Hello everyone, my name is Justin.
I've been a lay practitioner of Theravada buddhism and have mostly just read a lot of the Pali and practiced meditation on and off for 16 years. I've only recently made my meditation practice a primary daily priority and have noticed a life-changing current towards the Dhamma in every moment of consciousness. I no longer seem as easily swayed by the endless nama and rupa that appear in front of the citta. Major tendencies towards depression and obsession have been eroding as vipassana shows the conditions for these mental states arising, persisting as long as their kamma permits as it's independent of your knowing, and then fading away. I've been taking this awareness into daily life and naming the forms as they rise in the mind, watching their qualities of anicca and anatta, and it dispassions me from the situations in a way that's equanimous instead of being swayed by the current of the forms this way and that way.
With that in mind, with more practice I have been having more results. In sitting meditation the other night I was watching the breath in anapanasati and the frequency of forms rising to interrupt the attention were slowed and calmed. The breath became fine to the point of it disappearing. There was nothing left but a mild feeling of calm that I shifted my focus to as it's the only thing left around. It then felt like my entire body (and the entire universe around me!) violently exploded into a million particles and got shot to the left of wherever I was sitting. It scared me so intensely that my eyes shot open. My mindfulness was more still than in normal operation and everything was quiet and slow. I felt mildly energized but not wired or restless. I was mostly just freaked out!
I'm hesitant to call this experience something like samadhi because it lacks the factors that are described when I recollect this; I may have been absorbed into something, but whatever it was lacked piti and sukha it seemed like. Anyone have experience with this sort of short-circuit experience in their meditation? How should one proceed if they are aiming for a skillful practice?
