r/TheMindIlluminated • u/Substantial-Fuel-545 • 11d ago
Everything disappears 3-5 times a second
Just this morning I wrote a post about a weird existential feeling.
Didn’t even have the time to thank the commentators and truly understand their comments when this happened.
Just after I wrote the post i sat down to meditate, (average sit is stage 5-6)
In this sit I got access concentration, with weird bodily feeling of expansion and a nice joy.
Subtle dullness was gone, so I tried my best to intend to recognize subtle distractions.
Then I got interested in the fact that whenever the breath hits my mind, in that very moment of consciousness everything else except the breath stops existing.
When i feel the breath, in that moment, I ONLY have the breath. Everything else is gone.
But do I really have the breath? Is it really there?
This was in AC at minute 50.
When I saw 10 or 15 times how everything around the breath ceases, everything INCLUDING the breath started disappearing 3 to 5 times a second.
already knew about this phenomenon, thanks to Shinzen Young.
There was no darkness in between arising, there was just this blipping of everything.
I got scared cause I thought I was about to have a cessation and I didn’t feel ready. Anxiety started arising.
I tried my best to have faith and keep witnessing the breath, but the timer went off and I got back to work thinking “maybe next time”
When I got up I was in a dizzy - I’d say - yet calm and happy state.
Am I deluding myself or was that what Shinzen talks about?
Is that what people call the a&p? I heard Culadasa say that A&P is equivalent to stage 6.
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u/StoneBuddhaDancing 11d ago
This is discussed further on in the book in stage 7 under the heading “close following”. Read the whole section and you’ll see the descriptions of the way the perception of the breath shifts.
Do yourself a favour and read the whole book through at least once so you’ll recognise things when they happen. When you set off on a journey it is wise to look at the entire map.