Bhante Sujiva and these insight stages keep haunting my sits like I’m secretly checking progress instead of paying attention. The clock reads 2:03 a.m., and I am wide awake without cause—that specific state where the physical body is exhausted but the mind is busy calculating. The fan hums on its lowest setting, its repetitive click marking the time in the silence. I notice a stiffness in my left ankle and adjust it reflexively, only to immediately analyze the movement and its impact on my practice. This is the loop I am in tonight.
The Map is Not the Territory
I think of Bhante Sujiva whenever I find myself scanning my experience for symptoms of a specific stage. I am flooded with technical terms: the Progress of Insight, the various Ñāṇas, the developmental maps.
These concepts form an internal checklist that I feel an unearned obligation to fulfill. I pretend to be disinterested in the maps, but I quickly find myself wondering if a specific feeling was a sign of "something deeper."
I experienced a momentary window of clarity—extremely short-lived—where sensations felt distinct, rapid, and vibrating. The ego wasted no time, attempting to label the experience: "Is this Arising and Passing away? Is it close?" That commentary ruined it instantly. Or maybe it didn’t ruin anything and I’m just dramatizing. Once the mind starts telling a story about the sit, the actual experience vanishes.
The Pokémon Cards of the Dhamma
There is a tightness in my heart, a physical echo of an anticipation that failed to deliver. I notice my breathing is uneven. Short inhale, longer exhale. I don’t adjust it. I am exhausted by the constant need for correction. I find myself repeating technical terms I've studied and underlined in books.
Insight into Udayabbaya.
Dissolution.
Fear, Misery, and the Desire for Deliverance.
These labels feel like a collection of items rather than a lived reality—like I'm gathering cards rather than just being here.
The Dangerous Precision of Bhante Sujiva
Bhante Sujiva’s clarity is what gets me. The way he lays things out so cleanly. It’s helpful. And dangerous. It helps by providing a map for the terrain of the mind. It is perilous because it subjects every minor sensation to an internal audit. I am constantly asking: "Is this genuine wisdom or mere agitation? Is this true balance or just a lack of interest?" I am aware of how ridiculous this "spiritual accounting" is, but the habit persists.
My knee is throbbing again, right where it was last night. I observe the heat and pressure. Heat. Pressure. Throbbing. Then the thought pops up: pain stage? Dark night? I nearly chuckle to myself; the physical form is indifferent to the map—it simply experiences the pain. That laughter loosens something for a second. Then the mind rushes back in to analyze the laughter.
The Exhaustion of the Report Card
I remember reading Bhante Sujiva saying something about not clinging to stages, about practice unfolding naturally. I agree with the concept intellectually. Yet, in the solitude of the night, I instinctively begin to evaluate myself with a hidden yardstick. It's hard to drop the habit here of achievement when you've rebranded it as "spiritual growth."
I focus on the subtle ringing in my ears and instantly think: "My concentration must be getting sharper." I am sick of my own internal grading system; I just want to be present without the "report card."
The fan clicks again. My foot tingles. Pins and needles creep up slowly. I stay. Or I think I stay. Part of me is already planning when I’ll move. I notice that planning. I don’t label it. I don’t want to label anything right now. Labels feel heavy tonight.
The Vipassanā Ñāṇas offer both a sense of direction and a sense of pressure. Like knowing there’s a path but also knowing exactly how far you might still have to walk. The maps were meant to be helpful guides, not 2 a.m. interrogation tools, but I am using them for the latter anyway.
No grand insight arrives, and I decline to "pin" myself to a specific stage on the map. The somatic data fluctuates, the mind continues its audit, and the physical form remains on the cushion. Deep down, there is just simple awareness, however messy and full of comparison it might be. I stay with that, not because it feels advanced, but because it’s what’s actually here, right now, no matter what stage I wish it was.