Extract from Meditation Musings, my meditation journal.
Was looking at the Dharma Overground when the thought occurred to me to me that i felt soft and relaxed and i wondered if it was because i had taken a twenty four hour break in my normal 4 hour per day meditation regime. Kept on thinking vaguely about sitting, finally it came 4:30am and i decided to sit. Set the cushion on high for the tailor's position and assumed my seat ... Now i just knew that there would be a pressure spot on top of my left foot that would cause me to change positions late in the hour as it had in the past, so i stopped the bells and set my cushion flat and smooth, restarted the bells and assumed the half lotus, chumping up and down until i got the right spot for my high leg. Then sat.
Very quickly, as has happened once quite a while back, i was into the "Beautiful Breath" .... Well before the first bell, so i would say 7 to 10 minutes into my sit i was in a place of delicious concentration very easy to be in, and any time it felt, or was under attack it was just a matter of going back to the breath and resharpening the thing ... so all in all a nice place to be and easy to maintain. Not aware of time until the last ten minutes, but prior to that it was a place of great contentment and i felt a SOLID AS A ROCK or that was the image i felt in my mind ... this feels soooo tight. Then i had this rush (well more slow motion than rush) of feeling, of static coming up my right arm and back towards my head and unfortunately i thought "What the ***** was that and as soon as i thought the thought the feeling and static were gone ... Evaporated without trace. Don't know if that was a sign of a nimitta. Later on i had the familiar feeling of pin and needles in my hands, which i had started to think might be where my nimitta might show itself, as i've had them for a long time in general sitting - unconcentrated.
Access concentration... After listening to a Dharma talk by Leigh Brasington called instructions for Jhana 1 ... i maybe think that what i had was most likely a very pleasant 50 minutes of access concentration. It was so hard to leave, the only reason that i finished at the 1 hour mark was so as to enjoy my achievement with myself. Silly reason i know but go figure.
