Andy's practice journal

Thursday, 2/2

I've been working on boosting my concentration, so I did some kasina practice to start my lunch sit. Things started off fine, but after 10 minutes, I noticed that my eyes somehow ended up closed by themselves. I switched to noting, and this helped the sleepiness a bit. Interestingly enough, right around the 30 minutes mark again (it's happened in three sits), I woke up to a bliss wave, and got more and more awake after that. This happened several times -- it felt like I was moving into dreaminess, and then suddenly transitioning to clarity.

Shortly after that, I had one big obvious body thump followed by a big bliss wave. The session changed somehow after that, almost like sensations were more obviously noticeable. At one point, I started getting bright strobing, but this faded. After that, I tried to keep concentrated on sensations. I tried hard to see if there was something I wasn't noting, and it almost felt like I was starting to get to high Equanimity a few times. The bliss from the big thump lasted into the afternoon.

[continued...]

Thursday, 2/2 [continued]

Interesting ride home: I started by noting, and soon felt a sort of frustrating tension. This tension would become obvious when I tried to explicitly move my attention to something other than what it was currently on. So, if I just let attention jump to whatever it wanted to, I was fine, but as soon as I started to try to find some other random object to note, the tension arose. Spent the rest of the ride home trying to notice what was presenting itself to my attention, and even lots of times it was thinking, I seemed to become aware of it very, very quickly. So, while it's true that I spent a fair amount of time in thought, it's also true that I was aware of it the vast majority of the time.

When I went to bed, I could not stay out of meditation, and ended up cycling through very intense, very pleasurable cold chills and body rushes over and over for about 40 minutes. When this happened, I'd get goose bumps, and all the hair on my body would stand on end. Then, just as suddenly, it would abate and the cycle would restart. I wasn't very awake when this started, but it definitely woke me up as it progressed. I got up and moved around to try to stop it, since I needed to sleep, but it took a long time to get back to sleep.

Friday, 2/3
I got to sleep late last night because of the involuntary meditation, and remember waking and moving around in bed lots. I was pretty tired this morning, and had a hard time motivating myself to note on the ride in. My neck stiffness seems to be getting worse. It's been going on for almost three weeks now.

Saturday, 2/4
Got a couple of hours of practice in, but nothing special, other than working on concentration. Same old cycling through bliss.

Sunday, 2/5
Some concentration practice in both the morning and at night. After a half-hour, both times turned into the same cycling in and out of bliss.

At night, after I got done, I could not get to sleep and could not concentrate to save my life. Kept getting itches everywhere, urges to move, getting hot, getting cold, restlessness. Finally fell asleep, but slept poorly, and woke up with a lot of anger, tiredness.

Monday, 2/6

Slept very poorly, and woke up angry. Did not want to get out of bed. Did not want to go to work. Went anyway. Was able to note mostly consistently on the way.

Felt tired at work, not very motivated. Some anger, little patience, a lot of wanting to be home, and some avoidance of harder work.

At lunch, the weather was warmer, so I did walking meditation for the first time in a long time. I'd like to be able to do this more regularly, but I do live in Michigan. Noting was not as interesting as it was a few weeks ago, and seemed like a chore. I noticed that I was getting swept up in thought fairly quickly.

Tuesday, 2/8

Didn't feel like I got enough sleep last night, and found noting to be a lot of work on the way in to work this morning. Motivation was way down, and it was very easy to get lost in thoughts. Breath-counting, however, seemed to work better, but my neck still felt stiff and tired.

At work, I felt tired, didn't feel like doing much. I noticed a lot of comfort-seeking: taking breaks, eating chocolate, surfing. It was tough to concentrate on work, and then even harder to stay focused on it. A lot of 'this is too hard' thoughts were coming up.

At lunch, I started with kasina work, and then my eyes began to close on their own, and it got difficult to note without losing my focus and concentration.. At around the 25 minute mark, things suddenly lightened up. It became easy to note, easy to concentrate, easy to see sensations, so much so that I kept sitting past the chime and got more time in than I planned. Eventually, my neck started getting tired and stiff, so I stopped.

During the afternoon, however, this lightness went away, and by the time I got home, I was back to tiredness, comfort-seeking, lack of concentration, low motivation. Spent the evening in bed reading, watching TV (something I rarely do).

Wednesday, 2/9

Last night, I remember dreaming some scenarios with a lot of anger, violence, fighting. Although I saw all of these things as being old reactions and habits, I still felt powerless to react differently in the dream. Woke up in jhana more than a few times, and if I wasn't in jhana, I would feel it start up as I was drifting back to sleep. Slept almost 9.5 hours, and felt like I could have slept a couple more.

I didn't hold out much hope for noting on the way in, so I set my timer to remind me every two minutes. At first, I couldn't note for more than a minute without losing track, but as I continued, it got a bit easier. I found that I needed to let go of the noting in a way. Just letting sensations go on in the background and keeping a very light touch seemed to be what the situation required. I managed to note this way fairly consistently, although I felt out of control most of the time, and seemed to be missing a huge amount of stuff going on.

I only had time for a 15 minute sit at lunch, so I just noted. I was able to stay mostly focused on body sensations until I felt a quick jolt/thump in my body and got a small wave of chills. When this happened, my awareness opened up to be fairly broad, and outside sounds became much more noticeable. I had a bit of bliss from the jolt, my attention seemed more diffuse, and it got noticeably harder to stay focused on noting sensations. The timer chimed shortly after that and I went back to work.

Physical bliss and bodily pleasure started building up an hour after the sit, and kept building and building. It got to the point that whenever I would direct concentration at something, I could feel the bliss rise. My mood elevated and got almost a bit euphoric at times. I finally got a bit of a respite from this after putting in 40 minutes on my bike trainer, and was able to get to sleep without problems.

I have no idea what's going on.

Thursday, 2/9

Tried to sit in the car before getting on the highway, but couldn't stay focused on my breathing or on noting. Kept trying once on the road, but I wasn't able to keep it going for more than a minute or two at a time. At work, my mood is still a bit elevated, but it feels like I'm more distractable.

At lunch, did kasina for 10 minutes, then watched my breath for 10. Concentration seemed a bit scattered. Switched to Witness after 20, and started getting periodic slow waves of bliss every few minutes. These kept getting stronger and stronger the longer I sat. I ended the sit 20 minutes after the chime went off.

I seem to end in this type of pattern when I practice Witness. I wonder if more concentration practice might help clarify if I'm actually riding the jhanic arc up and down. Wild guess is that the bliss comes from crossing or re-crossing the A&P.

By the afternoon, the bliss from yesterday's fruition and today's sit wore off, leaving lethargy, wanting to be alone, wanting to snack. At bedtime, I stayed up later than usual reading, avoiding going to sleep. In the morning, I didn't want to wake up and hit the snooze button on the alarm three times.

Friday, 2/10

Didn't think I'd be able to concentrate on the way in, but I was pleasantly surprised. It almost seemed like sensations weren't arising as crisply as usual, but I could be scripting this. It's like I saw them after they were already there.

No sit at lunch, but still had mild bliss in the afternoon.

Weekend 2/11, 2/12

Over the last week, I've been adding one-pointed concentration work to my practice to see if anything noticeable changes. My guess is that I'm not getting enough concentration practice, and it's contributing to the lack of clarity I'm having.

Saturday was another long drive day, and I got almost 5 hour of practice on and off the cushion. On Sunday, I did around 2.5. Nothing unexpected happened, but I seemed to get into concentration a bit easier.

I had low motivation pretty much all weekend, and not much energy to do much except for lay in bed and read, watch a little TV.

Monday, 2/13

At lunch, I drove to warm up the car, and felt equanimity come and go as I noted. Did some kasina work, then breath watching, but then drifted in and out of dreaminess/sleep until the end of the sit.

Did a short 15 minute sit after work, before driving home. Sometimes these short sits really surprise me, and today was one of those days. I used my breath like a kasina, maintaining one-pointed focus, then shifted to noting.

Within a very short time, noting started to flow quite easily, and then I had a full-body shimmering feeling and then the sudden realization that all of the thoughts and all of the sensations were all happening in the present moment. Thoughts about the future were happening now, thoughts about the past were happening now, and I felt very close to, and very intimate with the present moment. There was this kind of hollowness to what was happening, this emptiness, this simplicity, this simpleness. Everything that was, was that clear, simple, continuous flow in the present moment. I feel like I've gotten a glimpse of something unexpected and wonderful.

Tuesday, 2/14

Did some concentration work before my drive in, using my breath as kasina. After maybe 10 minutes, I quickly got some changes in focus, the feeling of of effort eased up, and my sense of space changed several times. I ended up with very little sense of my body, and felt myself gently floating, eyes looking out into this big empty space. Shifted to noting after a few minutes of that, started the car, got on the highway, and noted quadruplets consistently most of the way in.

Concentration seems to be improving. At lunch, I did mindfulness of my breath, and then worked on jhana. I did pretty well with 1-6, but 7 and 8 were not very clear. This is the first time in many many weeks that I've been able to get a clear sense of jhanas, so it looks like perhaps my additional work with mindfulness of my breath and kasina seems to be helping. I tried to see if any higher jhanas were available to me. Although I felt a sort of transition from 8-9 and 9-10, nothing else happened. Well, that's not strictly true -- I got unceremoniously dumped out of jhana, lost my focus, and had a bunch of thoughts come up.

Noted for another 20 minutes after that, and noting flowed very well.

Off-cushion, things are a different matter (cont...)

Tuesday, 2/14 (cont...)

I'm not sure what to make of the insight I had yesterday. I wasn't able to stay with it, but I still have the lingering memory of what it was like to be fully present and to see everything coming up in the foreground of the present moment. Thoughts, feelings, sounds, sensations -- all of these came up in a rapid stream. None of them were special, none of them were "self', in fact, the sense of "me" was clearly missing. Throughout it all, I had a strong sense of the physical immediacy of the environment I was in, a very palpable sense of intimacy with physical sensations, and joy and excitement.

The whole thing happened once, and faded. I was able to jump back into it again one time before it disappeared. All of it lasted maybe 5 or 10 minutes total, and yet it still feels incredibly powerful and profound two days later.

However...

Back at work I was having a really hard time staying on task. I had vague feelings of anxiety and dissatisfaction. I didn't get much work done, and this brought up all sort of anxious thoughts, wanting to comfort myself with food, wanting to take the afternoon off, wanting to distract myself.

Feelings seemed stronger and more vivid than usual. All kinds of old thoughts were popping up for me, most of them unpleasant, most of them part of old, unskillful, angry, fearful, or anxious situations. Some of them came from as far back as when I was a child. These didn't seem to be affecting my behavior to a greatly noticeable extent, but to an outside observer, I suspected that I was quieter than usual, more distant.

For the most part, I can see most of what comes up as a peculiar sort of entertainment, but some of it is compelling enough for me to get stuck in it for a while, or to react based on it.

I'm curious to see what today brings...

Sounds like the ol' A&P/Dark Night one-two punch!

Yeah, I got the Dark Night part, but it didn't occur to me that the insight could be part of A&P. In fact, I had thought I passed through A&P in January, and possibly started Dark Night a week ago. Truthfully, I was secretly hoping I was in Reobservation already.

Shows how much I know.

Actually, I've had what appears to be a full cycle in the last couple of months, complete with what seemed to be a review phase. Trouble is, I've never had anything resembling a clear path moment since last October. I'm pretty sure I'm part way into Twelfth Path.

Get used to it

Thanks for those wise and compassionate words, Nadav.

Wednesday, 2/15

Started the morning by using the breath as kasina for about 10 minutes, then shifted to noting and then drove to work. Noting the four foundation seemed harder, so I stuck with mostly sensations. Did this fairly consistently all the way in.

All the negative and scary thoughts and feelings I was having yesterday, all that 'peculiar entertainment' seemed mostly gone, but I still had a hard time getting work done. I kept distracting myself with other, "easier" stuff.

After work, did another quick 20 minute sit after work in the car. Started with watching my breath, but within 5 minutes, I started getting heavy 7Hz vibrations primarily in my chest. These kept getting stronger, and I switched to noting. I noted for another 10 minutes, and the vibrations got a bit stronger and heavier. Soon after, they started to smooth out and then stayed that way. I drove to the gym and did a heavy strength-training workout. I didn't feel the vibrations any more after that.

Thursday, 2/16

Here I go again -- yet another interesting experience on the way to 12th path:

Did 20 minutes of breath-counting, with some occasional dreaminess and loss of focus. I then sat up straighter, and started noting. I noted for maybe 20 more minutes with some dreaminess and vibrations, some energetic stuff and some flickering of light in my closed eyes, and then that evaporated into calmness. There was a clear sense of a wide-open soundspace, and traffic noises and bird were fairly apparent, but other than that, it seemed fairly uneventful. I noticed some boredom, and a few thoughts here and there, but mostly, I tried to just let go and let things happen.

Suddenly, I had something that felt like a transition, and the Witness was very clear within me. It was so clear and so obvious that it really stood out from everything else. There was the Witness, and then there was everything else. So I paid attention to everything but the Witness, and suddenly, I had the same sort of full body shimmery sensation as the other day, the Witness disappeared, and there was only everything else left!

No self, no Witness, just spaciousness, and a big ramp-up in sense impressions. Whenever I tried to look for the Witness, I could not find it. All I got was a weird slipperyness and an inability to lock my attention onto anything. These sensations faded back a bit, but I had lots of excitement, joy, and a silly grin came up on my face.

In a short while, 'I' started to come back, and was experienced as a filling up of the hollowness with something that distracted and almost demanded my attention away from the simple sensory aspect of everything else. Once it started coming back, it happened pretty quickly, and soon the regular everyday 'I' was back.

[cont...]

[cont...]

I ended the sit shortly after that. Back at work, though, I had plenty of energy, excitement, and felt motivated to get work done. Some bliss and excitement started to come up about an hour later, and kept getting stronger.

By the time I got to bed, the bliss was fairly strong and constant. I lay down on my back and closed my eyes, and without any noting or mindfulness, concentration was present, and pleasant vibrations started up in my body almost right away. Soon, I had a number of fruitions one after another, with accompanying bliss waves. After 40 minutes of this, I rolled over and moved around for a while to get this to stop, and managed to fall asleep.

Today, whenever I close my eyes, I can stay with my breath quite well within a couple of breaths, and tingling, pleasant vibrations, and ringing in my ears all come up fairly quickly after that. If I stare at something for more than a few seconds, I get a kasina-like effect where that object gets the overlay ghost image. My attention then get strongly drawn to that object. I've had elation, joy, a strong sense of being present, and have gotten lots of work done. None of the distractions that I had a few days ago came up, and I worked pretty much non-stop from when I got in to when I left. My ability to focus seems very strong.

I'll enjoy this while it lasts. Meanwhile, over the weekend, I'll keep working on concentration, and will also see if second and third gear practices feel any different.

Saturday, 2/18

Well, things are definitely interesting and different. The bliss and wow factor have diminished, but in their place are peace and non-reactivity to stuff that used to push my buttons. I seem to be aware and mindful a lot of the time.

So, yesterday after work I sat in my car for 20 minutes. After 10 minutes of concentration practice, I emerged into a very calm, wide soundspace. Then, after asking "Who am I?" my body shimmered for a second, and the Witness disappeared.

Instead, I felt a sort of blissful energy all through my abdomen and into my head. It was all very peaceful, calm, and almost tranquilizing in a way. Thoughts were few and far in between. Feelings would arise, and then I could feel them as a sort of presence or disturbance in my body. I would then hold my attention on them, and they would sort of dissolve with a little bit of a faint body rush and the peaceful calmness would be back. Thoughts were the same way -- I felt them as a kind of tension that pulled at my attention.

I'm guessing that I was doing direct mode practice. It seemed obvious, natural, and simple.
I made a resolution to stay in this state when I opened my eyes, and I was able to continue doing this practice on the highway and even into the gym for my strength training workout.

After the workout, I typically am very fatigued, and sometimes I overeat. This time, I ate a small amount, took a shower, then noticed that I wasn't hungry. So, I didn't eat until I felt hungry. The physical hunger seemed totally separate from the mental desire to eat.

This morning, I got a lot of stuff done. Last week, I noticed lots of excuses when I resisted doing chores. This morning, I just got stuff done. No aversion, no excuses, no hesitation, and things just got done.

Whatever is happening, if it can help me get stuff done around the house, I'm all for it.

Saturday, 2/18

Well, things are definitely interesting. The bliss and wow factor have diminished, but in their place are peace and non-reactivity to stuff that used to push my buttons. I seem to be aware and mindful a lot of the time.

So, yesterday after work I sat in my car for 20 minutes. After 10 minutes of concentration practice, I emerged into a very calm, wide soundspace. Then, after asking "Who am I?" my body shimmered for a second, and the Witness disappeared.

Instead, I felt a sort of blissful energy all through my abdomen and into my head. It was all very peaceful, calm, and almost tranquilizing in a way. Thoughts were few and far in between. Feelings would arise, and then I could feel them as a sort of presence or disturbance in my body. I would then hold my attention on them, and they would sort of dissolve with a little bit of a faint body rush and the peaceful calmness would be back. Thoughts were the same way -- I felt them as a kind of tension that pulled at my attention.

I'm guessing that I was doing direct mode practice. It seemed obvious, natural, and simple.
I made a resolution to stay in this state when I opened my eyes, and I was able to continue doing this practice on the highway and even into the gym for my strength training workout.

After the workout, I typically am very fatigued, and sometimes I overeat. This time, I ate a small amount, took a shower, then noticed that I wasn't hungry. So, I didn't eat until I felt hungry. The physical hunger seemed totally separate from the mental desire to eat.

This morning, I got a lot of stuff done. Last week, I noticed lots of excuses when I resisted doing chores. This morning, I just got stuff done. No aversion, no excuses, no hesitation, and things just got done.

Whatever is happening, if it can help me get stuff done around the house, I'm all for it.

Sat, 2/18

Reactivity seemed much less than normal. Went to a company birthday party on Sat night, and seemed very mindful, very aware of my body in my surrounding. After I got to bed, I got woken up by a fruition, and then whenever I'd drift off to sleep, I would start having fruitions. This went on till after 3:30 am. Slept very very poorly, but had a great attitude in the morning.


Sunday, 2/19

Reactivity was still less than usual, and attitude was good despite very little sleep last night. I went cycling for an hour in 30F temps, and didn't even fight with myself to get out the door. In general, I did not eat unless I was hungry. In the evening, I was very tired from the ride, and fell asleep trying to meditate. Afterwards, I had a tiny bit of comfort-seeking and ate a snack even though I wasn't hungry.

Monday, 2/20

Very tired from the weekend, but was able to note pretty quickly on the way in. The lunch sit didn't seem very helpful -- 40 minutes of drifting in and out of sleep.

I got more and more mindful, motivated, and focused as the day went on, though. After work, I sat in my car and worked on concentration for 10 minutes, then noted for another 10. I ended up with a wide attention, with lots of details noticeable in the periphery of my vision.

On the drive home, I started with noting, but ended up just being present and accepting of whatever came up for me. Attention remained very wide, vision was very sharp, and a soft, pleasant, calmness pervaded the whole experience. I was able to carry that into the house with me and stay in it for quite a while. At home, I got some stuff done that I was putting off (this is a new experience for me! )

Did another 40 minutes sit before bed. Very similar patter to the previous one. Started with mindfulness of the breath, then switched to noting around the 20 minute mark. Passed through a bit of bliss, then some distracting, fearful, angry thinking, then emerged into calmness. Spent the rest of the sit there, hanging out, getting deeper and deeper.

Tuesday, 2/21

Every day there's something new!

In the morning, I sat in the car before driving in, and had some bliss, then a rush of angry thinking, then calmness. Took this calmness on the road with me, and it got deeper and stronger as the drive went on.

At lunch, however, I tried to work on concentration for the first half of the sit, then on noting for the second. In both cases, I quickly lost focus and got sleepy, and never could regain wakefulness. I tried to move around at the halfway point, but it didn't help.

It got worse in the afternoon. All afternoon, I was rapidly losing motivation and energy, and by the time I tried to sit after work, I got very dazed and sleepy like at lunch. When I got on the road, it was difficult to sustain noting. Concentration was very, very low, and it was an enormous amount of work: I'd get a few good notes in and then lose the thread of it. Watching my breath wasn't any better. I managed to count to 10 a few times, but not usually in a row.

I ended up skipping my workout, and just went home and lay on the bed and read. Felt very cold and generally 'out of it' all evening, and found myself eating extra.

Wednesday, 2/22

Did four sessions today: before driving in, at lunch, after work, and in the evening.

I got 10 hours of sleep, but still was feeling very dull and 'out of it' at breakfast, and was having a deep 10 hz vibration in the middle of my chest. I again couldn't really sustain either noting or breath-counting on the drive in. I did have several noticeably unpleasant and disgusting chains of thought to make up for it though. Throughout the morning, my head was feeling full, like I was going to have a headache, and my thinking seemed disorganized. It was hard to stay on task at work.

The lunch sit was interesting. I started with full-on noting, and shortly after that, sensations, thought, feelings all started coming up in a wild, disorganized rush. It was hard to focus on any single thing. Eventually, this calmed down and it became easier to stay with individual sensations. My noting would stop as things got dreamy, and would pick back up again when clarity would come up suddenly.

Near the end of the sit, I felt a strong transition, and things changed again. The dreaminess-to- clarity cycling stopped, and instead, I had a calmness and pleasantness settle in and start to deepen. An hour after the sit, though, this faded, and by late afternoon, my motivation was very low and I was feeling tired and just wanted to be home.

After work, I sat in the car before heading home, and just noted. Had a lot of dullness, tiredness. Started getting sleepy, little by little. On the road, noting felt scattered, disorganized, hard to sustain.

In the evening, I sat again, and tried hard to slow down my noting, and to clearly notice as much of the object as I could. Most of the time, it was slow going, but I was able to note. It wasn't fast, it wasn't pretty, and there was drifting and confusion at time, but at least I could see objects. Felt confused and tired when I was done.