04-10-2007, 05:51 PM
I remember when I went for an extended meditation retreat (well before my CC days) and I started experiencing different sorts of consciousness shifts -- the first 2 or 3 days it was an "undesirable" shift into sleepiness and sleep -- later it was a shift into what I now think I know as the 2nd attention (or a quasi-second-attention because what do I really know?).
At any rate, it's the SHIFT of consciousness that was (and is) so STARTLING that it calls attention to itself thus derailing the actual new state. At that retreat I found I had to go through that shift a BUNCH of times before I could face it with sobriety. (And, true to tell, the supposed undesirable shifts into sleepiness actually counted as EXPERIENCE with shifts and helped inure me too, in the end.)
Sobriety through the change in consciousness is de rigueur.
At any rate, it's the SHIFT of consciousness that was (and is) so STARTLING that it calls attention to itself thus derailing the actual new state. At that retreat I found I had to go through that shift a BUNCH of times before I could face it with sobriety. (And, true to tell, the supposed undesirable shifts into sleepiness actually counted as EXPERIENCE with shifts and helped inure me too, in the end.)
Sobriety through the change in consciousness is de rigueur.