So I've been meditating around 45 minutes per day for the last couple of months, doing mostly concentration and later switching to choiceless awareness. I've gotten into mediation following several high dose psychedelic experiences which completely turned my life around. I also came to know Daniel Ingram's book MCTB and I suspect that I've crossed the A&P event on LSD, since I had a vision while tripping which I can only describe as 'the truth of suffering' (and that is before I've read MCTB and had no knowledge on mediation or progress of insight).

Anyway I had two experiences which I would like to know whether they qualify as insight milestones, if that is possible to discern. They happened after a long period of daily practice.

In the first experience, I was sitting at work in front of the computer when I suddenly remembered a vision of 'the moment I saw the truth' that I've seen while tripping. I couldn't remember what the truth was, so I thought, what was the thought process that led me to the truth? I remembered that we all come from some great unity and go back to it eventually, and then I realized that one conclusion was following another, until the moment that everything has been leading up to, which is right now. So everything has been leading up to now, and now is where everything starts from, meaning that this moment is God (the beginning and the end). The moment I realized that my heart started beating and everything became filled with light, literally illuminated. I got up and started walking home, and felt a panic attack coming on but at the same time I knew that there is nowhere to go, nowhere to escape and nothing to fear, since God (eternity, the absolute, whatever) is here and now, always.

The second experience happened while dreaming. In the dream, I woke up in an ambulance, and for a very short moment, that was the real waking reality and my normal life has been the dream, and this was known with absolute conviction. I've never experienced something like this before but it reminds me of Zhuangzi's butterfly koan ("Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man..").

Any explanation for these experiences?

Hey Eff, welcome

The first event you describe seems to fit an A&P event and then a dip into the Fear nana. How long ago did it happen? Have your practice and your off-cushion "experience" changed in any way since?

(Sorry for the edits, that's a bad neko!)

n

The first event happened about a year and a half ago. Went home to my girlfriend and later that night I woke up and hallucinated a bride and a groom. I felt something which I can only describe as the emotions of Jesus going all the way from hell to heaven, then the Buddha being fully concentrated without interruption on two slow consecutive breaths, and then some unknown saint or religious figure which I couldn't recognize but felt distinctly Hindu saying 'stop looking, stop looking', as the only way to find final realization is to stop looking for it. I also felt intense fear but at the same time some uunconditional love which allowed me to feel all these intense and terrifying emotions.

About a week later I woke up in the morning and felt as if I was reliving my emotional development since childhood in one single day. It was quite unbeliavable, I felt emotions as if I was a kid again and it reminded me of very early childhood experiences. Also everything was glowing with light for about 3 days.

I'm meditating about 50 minutes a day since and I had some strange happenings but nothing as strong as that one. Also I've been quite depressed ever since the LSD thing but that could be attributed to my entire social life being fucked up because of it.

Where would this put me on the path? Any suggestions as to how should I continue?

I am a bit worried about you saying that your social life is fucked up. How so? Is there anything you can do to try and improve on that side of your life? It is important that we do not ruin our "real life" with practice, and I am sure this applies equally (or even more strongy) with drug use. Try to do your best to limit the fallout in your relationships.

Back to your main question: There is a recurring debate on this forum about whether experiences on drugs "count" as insight experiences, and whether the maps apply to them. I cannot claim any kind of expertise on the subject, but the general consensus seems to be that, for the most part, drugs occasionally show you things you can do with your mind, and that it then takes skill to be able to reproduce them. In this sense, using meditation maps to interpret those events could definitely be useful and meaningful.

So I think it can be useful for you to read the event as an A&P and subsequent Dark Night. Starting from this assumption, there are several things you could do. First of all, take the advice from MCTB on how to deal with the DN. What I said above about taking care of your relationships, plus be mindful of healthy habits: eating and sleeping well, and so on. This helps with depression too. You could also try to move your focus from vipassana to samatha if and when the side effects get too strong.

My social life was ruined because of the drugs, not because of the practice, but that's a different story altogether.

I highly doubt that meditation can create experiences that are even remotely similar to what I had while tripping, but anyway that's not the purpose of meditation as I understand it.

As you said I assumed that I was in the Dark Night, partly because of consistent lingering dark feelings and partly because some of my visions while tripping appear to resemble what MCTB describes as A&P events, or doors. For instance seeing that perception has some fundamental suffering in its essence.

So yeah Dark Night is my safest bet, and I've cleaned up my eating and sleeping habits since. But how should I practice? Is concentration a bad idea? Can I do both? Or just focus on insight?

Insight to eventually get your ass out of the DN.

Concentration to ease its symptoms today.

Can I do both? 30 minutes concentration and 30 minutes insight every day?

Sure! Anything between 100% concentration and 100% insight, depending on your goals and what you think you need the most. If you do both, concentration first is generally the better idea. Even within the same sit: you could do X minutes of concentration, and then Y minutes of insight.

Great, thanks for your help!