Responses to "Access Concentration"

This is a place for questions and comments about "Access Concentration."

AugustLeo is working on some very fun and educational animated graphics to help illustrate the points made here and we'll post them soon.

A big thank you to the yogi who came up with the car window analogy. (I've forgotten who said this, so please step forward and accept your accolades!)

Kenneth

I like the car window analogy. It perfectly described my experience. For some years I go to this state in my meditation, but don't know what to do next. So I usually just go to bed. Only recently I can launch to jhanna lands from there, even though I can't articulate what I do differently. Perhaps just the intention on following a pleasant sensation lightly when I am in access concentration.

I recognize a few of these as signs of access concentration, especially the ringing ears, the feeling of sounds being muted, and way the ears feel when the pressure changes in an airplane. This new car window analogy is also quite fitting if I think of my experiences.

The problem, as you mentioned Kenneth, is making a big deal of getting to this stage. I did just this, and it set me back in the process. Once I realized that the quality of my concentration had changed when these markers appeared, I started to look for them and anticipate them. There's that "looking for" vs. "looking at" theme again! "Looking for" is, for me at least, counterproductive!

Metta,

Tina