The figure of Bhante Sujiva and the technical stages of Vipassanā often loom over my practice, turning a moment of awareness into a secret search for achievement. 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
I think of Bhante Sujiva whenever I find myself scanning my experience for symptoms of a specific stage. The vocabulary of the path—Vipassanā Ñāṇas, stages, and spiritual maps—fills my head.
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?"
I experienced a momentary window of clarity—extremely short-lived—where sensations felt distinct, rapid, and vibrating. Instantly, the mind intervened, trying to categorize the experience as a specific insight stage or something near it. 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
There is a tightness in my heart, a physical echo of an anticipation that failed to deliver. I am aware of my uneven breath, yet I have no desire to "fix" it tonight. I have lost the will to micro-manage my experience this evening. The mind keeps looping through phrases I’ve read, heard, underlined.
Insight into Udayabbaya.
Bhaṅga.
Fear, Misery, and the Desire for Deliverance.
I resent how accessible these labels are; it feels more like amassing "spiritual assets" than actually practicing.
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 becomes a problem when every mental flicker is subjected to a "pass/fail" test. I find myself more info 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, but the habit persists.
The pain in my right knee has returned in the exact same location. I direct my attention there. 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. 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 his words about the danger of clinging to the stages and the importance of natural progression. I agree with the concept intellectually. 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."
There’s a hum in my ears. Always there if I listen. I listen. Then I think, "oh, noticing subtle sound, that’s a sign of sensitivity increasing." I roll my eyes at myself. This is exhausting. I just want to sit without turning it into a report card.
The fan continues its rhythm. My foot becomes numb, then begins to tingle. I remain still—or at least I intend to. I catch a part of my mind negotiating the moment I will finally shift. I observe the intent but refuse to give it a name. 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. It is like having a map that tells you exactly how much further you have to travel. The maps were meant to be helpful guides, not 2 a.m. interrogation tools, but I am using them for the latter anyway.
Resolution remains out of reach, and I refuse to categorize my position on the spiritual path. The sensations keep changing. The thoughts keep checking. The body keeps sitting. Somewhere under all that, there’s still awareness happening, imperfect, tangled up with doubt and wanting and comparison. I remain present with this reality, not as a "milestone," but because it is the only truth I have, regardless of the map.