Andy's practice journal

Wed, Nov 7

Woke up before the alarm even though I'd gotten less sleep than usual (Stayed up watching election coverage). Meditated doing metta for a while, then did 10 minutes of watching my breath. In both cases, I drifted in and out of dreaminess/sleep. I seemed calmer, less nervous today than yesterday, but it still feels like a roller coaster.

Thursday, Nov 8

Off-cushion, I've been having a lot of reactivity to thoughts about something that's been going on at work. I'm finding myself spinning all sort of angry, vengeful, and anxious stories about some interactions I've had recently. At one level, I know that I'm making this stuff up, since there is no way for me to really know what someone else is thinking. On another level, though, I'm really reacting quite strongly to these made-up stories.

Went to bed late last night, slept in a bit, but still woke before the alarm. Much to my surprise, I was able to stay with my breath fairly well. This has not been the case most of the last ten days. I continued with this on the drive in. Nothing spectacular, just steady breath-watching without counting breaths.

Had some calmness and occasional pleasure arising during the day. No big reactivity, which was fairly surprising to me, considering how much of this was going on yesterday evening.

Saturday, Nov. 10

Got in three on-cushion practices on Saturday. No long sleepy/dreamy sessions, but a few focused ones. In the last session, I seemed to cycles between Equanimity and A&P fairly slowly, with a gentle arising of body bliss each time. The longer I sat, the more pronounced the bliss became. I set my intention to track the next shift back down to A&P in as much detail as I could. The next transition was a noticeable fruition, with a small thump, and a minor bliss wave. The body bliss continued past the end of the sit and into the evening. The next day -- nothing special.

For the last few weeks, I've had trouble staying with noting. I start off fairly well, but tend to lose focus after 10 -15 minutes, and it becomes hard to stay with it. I'll find myself lost in thoughts for a while, then this will pass, then more thoughts.

Monday, Nov. 12
15 minutes of meditating along with Gary Weber's new guided meditation 'Non-dual awakening meditation - Where am I?' at


20 minutes of trying to continue this on my own. Early on a big rush of pleasure, then lack of clarity, then I emerged into this ordinariness, and it became hard to stay focused on tracing back the sensations of the 'I'. I remember light feelings of frustration and confusion (which I did not note, come to think of it). It really felt like meditation just stopped, like my body said I was done for the evening. So I stopped and went to bed.

Tuesday, Nov. 13

Here we go again!

30 minute sit at lunch. Warmed up with watching my breath, then shifted to noting. Even before I started noting, I was getting blissful slow pulses. In about 10 minutes, I started having transitions back down from equanimity. Some of these felt slow, but some were noticeable as fruitions: sharper, more sudden, and followed by a small bliss wave. After the sit and after I got back to work I definitely noticed some residual bliss.

As the afternoon went on, the bliss and euphoria kept getting stronger. It was getting harder to stay focused on work. On the ride home, my senses seem cranked up to a much higher resolution. Noting was very fast, sensations were very clear. This lasted well into the evening, and I was still feeling it when I went to bed. In the morning, some of the bliss was still lingering. Even now, 20 hours later, all I have to do is close my eyes, breath out slowly, and I feel gentle tingles and rising excitement.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of these 12th path cycles. . Sure, my concentration and noting get a boost, and I can get into jhana way more easily. It never lasts, though, and they don't really seem to do much in terms of insight as far as I can tell. Ona seems to be right in that this is more like a natural function of the body, like burping or passing gas. If you're 10 years old, this is great fun, but at some point, not so much anymore.

Thursday, Nov. 15

Evening sit was murky, sleepy, no clarity. I watched my breath to get started, then noted. I remember drifting in and out of clarity, and a few strong bursts of clarity and eyelid lights, but that's about all I remember. When the chime went off, I woke with a heavy shakiness in my chest, which slowly faded over the next 10 minutes.

Wednesday, Nov. 14

Still having some gentle bliss and light euphoria, but it's fading fast. I had a confusing lunchtime sit. Breath counted 3x10, then started noting. Noticed some drifting into dreamlike thinking and back out. Had one semi-clear fruition, but the majority of the sit was characterized by a lack of clarity and focus.

Off-cushion, I've noticed a lot of old sadness, fear, loneliness and related thoughts surfacing (old as in I remember these thoughts and feelings from childhood). I'm still wanting to eat for comfort - this is pretty much unchanged from the last few weeks.

It's been a while since I've posted, hasn't it? I'm putting this out there to help catch up anyone who may possibly have been following my updates.

Starting sometime in September, my motivation to keep posting had been declining. In fact, I had little motivation to do much of anything. Life in general was a lot of work, and I felt emotionally reactive to all sorts of minor slights,

Formal meditation was mainly an exercise in frustration (I would get very sleepy/dreamy after about 10 minutes). No amount of extra sleep helped this, and no amount of sitting, noting out loud made any difference. Off-cushion practice wasn't being terribly helpful either.

By the end of November, I was cycling in a regular pattern. I'd have a few days of wonderful, peaceful calm, then a few days of crushing depression. This whole thing thing would take about about a week from start to finish, and it was terribly draining.

I think I was still really hoping that I'd have that big realization, and that it would bring all of this to an end. Frankly, I'm not really sure what I was hoping. Perhaps that it would make my life better somehow? That I'd stop getting caught up in my thoughts and feelings?

Finally, at the beginning of December, I acted on some advice I had received six months ago. I broke my 790-day sitting streak (can you spell '˜clinging' anyone?) and took a complete and utter two-week break from sitting. I stopped all off-cushion practice, stopped paying attention to sensations, and stopped looking for the three characteristics. If I found myself growing concentrated in the least, I'd just let my thoughts run free, turned on the TV or radio, or started a conversation with someone.

[cont...]

[...cont]

The weekly emotional cycling smoothed out almost completely. I still didn't have motivation, but at least the roller-coaster ride wasn't there any more. I still cycled through the nyanas without any effort on my part, which was interesting to me. Since stream entry, I've never had a break in meditation, so I've never been able to notice this before.

I did a lot of things that I had not done in a very long time. I listened to NPR on my commute to and from work. I listened to a bunch of podcasts. I played with programming at home on personal projects. (I'm a software engineer by profession.) I watched some bad TV. Actually, I watched a lot of bad TV. I did stuff around the house. Just stuff, you know? And it was good and easy. And it was such a relief not to pressure myself to continue my meditation streak.

After the two weeks, I gradually added in some formal meditation, but I also took some days off. Nothing much had changed, so I didn't sit much over the holidays, but I read some Adyashanti, some Bob Fergeson, and other assorted awakening-related stuff that didn't have much to do with pragmatic dharma.

[cont...]

[...cont]

Near the end of my vacation, I had some time on my hands, and I ramped up my sitting over the span of a few days.

And something changed for me.

I woke up the day before I was due to return to work, and to my great surprise, I didn't want to stay in bed as usual. I had lots of energy, got lots of stuff done around the house, and had a lot of relief, joy, happiness, contentment. The best way to describe the change was as if a long, drawn-out fever finally broke.

My daily energy level has climbed significantly, and I'm motivated to get all kinds of stuff done. In fact, I've even restarted working out at the gym again. I don't seem to require quite as much sleep, and seem to sleep through the night better. It's easy to concentrated off-cushion, and tingles come up on the surface of my skin when this happens.

My sits have followed a different pattern as well. The sleepiness/dreaminess that was so prevalent sometimes doesn't come at all these days. When it does, it usually passes with 15-30 minutes, and I emerge into a calm, clear, ordinary-feeling space. I've been having fruitions again, which hasn't happened in a long time. When I'm done sitting, I feel energized, not sleepy.

I'm not really sure where this is headed, or what will happen next. It may certainly turn out to be yet another run through the A&P. Whatever this is, I'm taking advantage of the clarity, energy, and motivation.

Sounds great Andy. I hope this was the breakthrough you were looking for!

It sounds like a refreshing change.

It's really hard to give up things that have worked for us for such a long time. It makes some of the transitions we have to pass through more difficult but I think that's built into the process itself. It reorients us to being more open, to see things that are not right under our noses, or that ARE right under our noses but that we still just don't see. Sometimes when someone tells us we have to reorient, to stop working so hard, it just reinforces our instinct to keep doing what we've always done, probably because the suggestion sounds so weird, even stupid. Andy, I hope you keep opening up because it sounds like that might be taking you somewhere new.

"Finally, at the beginning of December, I acted on some advice I had received six months ago. I broke my 790-day sitting streak (can you spell '˜clinging' anyone?) and took a complete and utter two-week break from sitting"

Wow. I bet that took some doing! Amazing how refined our attachments can become, isn't it? Congratulations on having the discipline to be undisciplined!

It's now 10 days after the attitude adjustment that I woke up to on Sunday, January 6th, and it doesn't show any signs of abating. I'm happy a lot of the time, and joyful, even. I feel motivated to get stuff done, and I'm not so worried about having 'my time to relax'. When someone interrupts 'my time to relax', it's way more okay than it used to be -- I don't feel so selfish about 'my time'. Life is easier in general - the same crap still happens, but it's okay when it does. I don't react with much frustration, anger, fear, exasperation, annoyance, etc... It's just something else to deal with and then I move on to the next thing.

The meditation experience has changed, too. I get focused very quickly when I sit. I'll occasionally count my breath if I have a lot of thoughts, but most of the time, I simply pay attention to everything going on in my experience, and then meditation just sort of does itself. When I'm not as interested in getting to a certain state, I have more curiosity about what is actually coming up.

The other day, I found I had some access to something really cool: when I'm not indulging my own thinking, I can be really present for what arises next. The thing is, I can't tell what that's going to be. Joyful anticipation and surprise happen more often than not, and it can become a constant flow of newness. Right now as I'm writing and remembering this, I'm feeling a big rush of joy, relief, pleasure, gratitude, and more gratitude. Tears are leaking out of my eyes a bit.

"Tears are leaking out of my eyes a bit.

"

Mine too. Great stuff Andy. I am very happy for you!

Beautiful.

"
Beautiful.
"


What, no cat picture?

I'll admit I was tempted.

*EDIT*: How about this one? rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEyLzA3LzAy...ZQlqcGc/ed1139a8.jpg

HAH! Nice!

"I'll admit I was tempted.

*EDIT*: How about this one? rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEyLzA3LzAy...ZQlqcGc/ed1139a8.jpg "

DOH! I just got rickrolled with keyboard cat.

Sounds like a lot of weight has dropped from your shoulders Andy. Congratulations

Wow, this is wonderful! I'll keep an eye on this thread.