Okay, mental phenomena, what we usually call concentration phenomena, is something that a lot of meditators will experience and a lot of people are very confused about. They don't understand what it actually is. If people don't know, they might think that they are enlightened, if people don't know, they might think they are in touch with god, if people don't know, they might think anything.
To explain a bit of what we call concentration phenomena: First let's go back to usually grade school, maybe high school where they have chalk boards and the teacher takes a peace of chalk and writes on the board "krrrrrr", it makes that scratchy "krrrrrr" sound and all of a sudden we have this feeling going up our spine. What happened? Did the teacher walk around in the room and tickle you up your spine? No, you heard a sound. Then all of a sudden something happened and you had an energy movement up your spine in a weird way. That's what we call a concentration phenomena. The mind logged in to that sound, absolutely was absorbed for some reason, don't ask me why, I can't explain, but the mind logs into that sound and for some reason that sound ignites in the body a type of sensation. We could say the wind element moving.
Now personally I have an interesting physical phenomena. The doctors know about it, they have an explanation for it. You see these two fingers on my left hand, the tips of the fingers. Well, if I cannot go to the bathroom, if a have to hold my urine for too long. You know what it is like, you just can't wait to get to that toilet, if I have to hold it really bad, the minute I get to the toilet, the minute I start to urinate the tips of these fingers feel as if a knife is driving straight into them. It's weird.
Doctors know about this. The doctor that I asked said, what is happening is that you have nerve fibers, every part of your body has nerve fibers that link to your brain, the nerve fiber from that part of the finger and the nerve fiber from down below end up almost in exactly the same spot and the brain confuses the two. It's weird. That's how they explain it. This is a phenomena that comes from something else.
The chalk and the energy up the spine, that's really what we call a concentration phenomena. The body has all sorts of these things. If you get concentrated a lot or we could also say too much, you may have a lot of different phenomena arising. Some of the phenomena are very pleasant. They feel like little rain drops throughout the body.
Sometimes a person feels like they start to float. They are not really but they feel they are floating. Sometimes the head feels like it is really big. Sometimes they feel like they are ten feet tall. Of course these things are not actually happening but this is what the person experiences.
I experienced spider webs all over my face once. The whole face, a spider was just making webs on my face. I actually believed it was happening. After a while I thought the spider is just making too much of a mess on my face, so I'll wipe it off. Keeping my eyes shut, I just mindfully brought my hand out, started to wipe my face as if there was spider web and there was nothing there. That phenomena continued for about four days, then it disappeared, because I treated it in the right way.
So, if you have any of these kind of mental or concentration phenomena arising in your meditation practice, it is basically a distraction. It doesn't mean anything in our practice, it doesn't prove that you are wise, it doesn't prove that you are compassionate, it's just like the chalk experience. It happens to almost everybody in the class. If it doesn't happen to you, then don't worry, if it does, well that's just the way it is.
To be able to treat it in a proper way, in the wisdom practice, is to see that it is just a distraction. Make a mental note, just as if you heard the truck coming up the hill or whatever else. Make a mental note, then come back to your meditation subject.
Now if it seems super real, go ahead, open your eyes and prove to yourself, it's not real. The person who thought that they were ten feet tall, I gave him the same advice, just open your eyes, see where you are, you are going to know that is not real. We have to take away the mystery from being concentrated, we have to knock that down and balance it with more mindfulness of reality. This is where the balance of mindfulness and concentration is important. If a person does too much concentration work without wisdom they can go into all sorts of phenomena. They can get lost and they can think this is wonderful, this is great, "I am a wonderful meditator" and this and that.
However, in our practice here, this person is just lost and they are going to stay lost as long as they enjoy the phenomena. Enjoying the phenomena does one of two things. It makes it come more often so you just stuck further or it stops coming but you have this craving and craving and craving for it to come again. And the craving and craving, well, that's the Dukkha. So when you enjoy it you only get Dukkha as a result. Either it keeps coming, taking you further away or it doesn't come and you are upset about it and you get full of anger or whatever.
Now, hating the phenomena also generally just brings more Dukkha because hating the phenomena is a negative attachment, that I show with the fire in the hand. Hating it makes it come more often, also, because Mara like hating it - let's do it some more, let's do it some more, let's do it some more. So hating the phenomena and liking the phenomena normally just create more Dukkha.
We want to be in that Middle Path, we want to see the phenomena as we would hearing a sound, smelling an odor, etc., it's just another distraction, we note it, we come back. If we have to, we open our eyes and make sure that we see things are quite okay, bringing the mindfulness part of the practice up higher to balance the concentration so we don't get lost in concentration phenomena. It can bring a lot of Dukkha to many meditators.