26th Feb, 2024
Just finished my formal sit, was working on cultivating jhana. The goal is to work up to the J4 and overcome knowledge obscuration, to remember past lives and recognise the emptiness of it.
The Sit
1 hour sit: Metta as the object tonight, and plan to continue to do so as I feel like it’s 2 birds one stone. To develop a stable loving-kindness towards all beings EQUALLY, and to develop jhana. Followed Delson Armstrong’s instruction.
Brought up “may you be well, may you be joyful, may you be at peace and be free from pain and suffering” mantra, no distractions whatsoever (prob 15 mins in). Experienced abit of sloth before hand, but slight adjustment of posture helped with that. Then felt extreme pleasure/piti, abit too much perhaps, the “Buddha-smile” was twitching and the energy felt imbalanced and chaotic (like water overfilling a cup), felt like the body and mind was gone (pure “energy” left) reality was twisting diagonally and I felt like experience was floating and distorting (in the back of my mind I wondered if it was going into j3) but it couldn’t have been as there was ecstasy permeating. So I took a deep breath and suddenly it was quiet, but there’s a sense of fulfillment/contentment I’m not sure if it’s a jhanic state; had no thoughts whatsoever but experience was unstable. So I backed out of it and started the mantra again, I later gave up as there was residual energy. Tonight throughout the sit (samadhi portion) i had trouble feeling the metta in the body (I prob confused ecstasy w metta in hindsight).
After giving up on the jhana (40 mins in). I decided to use the residual concentration for insight practice. Started off by relaxing attention into the whole field of experience with mindfulness and alertness, contemplated 2 stanzas of Anatta (from ATR), all was clear and stable. Then moved onto contemplating “hereness” and “nowness”. Even in daily activities I have no sense of time or space; but I progressed onto contemplating the existence of phenomena. Felt into all sensations, and there was an illusion-like quality that was more immediate than immediate, a feeling that nothing is really happening yet just vivid appearances void of inherent existence.
Now I’m going to work on Nargajuna’s MMK after finish writing this.
The experience today
Oh I should note, there was around 1 hour when the “self-tendencies” came in today. Felt quite contracted but yet it did not really affect the sense of equanimity. I realised I was reifying “emptiness”, forcefully fabricating a sense of safety with the inherent view - vivid appearance void of inherent existence, so I’ll work on that later on. Also realised that I was reifying “realisation”, which is funny because no one realised anything. But will keep emptying those views.
On a less technical note, I noticed that I have not opened fearlessly to all experience yet as I was still “reifying” emptiness and realisation as a ground of safety. Even though it didn’t feel like it reified anything, for the sake of all beings and “this character”, aggregates will be emptied further to create “more aestheticism” in “experience”.
Will bear in mind to inquire into what I’m experiencing in “body/mind” when tendencies arise.