So I'm back.

For the past year, I've been practicing mostly breath-focused concentration meditation practices. I noticed toward the end of last year (following the events narrated here: Prior Thread), that I was entering more frequently and more readily a state that for a while I thought of as the energy-vibrational/kundalini energy experience that would sometimes arise during the A&P. But as time went by, I started to experience the shift even when I wasn't meditating, holding it from just a few moments to a minute or two at a time.

Now, several months later than that, I can move "into" it essentially at will -- whether meditating, or driving, or having a conversation with someone. The only time I haven't been able to access it intentionally is during sex. (I was curious, because it feels a bit like the energy liberation of orgasm, but without the nuances and details of it.)

So the question is this: is this experience/state just something weird that my nervous system does, or is it something I can work with? If the latter, suggestions about approaches of how to work with it would be appreciated.

FWIW, I've got a weekend concentration retreat coming up in November and a five day vipassana retreat coming in December, if some of the ways to work with this entail more extended practice than my daily sitting (typically 35-50 minutes).

Thanks in advance.

sean

Hi sean,

I read through your prior thread to get up to speed with where you are coming from. From my perspective (and it is not necessarily the perspective of others here who are into Daniel's impressions from his book MCTB; although I do find his comments on meditation technology in the book useful and helpful for others who are unfamiliar with his take) you may have fallen into a quite natural ditch (meaning one easy to fall into) which has the potential to lead you on another wild goose chase if you should choose to follow it.

The mention of Adyashanti is what tipped this off to me. I'm not familiar with what you are referring to as being what Jack Kornfield has mentioned about "initial awakening experiences," but I am familiar with Adyashanti's website (reflecting the writings of Wei Wu Wei aka Terrence Gray, Nisargadatta and the rest of the Advaita non-dualist tradition), which reflect this non-dual type of so-called awakening that people from various religious traditions experience. While these experiences are fun and intriguing, they do not fully reflect the early Buddhist conception of awakening, if that is what one is after. If, however, you are after confirmation of this "non-dual" type of awakening, I'm sure there are plenty here who will help to confirm that for you. I'm not sure, though, whether or not this might comprise stream entry from the early Buddhist point of view. The experience of "not-self" that you described, though, is definitely part of stream entry in early Buddhism..

Yet, on the other hand, should you have an interest in alleviating dukkha (unsatisfactoriness) from your life, you might want to pay some heed to the following essay Dhamma and Non-duality by Bhikkhu Bodhi, where he points out that "non-dualistic spiritual traditions are far from consistent with each other, but comprise, rather, a wide variety of views profoundly different and inevitably colored by the broader conceptual contours of the philosophies which encompass them." He goes on to state that:

[indent]"For the Vedanta, non-duality (advaita) means the absence of an ultimate distinction between the Atman, the innermost self, and Brahman, the divine reality, the underlying ground of the world. From the standpoint of the highest realization, only one ultimate reality exists — which is simultaneously Atman and Brahman — and the aim of the spiritual quest is to know that one's own true self, the Atman, is the timeless reality which is Being, Awareness, Bliss. Since all schools of Buddhism reject the idea of the Atman, none can accept the non-dualism of Vedanta."
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Rather than dealing with perceptual merry-go-round impression concepts such as kundalini, spinal energy, Chi (ki), and the like, don't you think, coming from the rather grounded background of an attorney, you would rather stick with concepts and phenomena that you can more readily identify from your own first hand experience? Like the sensation of concentration or samadhi (sometimes manifesting as a pressure experienced in the center of the forehead between the eye brows), which can "feel" as though it might be an energy moving in the body, but which actually isn't that at all. (I used to buy into all these "metaphysical" models myself at one time; that is, until I developed a more stringent ability at discernment.)

Anyway, just some food for further thought and consideration. Be well.

In peace,
Ian

Thanks for the thoughts. I understand your post to be that you read the experiences I've asked about as one or more sideline to the harder work of vipassana. On reflection I think that's likely right, though sometimes the condition seems to arise in vipassana itself -- typically in the process of raising the noting frequency to 3-5 things per second. I had shifted my practice to concentration after the prior opening experience that seemed to manifest a much strong concentration control than I'd had previously. So I thought that perhaps developing concentration would enable me to resume vipassana work with greater abilities than I had on the first path.

But even so, I recognize that I have been avoiding reinitiating committed vipassana practice in order to avoid dark nighting myself right now. But that seems to have failed, anyway, as I seem to be showing the basic signs: disillusionment with practice, getting stalled in vipassana, clear dreams of wandering around for a while before I realize where I am: in a prison, that sort of thing.

So I'll reemphasize vipassana for the next several months.