Nimittas

Patr

Anyone here have experience of the Nimittas during meditation.
Curious to know how many have reached the stage.......
What does your Nimitta look like?

kilesa

Dear Patr,

Nimittas are just like external states;
they are residues of the awareness interaction with the desire.

once one passes that, one enters into another state of concentration.

Patr

Huh.......

BhanteLucky

Patr said:

What does your Nimitta look like?

I've had nimittas on retreats, but never in daily meditation practice. Once on a 30 day retreat, and on four or five 10-day retreats.
They mostly took the classic form of lights.
Once the breath was replaced by a shining path of light, like the path the sun makes on still water. Really bright and beautiful. I changed the focus of my meditation from the breath (which had disappeared) to the light, and that was that. After 5 minutes it faded, the breath sensation returned, and I went back to focusing on the breath.
When I told the monk who was teaching the retreat, he shrugged and said "That's fine, continue as before."

The other nimittas I have had is a lovely broad glow of light, with a brighter centre, as you'd get from closing your eyes and turning your face to the sun. But the breath didn't disappear with that, it stayed knife-edge sharp, and was the best concentration I have ever had.

And I also had an auditory nimitta for a week during a retreat, of a deep bell ringing at various random times. I thought the meditation centre had gotten a new bell, and some of the staff were ringing it for fun! But no, I talked to the teacher about it, and he said it was an auditory nimitta, nothing to be concerned about, he reassured me I wasn't going crazy!

But they are basically distractions from the real purpose of meditation. Pretty fireworks, but not something to deliberately generate or indulge in. Can be useful for getting to jhana, or so I have heard. Can't comment personally on that one!

kilesa

lol they kept changing;

my most recent ones are "fear being dragged to death" and "bliss that is so powerful that I feel I could die cause of it". suffering indeed.

BhanteLucky

kilesa said:

my most recent ones are "fear being dragged to death"

I thought nimittas were sensory, not conceptual?
That is, clear sense impressions which arise only in the mind. Not concepts or thoughts.
I could be wrong.

kilesa

hi james,

it is feeling
It appear as intense feeling of fear and the other intense feeling of bliss.

Citta

Its all just stuff.
It arises. It passes. Toodle pip.

FullCircle

When I was little I would get a bright white-light half moon sort of shape with purple-ish light outlining it.. it would float around at various times of the day- It stopped for years then began again when I started meditating, but different shapes, and one time outlined in a red light. However it doesnt appear when I meditate, but often when I first wake up and it'll float around for a few minutes.
When I first read about nimittas only recently, I figure thats what that light/shape is, and perhaps I used to attain jhanas in a previous life- cause I haven't attained them in this one:)lol! And the harder I tried to attain them, the worse my concentration, so I've given up my goals and chilled out... back to life...sigh...;)

DairyLama

JamestheGiant said:

I thought nimittas were sensory, not conceptual?
That is, clear sense impressions which arise only in the mind. Not concepts or thoughts.

I think that's correct. Usually associated with access ( neighbourhood ) concentration, the precursor to jhana.

Citta

JamestheGiant said:

kilesa said:

my most recent ones are "fear being dragged to death"

I thought nimittas were sensory, not conceptual?
That is, clear sense impressions which arise only in the mind. Not concepts or thoughts.
I could be wrong.

No you are technically correct. Fears and distracting concepts are more correctly papanca...conceptual proliferation..the tendency the mind has to run up more and more ideas that do not make for wisdom but simply give rise to more concepts.