MuMuWu's Practice Journal

"hey your jhana progress is awesome!"

Thanks!

Just did another 20 minute sit.

Noting again at stomach. Notice how by justing intending it I can generate happiness, calmness, etc. with the breath

Noting joy and coolness and energy at stomach. Begin to steep in these feelings. Sort of going with the flow. Notice shift into First Jhana. Not too hard, not too soft.

Eventually feelings of energy and pleasure fade and mind becomes somewhat calm. Begin to notice itchy feelings on face and body. Note these sensations. Feelings of energy and joy to start to rise. Notice a shift in overall tone. Getting more familiar with this territory. Notice feeling of Joy dropping off. Feeling of energy begins to rise along with brightening of visual field. Notice the energy drop off slightly and then sensations in face begin to harden and I notice pressure in the face along with uneasiness and discomfort. Pressure in other parts of the body. Mouth feels like someone is trying to pry it open. Let mouth open. It opens very wide (almost uncomfortably so). Stays like this for a while, some energ stuff going on around the body, vibrations, pulses, body twitches slightly to one side a couple of times. Energy dies off, body begins to relax. Cool buzz. Stay like this for some while. Feel good. Don't care to move. Mental space very cool and uniform and open. Timer goes off.

Still working on figuring out where things are at in terms of the Jhanas.

Have been doing 4 foundations practices throughout the day informally and doing concentration practices with noting here and there when sitting with a timer.

Sat for another 10 minutes with the resolution to enter 1st Jhana and then note what happens.

Concentrated on breathing until pleasant feelings arose. Focused on pleasant feelings only until they intensify and Joy becomes apparant. Take this to be 1st Jhana. Stay with this for a while. Then mind becomes wobbly (notice that I am thinking, feelings of joy/exhileration dimished). Then feel itchy spots, mostly on face and head. Find one particularly itchy and begin noting it very fast until it breaks up. Feelings like 1st Jhana reappear with less of a physical feeling of pleasure. Visual field brightens.

Up to here I am seeing the same things over and over. After this I am not so sure on my descriptions.

Bubbling Joy seems to diminish eventually. Energy seems to build higher. Then notice twitching in face, sometimes whole body, pulses in various places, etc.

Will look into this more and probably extend sitting timer.

Just had a phone meeting with Kenneth.

He talked me through the 4 Jhana's using a kasina and Got me into Infinite Space then Infinite Consciousness. I eventually felt energy like sensations starting to build, I began to get uncomfortable (wasn't sitting well at this point because I am in an office chair for our discussion). Also it didn't bother me too greatly (could have sat longer) but decided it would be a good time to end the session. Decided to step backward. Stopped knowing the witness, focused on space. Then focused on whole field of sensations and opened my eyes. From there looked for cool sensations on skin. Those started to arise and I created diffuse concentration on the kasina. I felt joy/energy start to arise. Finally fixed focus on Kasina brought very hard energy up. Stayed with this for a while then ended session.

Definitely able to call up 1st, move to second, third, and fourth.

Going to have to play with the infinite space one to make sure I'm getting it.

Seem to be able to stay in equanimity and let thing cycle repeatedly.

How does that feel, experientially, MuMuWu?
I'm not sure what you mean by "let thing cycle repeatedly".

Ok, I go up through the four Jhanas with a kasina and enter into equinimity. Then, in the background the same cycle of Jhana's seems to be repeating itself. Upswell of energy and pleasant feelings, a drop in concentration followed by some itching/uncomfortable sensations, then the upswelll of pleasant feelings, then a drop in energy with sensations of coolness with a diffuse focus of attention then attention expands with high equanimity. Eventually I feel an upsurge of energy and it repeats.

Just had a bought of back pain and then nausea which qucikly passed. Then came itchiness in my face. Now energy is building again.

"Then, in the background the same cycle of Jhana's seems to be repeating itself."

What is the foreground, then?

My normal every day life (i.e. cycling is happening off the cusion).

I am aware of individual sensations as they come up but there's no pull to entertain anything. I am feeling energy building and I am getting warmer as I type this for example.

Ohh I see
Sorry I thought you were describing a formal sitting experience.

In a formalized sitting I am mainly watching what the eyes do (using them to keep a particular focus) and then I am noting the arising of energy and then I keep an eye on the particular sensations associated with each Jhana as I move through them. I am trying to get very familiar with each. Off the cushion the rising of energy becomes noticeable along with bliss type feelings every now and again and I am also noting that I am going through very calm periods where I feel cold. I eventually warm up feel the energy rising and then it goes from there. In the 3rd Jhana (when sitting) it gets murky as to what exactly is the foreground as attention gets kind of diffuse. Typically I am noting the coolness which comes with Jhana and then in 4th the focus is wide and pretty much all sensations are going on at once.

Prior to going through each of these with Kenneth yesterday I was mainly noticing the rising of energy with Kasina practice and then I noticed that I could sort of groove on that throughout the day. I then began to notice a particular pattern by using a timer and keeping a journal. Kenneth helped walk me through the Jhana's so I could get a feel for what was what and now I can see the patterns.

Spent yesterday feeling amazing. Doing normal routine things had a totally different feel. Kissing my girlfriend felt incredible. There was no me getting in the way (on the mind level) and it felt like everything was so free flowing. There were still pains and aches and hunger and the like, but even those were seen in the context of the whole of which they were only a small part and as such there was no suffering from the pain.

Today when I awoke, a lot of the feeling had gone, but the equanimity remains. It seems like all I need to do is get some practice in and get things moving again. All the same, it's really interesting to sit here with some discomfort and anxious energy and hunger. Again, it isn't really capturing my mind, but I don't feel quite as blissful as yesterday.

Did a couple of 5 minute kasina exercises throughout the work day. Once I got to A&P everything seemed much better.

I think I woke up in dark night territory the past few days. Looking back on it, I think a lot of time has been spent here. Can definitley see how it is solid and doing noting practices tend to break it up. Am able to do Kasina and get into Jhanas but mind tends to go back to feeling this way eventually.

Will do a better update later.

Just noticed the energy rising, but I wasn't doing anything, just dealing with this pain/anxiety/sadness/frustration/disgust/etc. All the same it doesn't feel like I'm doing anything, just being visited by a bunch of unpleasant house guests.

This must be re-observation...

So today felt like the worst day of my life. I realized around lunch time that something was different because it wasn't getting better. Just a total ********... but anyways, it was definitely a repeating pattern of crappiness so I resolved to sit with it for an hour tonight and I think I got through it to the other side and then sat again and was able to repeat this.

The cycle went like this (with what I am guessing are the stages I am seeing)

Counting breaths until 1st Jhana,
Feeling of wandering mind (2nd insight)
Itchiness, tingling, grimacing (3rd insight)
Rise in warm energy, pleasure, light (2nd Jhana - A&P)
Cooling off, mellowing out, buzz (3rd Jhana - Dissolution)
feel somewhat normal but anxious (fear)
begin to feel tension and movements in mouth and face (misery)
gets more and more intense especially the tension in the face (disgust)
eventually feel somewhat sad, want it to end (desire for deliverance)
everything seems ok for a second
repeat through the same cycle repeatedly (maybe 2 or 3 times) brighter I think (reobservation?)
feels like A&P but less intense, wide focus of attention (feels like 4th Jhana).

I think this was the cycle I went through yesterday in the bath and also on my walk. Both times ended up in spacious equanimity. In the bath noticed that leading into it (had my eyes open) the visual field got very bright (many details disappearing... kasina like) and then began to strobe (darkness from the outside in a circular form coming in toward the center like pulsing tunnel vision I guess)

I feel much better right now. An hour ago I felt like garbage
I'm glad I sat tonight.

Must practice like this more!

Different feel today from yesterday morning for sure. There are a lot of negative sensations right now, but they aren't that bad to experience.

Looking forward to getting some good practice time in this weekend.

A couple of other notes:
During the last couple of meditation sessions at some point I became aware of dreamlike images that would flash in for just a second. Also, I am not sure on how many times re-observation repeated or if it grew in intensity or lessened. Some things to be on the look out for I suppose.

Just sat for 25 minutes.

Went through the 1st Jhana up to A&P using breath as a concentration object to start until I felt concentrated then did 4 foundations practice until things started flowing. Seemed to spend a good bit of time in the three characteristics but then felt a big wash of joy and went through A&P and dissolution.

Seem to experience KOF as very slight anxiety, mainly noticeable because it is a period of no facial twitching or pressure at the beginning of each of these dukkha cycles. Move on to feeling moving blobs of pressure in and around my face, tingling around lips, twitching lips and cheeks. This is accompanied by more pronounced aching feelings or slight pains in legs or back. The pressure in the face gets more intense, less of a focus on pain more grimacing. This gets fairly solid and intense and eventually breaks into a loser sense of grief, occasionally accompanied by moisture in the eyes and sighing. This cycle repeated twice more, the second time stronger the third time milder. The last time I went from desire for deliverance to a sense of open brightness with equanimity and awareness of much of the background noise in the house. Stayed with the openness, got a sense of space. Asked who is the knower of this space, felt like a shift to witnessing practice. Mind is getting stiller at this point as long as I hold the sense of witness. Ask what is this knower knowing, very still mind, nothing specific to be noted other than a deeper and deeper stillness. Stay with this for a while because it is nice, notice less and less aware of anything specific and sense of self as something apart from my experience seemed to be slipping away. Noted that it felt like I just nodded off (though I did not slump or anything like that). It lasted a split second. It felt like I caught myself drifting off to sleep. Stayed with the pleasant space I was in for a while then got up.

About 15 minutes later. Still feel really good, joyrful even. Wondering what that was (fruition? or maybe i did just doze off).

Will try this again later.

Dumb question...whats a KOF?

Knowledge of Fear

Sat once for about 20 minutes earlier. Similar to previous few sits. Noticed that I cycled through dukkha nanas again several times then entered into what I assume is 4th Jhana. Stayed with that for a while then got up.

Sat again about 15 minutes later. This time went through dukkha nanas only once. Stayed in 4th Jhana for a while. Noticed that it was brighter this time. Also noticed pleasant rising energy. Got interrupted at this point but noticed my mood was really really good afterwords. My attention was also very wide outside of the meditation session and my mind was very clear wide and open. Noticed that there was a lot of equanimity.

Also, note that I had the dropping out experience twice last night while sitting. This happened after spending some time in equanimity. One of the times it was accompanied by a popping/cracking sound.

Things are getting pretty interesting as I tend to be noticing more at the tail end of the cycle (or should I say after the cycling stops and I am in equanimity).