Dharma Treasure Community

Hi Vasil,

Just want you to know that what you’re experiencing, although not exactly common, does sometimes occur as a result of meditation practice. I’m saying this to try to help normalize your experience a bit =)

I’ve had lots of intense piti/kundalini type experiences myself as a result of the different practices I’ve done over the years, so…[Read more]

Hi Boris,

There’s a couple of things you can try:

1) Use the pleasant sensations (or the sense of pleasantness) as your exclusive object of attention to enter the 1st pleasure jhana, then proceed as usual to the 2nd, 3rd, etc.

2) When in stage 10, take the sense of equanimity as your exclusive object of attention and use it to enter the fourth…[Read more]

Hi Andreu,

You’re most welcome. I’m glad you found the tips helpful and that you have a clear direction for your practice =)

Cheers,

Nick

Stage 5 practice has two main goals:

1) to learn to identify stable subtle dullness and counteract the tendency to slip deeper into it
2) to increase the total conscious power of the mind, or to put it another way, to increase sensitivity without sacrificing (or, ideally, while increasing) the power of awareness

Although piti can temporarily…[Read more]

Hi Andreu,

The description you gave of your experience of piti in the early stages is very similar to my own.

One of the things about piti is that it’s very compelling, and so attention is naturally drawn to it. At the same time, bringing attention to the piti tends to increase its intensity, so it’s easy to get into a cycle of ‘piti inten…[Read more]

Hi Olov,

I can take a stab at answering your questions based on my experience with having done a lot of Daniel Ingram-inspired Mahasi-style dry insight practice prior to becoming a student of Culadasa =)

I attained the first two paths (confirmed by both Ingram and Culadasa) using Ingram’s approach.

After 2nd path, I’ve been pretty much exc…[Read more]

Hi Joey,

From your description of what you notice during your practice, it does sound like Stage 7/8. Here’s a little experiment you can do to help confirm that for yourself:

Start meditating, and after you’ve “settled in” to the practice, have the intention for attention to remain on the sensations of the breath at the nostrils. Observe…[Read more]

Hi Joey,

Welcome to the Dharma Treasure Community Forum.

I’ll do my best to answer your questions based on my experience with both Mahasi-style noting practice and Culadasa’s 10 Stage samatha/vipassana system.

Full disclosure: I’m a big fan of both methods =)

I started out with noting practice and found it to be very effective, but after a whi…[Read more]