Ben V.:
Have you read MTCB (or MTCB2)? You seem to be in the territory of second nana (seeing cause and effect). It can be a frustrating nana. When you see that the "struggle is preventing you meditating", and that you "notice breathing in a certain way to make the felt sensations more available and stronger", that's noticing causal relationships in your mind and body.
What really helped me in this stage was the realization that the mind-control (e.g. over the breath) and the "sense of struggling" are just more objects/experiences to observe/note, with no more or less value than the breath sensations.
Going from gross to subtle experiences will happen mostly on its own as you continue practicing, IMO.
Some of your other experiences (expanded energatic awareness, trance states, spontaneous movements) may actually be other nanas but I'm not sure. I'll let some of the more experienced one's comment on that one. But whatever it is, the name of the game is knowing each experience without grasping/identification.
All the best with your practice.
That's gold and you seem to be spot on. It maks total sense; the cause-and-effect is somehow imprinted onto me as a more fundamental process, but reading that these are obstacles on the path puts it into perspective and allows me to, at least mentally, see that my hindrance was just clinging. Stuck in cause and effect.
Heh. Thank you.
On a side note; I have been much more aware of the body-mind connection in daily life the last month or so.. Noticing how its all in flux, you could say, and also becoming more energetically aware.