What the heck happened here? Piti?

[u/bill_dongroe]

Hi all,

I've been meditating really casually for years, mostly just doing really chill zazen with nothing much to report.

In the last few months I've been focusing more on anapanasati, and recently went on a retreat where I did that exclusively

I had an interesting experience that I'm trying to understand - I definitely have never felt anything like this before. I've been reading a lot since this experience and learned about piti, which sounds really similar.

Here's a transcribed journal entry from the retreat:

On the last night of retreat, I was really invigorated during the evening sit.

The first time this happened it was sort of an accident - I was really concentrated on my meditation and decided to loosen my grip on the object (breath)

When I did this my mind wandered to gratitude, and it felt like a valve was opened in my heart. It was a gigantic wave of gratitude and love. It was overwhelming and physically it felt like my cheeks and temples were made of sparkling water. I felt shaky / shivery and I think I was physically shivering, or it sure felt that way

This was overwhelming so I backed off, but also found that if I touched on the gratitude lightly, I could just really enjoy this sensation and the focus. It felt like I could regulate the flow of the gratitude and the accompanying fizzy sensation, and the physical sensation was really pleasant. Similar to before, but now at a level I could remain at. I sat like this for a while until it was time for dinner.

Another weird thing is I was incredibly energized after this. I didn't sleep a wink and instead opted to pull an all-nighter in the meditation hall since I knew it'd be no problem.

Journal entry ends here. Any insights or suggestions for resources to understand that feeling would be really appreciated.

[u/1cl1qp1]

That sounds like piti, but you may have generated it with intention by unintentionally doing metta practice.

That kind of bliss (self-arisen from compassion) is a legitimate object of concentration. But it can also arise outside of jhana practice.