amma (who has since been criticized in an expose) where I ended up having minor auditory and visual hallucinations for three days as well as extreme euphoria (amongst other semi-miracle-like experiences/ extreme synchronicities).

I think the best explanation is where you said "taking some space to clear your head" 

It's possible that you had crossed it before but that it was much more noticable and remarkable and unusual in the context of a retreat with strong concentration. During normal meditation crossing the A&P, even the first time, can be much more subdued.

It's possible that you had crossed it before but that it was much more noticable and remarkable and unusual in the context of a retreat with strong concentration. During normal meditation crossing the A&P, even the first time, can be much more subdued.
Yeah, thats definitely a possibility.  I was just thinking about Daniel's comment that I read one time (I think its actually from MCT where he says that one's first A&P is hugely influental on their practice and they tend to associate progress with their first A&P (i.e. self reliance in the case of studying under Bill Hamilton and Shakti/kundalini/AYP in the case of an Amma retreat).

One of the fundamentals of Dhamma is thus:

1) When a feeling comes up and you react to it, the train of feelings gets bigger, tacking your new onto it

2) When a feeling comes up and you do not react to it, when you accept it, when you remain unattached to it the feeling dissolves. 

And when feelings dissolve in this way they are gone for good!  It is a little different than some of the more laymen meditations.   You are not just adding a layer of nice calm surrounding and disguising the negative feeling, you are eradicating it for good.

To give a quick example...

Panic attacks used to be my biggest issue. On my first meditation retreat I had a panic attack the second night.  I then acted in the manner we were taught, I just tried to be unattached to it, accepting of it, chill of it.  And it took quite a lot of work, it would gain some power and then cease some, up and down up and down, until it had died.  And you know what... after that retreat those panic attacks were gone for good.  Whatever issues you have will often come up during meditation (in particular retreats)
So how 

So how do we practice and teach our mines to not react to things that come up?

That is what meditation is

Noting is a great technique for panic attacks because it helps you disidentify them. I found it very helpful to just say "Ok, I'm having a panic attack" and then all of a sudden I calmed down. Or, from another viewpoint, calming down is when you recognize that you're having a panic attack.