Andy's practice journal

May 24 (cont.)

50 minutes
Started with ten minutes of walking meditation. Initially, it was ridiculously easy to stay with the sensations in my feet, but it slowly got harder, and I had more and more thinking coming up. Tried noting with the same result -- easy at first, but then more thinking and getting lost in it.

Got in the car, drove to my meditation spot, and set the timer for 40 minutes. I set a formal resolution to stay with my breath and to not enter the cycle. I counted and watched my breath for 20 minutes and was able to get some pleasure and a 'body glow' to rise, but it never bloomed and I wasn't able to sustain it.

At 20 minutes, I explicitly chose to start noting and very quickly got eyelid lights and body bliss. Soon, neutral tingling arose, the bliss faded. Then, the tingling faded and calm remained. Hung out, played with investigating the 'I' and had an increase in energetic sensations. When I was able to focus well on 'Who am I?,' I noticed some very mild twitching in my arms and legs. Hung out some more and felt like I moved back and forth a few times between calm, and calm with buzzy tingling.

Tried to work my way down the arc, and produced the buzzy tingling, then an increase in tingling and bliss, but little else was clear.

May 24 (cont.)

40 minutes
I was feeling some shakiness late in the afternoon, even before I sat. I started noting immediately without first focusing on my breathing. In addition to the standard bird and traffic noises, I noted the following: shakiness, heavy deep throbbing, prickly tingling, hot air, hot flashes, sore throat, sinus drainage, twitches, stiff neck/release of tension (repeated over and over), swallowing, watery eyes, the rare itch here and there, fearful angry thoughts, intestinal pressure, aggressive thoughts on hearing voices in the parking lot.

Noting was very consistent throughout all of this and was very easy to maintain. I had a bit more thinking nearer the end, but not really runaway thinking.

Other than the heavy vibration and shakiness receding somewhat by the end of the sit, little else seemed to change or cycle. This is almost an entirely new experience for me, and I have a sore throat coming on, so I wonder how what I noticed and noted was affected by this.

Interestingly, there was almost no second-arrow reaction to any of this. It was by far a simple recitation of things that came up. That being said, I was ready to be done at 40 minutes when the chime rang.

May 25 (Part 1)

35 minutes.

I experimenting with something different today. I mostly tried just sitting, without watching my breathing, without breath counting, without really trying to intentionally do anything, and especially without noting. Occasionally, I'd play with attention a bit, placing it on one object, or intentionally moving it from object to object, but mostly I just tried to let it go wherever it went, and watched things arise and pass.

So the first thing I noticed was that there was a constant pleasant body sensation present whenever I put my attention on it. I didn't try to change it, didn't try to investigate it too deeply, and just watched it as it developed. When I did place my attention on it fully, I could feel it gather a bit of steam and grow, could feel some excitement growing, could feel tingling beginning.

After looking at this, I simply sat there and watched my attention move to various objects, sounds and touches, mostly (my eyes were closed). It was very smooth-feeling, with none of the 'forcibly dragging attention around by it's nose' heaviness I've gotten sometimes. Very organic and light and transparent.

I sat there and pretty soon, I felt a bit of bliss and tingling rise up and fall, and then felt the periphery of my body get a little numb and felt a sense of stillness develop. I tried noting a bit, and felt an increase in the strength of the tingling. Noting felt a bit heavy, and almost seemed to get in the way of noticing, and I stopped. Had one thinking episode where I imagined a fearful scenario . Eventually, I got to a point where there were more thoughts coming up and I'd only notice them when they subsided. It was interesting -- I wasn't getting lost in these thought for very long, and body sense impressions would come to the foreground of my attention naturally once the thoughts subsided.

May 25 (Part 2)

I had some twitches here and there, and energetic sensations that seemed to flow around my body. I'm not really sure how to describe these. Their movement definitely felt fairly distinct and localized at times, and vague and indistinct at others.

I eventually realized that the chime had gone off at some point, and when I checked, I had sat for 5 minutes past my time, and had never noticed it.

May 26

Still have the feeling that there's a clarity and transparency, and sometimes an almost palpable sense of really being present when I'm mindful off the cushion. In some ways, it's easier to be a watcher to my inner responses to some situation, and stand back as the first thought-as-response comes into awareness, and then, well, then watch as nothing follows. No irritation, no frustration, no habitual response. I grinned the first time I saw that happen.

Then later, I got cut off by someone on the freeway, and I calmly watched as 'I' got fully involved in anger, thinking 'there goes a completely self-centered jerk' only to realize 30 seconds later that I'm still lost in my reactions, and that the comment goes perfectly well both ways...

There's more of the second than the first.

30 minutes
(From memory, didn't write down notes)
In my car. Felt a bit pulled into thoughts as I started with some breath-counting. Had a hard time relaxing, since I've got a sore throat and cold, along with a number of accompanying symptom. The first 10 minutes or so were spent dealing with this as I tried to count, and kept getting the smooth flow of my breath interrupted. I stopped counting, and when I was finally able to relax and focus on the pleasure in my body, it got easier, but then I felt this weird juxtaposition of the cold symptoms and the body pleasure. Things moved slowly, and at some point, the bliss built up, and then faded, leaving only the buzzy tingling when the timer went off. Drove home with that tingling present and watched as it very slowly faded away.

Realized later that the juxtaposition felt weird because it's not the cold symptoms but my habitual reactions to them that are the real problem. When I just saw them as physical sensations and didn't automatically have and then follow the reactions to them, then it made perfect sense.

May 26 (cont)

40 minutes
Lay down on the bed to do some jhana practice. Tried watching my breath and it wasn't until I was able to completely let go of the breath that I started getting the rise in pleasure I was looking for. I was tired, and I noticed that it was the times where I had completely let go and started to fall asleep that I felt the jhana sensations start to blossom. Which, of course, woke me up and reversed the process.

Eventually, I think I struck some balance and had bliss, tingling, excitement going. I was a bit tired, and drifted in and out of alertness. At one point, I had only tingling and calm, and a bit later, the tingling was gone. Drifted in and out a bit more and a bit less.

I came fully alert to a quick rush of tingles down the surface of my arms and legs, followed closely by eyelid light patterns, then by spreading bliss. The bliss intensity built up over maybe a minute, and it was luxurious and strong and it went on and on and on and on. As I lay there, grinning, I got a number of twitches that felt like little aftershocks.

I still have traces of that bliss 2 hours later. Still grinning too...

May 27

30 minutes
I took advantage of a bunch of opportunities today to practice mindfulness, so I was feeling pretty motivated and concentrated when I started. Formally resolved to stay in jhana territory and not wander into investigation. Started with breath counting and experimented with watching air passing my nostrils, air passing the back of my throat, my abdomen, but finally settled on the body as a whole. Shortly, I felt my skin tingling, outside noises seemed to fade away, and I felt quite absorbed into my breathing. I did not feel definite transitions between jhanas, and things felt a bit indistinct, but at some point, I felt neutral tingling drop away to calmness. Had a few dropouts where clarity faded for a brief time and then returned.

For a while, it felt like concentrating on the various energetic sensations was encouraging them building up to something. I had the impression that if I had wanted to pursue a fruition, this would have been the time. Instead, I put more effort into following my breath.

When my felt sense of my body disappeared, I switched to the now minimal sensations of breath at the top of my throat. By this point, it was hard to stay focused on that and I felt a lot of drifting and spaciness. I tried to remember the sensations from the time I woke and felt a huge vastness stretching out in front of me, and for a short while, it felt like it was going to arise again, but it did not happen.

I worked my way back down and tingling arose with more of a body feel, then energetic sensations and mild eyelid lights, then some excitement. Then I sneezed, which pretty much brought me out but left my skin tingling. At that point, my phone buzzed, and I ended the sit.

May 27 (cont.)

35 minutes
In the car after work. Set my intention to stay in jhana territory and not wander into investigation, but that didn't last long. Counted breaths and followed the feel of my entire body breathing. Felt concentration deepen, but then suddenly I felt a strong shift, and my focus changed, and phenomena became easier to look at. This felt like a clear start to the arc, so I counted shifts, and when I arrived at the 4th one, my body feeling got more intense, excitement came up, and my eyelids lit up. Felt coolness on my skin after the next shift. Had a bit of a harder time feeling the dukkha nyana changes, but did get a very unpleasant hacking cough and hard to place unpleasant feelings for a while. I lost count and ended up being off by one for the last shift.

The final shift felt like my upper body feel changed and brought a bit of calmness, although it wasn't strikingly obvious. I got lost in thought a number of times, got this spaced-out feeling, and lost a lot of sensation in my body.

Here, I had two 'dropout' episodes where I suddenly ended up with noticeably increased pleasant sensations, eyelid lights, and clarity, although a bliss wave never really developed.

30 minutes
The chime went off, and I drove home, and I'm not sure if it was the effects of the cold, but noted aches, pains and other cold-related sensations pretty much all the way home. Felt better after dinner.

May 27 (cont.)

20 minutes of candle-flame kasina. It was already late in the evening, and I was probably really wanting to get to bed. Lots of sleepiness, distractibility, posture-related aches, cold symptoms. Did have one brief moment where piti flared up and woke me, but for the most part, lots of wanting to be done.

May 28

20 minutes in bed immediately after waking. Spent 10 minutes attempting to watch my breath, and 10 minutes attempting to note. Not really asleep, but apparently not really awake. Lots of dream imagery and getting lost in thought.

Andy, do you practice much walking meditation? Try doing 15 or 20 minutes of walking meditation to set up a sitting.

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Walking+Meditation

In this way, you might be able to extend the total formal practice time of a session without having to sit the whole time. This works will for me. If you are already balanced, calm, and alert by the time you sit (all these things are cultivated by walking), it can really enhance the efficiency of your sitting time. And since formal sitting is as useful as formal walking (and since total hours of formal practice during a lifetime matter enormously), putting walking and sitting together is a powerful combo.

I was actually out doing walking meditation, and came back to read the message this message from you! That's a great idea, Ken.

I've used driving/noting for the same reason earlier in the year. I would drive for 15 minutes to warm up the car and note, and found that my in-car meditations afterward were much less scattered and wandering. Now that it's warmer, walking meditation is much more doable for me, and I intend to do more of it.

May 28

35 minutes of experimenting with walking meditation on a paved path in a park. Watched sensations in feet for a while, then whole body sensations involved in walking, then shifted to breath, and finally noted for a while. I'm not exactly where, if anywhere, I ended up in terms of the maps, but was definitely concentrated and alert when I was done. At one point, sadness, little-boy loneliness, fear came up. Other times, my vision got grainy. Sat down on a bench in the park, closed my eyes and did the following:

20 minutes of Second Gear, asking 'Who am I?' Asked 'Who is experiencing this?' when sensations or thoughts arose. Initially there were no answer, thoughts, or concepts that arose. Then, I heard some talking, noted an emotional reaction to one of the voices, and immediately got a clear sense of the 'I' involved in that whole chain of reactions and thoughts that came up from it. I kept finding an 'I' whenever I felt a reaction to pretty much anything. I had reactions involving fear, self-protection, liking, wanting, and lots of other stuff. Sometimes the sense of the "I" was faint, sometimes strong. In general, I could tell it when I saw it, but I'll be darned if I can describe what it felt like. Interesting practice!

10 minutes of walking meditation and noting walking home from the park, but did not feel quite as focused as before.

May 28 (cont.)

20 minutes of candle-flame kasina. Wanted to get some concentration practice in. Kept getting interrupted by cough and sniffles. Tried to meditate around it, and to my surprise, I was actually able to do this a bit. I kept a bit of mindfulness on the candle while I hacked and coughed (sort of like picture-in-picture on a fancy television), and when I returned to the candle, it was like swapping the side image for the large one. Except that there were a bunch of side images. And at random times, one of the smaller images would jump into the middle of the view on occasion. Okay, a lot. Oh, and the sound kept switching channels randomly and I would like that better than the audio for the candle program.

All in all, very entertaining.

May 29

Not keeping notes today.

20 minutes early in the morning. Still have my cold and sinus infection. Interrupted by various symptoms lots of time. Never really developed.

10 minutes of walking meditation, paying attention to breath and feet

20 minutes sitting on a bench in the park. Noting 3D soundscape, and my reactions to voices, cars, dogs, bugs, itches, bugs, more bugs.

40 minutes of noting while walking in the park. Watched how attention narrows and widens on it's own depending on what, when, where it touches. Vision was grainy for an early chunk of this. Kept increasing walking speed to try to keep mosquitos away. Noticed aversion to mosquito bites. Walked faster anyway. Mindfully.

May 29 (cont.)

A couple of interesting things in this short 15 minutes sit.

Back home from the walk. Lay down in bed and set the timer for 30 minutes. Still having a hard time getting concentrated because of distractions from having the sniffles and having to cough. Tried to watch my reactions to the interruptions, then found I could watch how my attention would disrupt and then refocus on noting after an interruption[1]. Found myself almost wanting to cough again to see the attention process working.

Had another interesting experience. Eventually I got focused, and noting was proceeding, and I was getting some dreaminess. Had this weird auditory thing where I was getting this cycling pitch loop. It would start low, then slowly and smoothly work it's way up higher in pitch, then back down. This repeated several time. I found myself noting rising, falling, rising, falling. Then I got clarity back and realized the sound was still there. Huh? That's weird. Why is the noise still there?

I realized I was noting the tornado siren. Grabbed my wallet and phone and got my butt downstairs into the basement.

The interesting part is that while I was noting it, the siren seemed to be just sound, you know, like in "in the seeing, just the seen; in the hearing, just the heard." [2] Good thing the siren was loud.

The storm passed without incident, other than some flower pots overturned and lots of leaves torn from the trees.


[1] interesting thing 1
[2] interesting thing 2

Classic!

Haha! I've had this myself during daily life, I'm often so mindful of my body and thoughts that I hardly pay attention to my environment. Right mindfulness my donkey!

May 29 (cont.)

After the storm, I went out walking.

20 minutes walking meditation, keeping attention on breath, and on feet.

20 minutes walking back home, noting. Got more drifting into thought as I got closer to home.

May 30

40 minutes in bed
20 minutes watching breath, interrupted a bunch of times by coughing. Changed to noting, since I was getting a bit sleepy then 20 more minutes of noting, sort of. Felt sleepy, and actually fell asleep sometime after the chime rang


40 minutes
Sitting on the porch with my eyes closed and noting. Lots of sounds to pay attention to. Played with attention, letting it direct where it wanted to go. I'd follow it, then latch on to that object, and 'soak it in' until attention was pulled somewhere else.

First time through, I got into some dreaminess, and was interrupted by coughing. Restarted with eyelid lights and energetic feelings. Kept noting, and got to dreaminess again. Was following the sound of the lawn tractor across the street when it felt like I latched onto it fairly strongly. Heard it move across in the soundscape, felt my attention getting more and more focused on it, and then I suddenly felt attention narrowing very, very closely on it, and the next thing I know, I'm having eyelid lights, energetic feelings, a bit of bliss, and attention seemed free to wander around again.

Ended the sit soon after. Still feel a bit of that bliss if I think about it.

After reviewing my experiences on and off the cushion over the last twelve days, and after emailing Kenneth, I strongly suspect I had a path fruition on Thursday, May 19, while meditating in my car on lunch break, at about 2:00 in the afternoon, parked in a commuter lot next to a busy freeway (post #109).

I didn't recognize the event as a fruition at the time, nor did it strike me as odd that the next day's fantastic mindfulness was out of the ordinary (posts #110-112). It finally started to dawn on me when I had a review fruition a few days later (#120-121), which led to terrible excitement when I had another one a week later (#130). Had another review fruition today, as well.

awesome - congrats!

May 31
Was feeling fairly blissful most of the morning, and did four different informal session of noting off the cushion, not counting the usual 1hr noting to and from work.

20 minutes of formal closed-eye practice
Now that I'm in the review phase, I'm taking some time to get more clarity into the territory between the 4th and 11th nyanas. It's been pretty difficult for me to actually tell which Dark Night phase I'm in. So with the limited time I had today, I worked on just being able to discern the shifts between nyanas.

I started by noting, and noted, noted, noted, and suddenly I shifted into 4th and I had my landmark. Starting from there, I counted 9 shifts to get to 11th, which means I felt something that I thought was a shift but wasn't.

The jump from 11th down to 4th wasn't clear either, but was more obvious than the transitions between nyanas. I cycled this way four times, and each cycle through seemed less distinct than the time before that.

Congratulations Andy!!
Enjoy the next little while, it will probably be very pleasant(was for me) You've done a lot of hard work, so enjoy!!
Seem to be a lot of people reaching milestones lately, I seem to always be congratulating someone, lol! More proof this stuff works, and this is a very helpful community.

Thanks, Rev! I appreciate the note.

Interestingly enough, the last few 3 days have been a bit unsettling for me. I had an emotional Big Issue(tm) going on for me in my personal life. I've also not had the opportunity to sit very much, and have been at a conference. A lot of negativity has coming up during the day and I've been much more sensitivity to it. It's difficult to sort out what is normal emotional reactivity to a poorly handled situation on my part, and what may be exacerbated by cycling off the cushion.

Here's an example:

June 1, 20 minutes

Had been experiencing fear, worry and anxiety off the cushion, prior to this sit. Sat for 20 minutes in my car. I immediately noted fear, scared, guilt, anxiety, anger, smallness, childlike, throat tension, frustration, disappointment. This went on for quite a while, even as I felt bliss grow and fade, numbness on my skin, and into a short vague period where I assumed I was passing dukkha nyanas.

Eventually, I got spacey and had dream-like images, and suddenly found myself having clarity, spreading bliss, tingling limbs, eyelid lights, energy. My noting seemed to change to noticing more body touch sensations and sounds, rather than the previous focus on feelings.

The next time through, this cycle happened faster, but the bliss and tingling was more pronounced.

The next few times, it was definitely more vague and harder to spot. The chime went off and I had to get back.