Seeking Guidance on My meditation journey – Identifying My Stage and Next Steps

[u/nitinku5021a]

Hello fellow meditators,

I recently completed my fifth 10-day Vipassana shivir (S. N. Goenka), and I wanted to share my experiences in detail to seek insights from more experienced meditators about what stage I might be at and what to expect next.

Before attending the retreat, for last 7-8 months, I was taking help from TMI (The Mind Illuminated). This helped me understand many nuances of meditation practice, and I believe it played a role in shaping my experience.

My Experiences During This Retreat:

1. Strong Initial Concentration & Fluid-Like Sensation

For the first three days, I experienced deep access concentration lasting about 15 minutes at a stretch. During this, I had a sensation where my body felt fluid, insubstantial, like a shadow in clear water or a reflection in the air. There was no solidity, just a pleasant, light feeling.

2. Intense Dreams & Emotional Exposure

During the first three days, I had vivid dreams where I was a completely different person in each one. Each dream exposed either a strong aversion or a strong craving (extreme emotional responses). After each of these dreams, I experienced nirjala (a deep emotional release, almost like crying out due to the event, followed by a feeling of lightness), but I was unable to recall most of the dreams except for some key moments. I suspect these were deeply rooted Sankharas surfacing, potentially even from past lives.

3. Increased Mind-Wandering & Gross Pain After Day 4

After the fourth day, I noticed that my access concentration weakened, and my mind-wandering increased significantly. I was always alert (never dull or sleepy), but focus became difficult. Around this time, I also started experiencing gross pain in different parts of the body—which I assume were deeper layers of conditioning being released.

4. No Attachment to Pleasant or Unpleasant States

Despite the challenges, I was able to observe the experiences with strong equanimity, neither chasing nor resisting them. However, I’m curious whether the changes I observed in my mind state were signs of deeper purification or a temporary regression.

My Questions for Experienced Practitioners:

1. What stage of Vipassana practice does my experience indicate? Are these symptoms of deeper purification, or am I simply losing momentum in concentration?
2. What should I expect in the coming retreats and daily practice? Will I experience subtler sensations, stronger dissolution, or more Sankharas surfacing?
3. Should I be doing anything differently? For example, should I put extra effort into concentration practice (Samadhi) to regain strong access concentration, or just continue observing without preference?
4. Are the psychic-like experiences (fluidity, dream shifts, subtle awareness) distractions or natural progressions? I don’t want to get attached, but I also don’t want to ignore legitimate signposts.

Any insights, shared experiences, or guidance would be deeply appreciated! 🙏

Edit: Adding details about my practice.

I follow a straightforward path of Śīla → Samādhi → Prajñā. During my sittings, I begin by observing my breath to establish a good level of access concentration before transitioning into body scanning. While observing sensations, I maintain equanimity and strive not to react. My Samatha practice is still a work in progress, but I am steadily improving. At times, I do react, only to realize afterward that I shouldn't have.

I've been practicing for the past nine years. I started with Vipassana, explored various other methods, and found TMI (The Mind Illuminated) helpful, but Vipassana remains my core practice. I incorporate insights from other techniques to deepen my understanding of it.

Over the past year, I struggled with subtle dullness. Though it hasn't completely disappeared, I was surprised to find that during my recent 10-day Shivir, the dullness didn’t arise even once.

[u/Former-Opening-764]

Thank you for sharing your experience!

Considering that you have been practicing for a long time, and how little information you have written specifically about what is happening in your practice, in terms of the technique you work with and the difficulties you encounter. I would recommend that you consult with a competent teacher you trust. So that he can analyze your practice in detail and help you figure out at what stage you are and what to do next.

An alternative to a teacher can be a well-structured framework(for example TMI, MIDL) that clearly describes the specific skills you are working on at each stage, and accordingly you can clearly imagine the degree of progress and the current task you are working on.

In any case, I would concentrate more on the technical side of the practice, in terms of attention/awareness skills, rather than experiences and expectations. Otherwise, there is a high risk that you can get stuck in the same states for months or years.

In the post you ask quite extensive and general questions about your practice, no one here can answer them. Because there are no simple answers to these questions. To answer them, one must be deeply immersed in your life and your practice. This can be done by a teacher who constantly teaches you or you can do it yourself.

[u/nitinku5021a → u/Former-Opening-764]

Thank you for your response. You're absolutely right—without sharing details about my practice, it would be difficult to provide an accurate answer. I've now added the necessary details to the post.

[u/Former-Opening-764 → u/nitinku5021a]

Nine years is a lot of experience, I'm not sure I can be useful to you.

I can only react to what you write.

 While observing sensations, I maintain equanimity and strive not to react... At times, I do react, only to realize afterward that I shouldn't have.

This is a rather controversial part. The main difficulty is that terms only make sense within a certain framework. For example, equanimity is usually understood as a result of practice and not as something that we actively do. You use terms from different frameworks mixed with simple words. But at the same time you don't describe in details what is happening in your practice, moment by moment.

Literally, what is your attention on, what specific sensations do you observe (what is in the focus of your attention), what is in your awareness (what do you notice besides the main object, background sounds, the whole body, only the part of the body within which you track sensations, etc.). What happens next, what arises, in relation to which you use the phrase "strive not to react". What happens, sound, thought, dulness and vagueness of sensations, some kind of distractions, and then you switch your attention, do you lose the main object or not, maybe forgetting, or there are strong energy flows in the body in the background of the main object, or previously blocked emotional things emerge, and you lose the object, and then remember the main object. What exactly happens?

Because depending on the type of distractions there are certain actions to overcome this according to the framework or set of instructions that you follow.

If this is emotional stuff, there are different approaches for this.

If these are strong piti, then this is a different situation.

You may also find this video useful.