Owen's Practice Journal, Part II

Hey Owen.

Just out of curiosity, is there anywhere in particular when the energy seems stuck or needs to push through? What is different between these kriyas and ones you might have experienced earlier? What makes them seem like you "would have not dealt with [them] well'?

I won't generalize off of your specific experience, so no worries, but I am very curious about the topic of post 4th-path energetics.

Yours,
Mark

"Hey Owen.

Just out of curiosity, is there anywhere in particular when the energy seems stuck or needs to push through? What is different between these kriyas and ones you might have experienced earlier? What makes them seem like you "would have not dealt with [them] well'?

I won't generalize off of your specific experience, so no worries, but I am very curious about the topic of post 4th-path energetics.

Yours,
Mark "

Nothing seems stuck now, but I remember it mainly being localized in the hara and heart areas. It's different in that it seems like purely physical phenomena, the mind is just not engaging with it in the same way. It's more like watching storms go across the horizon and feeling the pressure waves from the thunder, but knowing it is going to do its own thing and needs your input not at all.

Cool--thanks.

Yours,
Mark

New game for the new year:
How many moments of uninterrupted body awareness can I string together before I get distracted? Can I keep a continuous thread of attention on my carcass from the moment I wake up in the morning to the moment I fall asleep at night?

"New game for the new year: How many moments of uninterrupted body awareness can I string together before I get distracted? Can I keep a continuous thread of attention on my carcass from the moment I wake up in the morning to the moment I fall asleep at night?" -OwenBecker

That'll git'r done.

"Whosoever, O Monks, has developed and frequently practiced Mindfulness of the Body, included for him therein are all beneficial things conducive to wisdom"
-Buddha

Just for fun, I started playing with hemisync.
www.hemi-sync.com/

I was unimpressed at first. It sounded like new agey junk. But after an afternoon of experimenting, got to say the stuff is intense. For those unfamiliar, hemi sync uses a different tone in each ear to create a resonant frequency that causes both hemispheres of the brain to sync up. It's sort of like when you are behind another car and you both have the turn signal on, and your brain wants them both to light up at the same time. When you do that with audio tones, the brain does the same thing but it sounds like this attenuating frequency is buzzing in the middle of your head.

So I stretched out on the couch and put on the headphones. Once I went through the initial visualization exercises the tones began. Within three minutes I was in a state of samadhi that normally takes me a few days of kasina practice to hit. It feels like the pa auk sayadaw descriptions of hard, un-examinable jhanas. I know I went through at least the first 3 material jhanas. After I unplugged and took a nap, I was lucid dreaming with pretty precise control. Absolutely stunning for a half-hour session. I'm gobsmacked.

What program were you using?

Did you buy it?

Yeah Owen, which cd/tape/track/whatever did you use?

Owen,

I did seem to get concentrated in a pleasant way, nothing really mindblowing (although it does seem a pretty foolproof way of getting pretty concentrated and it does seem to bring a certain clarity after the session that is quite nice) . What did happen, however, that was really neat was a couple of strange sleep experiences.

I got out of bed, real as the back of my hand here now. Had no idea I was dreaming or anything like that. Walked around the foot of the bed as I usually do. Went to the bathroom and turned on the light. I began to feel very heavy and tunnel vision began to develop. I then opened my eyes still in bed. Very weird and it had the feel of total reality. The one lucid dream I had somewhat recently had a similar feel to it.

Later, a similar incident happened but I remember walking back and getting into bed. Then I opened my eyes realizing I had just dreamed getting out of bed going to the bathroom (again like the first time) and coming back and lying down. It was only upon waking that I realized it was a dream. I guess getting up, walking around the bed, going out to the bathroom is a very routine thing for me so that is somehow influencing what goes on during these experiences.

Both very odd and neat.

Mu, which of the Hemi-sync programs/tracks dis you use?

Eric

1st three or so tracks from the monroe institutes, gateway program (wave 1).

There's at least one free download: www.monroeinstitute.org/gateway_voyage/open-exercise/

I have been overdosing on the Tudors. Consequently, this is now stuck in my head during sits:



(warning, do not go here if you are about to hit a retreat. very, very bad)

Did some formal sitting this weekend. Feels like a big emotional shift took place, don't entirely know how to describe it but I'll give it a shot.

Sunday morning, up early and just a samatha tune-up. Following the breath at the anapanasati spot, counting to ten. Spent the day bumming around NYC in a good space. Attended a lecture on veganism and quickly switched into an extraordinarily agitated and unpleasing mind state. I don't think it's related, just context.

Got lunch, came home and took a nap. The agitation was back when I woke up, even more severe this time. I want to call it ill will, but that's not right. I was just *ucking pissed off. As I've been doing 4 foundations and metta practice, it's become apparent how much of the time I'm attempting to manipulate my emotional experience. All of my coping mechanisms (read: neurotic crap) are gradually getting seen through and loosing their effectiveness.

In a way this process is maddening and lately it has been unusually painful. The illusion of the existence of emotional security is getting screwed with and I wasn't liking it. I remembered something Jack Kerouac said, I think it was in one of his letters. He was talking about getting away from everybody and going on a trip up to the mountain, wanting to see God or Tagathata or some such and have this whole mess of suffering explained. He wrote that when he got to the top of it, without the alcohol or the drugs or the sex, there was just "Hateful o'l me".
And that's the space I've been in. Just Hateful o'l me. Not in any kind of cognitive sense like the BIG ME of the 5th stage, but the more primitive in my guts feeling of myself. The one that still thinks experienced can be changed to its liking, if only it could get some magic formula right.
So that's the set of sensations I sat with.
(continued below)

(continued from above)

I cried for a while. I shuddered. This self, this uncontrived feeling of me and raw
experience. This was what I've been trying to avoid, even with my practice.
Hell, my practice has been the biggest trip of all for avoiding it.
I continued to sit for a while and eventually things settled out. I feel... somehow more solid. It's as if I don't need to cope with life anymore because the truth of it is I AM life. Nothing to run from, nothing to avoid, nothing to grab. It's like I finally made peace with the storm. Slept really well last night also.

I'm thinking a bit about it in terms what's happened before. It's as if at 5th stage, I got over the idea that there was a part of my mind that could manipulate another part. There was no creamy center. This experience is different. It seems as though there is the direct realization that there is no working strategy that can manipulate the emotional experience. I've been trying to solve a problem and failing because it simply isn't a problem. And it's not even rightly called an emotional experience. It's just physical sensations. Some are pleasant, some not so much.
The thoughts that get layered on top of it to avoid that fact wind up creating a feedback loop of attachment and aversion - then it escalates it into suffering.

I'm still feeling the aftermath from it. Interestingly enough, I can't seem to get into jhana right now. I tried during my morning sit. Nada. Zilch. Just in the body watching the breath go in and out. I don't mind a bit. No desire to manipulate what's happening.
Hope that made some sense.
-o

It makes sense to me. In fact, I relate to this quite well, Owen. This gets into very deep emotional territory and we've spent our lives avoiding that kind of thing. So I think we just have to accept what we are, be with it, feel it as intensely as it needs to be felt. I said in an e-mail the other day that it feels like a huge Dark Night, on steroids, but without the accompanying mystery.

I think it does need to be experienced fully before we can surrender to it, which is the key. The more we attempt to manipulate anything, at all, in our experience the more it leads to suffering. There is a very low level, fundamental, previously unquestioned motivation to change things, to manipulate, to fix, that seems to be repressed, hidden by the psyche. That has to be dragged kicking and screaming out into the light and seen before we can deal with it effectively, meaning before we can let that go, too.

Cool stuff Owen. Sounds pretty intense, I'm interested to see how this plays out over the next little while.

Very inspiring.

Thank you Owen for sharing this. Very motivating post.

Antero.

Thanks for all the kind words guys. Always appreciate the feedback.

Half hour sit this morning. Back in the routine I think.
Noted energetic movements that would be previously regarded as agitation and thoughts of "how do I get this state to stick". Again, back to the humorous realization that state or comfort don't at all matter. I don't have to do anything but feel the body and be aware of the thoughts as they come. This is a self cleaning oven.

"The thoughts that get layered on top of it to avoid that fact wind up creating a feedback loop of attachment and aversion - then it escalates it into suffering." Can defiantly relate to your post Owen.

And chris I like your description, it seems really clear, " it feels like a huge Dark Night, on steroids, but without the accompanying mystery. "

The struggle seems to have been much of the problem with me...

Quick sit this morning. Samatha tune up. Still not much desire to play with the jhanas anymore, but I am getting fascinated as to how qualities of concentration always seem to match up with with jhanas 1-4. Stare at something long enough and the focus is always changing somehow.

It's been around four days since anger or fear has presented itself. I'm directly with body sensations pretty much throughout my waking state, and I'm noticing that even when I wake up in the middle of the night my default is to keep attention on the body.
The baseline has changed. I do get "proto emotions", whiffs of what could become anger or fear or whatever should I follow the mental process, but each time the thought is dropped... I just don't want to suffer like that anymore. But what I do want, strangely enough, is to become more vulnerable to my experience. As I watch my mind, it's clear that the thoughts that will make my body hurt are habit patterns that serve to protect me from discomfort. I guess eventually you have to make the choice that you would rather be with the unpleasant sensations and the uncertainty that life keeps presenting than to get chucked into samsara again. I'm making that choice every time I do the toll booth exercise, and I got to tell everybody, the results are damn nice.

I'm also noticing my energy level is way up, but it's a more calm and balanced energy. I also can get by on a lot less food. Interesting. I never knew how much time and effort I'd wasted living in a proxy life.

Any attempt to control the system results in the real time experience of suffering. Remaining unaware of this is the bug in ring 0. Awareness is not a valid method of controlling the system, but it is an effective feedback loop in which the habitual and previously unconscious attempts at control can be exposed. Once exposed, the attempts at control are dropped until eventually the system returns to an optimal equilibrium.

Note:
In real life, I'm a sysadmin. This is actually how I think.
Figured I'd jot this down here so I don't forget.

Did some fairly intense samatha practice last night. I was playing with the Tibetan system of breath counting. Fist count to 7, then when that is stabilized count to 15 and then 21. When you can get to 21 breaths in a row without falling off from the breath, you are pretty damn concentrated.

It was interesting to go through the jhanas using just samatha. I got pretty used to khanika samadhi (via noting) as my primary means of jhana access, but now that the infrastructure is pretty well developed samatha style is becoming fun. I've also noticed that NS seems to last a good deal longer and the aftershocks are more intense. It's a good idea not to try this before needing to interact with people. I'm also noticing pronounced sleep side effects, though that might be due to my new habit of using the hemi-sync bits as I go to bed.

One other geeky thing worthy of note, I'm more and more convinced that the so called "Rigpa NS" is in fact nirvikalpa-jñāna. It's not really a cessation given that there is a thread of awareness maintained though out the experience.

Check this out:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvikalpa

There are a lot of descriptions that seem suspiciously similar to what was described around here earlier. I'm probably going to write up some more howto style guides for it on the hamilton project before too long.