Andy's practice journal

Apr 27 40 minutes

Started with a quick warmup with a kasina to get concentrated, then moved into breath counting. In a short time, I felt the light, floaty sensations from the short kasina practice deepen and grow stronger and move into my lower abdomen. My vision got a bit brighter and I had some mild rushes of pleasure, and I clearly felt pleasant tingling in my hands and feet.

Instead of starting noting, I continued to follow my breath and let the sensations deepen. After a while, the pleasure and bliss started to slowly fade, and my posture felt like my body had sunken into itself a bit. Eventually, the deep core and lower abdomen sensations went away completely and the pleasant tingling in my face, hand, and feet changed to a more neutral feeling and then changed to an almost numb-like feeling that spread over my my hands, arms, shoulders, chest, upper back, tops of legs, and feet. Basically, any part of me that wasn't in contact with the car seat had this vague, uniform, almost numb and rigid feeling. At one point, it was hard to tell what position my hands and arms were in relation to my body (my hands were on my legs). In general, I felt a sort of coolness in my body.

(cont...)

I let this get good and solid and then stopped following my breath. Instead, I tried to keep a light attention on the rest of my experience. I tried noting, but it felt heavy and I kept losing the thread of it. So, I just hung out and followed along. I remember feeling hunger, and and one point my left hand vibrated and then trembled a bit. I got this twitch at both corners of my mouth like I was going to purse my lips in disapproval and then it passed. The remaining tingling that I still felt in my hand and feet turned more electric, not pleasant, but not really unpleasant either.

I followed along as all these different things developed and then slowly faded. The tingling faded down and my sense of my body almost became 'normal' in a sense. For a few minutes, the electric tingling 'warmed up' (for lack of a better term) to something pleasant, and then faded down. What was left in my body was this calm, not unpleasant, but not exactly pleasant state, and the chime rang soon after that.

When it rains it pours...

Apr 28 50 minutes

So I fooled around with the same thing today as yesterday: instead of starting with noting, I worked on getting into jhana, and then starting investigation once there. I'm curious about the differences in the two approaches.

Drove to warm up the car and noted while driving. Parked, and started breath-counting. Initially, even though I felt mindful from the noting, distractions came up occasionally, but they would pass, and I got fairly settled and focused. At this point, I was feeling light and floaty and so I played with eye-focus a bit to try to correlate it to the felt sense of my body and to the attention on my concentration object. I felt a shift to deeper and stronger body bliss and started getting some stronger tingling, and also started to notice some outside sounds of birds and cars on a nearby freeway entrance ramp.

Over time, the sense of pleasure and bliss turned to a more neutral sensation and then left my core and abdomen entirely. Now, my body from about the level of my ribcage on down felt pretty neutral, but above it had this fine vibration/tingling (sort of hard to describe). My focus was still primary body-sized. This state felt a little confusing, for lack of a better term, unfocused in a way and stayed around for a while.

cont...

The shift to the next state felt quicker and more obvious. The upper body sensations 'warmed up' and I felt a sort of body fullness as this state started to develop. When the transition was over, my body now felt less important, in a sensory way, and I had a feeling that some spatial restriction was gone. It was almost like the feeling of sitting in a big empty orchestra hall, and I was able to sense the larger space as well as hear stuff happening much further away from me. This delicious calm filled me and I was able to just sit back and and watch stuff happen -- traffic noises came and went, thoughts came up and passed away, breathing was just happening by itself. There was this very subtle visible strobing occasionally around the periphery of my vision.

When the chime rang and I opened my eyes, it looked like someone had cranked up the brightness on the picture. As I stared straight ahead, various things moved in my peripheral vision -- cars and trees branches mostly. When these did, I could feel a sort of 'disturbance in the force' as my attention was drawn from the general to the particular object and then a kind of relaxation as it went back to the general.

When I closed my eyes again, I saw this cool green and black afterimage that slowly faded. I tried to work my way back down through the jhanas and felt second jhana much more than third or first. I did feel this sort of a contraction in my sense of my attention from the wide-open calm spaciousness to a much more body-centered quicker-happening focus as I worked my way back down until finally, things felt quite normal.

Doing some catch-up from last Friday...

Apr 29
55 minutes
Sitting In the car at lunch. Started with 5 minutes of kasina to warm up. My intention was to continue getting into jhana first before noting, specifically to go to fourth jhana and start investigating from there. Started with light warmth, energy on the periphery of my body, light bliss in my abdomen, and floatyness. This moved to my core and and the energy and bliss got stronger, and I started seeing some eyelid lights. Then the bliss left my abdomen and in general reduced down, and I noticed a slight numbness perhaps, on my skin. I then got a slight warmth, and at this point I stopped following my breath. The first thing I noticed was that the intensity of the physical sensations was not as strong as the sit yesterday, and also that I never really got to the wide-open, panoramic space sensations. Was able to hang out and see subtle desire to control my breath, and also see a desire for a stronger, more noticeable physical experience. Saw myself doubting that this was fourth jhana or Equanimity, and the associated disappointment that I got there yesterday, but not today. Noted all of this. At some point, I had dream-like thinking. Basically, I hung out 15 minutes past the chime waiting for more to happen.

50 minutes
Did 10 minutes of following my breath and 10 of noting prior to the drive home. Noted impatience to get home and cycle. Got some floaty sensations, some tingling, and never felt like I got very deep. Started the car and drove. Noted pretty consistently all the way home. Got some floating sensations.

Apr 30

Had a 100 mile meeting to drive to an early meeting, so I took advantage of the opportunity to practice noting.

55 minutes of driving/noting.
It was pretty early in the morning and a double-latte doesn't trump a hard workout and less sleep than usual. I think I got 30 good minutes in before I got sleepy and stopped practicing.

80 minutes
After the meeting, I sat in my car. Watched my breath and counted for a while then switched to noting when energy, bliss, and tingling were established. Noted for a long time, and bliss, excitement went away and a vague desire for the next state came up and stayed. Noted all of this. Cycled through some dreaminess, then lights and energy several time before I resolved to move past this. The car had warmed up by now, and I felt a little hot and sweaty, felt some coolness from the sweat, had some body discomforts, aches, pains, itches. Stayed in this state 40 minutes past the chime to see if anything else developed. Never got to the spaciousness like on the 28th.

85 minutes driving/noting
Noting was mostly consistent. At about the half-way point, I pulled into a rest area, closed my eyes and noted for a short while. Noted light nausea, vertigo, dizziness, unsteadiness, unpleasant sensations of various kinds. Interesting that I didn't notice these on the road, and only saw them when I closed my eyes and noted. Restarted the car and kept driving and noting until I arrived.

12 minutes driving/noting
Mostly consistent, but not as focused as the long drive earlier.

May 2 55 minutes

Started with a driving/noting session and then parked, set the timer and starting counting breaths. When bliss, tingling, and eyelid lights had set in, switched to noting. Noted for a good long time, and the bliss faded away, but the eyelid lights seemed to stay. Nothing really changed much from this point on. I stayed meditating after the chime, but I got pretty sleepy.

May 3 70 minutes

Sat in my car for a few minutes and noted, then drove to warm it up, noting all the while. Parked, and did kasina and eye-focus practice for about 10 minutes trying to be conscious of entering jhanas 1-4.

Then, set the chime for 40 minutes, and started following my breath and counting breaths. I lost count several times on the way to 100, but continued counting. I felt several state shifts of some kinds, mostly with vertigo and a tiniest bit of mental confusion. Finally, I got to a state where I felt a warm, comfortable 'fullness' of my body inside my skin, almost like my body was a trifle overinflated (kinda hard to describe, but very pleasant), and I started noting silently

I didn't have much of a sense of my body, and I felt very still, almost frozen in place, not wanting to move to break the spell. I did move my head a little several times throughout the sit, because I felt a little bit of stiffness. I noticed the stiffness, looked at it, examined it, but initially felt no need or desire to move. Eventually, I did move, my neck popped a bit, but I stayed in that wonderful, calm state.

I felt perfectly content to be sitting there, and listened to the differences in all the sounds of cars and trucks entering and exiting the freeway, several different kinds of birds chirping, and tiny raindrops hitting the car. The raindrops were the most fascinating of all, sounding out this 3D soundspace all around me. I could hear them over me and behind me on the roof, on the window to the left, on the left and right sides of the windshield. I could have sat in this state forever.

It was very settled-feeling and calm, and a relief compared to the feel of the sits starting somewhere in posts #65, #66, where I started feeling a bit unsettled, almost confused in a way.

Even now, several hours later, I can feel the desire, the grasping at, the wanting it to re-occur. Can't wait to practice again!

Got some more opportunities to sit...

35 minutes
Sat in my car before driving home. Counted breaths, and was secretly hoping I'd hit that big spaciousness I was in over lunch today. Didn't happen. Instead, I ended up in a more constricted, body tingling/prickly state that never opened up. Chime went off and I got on the freeway and drove home.

30 minutes
Driving and noting 4 foundations on a timer, one every two minutes. Felt very calm and very focused. Able to note continuously. At one point, I was noting feelings/mind-states and I ran into fear, sadness, anxiety, little-boy loneliness, wanting comfort, alone, scared... I wasn't embedded in this, since I was able to note this continuously. It just hasn't come up for me like that before. Sort of interesting!

40 minutes
At home, house to myself, family out. Lay down in bed to meditate, and spent ten minutes or so doing kasina, and then started with samatha. Counted breaths. Lost track of my counting a number of times, so I started noting. I lost track of noting lots of times. Initially had floaty sensations, then bliss, tingling and excitement when using the kasina, but after I got to noting, I saw no bliss. Tingling had turned into this prickly numbness and I couldn't feel the positions of my fingers in my cupped hands.

Maybe 20-30 minutes into the meditation, I started yawning almost continuously, and every time I yawned, I got a chill that ran down the back of my head, down my back, all the way down to my feet. Eventually, I got sleep and drifted for a while until the family came home.

May 4 45 minutes

Started with a little bit of breath counting, until I just started to feel the swell in the bliss, energy, and tingling. At that point, I started noting. Collapsing circles of color came up for a while, but eventually, these faded, as did the bliss and energy. I noted for a while, but noting special happened other than the tingling turned into a sort of buzzy, prickly tingling that I felt primarily in my hands, chest, and face. I guess I was expecting some sort of Dark Night stuff.

Eventually, I felt a bit of "warming up," and sensations (primarily sounds) became a bit more clearer, better defined in a way. In a way, it almost seemed easier to follow the entire sound from start to finish, and while I was listening to it, other sounds didn't seem to distract me as much. This effect wasn't very overt, but it there enough for me to notice. This continued on until the chime rang.

Beautiful, Andy. Great practice, great reporting. Keep up the excellent work!

Kenneth

Thanks, Kenneth. I appreciate the encouragement!

May 5 60 minutes

Parked after work and set the timer for 20 minutes. Started by watching my breath. Initially, my focus was distracted by outside sounds - I had the windows down since it actually got warm today. However, the longer I followed my breath, the less of a distraction these outside sounds seemed to be. The sounds were still there, but they became part of my 'landscape' in a way, and just something to acknowledge and then get back to the business of counting breaths. Bliss, eyelid lights, and tinglings came and went, and for the first time, I started feeling some of the more uncomfortable stuff I'd been expecting. I had a deep pain in my abdomen that pulsed a few times and disappeared. The tingling no longer felt pleasant, but a bit harsh and almost electric. I felt stiffness in my neck. I started noticing my breathing more, and at one point, I felt tightness and tension in my cheek muscles. I was pretty much body-focused, but in the background, I was still acknowledging breathing.

Over time, these sensations slowly passed away, and I started noticing the outside world quite a bit more. At some point, it longer seemed possible to just focus on the breath - all the other sounds and sensations seemed just as valid as anything else going on in my body. So, I sat and enjoyed all the stuff going on inside and out. Eventually, it seemed like the chime should have already rung, so I opened my eyes and checked, and saw that, in fact, it had gone off 10 minutes earlier. I had completely missed hearing it.

On the way home, I noted as usual. I remember feeling excitement, and being in a great mood, and was looking forward to a family event a little later in the evening. Noting wasn't super focused, but was good enough, and I worked though each of the four foundations on a timer, two minutes at a time, until I got home.

May 6

Last night I was in a great mood. Got to bed at a reasonable hour, and then uncontrolled thinking took over. I tried to focus on breathing, tried noting, and finally took a Benadryl. Eventually, I fell asleep, but tossed and turned the whole night, and didn't feel rested at all this morning.

10 minutes
Walked for 10 minutes to build some mindfulness, noting and maintaining a gentle awareness on whatever was happening.

40 minutes
Sat in the car, set the timer for 40 minutes, and started counting breaths. I felt several shifts over the course of maybe 15-20 minutes, had itches, eyelid lights at one point, neck stiffness. Lost focus on breathing lots of times. Switched to noting, lost focus on that, and then drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the time. Woke up at the chime with body buzzing, tingling, mental fogginess.

May 7

Catching up from last Saturday...

60 minutes noting/driving
10 minutes noting before the meeting

65 minutes sitting
I started with breath-counting, and it took me a noticeably longer time time than usual to get concentrated. I got distracted lots of times and lost count, but just kept going. Either the early nanas seemed to go more quickly that they used to, or I didn't seem to be noticing them as much. So, after the effervescent body tingling arose, I started noting. I didn't note consistently, but it didn't seem like that kept me from moving through the cycle. For a long time, I hung out in this slightly constricted-feeling space, had some neck pain and stiffness, and a lack of clarity. Eventually, I popped into spaciousness with a slow, delicious full-body pulse of of pleasant fullness. Outside sounds got a lot more three-dimensional and I was able to pick out and stay with individual sounds -- birds chirping over traffic noise, individual cars in traffic. For a while, I kept getting pleasant twitches in my extremities. My body outline felt vague, and I had some occasional minor strobing in the periphery of my vision.

For a short while, there was nothing here except body sensations, and I could see the rising and passing of each sensation separately. It felt very roomy while nothing but sensations came and went. This passed after a short while. Told myself to let happen whatever may come next, and I noted feelings of spaciousness, location of sensations, wanting, waiting, dissatisfaction. This seemed to continue on and on. Ended up sitting 20 minutes past the chime.

45 minutes noting/driving
10 minutes noting to help sustain focus
45 minutes noting/driving

May 9, 75 minutes

Drove for ten minutes and noted to kickstart concentration. Then, parked, and started breath-counting. Felt a couple of shifts while counting, one of them fairly strong (vertigo, dizziness, momentary disorientation) and lost count. The second time this happened, I switched to noting. Body was a little tingly and was mostly noticeable. As I kept noting, I felt a few more shifts. I never really got a lot of excitement, big tingling, or eyelid lights, but around the 20 minute mark, my body touch sensations faded quite a bit and my body felt a bit numb, almost frozen in place. This lasted quite a while, but then some of the sensations came back and turned vaguely unpleasant. Somewhere in there, I got a number of itches. As I turned my attention to one, it would lose some clarity, but wouldn't go away completely. Another one would slowly start. This pattern went on for a bit, and then faded away.

I had a couple of episodes of dreamlike thinking and then an increase in clarity. At around the 40 minute mark, the chime went off and I kept sitting. Shortly thereafter, the sense of my body changed again, the unpleasant tinglings went away, and I felt a bit warmer. My soundspace also changed, and sounds seemed more defined. I spent a fair amount of time listening to the construction equipment moving around behind me.

Eventually, I noticed that I had a bit more energy, and had some twitches in my arms and legs. The feeling of energy increased, and I started getting some strobing in my visual field that seemed to be associated with it. I got a bit excited over this the first time this happened, but it eventually reduced in intensity. The energy and strobing came and went several time, and the twitches got stronger, and would fade away. I stopped the sit at the 65 minute mark -- nothing more was changing and I needed to get back to work.

I still feel a bit of that energy an hour later if I concentrate on it.

May 10

40 minutes
Got up early to try sitting before work this morning even though I did a training ride last night. Parked and started with breath-counting to get focused. Possibly felt a shift, but started losing count within a short time. Tried noting instead, but kept getting sleepy. The entire 40 minute sit was spent mostly feeling sleepy, waking a bit and regaining clarity, restarting noting, then getting sleepy again. Didn't really feel very productive.

May 10

More notes from yesterday...

30 minutes
After work, in the car, parked. My body'd been buzzing and tingling throughout the day, and it was very noticeable when I started breath-counting. Counted 100 breaths, and felt like I moved through various stages (Someday, I'd love to talk with someone about how my samatha breath-counting turns to vipassana automagically). Started noting, and pretty quickly, pleasant abdominal warmth/bliss turned to a more neutral buzzing. After a short time, my sense of my body outline changed and got a bit more vague. Somewhere in there, I noticed some stiffness in my neck and couple of itches passed without incident.

Soon, the sounds of cars on the highway became more noticeable, and turned to these long, drawn-out swooshes, rising and fading away. I felt some pleasant energy pulses several times, but mostly had these energetic feelings similar to yesterday. It was almost like I was keyed up and wanted to move. These energy sensations would increase and culminate in a pleasant twitch, and then would subside. This happened a few times.

I felt this interesting inner floating sensation, like I was slowly turning back and forth, almost like some internal sense of my body was somehow disconnected from my skin. It was very pleasant and fascinating to just sit taking in all the sensations and sounds.

My phone rang and ended the sit.

Great reports, Andy! Thanks!

Thanks, Joel! I appreciate the comments.

Something else happened earlier, prior to that sit - see the "Bowling as a Spiritual Experience" post of mine in General.

Something interesting also happened on the way home: 30 minutes driving home after the sit: Freshness, spaciousness, joy, felt very close to experience. There was little to no thinking. Noting felt heavy and ponderous, but noticing was very quick, light, direct. The whole experience was very pleasant, and lightweight, with this amazing visual and mental clarity. Some thinking began coming up more as I got closer to home (@20 minutes or so into the commute).

May 11

45 minutes
Started with a quick 15 minute noting sit, then got into the car and drove to work. Same experience of lightness, clarity, lack of thinking, directness, immediacy as yesterday. Felt a lot of gratitude for experiencing this again.

50 minutes
Drove and noted to get concentration started. Noting was easy, light, calm, and joyful. Parked, set chime, and started noting immediately rather than breath-counting (experimenting with this). Had a massive itch in my left eye very early in, had to rub my eye, and was fully absorbed in the relief I got. The core bliss passed by, and my skin started tingling, and then felt a bit numb. Had some stiffness in my neck and then, some restlessness.

Soon after, the numbness went away, my skin warmed up, and I had that familiar calmness and the 'frozen in place' feeling where the outline of my body felt vague and hard to notice. I also had some of the same energy buildups and twitches that I started noticing on the 9th, and noticed outside sounds of traffics and different birds. Somewhere in there, I clearly noticed dreamlike thoughts.

I suddenly felt my focus change from a narrow inner focus to something wider and more more body centered, and then felt this almost blissful feeling while my skin started tingling. After a bit, I then again felt the skin numbness, neck stiffness, then outside sounds and vague body image, then dreamlike thinking and images, and then the change of focus and bliss thing again. I cycled through this three or four times before the chime went off.

When I got back to work, I had a lot of calmness, energy and mental clarity, which slowly wore off. (This might have been due to the coffee I had before lunch) Felt pretty tired later in the afternoon.

May 11, 20 minutes

In car after work. I started off feeling pretty tired. Breath-counted and lost my place several times before I got to 40, so I started noting. Got all tingly and had some moving eyelid lights, but kept drifting in and out of clarity. Fell asleep for a while, then work, fell asleep, woke, etc... timer went off.

May 12, 50 minutes

In car at lunch. Breath-counted to 120 before I started noting. Felt like I moved pretty quickly through the early nanas. Within a short time, I had eyelid lights, bliss, then cooler skin and some uncomfortable breathing. After that, it seemed like things calmed down and got clearer, and I got the slight skin warming, vague body outline, and frozen in place feeling. Then, I just hung out. I never really got the high-def 3D soundspace or 'I can sit forever' feeling. I did find myself wondering what comes next, and noted some impatience. This went on for a while and nothing more changed by the time the chime went off.

May 13, 40 minutes

Breath counted, and lost count several times, and had several shifts. One of those shifts was pretty 'hard,' when with a sudden jerk, outside sounds became noticeable. Had a bit of bliss which passed quickly, later a bit of shakiness, a low frequency unpleasant vibration, maybe around 3-5 hz, some uncomfortable heat, itches. Later still, my skin warmed up a bit and tingled. Brief eyelid lights came and went, then calmness and relaxation, and a bit of an expanded soundspace. The soundspace and spaciousness wasn't very pronounced compared to the first few times it happened.

I hung out in this state for a while, and had a few episodes of dreaminess and tight focus. These shifted to clarity and my noting restarted as soon as the clarity came. This happened two or three times. It could have been sleepiness, but I'm not really sure.

The chime rang and I didn't have the 'I could sit forever" feeling, so stopped the sit.

May 13
25 minutes pure samatha practice (finally!) with breath-counting

I think I've figured out why my breath-counting turns to vipassana. When I've usually tried to do samatha lately, it's been in my car at lunch, and I've been having the windows open to get a breeze. Well, I strongly suspect that my attention naturally follows all the sounds happening around me. I keep attention on my breath, but I also acknowledge the sounds.

As I move through the different phases of attention, the focus of my attention naturally widens to include all these sounds, and the very act of noticing objects outside my breathing is what moves me from samatha to vipassana.

Today, I did samatha in a quiet bedroom, after having set my intention to stay with concentration and not move into investigation. I got some good concentration practice done.