Andy's practice journal

Hi everyone, I'm Andy. I've been on KFD for a little while, but I'm finally now starting a practice notes thread.

When and where I meditate:
During a good week, I sit during my lunch break 2 days a week for 45 minutes to an hour. I'll also get in a couple of evening sessions, and on weekends I'll get another session or two in.

I also spend a fair amount of time in the car on the freeway, so I practice noting while I drive. I set a timer to chime every two minutes, and I then switch between noting sensations, vedana, feelings/mindstates, and thoughts. Some days, I can be pretty concentrated and note the entire trip. Other days, it's a struggle. Usually, it's somewhere in between. On a typical week, I get 5 hours of this in a week.

A little meditation history:
I've been meditating seriously for about a year now. At the end of August 2010, I had a very intense 3 hour passage through the A&P, and started keeping a journal. I tried MCTB-style noting in October/November, and in December I switched to Kenneth-Folk style noting (four foundation, about once a second or so). At the end of January I had another strong A&P event in a two hour session, and again four days ago.

I'm not sure where to start, so I'll post some notes from the last week or so of sitting. I've actually had some really interesting sits lately.

Mar 12, 1 hour

Last sit of a long day of meditation - seven hours total of various practice. I started by counting breaths until 100 just trying to pay attention. After 100 breaths, I stopped counting and just sat for a few minutes before I started noting silently. Noting went pretty easily. I didn't get distracted and it didn't seem like things were happening too fast to note. After a while, I got to a state where sensations were just happening, and I was simply taking them in. Very few thoughts were happening. I sat this way for a long time. I then started examining the three characteristics. I continuously asked myself, Who is investigating? Which of these sensations is me? Who is this happening to? What does grasping and aversion feel like? I also tried to sense the impermanence of the sensations going by. I kind of got in a groove with this and let each question hang there for a while and tried to see if any answer or insight would arise.

Eventually, I felt some bliss building up, and I switched to playing with jhanas. I was able to bring up first jhana, and then second, third, fourth, and then back down. After doing this a few times, the jhanas seemed to grow a little in intensity, and also in clarity. After this was done. I went back to hanging out watching sensations going by. It was peaceful and calm, and it felt like I had nothing else I needed to do. It seemed a bit easier to maintain clarity though, and I only had one episode of the dreaminess-then-clarity-then-bliss-wave thing.

Interestingly, I had several occurrences of a slow-motion pulse or wave that felt almost like the physical sensations of fourth jhana building up then fading. It's kinda hard to describe. Each pulse seemed to last about 5 seconds before fading.

The chime went off and I needed to get some stuff done, so I stopped at that point.

Mar 14, 2 hours

On the bed in the evening. Started with counting breaths to 100. Once I got to 100, I simply watched the breath for a while, then started noting. I don't remember too much, except for a number of itches, and that my breath became pretty noticeable for a short while. Before I knew it, I was feeling pretty calm, and things started getting a bit hazy, dreamy, foggy. I remember trying to note, and then later realizing that I'd been drifting. I'd try again, and again, I'd realize I'd been drifting along. This went on for quite a while. So far, so good -- nothing unusual.

Out of nowhere, I felt this sudden body sensation surge, almost like the rush of acceleration in a really fast car. It lasted about two or three seconds, and at the end of it, there was this huge soundless explosion of brightness. I ended up completely awake, my thinking was pretty active, my heart rate was up a bit, I was feeling some excitement and energy, and I had this diffuse tingling all through my body. After a short bit, my heart rate settled down, but the sense of energy, excitement, and the brightness lasted a good long time.

Once I calmed down some, I realized, that I had a really hard time feeling the boundaries of my body. It sort of felt almost like I was floating in a pool of water that was the exact temperature of my body -- it was hard to tell where my body ended and the water started. I could feel my chest and abdomen a little bit more because of breathing, but it was faint.

Mar 14, continued

Soon after this, my timer chimed an hour, but I decided to stay meditating and see where this led. I had a hard time noting silently, and ended up in thought. I tried to note out loud, but I still ended up in thought. I kept waiting for the tingling and energy to subside and to get the come-down and coolness I've felt when entering Dissolution, and I also looked for any rough-feeling vibrations like I've had in Dark Night, but none of these happened. I basically stayed in this energetic, tingly, floating state with a lot of brightness and very little body sensation. I could hear things around me, but they didn't bring me out of this state.

After a long while, I started getting cold shivers and yawning, but this didn't lead to anything other than feeling cold. Eventually, I stopped meditating and got up off the bed, and saw that I had meditated almost two hours.

Mar 16, 65 minutes

Sitting in the car at lunch. Started with breath counting, but by the time I reached 50, it was obvious that I was passing through the stages. I had felt a several shifts, felt like I had taken a step back from what I was hearing and feeling, and was starting to feel some all-over bliss. I started to note silently and was able to note continuously for a while. Eventually, I got to the same point as lots of times before: I'd realize that I'd stopped noting, and that clarity was returning. I'd note again, my awareness would get hazy, dreamy, then suddenly I'd have clarity.

Several time, I had a head jerk where I caught my head slipping down, and then I'd have some bliss that would slowly spread though my body. Once time this happened while I was hearing a conversation outside. One second I was hearing and understanding the words, the next, I was having a head jerk and some spreading bliss.

This cycle went on for a long time, and the vast majority of the time, I had this wonderful, comfortable, blissfull, 'I have all the time in the world' feeling. Eventually, I needed to get back to work, so I stopped. The body bliss took a long time to fade away.

Mar 17, 30 minutes

Sitting on the couch. Started with ten minutes of candle-flame kasina practice. Had a few moments several times where my attention was completely focused on the flame, but then I'd lose the focus.

After ten minutes, moved to verbal noting. Initially had a hard time with how many notes I could do before I had to take another breath. This got annoying for a while. Eventually, I moved to silent noting, and I was able to sustain this for a while, but started spacing out, and noticed that I was falling asleep. At this point, I was too tired to think about noting aloud again, and I'd note, get tired, stop, get sleepy, wake up a bit, note, get tired, etc. The timer went off after 20 more minutes and I gave up.

So at this point, I'm up to the current date.

Mar 19 1 hour

Started with 15 minutes of kasina with a gray cardboard disk. I was interrupted by the cat several time, and so I didn't feel very concentrated while I was doing it, but when I switched to verbal noting, I didn't feel distracted at all. Went through a period where I was settling down, so I had some swallowing, some body discomfort. This seemed to fade away, and I started getting some eyelid lights - shifting patterns, dark blue speckles. These came and went, and then it seems like body sensations got reduced for a while. After this, I remember feeling some internal shakiness, a bit of an unsettled feeling, and this lasted quite a while.

Eventually, I started feeling some slow motion waves, very comfortable, very soothing, and then this passed. Now it seemed like there was a lot of 'space' in my mind, and few thoughts and sensations were coming up. I switched to silent noting, because it seemed like the verbal noting was intrusive. I tried to investigate the three characteristics. I looked for the 'I' in my sensations. It almost seemed like the 'I' was associated with statements like 'This is the way I think, this is the way I feel when I take a breath.' Almost habitual, in a way. I then tried to sense suffering, and it almost felt like I got this faint sense of vertigo when I thought about what it was like to want things to be different that the way they actually were were.

I then had some more of the warm comfortable slow waves, almost like being a a swell on the ocean. My vision got brighter one time, and then this faded. I started getting shifting patterns of light and seeing dark blue speckles again, and started feeling some stiffness in my neck and back. It seemed like it was getting more uncomfortable, and after a while, I stopped meditating.

Mar 19 30 minutes.

Lay down on the bed to meditate after working out, and tried to work on concentration. Started with counting my breath, but lost track of where I was after 40 or 50 breaths. Started again, but got tired and sleepy, and drifted in and out of clarity for the rest of the time.

Mar 20 1 hour

In bed after waking up. Started with breath counting, and made it into the 60s before losing track. Had a lot of whole body vibration and tingling going on by this time.

Tried to enter second jhana by thinking about it, and was able to get an increase in bliss and vibration. Started noting at this point, and was seeing eyelid light patterns moving around and was seeing dark blue speckles in the center of my field of vision. At some point, I remember feeling a vague sense of being unsettled, hunger pangs, and a few shifts with some slight vertigo when they happened.

Later, the unsettled feeling went away, and I started having more clarity and, although I was still having a tendency to follow thoughts a bit. I had three or four occasions of the dreaminess-then-clarity-then-body-bliss. Eventually, the chime rang the end of the hour.

This vagueness and lack of focus can be typical for me if I meditate in bed right after I wake up.

Mar 20 65 minutes Part I

On the couch in the evening. Set the timer for 45 minutes with a chime after 15. Started with kasina practice with a cardboard cutout, intending to do it for 15 minutes. When the timer went off, though, I stayed on the kasina for a bit longer, closed my eyes, and then moved to breath counting. I had started to feel some tingling and vibrations internally, and I was able to get this to increas as I counted breaths. I stopped counting when the counting was interfering with my focus and paid more attention to the sensations in my body. I tried to imaging second jhana, and suddenly felt a vertigo shift, and a slight body jerk, and immediately started to see moving patterns and speckles of light with my eyes closed. I started verbally noting at this point. After a bit, I felt a subtle deflating sensation, and started getting some tightness in my breathing, lots of yawning, and some shakiness. I felt a slower vibration around 5 Hz, and this continued for a while. The eyelid light were gone by now. At one point, I noticed light strobing around the periphery of my vision and felt a slow shift with a little bit of vertigo.

By the time the timer chimed the 45 minute mark, the 5 Hz vibration had mostly settled down, and my breathing was loosening back up. I stayed meditating. I had switched to silent noting at some point, because verbal noting required too much coordination with the breath. I was definitely getting the feeling that sensations were just happening around me more quickly than I could note verbally, and if I relaxed the noting and just let things happen, I was able to notice them happening quite quickly. Things got a little hazy here for a while, and I remember getting some dream imagery (I heard voices with a Russian accent at one point), and then the clarity to realize it.

Mar 20 65 minutes Part II

Something interesting happened near the end of the sit. My thinking had been hazy and indistinct, and then suddenly I was realizing I was in the middle of an in-breath. It was a little confusing, and it felt like the lights and sound and touch came up very, very quickly. Withing 5 seconds, I was seeing eyelid lights again, and could feel tingling on my face and lips, and then through out the rest of my body. I got a burst of thoughts and excitement about this, and just hung out with it for a while. I was starting to get involved in the content of my thoughts again, and after a short while, I ended the sit, 20 minutes after the chime had rung.

This was the clearest sit I've had in quite a while, and I'm thinking that the extra kasina work has been making it easier to stay focused on the noting, and to get a better sense of what the fogginess-then-sudden clarity thing might be all about.

From one Andy to another - welcome to KFD! Perhaps it's for the same reasons that there are a disproportionate amount of lawyers called Laurence and dentists called Dennis, but I started using your 3 minute intervals after you posted it on the DhO and I've found it a useful complement to my normal freeform noting, especially when I'm feeling aversive.

Thanks for the welcome! I'm glad that practicing "scales" has been useful to you.

Hey, I'm sorry about my choice for the name of my practice thread. I'm thinking that I'm probably violating your copyright. Is there any way for me to rename it?

Mar 21 10+45 minutes

In car at lunch. 10 minutes of noting/driving to warm up the car before starting. Started with counting my breaths. Got to 40 when I had my first shift/vertigo moment. Happened several times on the way to 70 and I lost count several time from it. Things felt like they moved fast once I started noting. Started getting eyelid light patterns so I changed to verbal noting. My body was feeling pretty blissful by now.

I felt less focused than the last sit and it's hard now to remember specific details. I remember times of inward focus and lots of body tinglings, and other times when I had a wider focus and noticed traffic sounds and birds. Had number of times where I got strobing light in the periphery of my vision. Eyelid lights came and went a number of times. I had maybe 4 or 5 occasions of the dreaminess-then-clarity-then-bliss. I'd then notice eyelid lids and body tingles again. It's hard to remember more, but it was difficult to stay with the verbal noting, and I'd drop off and realize it later.

Mar 22 10+30 In car at lunch, Part I

Had lots of anticipation, eagerness, and energy prior to this sit. Noted for 10 minutes while driving to warm up the car, and it was easy to note, and I had a wider, more panoramic attention at times. I couldn't wait to get started. Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to get settled in. Today, I set the timer for 30 minutes, closed my eyes, and immediately started breath counting. My attention was not just on my breath, but was pretty inclusive of a lot of things.

The first shift happened by the time I counted 20 breaths, and by the time I got to 40, there was no point in continuing counting. I was getting very fine, very fast vibrations and tinglings, and was starting to notice bliss. I was also feeling excitement and anticipation. Within a short time, sensations and thoughts had moved very much to the foreground of my attention, and my sensations of 'I' were way back in the background. Soon after this, I started getting quick(1-2 second) bursts of disorientation/dizziness/vertigo, maybe one every few minutes. These became more prominent, and I started seeing strobing lights around the periphery of my vision following the bursts. I also started getting an increase in bliss whenever this happened.

Part II

The strobing became pretty prominent, and and would fade in intensity, but not always completely. Something about noticing sensations changed at some point, and I'm not sure how to better describe this, but all the occurring sensations seemed to be present together in the same field of attention. By this time, I was feeling a little shaky, excited, and had lots of bliss.

Suddenly, I had the realization that everything that was happening was in the sphere of my possible attention, and further, that there was nothing else outside of this whatsoever. Even before I had finished realizing this, I had a HUGE bliss wave and a huge rush of tingles and energy. This went on and on and as it did, I had a big upwelling of emotion (hard to say what) and I sobbed a couple of times, and then I couldn't stop grinning. The intensity of all the physical stuff was pretty much off the charts, so I hung out for a while enjoying all the good sensations.

I got another much smaller version of the huge bliss wave when I thought again about how all sensations were present all together in my awareness and that there was nothing outside of the field of awareness. I continued to hang out in this state for a while until the chime rang 30 minutes and then I went back to work. I was actually amazed that I could function as well as I did with all the bliss, tingles, excitement, and energy.

Mar 23, 10+30 In car at lunch

Noted for 10 minutes while driving to warm up the car. Felt a little distracted while noting/driving. After I parked and started closed-eye meditation, I got settled very fast and had a little tingling on my face and lips early on, but no serious bliss or vibration. I had a few shifts within the first few minutes, and not long after that the sit became very calm and I just watched stuff happen. I had some spaciness or maybe sleepiness, but not much. Had a few episodes of the dreaminess-then-head-jerk-then-clarity. Basically the sit was nothing special, almost boring, and I found myself wondering when the chime was going to go off.

This is a huge contrast to the wild ride I had yesterday (#15), and basically was very calm and restful, with no eyelid lights or serious body tingling or vibration.

"Basically the sit was nothing special, almost boring, and I found myself wondering when the chime was going to go off.

This is a huge contrast to the wild ride I had yesterday (#15), and basically was very calm and restful, with no eyelid lights or serious body tingling or vibration.

"

Hey Andy. Nice journal. I have noticed that this happens sometimes. I will have a good day of practice where I feel I have made progress and they very next day I feel bored with it all and its hard to get going again.

How do you feel about it?

Thanks, Anthony. It's been an interesting ride so far. I've actually been journaling my sits since September 2010, but only recently started a thread here.

I've noticed this pattern about my sits, too. If I have a really energetic one like #15 above, then the next one or two are lower-key. #15 was pretty intense, and the bliss and tingling lasted 6-8 hours into the evening. I'm glad the next one was calmer.

Mar 23, 30 minutes

At home on the couch after working out. 20 minutes candle-flame kasina practice. Seems like I got concentrated pretty easily. Tried to play with entering jhanas 1-4. Each jhana's sensations and focus of attention were not very clear, or might have been that I was really tired after the workout.

Follow this with 10 minutes of breath counting and fell asleep. Ah, well.

Hi Andy,

You're doing a great job reporting your practice experiences.

You wrote: "Basically the sit was nothing special, almost boring, and I found myself wondering when the chime was going to go off."

What is it about boredom that had you thinking about the practice session ending?

I find boredom to be an aversive emotional mode. "Ug, when is this going to be over? Enough with the blah blah blah already."

I might suggest really entering into the feelings of boredom, rather than participating in the thinking-mind's strategy for getting away from it. Sometimes boredom can be quite fascinating! It just takes a different kind of intention and attention.

Practice goes best when we really let ourselves have our experience, no matter what the experience is.

Keep practicing well. You're doing great.

Jackson

"What is it about boredom that had you thinking about the practice session ending?

I find boredom to be an aversive emotional mode. "Ug, when is this going to be over? Enough with the blah blah blah already."

I might suggest really entering into the feelings of boredom, rather than participating in the thinking-mind's strategy for getting away from it. Sometimes boredom can be quite fascinating! It just takes a different kind of intention and attention.

Practice goes best when we really let ourselves have our experience, no matter what the experience is.

Keep practicing well. You're doing great."

Thanks, Jackson. I appreciate the encouragement.

Good catch on the boredom. You're absolutely right. I did get caught in the content of the thought, and didn't examine it. When things get this calm and quiet, it's easy for me to overlook that there is more subtle stuff going on, and I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I need to be doing. I wonder what else I'm missing?

I've read that I should be paying attention to all the stuff that's normally in the background as well -- specifically any sensations that imply space, time passing. I'm not quite sure yet how to do this, but I'll try to keep it in mind the next time I sit.

Hey Andy. I'm glad I was able to help.

Part of me wants to say not to worry about looking for particular aspects of experience. In meditation, it's usually best to stay with whatever is figural/salient. In other words, what stands out? If it's boredom, go there. If boredom leads to something else, go to that. Whatever arises, move into it.

The other thing to try (which sort of contradicts my first tip) is to inquire into, "who is experiencing this?" This is particularly useful in high equanimity, when things seem to be humming along on their own, and the only split left to ditch is the basic subject-object duality. Simply noticing that this split is there, and that it isn't true, can be enough to collapse the illusion.

But be patient. If impatience sets in, you know what to do. (see above...)

Jackson

Mar 24 30 minutes

Kasina work with gray cardboard disc and tennis ball. Attention took a long time to settle down, but was eventually able to keep object in attention for longer stretches of time. Also played with jhanas 1 - 4, and was able to rise up to fourth and back down once. I think I need to be doing pure concentration practice daily.

Spent a little time afterward reading and working through the experiments at www.headless.org .