i sit down with bhante sujiva’s insight stages in my head and end up watching progress instead of mindbhante sujiva, insight stages, and the quiet habit of measuring my sits instead of being there

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’s 2:03 a.m. and I’m awake for no good reason. The kind of awake where the body’s tired but the mind’s doing inventory. The fan hums on its lowest setting, its repetitive click marking the time in the silence. My ankle is tight; I move it, then catch myself moving, then start a mental debate about whether that movement "counts" against my stillness.

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 narrative destroyed the presence immediately—or perhaps the narrative is the drama I'm creating. Everything feels slippery once the mind starts narrating.

The Pokémon Cards of the Dhamma
I feel a constriction in my chest—not quite anxiety, but a sense of unfulfilled expectation. I notice my breathing is uneven. Short inhale, longer exhale. I don’t adjust it. 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.

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. more info It’s helpful. And dangerous. Helpful because it gives language to experience. It is perilous because it subjects every minor sensation to an internal audit. I am constantly asking: "Is this genuine wisdom or mere agitation? Is this true balance or just a lack of interest?" 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. Warmth, compression, and pulsing—immediately followed by the thought: "Is this a Dukkha stage? Is this the Dark Night?" I find a moment of humor in the fact that the body doesn't read the maps; it just feels the ache. For a brief moment, that humor creates space, until the mind returns to scrutinize the laughter itself.

The Exhaustion of the Report Card
I recall Bhante Sujiva’s advice to avoid attachment to the maps and to allow the path to reveal itself. It sounds perfectly logical in theory. But here I am, in the dark, using an invisible ruler to see "how far" I've gone. Old habits die hard. Especially the ones that feel spiritual.

I focus on the subtle ringing in my ears and instantly think: "My concentration must be getting sharper." 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. 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 like having a map that tells you exactly how much further you have to travel. Bhante Sujiva didn’t put these maps together so people could torture themselves at 2 a.m., but here I am anyway, doing exactly that.

I don’t reach clarity tonight. I don’t place myself anywhere on the map. 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 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.