mixing Vippassana and Self Inquiry

[Cocolove]

Is this an effective technique?

I sit down daily for an hour, and do vippassana, just being mindful of my sensations and thoughts. Once I get in the zone I start self inquiry, focusing on the actuality of thoughts and the body, seeing that it is happening on its own. After a while of that, and only if I feel like it, about half of my sits, I am able to watch the process of watching, I notice that the self that is watching seems to be in the head, various spacious sensations make up the watching, and I sit there doing that. When I get to the final step I often get into a deep meditative state for a while after, and get cool things like it feeling like my brain is melting, my hands and body parts feeling very big or very small, reality feeling very weird, etc.. I also (try my darnest to) do this constantly outside of formal sitting, except when doing. This way of doing things feels intuitively best to me after trying many techniques. Strait to self inquiry I get stuck in thoughts and distracted, just mindfulness feels ineffective.

Is this a good way of doing things, I'm worried that since I'm not doing strict self inquiry, and I'm kind of mixing it with noting/mindfulness it might be not.

 

[Peo]

I use similar technique and i find it pretty effective. I have even gotten glimpse of the ox, although i don't know how much i glimpse. I probably just glimpse a singel hair of the ox's tail. 

[Leo Gura]

@Cocolove Yup, that can work.

I had my first mystical experience doing just that: Vipassana followed by self-inquiry.

I find self-inquiry not to be effective unless one's mind is already in the zone and highly mindful. So, for example, I find it bad practice to being a meditation retreat with self-inquiry because the mind is not focused enough yet to have any breakthrough. So my retreats begin with lots of Vipassana. The self-inquiry is best saved towards the end.

Vipassana is sorta like sharping the knife and self-inquiry is more like using it to slit the throat. Without Vipassana you've got a butter knife.

[now is forever]

@Leo Gura guess you confuse the ox for a bull 

[nistake]

Yup, I think that works pretty well.

I also start with breath meditation, then I proceed to self-inquiry.

[Tony 845]

@Leo Gura well said & same for me as well.

[Privet]

Here are some clarifications on how to do it the right way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHUajtPXPDw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfw_tHC0A9w

Edited February 19, 2019 by Privet