https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/101959
Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum
hi everyone,
i started this thread because i want to get a feel of how impermanence is perceived via the visual field. since there are a lot experienced and advanced practitioners here, maybe a few of you could describe your experience of impermanence in the "sight space" no matter how fleeting.
to get an idea of what i'm talking about here's a link to Shinzen Young's description of impermanence via the visual field in one of his retreats. ~http://bit.ly/31ionE (mp3)
check it out and feel free to riff on it and compare it with your experience.
in my case, i find it difficult to detect impermanence visually, at least for now. the easiest way for me to experience the micro-level of impermanence is via somatic feel (bodily sensations). i don't always experience this during meditation, but whenever i do i feel that my whole body is tingling, shifting, expanding, contracting, vibrating, and flowing like a seaweed under water. overall, it's a pleasant experience. i usually experience this during lying down meditation when my body is fully relaxed. however, as of now, i have yet to perceive impermanence in my visual field. maybe because i don't do kasina practice
in the meantime, i'd like to hear from those who are already experienced in perceiving impermanence through vision. what's it like? how does it impact your day to day life? can you perceive it at will or does it just comes and goes? maybe i could pick up some pointers and apply it to my practice.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/-/message_boards/message/5807824
It's my first post here, welcome everybody.
Little background, I've been doing vipassana for few months on and off, max 20 minutes a day. A month ago I discovered concentration meditation and have commited to become good at it. I started doing 30 min. sessions daily, now I'm up to 60 minutes per average.
My concentration is very good and I just don't get distracted, if a thought happens I simply notice it and continue watching my breath.
Few questions:
1) Every time I meditate now, after few minutes my visual field slowly turns purple. First it's like a little purple disk, but when I focus on it it tends to get bigger, eventually my whole visual field turns purple. Any thought on what that is and what that means? When I first got it (like 3 weeks ago) I though that I'm entering 1st Jhana and felt amazing, but as time passes I feel that this euphoria was self generated, not something linked directly to this experience. Just an idea of getting better that made me feel good.
I don't think that it's mind-generated state, because I don't cling to it anymore and it still happens every time. Then throughout my session this effect goes away and then comes back again.
2) Last 2 days I decided to meditate for 2 hours to see what happens, I was able to access pretty remarkable state but I'm not sure what it was in terms of Jhanas. After about an hour my concentration was extremely strong and one-pointed so I decided to expand my focus from breath to breath + visual + sounds + my whole body awareness. I was able to do this with no problem. I felt good, content, not really euphoric. No thoughts. My breaths were basically: in breath, slowly out, about 5 seconds break, then repeat. I felt like I could meditate forever.
From what I've read this description looks a lot like 3-4 Jhana (correct me if I'm wrong) but if that is to be the case then at some point there should be the second Jhana along the way, characterized by intense joy. The problem is that no such thing happened. So it makes me wonder what it was and I would like to get some ideas from you, more experienced meditators.
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I looked this up as after a year and a half meditating where I can' t really stop all thoughts but mainly concentrate on bodily sensations, i.e. developing more and more intense energy flow throughout my body, something upon which I focus in yoga, tai chi and daily life anyway, that today I focused more on my visual field whic I noticed could be all blue, then it goes away to being very bright and after a while returns to blue and at the end tends to purple. I think this is a good practice. Just focusing on body energy flow means focusing on feelings. If this iis mature enough I might get away from that to the energy phenomenon itself, being light processing through brain and body, and thereby its control and the control of emotions or the dispassive observation of such. I imagine going to different areas of focus is good for growth, learning.
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