Blue light

[greggorious]

What is this blue light I keep seeing while I'm doing Samadha? Usually it's central but sometimes it can consume all my vision, as though it's washing over me.

[Nyana]

What is this blue light I keep seeing while I'm doing Samadha? Usually it's central but sometimes it can consume all my vision, as though it's washing over me.

Just a light nimitta. I get the same, especially the latter part of your description of it "washing over me." It's very easy to get attached to such experiences, but they are adventitious and impermanent like anything else.

[David2]

while I'm doing Samadha?

You mean while you're doing samatha (meditation) (to develop samadhi).

[perkele]

What is this blue light I keep seeing while I'm doing Samadha? Usually it's central but sometimes it can consume all my vision, as though it's washing over me.

Just a light nimitta. I get the same, especially the latter part of your description of it "washing over me." It's very easy to get attached to such experiences, but they are adventitious and impermanent like anything else.

Hello!
I'm not an experienced meditator. I never had a nimitta. So just an uninformed question based on what I've recently heard in this Dhamma talk video by the Venerable Sayalay Dipankara: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZYsoi46coA. She starts talking about the nimitta after about four minutes. Maybe it's interesting.
According to what she says it seems the "danger" so to speak with the nimitta if you want to establish a stable foundation in Jhana is to get too fast into the "absorption" (that is the "washing over you"?). She says that one should keep with the nimitta for a very long time to establish it very firmly and explains how to do that. So according to her one should not get absorbed very fast and then stay with the joy and happiness that comes from that for as long as it lasts but instead to keep the nimitta "fixed in front" as far as I understand for a very long time until one goes into the absorption.
Is my understanding of the absorption being what you both describe as the "washing over you" correct?
Just trying to get a picture of what real meditation is like.
Metta
perkele

[Viscid]

I get the same thing. ( viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9158 ) It used to be very interesting and exciting, but it gets fairly mundane when you see it all the time and seems to actually 'mean' very little.. (i.e. it's just visual phenomenon) I've found it only to be a vague indicator of decent concentration.

[Nyana]

Just trying to get a picture of what real meditation is like.

Light nimittas are just adventitious side-effects of the development of samādhi that occur for some people. And although some teachers emphasize using the occurrence of light nimittas, these phenomena are not essential for samatha.

[danieLion]

Mine's purple. They're right. It's nothing. Might not even qualify as nimitta.
Goodwill
Daniel

[perkele]

Light nimittas are just adventitious side-effects of the development of samādhi that occur for some people. And although some teachers emphasize using the occurrence of light nimittas, these phenomena are not essential for samatha.

Okay. Thank you.

[marc108]

from what i understand the 'washing over you' lights are pretty common even in beginning meditators. i always thought this was prana because it moves with the breath.

[reflection]

It might be a nimatta as others said, but it doesn't have to be. You mention the word vision, but a nimatta is not a thing seen by the eye; it is an image of the mind. So if the blue light is really seen with your eyes, it may be your sense of sight doing funny things (which is also nothing to be worried about) and it is not a nimatta. If it is an image of the mind, it is in a way very different from previous experiences. This is important to consider, so you don't start focussing on the wrong things.

With metta,
Reflection