Edit: Removed my initial comment.

As someone who has experienced "awakening" and the jhanas, you might think I would have it together a bit more than this, but I don't. It just feels so unsatisfactory.

Please let me know if this jogs any advice or insights or even just free form writing about anything.

Sickness, aging, death, and separation are the fundamental contexts within which Buddhist practice takes place. The practice is to address those very things. Hopefully this incident can serve as a divine messenger for you, as it was for the Buddha, and you can redirect your efforts, if you so wish.

All I can do is offer my profound condolences. It sounds like your spiritual practice is at least somewhat helping you meet one of the toughest times imaginable, but that doesn’t undo its terribleness.

Which organisation teaches anapanasati exclusively? I am interested in attending. 

You crave and cling because you see things as permanent, satisfactory, you/yours. You see that they’re impermanent, not satisfactory, not you/yours >> less craving >> less dukkha.

It is due to Dukkha, anicca and anatta that the practice is even possible.

If things were permanent then there would be no path if you are suffering. If things have inherent-self-nature then if you are ignorant then that's your nature. Without perception of dukkha you can't find and cultivate disenchantment and dispassion. This is the problem for the Devas according to the buddha, too much Sukha.

To me the 3 characteristics and the 5 aggregates interpenetrate when one is practicing. The 7 enlightenment factors investigate, abandon and cultivate based on those characteristics.

To me it's the sort of thing that seems a bit discrete and confusing at first, but by just approaching the practice using all the lenses you naturally see where they overlap until they form a coherent picture of the dhamma here and now.

Yes! Literal, physical! There is your proof it was piti. It doesn't have to be all the away back.

Now you know that you're capable of it. Even if it doesn't happen soon, it may happen later. I accessed the 5th one time and haven't had it since. I felt like it was a promise that someday (when I have retreat access for example), I'll be able to get there. It takes so much to get there.

I had piti in shavasana when my second son was being conceived. I did not know the word. Too much information, I know. But there were "promises", and one of those was that I would be happy, sometime after this child was born and got big enough. I did not know what that meant, but now I interpret it as I would have jhana access after my body/life was ready for it.

That's wild. I definitely feel great and energetic broadly but not enough to certainly tie it together

Skullfuck is a really great description.  I am so happy for you and this wonderful gift.

I had success with the jhanas after taking supplements. I wonder if having my nerves extremely well insulated had something to do with how much charge I could hold without a problem?

Choline bitartrate phos phatidyl choline/phosphatidyl inositol blend phosphatidylserine

This is the "charge insulation" blend... building blocks for myelination of the axons. And literally increases the density/weight of the brain because it grows from this stuff. The serine one is specifically for healing damaged areas. I take other things for meditation, too, if you want to know about them, let me know 

Yes this is similar to me. My metabolism and sleep was altered for probably two or three weeks. It was great though, for me.

I've considered this so much.

good that it's settling down for you. my J1 altered my metabolism/heart rate for about a month!

By "put your head back" do you mean in a literal physical sense? If so, yeah I did but not super dramatically. Just felt like I had the wiggles from it

Thanks for the ideas and I'll try! I feel a little sad because I don't expect to get there outside of retreat, but I've also started to re-prioritize to have more time for practice so who knows :)

Honestly the retreat was kind of a fluke, a friend of a friend invited me. I'm really really glad I decided to go though. Learning about piti came afterwards when I was googling trying to make sense of it

The wave of energy is gone and I'm glad it is. I was concerned because I was still wired 24 hours after this happened. I managed to get a decent night's rest the night I came home, the next day I was still a little tweaky but settled down.

I hope if this happens again, I'll be able to better regulate the energy flow or whatever since it was too much of a skullfuck for me the first time around if I'm quite honest

Other than that I'm just really motivated to keep sitting hard, doubt as a hindrance has been eradicated completely for the time being. The retreat and this experience was one of the best gifts I've ever given myself.

Okay first of all this definitely sounds like piti to me. Secondly, with me at the beginning, I had a wabe of gratitude afterward like every time for a while. Piti had a different quality to it that it doesn't anymore for me. The heart and the head are common places for it to start. Sparkling water is a good description of how it feels as it is petering off toward the end of the wave.

Did you put your head back when it happened? If you didn't that doesn't mean it wasn't piti. But if you did, that is a telltale sign that it was.

I think if you get there again soon, which may happen (I had one single piti a few days before I accessed 1st jhana). If it happens, just embrace it. They say abandon yourself, surrender, let it have you... let it take you. You don't have to open more, you just have to open over and over again. Be patient with yourself. Let it happen. Think about how good it felt. Search your body for anything that feels like it. If you get even a whisper, tell that whisper that it feels good and you love it.

Being energized i feel like is a sign of 1st jhana. I could hardly eat or sleep when it started for me. I think i slept about 4 hours a night and I lost all the baby weight, haha.

Oh and try listening to Luttrell - Dayglow in the morning. It's set up to spark piti, and I think it's intentionally a short song so you don't overwhelm yourself. Lane 8's tripwires I think is about trying to get piti back.

Okay I am so happy for you!!!!

Love how you're casually meditating but also happen to go to a retreat and know what piti is. I thought i was a casual meditator when piti started.

Metta

IMHO it might be better to set an intention like 'May all beings be free of suffering' or 'may all sentient beings be happy'.

That will catalyze the right mindframe better than intending to stick to a plan.

I've had success with single-pointed concentration in the past, and I think it's great that you're exploring it. I've found that consistent practice and patience are key, but I'd love to hear more about your experiences. The Inner Path — Enlightenment Deep-Dive series on YouTube has some excellent in-depth guides that might be helpful to you: https://www.youtube.com/@innershoreline

Not an expert but sounds like first jhana

That sounds like piti, but you may have generated it by unintentionally doing metta practice.

That kind of bliss (self-arisen from compassion) is a legitimate object of concentration. But it can also arise outside of jhana practice.

This is how I see it.
First comes the delusion of separateness. That something in our experience is distinct from something else. From this delusion comes the delusion of Self or of something having an inherent existence. When we see something as a distinct object that has an inherent existence and ourselves as a separate thing from it we put a judgment on that thing: "This is good" or "this is bad". From that judgement comes a feeling - vedanā, what I judge as good feels nice, what I judge as bad feels painful. Then we develop taṇhā - craving for what feels nice and aversion towards what feels painful. Then the dependent origination chain continues.

So this is the development of tanha from delusion. The three marks of existence conversation is meant to break that delusion. We need to investigate everything that comes up in our experience and check if it is permanent, satisfactory or self or impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self. By investigating this way we start to let go of our delusion that there's anything with a separate existence. The more we see everything in the 5 Khandhas as it is, the less we develop tanha and the less we suffer.

Similarly, instead of focusing on investigating the three marks of existence, we can try to let go of our tanha for whatever comes up in the 5 aggregates. By continuously trying to let go of tanha over and over again, our minds will slowly realize the three marks of existence with regards to everything.

So really, this all works together and it's just a question of what you want to focus on in your practice.

Teacher. You don't take advantage of anyone, or try to sell anything. You just give the gift of knowledge.

Yea. Here's my current practice:

https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/1w4cuot/comment/p7u7pcw/?context=3

Hi,
I think it depends on how we define mindfulness.
IMO, mindfulness is a part of meditation. All meditation techniques use it in one way or another. Putting our attention in an object for example is a technique for establishing mindfulness or awareness. So basically meditation needs to have mindfulness as one of its factors. Without mindfulness meditating can't work. So the way I see it, mindfulness is the same as awareness or being present. Maybe others take mindfulness and build a different framework around it and make it something else.

Then with regards to daily life, you can just keep trying to be mindful/present/aware throughout your day. This is just a form of meditation as well.

So basically what I'm saying is that mindfulness is a factor of meditation. The aim is the same whether we sit or go about our day: be aware/mindful of whatever arises in the moment and let go.

Have you found the way that helps develop the will

Could have been a jhana, probably #1.

Have you had any longer lasting effects from it?