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Whenever I get a good meditation, meaning pleasant feelings arise, they subside after some time. I know that's not the goal of meditation and I should let go of anything, not cling to anything. But still, I would like to prolong the post-meditation pleasant sensations and not go back to other emotions. How can that be achieved?
After a good sitting of calming down the mind, desires come rushing in, how to deal with that?
That's why it's advisable to add the Vipassana part even if one does mostly Samatha:
“He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in contemplating impermanence’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out contemplating impermanence. ’ He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in contemplating fading away’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out contemplating fading away.’ He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in contemplating cessation’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out contemplating cessation.’ He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in contemplating relinquishment’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out contemplating relinquishment.’ ~~ MN 118 ~~
Well this is the crux of things, isn't it? If meditation was a solution to our negative tendencies, the Buddha would have never left his original teachers.
What the Buddha discovered, and what sets him apart from the other yogis of the time, wasn't that he used meditation to achieve some state or to feel better. Uniquely, the Buddha leveraged his bright and purified mind for the purposes of uprooting his obstacles and habitual patterns.
When you emerge from meditation, rather than indulging in those feelings of bliss, you would be much better served observing those desires. What are they? Why do they appear? What are their roots? With your brightened and purified mind, removed from your conventional ways of thinking, you are in a much better position to discover the answers to those questions and, with time, you might be able to disentangle yourself from them for good.
If you feel that post-meditation pleasantness slipping away, and desire to prolong it, that is an excellent moment for conscious choice. Choose one of the following:
Neither is right or wrong, so make the choice by your own lights, and don't allow desire or regret to enter into your practice.
I vaguely remember a story (about Shunryū Suzuki, maybe?) in which he saw a graduate student in some-field-or-other meditating in the center. He walked up to the student and said: "What are you doing here? Go home! Study! Write!" There's a time for spiritual attainment, and a time for worldly endeavors. Unless you are seriously pursuing the monastic life, do not allow one to interfere with the other. Only by being clear about what you are doing at any given moment can the spiritual life grow out into the secular world.
