I find that Bhante Sujiva’s maps and the stages of insight follow me into my meditation, making me feel as though I am constantly auditing my progress rather than simply being present. It is just past 2 a.m., and I am caught in that restless wakefulness where the body craves sleep but the consciousness is preoccupied with an internal census. 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
The image of Bhante Sujiva surfaces the moment I begin searching for physical or mental indicators of "progress." I am flooded with technical terms: the Progress of Insight, the various Ñāṇas, the developmental maps.
All those words line up in my head like a checklist I never officially agreed to but somehow feel responsible for completing. I tell myself I’m not chasing stages. Then five minutes later I’m like, "okay but that felt like something, right?"
Earlier in the sit there was this brief clarity. Very brief. Sensations sharp, fast, almost flickering. The ego wasted no time, attempting to label the experience: "Is this Arising and Passing away? Is it close?" The internal play-by-play broke the flow, or perhaps I am simply overthinking the interruption. Once the mind starts telling a story about the sit, the actual experience vanishes.
The Pokémon Cards of the Dhamma
My chest feels tight now. Not anxiety exactly. More like anticipation that went nowhere. My breathing is irregular, with a brief inhalation followed by a protracted exhalation, but I refuse to manipulate it. I am exhausted by the constant need for correction. I find myself repeating technical terms I've studied and underlined in books.
The stage of Arising and Passing.
The experience of Dissolution.
The "Dark Night" stages of Fear and Misery.
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 find myself caught in the trap of evaluating: "Is this an insight stage or just a sore back?" I am aware of how ridiculous this "spiritual accounting" is, here 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 find a moment of humor in the fact that the body doesn't read the maps; it just feels the ache. The laughter provides a temporary release, before the internal auditor starts questioning the "equanimity" of the laugh.
The Exhaustion of the Report Card
I remember his words about the danger of clinging to the stages and the importance of natural progression. It sounds perfectly logical in theory. But here I am, in the dark, using an invisible ruler to see "how far" I've gone. It's hard to drop the habit of achievement when you've rebranded it as "spiritual growth."
I hear a constant hum in my ears; upon noticing it, I immediately conclude that my sensory sensitivity is heightened. 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'm done with the "noting" for now; the words feel too heavy in this silence.
The Vipassanā Ñāṇas offer both a sense of direction and a sense of pressure. It is the comfort of a roadmap combined with the exhaustion of seeing the long road ahead. 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 feelings come and go, the mind checks the progress, and the body just sits there. Somewhere under all that, there’s still awareness happening, imperfect, tangled up with doubt and wanting and comparison. 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.