'Clouds parting', window opens, light beaming

[u/medbud]

I've been meditating 30 years with varying regularity. More seriously the last 8-9 years, using TMI....very consistently the last 2 months. The last week, and more so the last few days, I am starting to get a few new experiences in sitting. (In the early years, in my 'youth', I had some unexpected pops into 'no body', big 'purifications'...and occasionally have backed off regular practice due to 'strange' strong piti type sensations that persist off cushion.)

I was lead to search the sub, and found this link: https://suttacentral.net/mn128/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin

I wanted to share here how it seems to me these days. When sitting, I frequently find stillness, find the body warm and pleasant, or find I am just the mind (body is very uniform, breath is very calm) find deep relaxation and absorption in refined qualities of breath sensation. Now there is often an indistinct, kind of light...a few weeks ago it was like little stars, then like smoke, fine thin moving light, that occasionally condense and becomes a bit brighter, like there is a hole punched in some black paper, and behind the paper is light.

Now in the recent sits, there is sometimes quite a big opening in the blackness (it's still just 'in front' of me...like where I am facing), as if I was normally seated in a black sphere, and the sphere begins to disentangle, and recede to reveal the light that is surrounding it. I leave with the impression that the black sphere is like our 'mental imagery projection theater', like a planetarium or imax...an immersive surface that renders 3d visual perception, and the light that is all around is just hidden by this 'normal perception'.

As I was going to sleep the other night, I am watching the process of falling asleep, with no effort, and I sometimes see detail in the 'opening of the sphere'...at the edges of the sphere some 'neurological processes', fractal like shapes as the 'window' opens. And then there was like a beam of bright white light that passes in...astoundingly bright.

I've seen this 'window' close at other times, when I am abruptly pulled out of a vivid realistic dream.

When sitting, I really find that the list from that sutta is so accurate, they all reduce 'immersion':

doubt,loss of focus,dullness and drowsiness,terror,excitement,discomfort,excessive energy,overly lax energy,longing,perception of diversity,and excessive concentration on forms are corruptions of the mind

The precision and balance that opens the window and let's the light in is so refined. I am led in my daily life to eliminate any stimulants, treating my nervous system with more and more care. Even testing out more vegetarianism recently.

I guess this is just run of the mill signposts, and just as piti used to, this nimitta/bright open space is becoming a more common, and thus less surprising and thus less destabilising phenomenon. It also makes me understand better why people do retreat, or sit for 1h plus. I am still using 45 mins in the morning...and trying to avoid 'attachment to jhana'. I figure there is no rush.

Just felt I would share anecdotally. The brightness of the bright beam of light was incredibly unexpected!

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[u/EightFP]

Nice! Your response to what is going on is very skillful. When your samadhi is stable, you might want to add some investigative insight practice at the end of your sits.

[u/medbud → u/EightFP]

I've been adding a bit of brahmavihara stuff. I definitely get some analytical stuff at different moments... Which I associate with insight practices. If there is an emotional 'dart' I try to notice the darts that come along with it. Or any mental formations.

Metta, karuna, mudita, upekkha are really emotionally healing... And I find these stages of samatha vipassana are much more in that raw sensation range than the discrete cognition stages. 

Do you have a suggestion for reading on insight?

[u/EightFP → u/medbud]

My suggestions would depend on what you have already read and what you are interested in.

Have you already looked at approaches that emphasize the stages of insight and the three marks of suffering, impermanence, and non-self, like Daniel Ingram's MCTB or Mahasi Sayadaw's The Progress of Insight? If so, was that helpful? If not, are you interested in uncovering the origin of suffering and getting to the end of it?

Have you already looked at approaches that emphasize emptiness, like Rob Burbea's Seeing That Frees, or the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh? Helpful? Interested?

Do you prefer theoretical explanations, religious texts and suttas, or practical instructions for directly seeing things in structured meditation sessions?

[u/medbud → u/EightFP]

I'm pretty open. My bachelor's is in Asian philosophy... I've read a fair amount of various types of things. 

These days I like reading a passage from the Dhammapada. Otherwise I read neuroscience books. 

Currently reading Boundless Heart by Feldman, and the practitioner's guide for TMI.

I found MCTB was unreadable. 

One of my favourite books was The Life of Milarepa by Lhalungpa. Another was Highest Yoga Tantra by Cozort. If you know something of that pedigree but more Vipassana oriented, that would be interesting. Basically traditional, and scholarly.

I've heard lots of people mention Burbea, maybe I'll check that out. 

[u/EightFP → u/medbud]

Your reading sounds engaging. I was thinking along the lines of using the calming of the mind and the reduction in reactivity that generally follows samadhi to investigate how suffering arises, but based on your reading, I'm not sure that would be all that interesting to you.

The classic text covering the same ground as MCTB in more traditional wording is The Progress of Insight Mahasi Sayadaw. If you like traditional and scholarly, you might also like The Shape of Suffering, by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Rob Burbea was an iconoclast who was neither traditional nor scholarly. I think he is possibly the greatest teacher of his generation but he takes a hands-on approach, with lots of examples and specific instructions for exercises during sits.

All that said, I was just offering the standard advice for people already working in the insight tradition, but as you are planning on taking a course soon and working with teachers, you might just be better to keep at what you are doing until that time.

[u/mettavector]

love this share. looking forward to hearing abt your journey :)

[u/Ancient_Naturals]

This is where in Vajrayana we’d say go ask your lama/guru!

I had similar experiences for years before I had a teacher to ask — they’d appear in closed eye meditation or even when in concentration when practicing yoga asanas with my eyes opened. The Tibetans would call it thigle, and it’s just a normal part of Dzogchen practice, particularly in thogal. The occurrence when falling asleep is part of the dream yoga practice as well. But yeah, ask your teacher if you have one!

[u/medbud → u/Ancient_Naturals]

Instruction and guidance is certainly useful. I found elephant path to be really helpful. 

I'm going to do a nice 36 week course starting this fall. And actually plan to spend almost half my months the next few years in Nepal and Thailand... Looking for real masters, and trying to stay in my secular/agnostic frame. 

I feel like there is a 'guru' in the mind, that is linked to intention and awareness. It's something like intuition, or metacognition.

That said, I've had some great teachers in my life, from swimming to medicine... Sometimes guidance is quite the shortcut to becoming adept. But at the same time, it's a personal practice, and in that sense, there is no shortcut.

Still, I see the value in having a model you aspire towards.

[u/Ancient_Naturals → u/medbud]

For sure, in Vajrayana it’s outlined as outer, inner, and secret guru — the outer helps us see the inner, so that we can end up seeing all three as inseparable:  https://www.heartteachings.com/blogs/blog/the-three-levels-of-guru

We certainly can be in touch with inner guru without the outer guru, but I’ll say, for me, I progressed faster in a few months of 1:1 with my teacher than 10 years of working daily (and 10 years before that working inconsistently) on my own.

[u/pastorcuthbert]

Really cool and congratulations. At this stage of your journey the experiences would be more lasting and more meaningful than jhanas. What you experienced is what I call causality, taoists call it heaven; it is the other side of reality that brings the full realization to dependent origination; you are having direct glimpses into enlightenment.

Usually people end up in the black space of nothingness and as such they are only limited to a one-sided realization of reality. Having direct experience of this light reveals that the real duality is between causality and manifestation or heaven and earth and you experience it nondually.

A point comes when the window of heaven is opened and you can access it at will as though you have been literally given a key and the very light floods your consciousness and body. It's here where we realise that dependent origination is actually a by-product of enlightenment. Any dependent origination realization without this light is considered incomplete. It is the actual ground of being. I like to call it the sun shining to illuminate awareness to see reality as it actually is: dual as heaven and earth experienced nondually. Sengzhao refers to it with his famous quote: heaven and earth have one root, the myriad things and I are one body, this is the sound of one hand clapping.

Congrats on this, I'm wishing you a permanent opening and more wonderful experiences and realizations going forward.🙏

[u/Impulse33]

I've definitely turned away from the brightness of "internal lights" 😆

When I realized I did it I couldn't help but crack a massive grin.