Bill H Practice Log

did some as I was falling asleep - at one point I noticed I was in a state where it seemed I was close to sleep yet the mind was very brightly awake. As I lay there I started to look at attention, curious about how it moves and noticed that attention is indeed bouncing back and forth between something in the senses and sensations in the head - so THATS how the illusion is maintained. Thats darn curious., and leads me to wonder a few things - one what experience would be like without this oscillating movement of attention, and two just what is occuring in the mind that causes the movement moment to moment? very interesting.

55 min 6R's mind all over the place, kept 'gapping' off the breath and into what felt like only partially conscious self doubt/ 'canting' - ahh habits of mind...

55 min metta (6R method) - started out generating some joy/happyness, self directing and the mind immediately saying 'FU I want to be sad or resistive - I can't, etc' - seeing the thoughts, dropping, relaxing if possible, back to the metta generation. After ten minutes, even though I doubted it would work the feeling was still there, mild, and fairly stable - started to direct at the benefactor, and over the rest of the sit it slowly ramped up, using the sincere desire for the other to be joyful, present, mindful and happy, etc, over and over - at one point with maybe 10 min to go it got full bodied and downright rapturous, jhana-like I suppose, and then it felt almost like the feeling balled up and broke off the body and went somewhere, and I got into some very still states with there still being a glow in the body, started slowly building up the feeling again until the end.
-Did really feel effective at building concentration, although this is the first time I have really done this kind of a practice formally (I have done it informally for a few years because sometimes the wish for others to be happy and joyful just wants to come out, even though its the sort of thing that would have been frowned upon in my old group).

amazing - been grooving on metta all day after that last sit, finding also that I can get into a very simple (I assume EE type of experience) clear awareness filled with wonder and beauty if I just generate happyness and then drop everything and let what is already here come through. What fun. Also seeing many more thoughts than usual, especially emotionally charged ones - it seems to be very easy to detect a disturbance when things are calmer and mildly positive in the body.

54 min 6Rmetta, difficult time getting going this morning, I think I caught the mind going elsewhere about a hundred times, seemed like only a small amount of feeling would arise.

55 min 6Rmetta, stronger than the morning, but not very strong although did get fairly concentrated on producing the metta, hindrances still strong, but easier to see. Smiling really does seem to make a big difference. The technique needs more work , as far as the releasing/relaxing part goes. More practice...

Been doing some reading and listening, sending LK all over the place today - its quite a bit more 'real' and powerful than I thought. Apparently it can also be used as a jhana object. Funny how each practice has a depth to it that is unexpected - I love being a damma explorer some days

Another trick - smiling and relaxing, but especially the smiling, seems to help with samadhi pain, which I get *alot* of, usually the day after I do a ton of sitting or the day after I have a very very strong sit..

55 min 6Rmetta, mind scattered to begin, though able to get some decent self-metta going, then shifting to benefactor, coming and going but I see how important the continuity of the process of sending it is to the meditation itself, as well as how important relaxing and smiling are, even if my ability to do so is still limited. Noticed that taking the body as a whole and feeling the metta within seemed more productive than trying to find and hold on to the metta feelings.

55 min 6R metta - getting much better at the relax/smile cycle and seeing how important it is. warm positive self metta at first, then switching to benefactor. Sensations got kind of intense, more like a heat, positive vedana dissappeared for a while then came back, then after a number of cycles of staying with the sensation in the whole body centered on the heart, occasional metta wish and the relax/smile cycle I started to break into a stable state where the mind was quite quiet (for me), there was a pervading peace and it seemed somewhat self-sustaining, as if I had been pedaling up a hill the whole time and all the sudden came out onto a flat plain, where I still had to pedal but everything got smooth and easy compared to the way up - light access maybe? Went in and out of that for a bit then the bell. Still amazed at how effective relax/smile seems to be for me.

"55 min 6R metta - getting much better at the relax/smile cycle and seeing how important it is. warm positive self metta at first, then switching to benefactor. "

Man, I need to try this. Thanks for the reminder...

Thanks- Last night again I started to get some intense samadhi pain when I started to let the practice 'cool down' - as I was grooving love most of the day. I am finding that smiling when the super unpleasant tensions start to come in has two effects -it seems to alter the vedana somewhat to the positive and it interrupts the aversion a bit, enough to see how the aversion causes suffering. Kind of like using clarity to see when you are unclear. Metta does the same thing - I notice even the smallest thought causing unpleasantness or judgement when in the positive mindstate - its pretty useful. I am also finding that a smile is a good way to start off the cycle - relax, smile, feel the slight positive state, wish it upon another and it grows, continue doing this while feeling the state, when I forget I relax and smile and start over - its pretty powerful.

55 min 6R metta - a bit hard to get going, seeing some resistance, also noticing how inserting the subject into the equation causes the tension in the head, seeing if there is a way to do this without generating tension in the head.

moving over to DHO until I get to the 4th jhana after which time I will decide which way to go. Metta everyone!

aaaand I got slapped around *hard* by the dark night - had a concentration sit actually get somewhere, immediately got vaulted up the maps to 9th nana I think where I got stuck for a day, falling back down was worse as I fell down the next evening but woke up back up there somewhere and sitting yesterday was nearly impossible, didn't find any way to work with it other than choiceless noting... This brain gives me no choice. As soon as I get more concentrated I seem to automatically have some deep insight occur. I will do vipassana again now but this time I will try a few things out and see if I can find a way to do it where I get more concentrated as I do the practice instead of petering out - I spent some time going back looking at how I experience different practices and I will try out some things that I know worked once or twice to achieve this, the one I know for sure is noting/noticing using objects of hearing as a primary object (while adding in other things in body/mind as seen clearly)

The metta and 6R would be preferred but the state I am in what seems to happen is I start to feel a bit bipolar - one day is full of metta and positive feelings and the next I find myself in some weird depression or dukkha nana, I can't tell which. This last time it was pretty clearly dhukkaville.

40 min of 'annica hearing' and noting thoughts and body sensations, started out with burning and lots of tensions, strength petered out quickly, many thoughts and drifting.

Hey, I was wondering what you mean with 'annica hearing'. I guess it's listening how sounds change?

yeah. Seems to work well sometimes..

did another 35 min of pure choiceless freeform noting - *just* what the doctor ordered. I have gotten very embedded over the last few months... Its so easy to forget, the things I struggle with, are just 'fearful thought' , 'tension' , 'self image', 'aversion thought', 'vibrations', 'pressure' - SO easy to forget that thoughts are just thoughts, to get caught in their 'reality' and forget the still space within which everything moves... Everything is workable with that practice, whereas just about anything else I get derailed as soon as I get into DN...

45 min choiceless noting with DW, lots of tension, some burning, tensions moving around the head, self images, some aversion, shifted a few times after a seeing self image as 'thought', more space, less duality for a bit and faster sensations, then slowing down some and had to prod the note along, lazy, then the bell.

55 min choiceless - sit fairly uniform, no real changes except a shift from being OK and wide, noting everything, almost a pleasant quality, not super clear but no aversion looping, to a deeper level of peace, noting that too, lots of objects coming and going in the senses. Not very clear though, a bit fuzzy, many of the thoughts vague. Felt almost like I do when I am lying there waiting to fall asleep at night.

55 min choiceless, tension to start, slightly vibratory, some burning, some itching, slowly increased and leveled off, then in the middle a few rushing energy releases, very fast sensations for a bit, then seemed to be just 'normal', noting thoughts and self-images, sensations, tingles, hearing, etc. Seemed to get more calm and open as time went on, slightly faster but a few times noticed I was 'off' where the notes the mind were making didnt match. Did play with doing very fast noting a bit in there as well.

funny DN is worse *not* noting than with...
~40 min choiceless, hearing, tensions, seeing (eyelid lights), many many times slapping 'thought' or 'self image thought' onto self images that arise like hydra heads. A tension arises, then a self image, the mind jumps between the two and then the image changes to aversion, the tension increases... quite a fantastic story that is made up, all from some tension (that may have been triggered from some other thought or aversion) - no wonder we get caught in this selfing thing, its a self-reinforcing feedback loop!

55 min choiceless, fairly uneventful, hearing, thinking, self images, seeing, pressure, lots of mild tingling, some mild burning, mild nausea in stomach, near the end the sense of observing opened up a bit and things got very wide, lots of space, felt like a flea in a sea of senses for a small bit, then the bell.

"funny DN is worse *not* noting than with...
"

I get that as well. The only way out is through.

55 min choiceless, lots of tensions, sounds, seeing, noting lots of 'i cant' thoughts and 'not good enough' thoughts, noting anger and judgement that the mind keeps producing these, slowly got calmer and more open as the sit progressed. Nothing out of the ordinary.