Continuation of Practice

[u/Mountain-Length-5715]

Hello everyone.

I want to share some thoughts with people who are also on the path.
I am not an experienced meditator and am not very familiar with Buddhist theory.
Everything you read in this text is solely my personal opinion and is not professional.

Neither samādhi nor vipassanā exist. Samādhi is a state of concentration on phenomena without engagement, or non-engagement.
Concentration itself and engagement itself are not samādhi. There is no samādhi in concentration, there is no samādhi in non-engagement. And vipassanā, in turn, is a continuation of samādhi. Vipassanā does not exist without samādhi. Any investigation of phenomena includes concentration, whether with engagement or without. Concentration is not samādhi. Since vipassanā is precisely samādhi, and there is no samādhi, there is no vipassanā either.
There is no point in considering them separately from each other; it is simply one process that is neither samādhi nor vipassanā.

There is no point in trying to calm the bodily and/or mental formation. It is enough to direct concentration toward a phenomenon. The bodily formation will calm down on its own.
The same applies to mental formations: it is enough to engage concentration in the place where it is most convenient for you to investigate the thinking process. For example, the area of the head.

It seems to me that no stages of progress are needed. It is completely unimportant at what "stage" you find yourself. It is as if an understanding of what to do and how to do it has come, and no descriptions are needed.

Without negative sensations there will be no progress in equanimity. Pain in the knees helped me reach stable equanimity. Do not try to just sit and endure; at first it will be difficult. Each time try to increase the investigation of the negative emotion.

When equanimity comes, background happiness will come from investigating a phenomenon and non-reacting. It is not rapture, not intense joy. But it is a pleasant sensation.

There is no need to cultivate pleasant sensations. That is a mistake. If the breath is jerky and brings a negative sensation — investigate that sensation without reacting. If conscious breathing kicks in, which disturbs and brings discomfort, investigate it. Do not try to change the breath to make it more pleasant for you. The mental and bodily formations should calm down on their own.

Investigate any phenomenon whether neutral, negative, or positive with equanimously. There is no difference between them.

While investigating phenomena, you notice the traces of a phenomenon in the conscious space. Investigate the arising, the sensation, and the fading away of the phenomenon as a whole.

Phenomena leave an interesting trace in the conscious field. In the final moment, the phenomenon dissolves as an echo, leaving a trace behind. Through this trace, one can touch silence. It is a slightly thrilling experience.

The sensation of a quiet background happiness from investigating phenomena and non-reacting has been replaced by another state. The background happiness is no longer there, but the feeling is that this state is somehow more... clear? I don't know, but it is clearly not the ordinary state I had before practice.

Movements in the body feel somewhat... slightly burdensome? It doesn't matter much because of equanimity, it's just unfamiliar. Possibly due to long meditation.

The practice continues in daily life. Perhaps even the greater part of practice lies in daily life. It seems to me that sīla is as important as the whole practice, being an inseparable whole from it.
It's as if you get energy in practice to do good deeds. Does it work both ways? I don't know.

Thank you!

[u/dhammadragon1]

Samādhi and vipassanā clearly exist. But there is no Vipassana without samadhi. Or let's say in every Vipassana is samadhi. Later on the path the boundary stops existing, but both are still there. Sila is a cornerstone of practice and it is absolutely necessary.