Exploring my difficulties with samatha, part 2

Some postscripts:

Another familiar difficulty that arose on this retreat is uncomfortable, distracting facial tension. This tended to increase as the days went by.

I want to describe how I get into what I think of as Kenneth's first jhana: In a single gesture, I close my eyes, quiet my breathing, place attention on a broad area that includes the sinuses, and will myself to enter a trance-like state. I can do it immediately. This is a version of a gesture I learned to make in order to enter the first jhana on Tina and Stephen's 2009 retreat. The state I enter now is much less deep, but the gesture is, I think, the same. To sustain this state, I then put attention lightly on the breath at the anapana spot.

This state feels less coarse, less physical, than the state I reach by trying to put all my attention directly on the breath. The hindrances are still present. I feel more locked in than with anapanasati, but not solidly locked in.

I would like to note that I had pretty much not thought at all about Kenneth's jhanas for the past 4.5 years, since he taught them to me. And when he taught them to me, I don't know what he told me about how to get to the first jhana, but I responded by making the familiar gesture above. Since I was able to get to Kenneth's second jhana from there, I figured it was what he meant by first jhana.

Another observation about sleepiness: when I am able to crisply remove my attention from the desire for sleep and back to the breath, I notice a surge of energy/sensation in the body. Does the sleepiness arise from aversion to energy/sensation?

Here are some questions I'm holding now:

-- are the mildly irritating sensations that arise for me with samatha practice the "pleasant" sensations that Leigh wants me to focus on? Or should I try to find something that's actually pleasant to me?

-- is there any use for the state I'm calling Kenneth's first jhana? More specifically, is it a state that can either support insight practice, or help me get to Leigh's jhanas or Tina/Stephen's jhanas? Might it qualify as a way of practicing anapanasati meditation, one that's perhaps easier than what I've been doing?

-- how can I get the guidance and support of a good teacher such as Tina/Stephen, Shaila, or Leigh, without going through the suffering of a residential retreat? I've thought a lot about how to make retreats more tolerable for me. Can I go any farther in making them more tolerable? Would it make more sense to do skype sessions with teachers while on home retreat? Or, what about Shaila's online courses? There are none scheduled at the moment but I could ask her what her plans are. I could also talk this over with Leigh and see if he either has suggestions for how retreat could work better for me, or how he could support me in home practice.