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Thank you. Getting to The Deep made a big difference, but it took around 30 days before I got there. My wife was remarkably cool about it, but of course, if y

Thank you. Getting to The Deep made a big difference, but it took around 30 days before I got there. My wife was remarkably cool about it, but of course, if you read the end of the article, you can see that I didn't quite make it all the way. =) What she didn't like so much, was that between 6-7pm I was not available to help out with making dinner.

vidarh 13y ago
"The Deep" sounds to me like the first or second Jhana from your description. But note that there are also a number of blissfull states that are generally seen as you being "sidetracked". If your goal is the bliss, then that is of course fine. If your goal is continuing to deeper meditation states, it is not a given that focusing on re-entering that state is a good idea. As for your "forehead catching fire" that sounds like it could be related to concept of the acquired sign or counter sign (basically "images", though they need not be visual, that come to signal certain mental states), though for it to persist outside of meditation sounds odd.
- duncancarroll 13y ago
  The bliss seemed like a side-effect; it was nice but I wasn't trying to elicit it as much as it was generated by the calm. Yeah, the forehead-flame was/is really bizarre. I did some Google searches for it and didn't find much of anything that didn't seem like pseudo-science (look up "Ajna chakra" and you'll see what I mean...) It's always hard to convey to people that it was very different from a mental image / thought / feeling in that it actually feels tactile, in the same way that if you had a rock in your shoe, you wouldn't confuse it for anything else--I just don't know what this "rock" is made of; it could certainly be a creation of my mind, but it doesn't present itself that way. It's easy to ignore, so I ignore it.
  - Estragon 13y ago
    In certain forms of Theravadin practice, the bliss is the "engine" which motivates the concentration on the target object. Fostering the bliss does tend to make it much easier to settle down, particularly when the mind is disturbed. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/painhelp.html http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/painhe...

vidarh 13y ago

"The Deep" sounds to me like the first or second Jhana from your description. But note that there are also a number of blissfull states that are generally seen as you being "sidetracked". If your goal is the bliss, then that is of course fine. If your goal is continuing to deeper meditation states, it is not a given that focusing on re-entering that state is a good idea. As for your "forehead catching fire" that sounds like it could be related to concept of the acquired sign or counter sign (basically "images", though they need not be visual, that come to signal certain mental states), though for it to persist outside of meditation sounds odd.

duncancarroll 13y ago
The bliss seemed like a side-effect; it was nice but I wasn't trying to elicit it as much as it was generated by the calm. Yeah, the forehead-flame was/is really bizarre. I did some Google searches for it and didn't find much of anything that didn't seem like pseudo-science (look up "Ajna chakra" and you'll see what I mean...) It's always hard to convey to people that it was very different from a mental image / thought / feeling in that it actually feels tactile, in the same way that if you had a rock in your shoe, you wouldn't confuse it for anything else--I just don't know what this "rock" is made of; it could certainly be a creation of my mind, but it doesn't present itself that way. It's easy to ignore, so I ignore it.
- Estragon 13y ago
  In certain forms of Theravadin practice, the bliss is the "engine" which motivates the concentration on the target object. Fostering the bliss does tend to make it much easier to settle down, particularly when the mind is disturbed. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/painhelp.html http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/painhe...