Yesterday I was sitting for about 45 minutes, focused on the "listen" koan from Mondo zen. Essentially listening with the whole body, without judgment. So what happened was about 40 minutes in, I felt like everything sort of slowed down and separated, like I could hear different streams of sound within the sound I was listening to. Thoughts were still there, but it felt like a distinctly different state of consciousness, and lasted maybe a minute, then slowly dissipated. It started suddenly and ended slowly, if that makes sense.

I'm wondering if this was "just" one of those weird sensory experiences that happen in meditation, raptures or whatnot, or something else. Thoughts?

Richelle

For context, I've been working with the listening koan for a few weeks and had been noticing the difference between the actual sound and the mental impression that follows, as well as noticing that there isn't really a single experience of sound (no self?) -- the ears are each picking up different things, and the brain makes it seem like a single thing. Not sure if this makes sense, or if it's related to what I wrote above.