Bill H Practice Log

"I want to thank everyone who does post their log here for continuing to do so. It is inspiring!"

And to you as well for being one of those people!

Thanks

35 min noting, whatever was center stage.. Things pretty quickly got very spacious, open, thoughts were not very clear, some sensations building up in the head, near the top, mostly pleasant.. Had a small bout of random negative stuff and jackhammering halfway or so, then more wide open, calm, thoughts hard to note, got very sleepy and dreamlike near the end, starting to warp things a bit.

~40 min noting, very wide, sense of there being an observer seemed thinner/weaker today, just stuff happening, mostly calm and peace, hearing,seeing, feeling, pressures, most thoughts noted were self images, or vague cloudy thoughts that were not clear. Some contentment, some aversion.

~30 min noting, center stage, wide, senses and thoughts, calm, felt centered and able to tag whatever arose, lots of space - after a while things got dull, very sleepy, noting tiredness, mind started to space a bit, a couple of dropouts, eventually even tried open eyes but didn't seem to help - I am curious now what happens if I continue next time, no matter how tired, if it will change again or if I will fall asleep? We will see

45 min 4F, two min bells to switch between foundations - lots of pressures, itches, tingling, etc, vedana more unpleasant and neutral, had repeating mindstates of self doubt, sadness, victimized mindstate, 'not-good-enough' mindstate... All my old friends, still there after another year of practice! Amazingly tenacious these things are sometimes, and difficult to disembed from!

forgot to log that I had a third sit last night, some fairly difficult fear/sadness for a few hours afterwards, feeling of sensations and body being too bright, too intense..

45 min noting, started out 4F's, 3 min each, made it through two rounds then noting got difficult, spacey, lots of sleepyness, noting got fairly inconsistent and felt like I was pushing on a string.. some unpleasant stuff in the beginning, tingles and such with unpleasant vedana, had a hard time with mindstate noting and thought noting, need to work on that. Did discover though I can get some improvement in clarity and unification by throwing in just a few 'relax' steps - I spent the last year doing metta samatha with a 'relax' step thrown in and it seems to help keep the noting from getting too unbalanced on the side of becoming too intense..

two sessions, 45 min each of out loud noting, lots of single notes in the 1F, many doubles and probably more triples than any other kind of note - slarted off a bit slow, but by the end of the session it had gotten much faster and somewhat smoother. Lots of tension>unpleasant>aversion, some calm periods and some expanding/space, some spots where unpleasant contractions suddenly became pleasant, or the mind state shifted from aversion to acceptance. For the most part the whole time attention kept getting drawn up into the head and there was a knot of aversion, getting the note. Sort of broke up and changed a bit over time, spreading out, relaxing a bit, then moving around, etc.

noticing how there is lots of embeddedness left in aversion and fear, on some deep level, but seeing today a bit more how it is just another phenomena to be seen, a little less 'me' than perhaps it was before. Keeping on...

40 min out loud 4F's, 3 min interval between, not much time to post, more later. Did nail a mindstate I have never been able to actually give a name before, saw it for the umpteenth time and spontaneously the word 'shame' came out of the mouth - hey thats what that is!

45 min out loud 4F, 3 min between types. A bit of mixing when stronger thoughts arose I tossed a few notes their way.. very 'normal' sit without too much mapping stuff obvious, some shaking in the beginning, a quick spite of full body itch somewhere in the middle and some obvious face scrunching sadness near the end..

45 min out loud at lunch, interrupted but continued.. 4F, 3 min switch between. Even though outloud is slower than silent it feels better in some way.. Had lots of normal tensions and stuff, some shaking, tough time with mindstates and thoughts, very subtle, wispy, sometimes 'blank' or 'lost'..

45 min 4F, 3 min switch between. - noting the mental side of things is still difficult but feels productive. Vedana is getting a bit clearer. Also notcing how there are still many sensations in the head that are identified with. An old hindrance came up today in spades, but instead of pushing it away in some subtle fashion it got the note...Hurts to allow sadness and sense of lack/not measuring up to be there but apparently anything else is not helpful - If it exists, it deserves the note!

45 min 4F at lunch, 3 min intervals to switch foundations... Dont remember much except it was interesting and felt to me like I was in some classic DN type stuff about an hour afterwards - Which due to working on the mental foundations seems to be getting much easier.

Had what felt like a very productive session with Ron, definitely will do that again. Thanks Ron!

Morning, 12 min conc, 43 min noting 4F, 3 min intervals. sort of random, but near the end things were clear and simpler, calm, though some typical mental stuff happening

lunch 10 conc 44 noting 4F's 3 min intervals - dont remember much now, need to figure out why I couldn't post earlier, some browser issue I guess.

morning.

10 min concentration, 45 noting.

Tried to do concentration on a small area of the breath - which caused alot of tension. Widened out to abdomen, still lots of tension. Switched to MM for a few minutes, which felt better width-wise but felt forced, unnatural somehow.
Went through 4F's but after a round it felt very innefectual -- I could tell in some small way I was going up the maps but something wasn't right. Decided to switch to semi-mahasi, ultra-wide method using the whole body/breath and everything as container - this altered the sit and immediately things got very wide, easier, I was noting all sorts of things at random, in a gentle way, it being easier for me in wide mode to see thinking and not be taken for a ride. Felt much more like what my mind wanted to do. Had a small few seconds of almost-absorbed in an all-around awareness.

Didnt make the logs but did 10/40 conc/Wide noting yesterday at Lunch, got pretty clear and wide. Finding that taking the whole field of the body/breath/mind loosely is allowing a better noting of mental stuff and giving more space for whatever happens to happen. Feels much more natural right now to stay wide. Causes less tension.

55 min noting this morning, started with 10 min rising and falling (whole body) and then went through the four foundations each for three minutes, then switched to freeform. Fairly wide and clear, some aversions, tensions, some contentedness, space, at one point there was a light, pleasant vibration that seemed to be whole body while there was something pleasant buzzing out the top of the head, then later it seemed that some buried sadness, images and tensions/emotions wanted to come out as awareness was poking into spots in the front of the head/face that are still identified with...

54 min noting at lunch, same format. Will be out of town 4 days on holiday...

back. Slacked a bit on holiday although went very deep the first night, relaxing and noting for an hour - could see self images flip flopping with various sensory objects, felt very calm and OK for a long while afterwards...

This morning, 20/35 conc/noting - picked traditional anapana spot for conc, felt like I was getting something out of it although the whole time the practice seemed to create or enhance nausea for some reason. Had a difficult time with mental stuff initially so switched from 4F to chioceless and eventually it evened out, space and expansion near the end, saw one particular mental repeater and was able to label it better than I had before, which always seems to shift something in a small way (good way). OUt loud this AM although had been doing silent since I left. seems like the silent *can* be faster yet the out loud seems more reliably effective.

Am doing repeat of the morning sits at lunch still but not able to post them. Settling on 15/40 conc and noting, choiceless outloud for now. Finding that a 6R style pinpoint anapana seems to be working the best.

15/40 concentration/noting, 6R anapana into freeform outloud noting. Seemed to go all the way up the maps very quickly (maybe? I can barely tell anymore Ive been through them so many times) to a wide calm space, maybe 5-10 min then it seemed like some sort of 'stuff' sadness with images and memories wanted to come out so it got the note, in that space. Other than the 'stuff' seemed pretty clear and clean... Felt like it needed to be seen and released, a bit of boredom mixed in, simplicity.

same at lunch yesterday,

This AM 15/40 Conc/noting - concentratiomn difficult as anxiety and nausea prevalent, helped to 'relax around the tension', got somewhat focused then freeform outloud noting, got to open, content space within 15 minutes then space, open, floating a bit, lots of 'stuff' coming up, conditioning glommed onto tensions in the third eye area and front of face, noting over and over, things gettoing wider and peaceful at times, in and out of noting 'stuff' from old conditioning w/childhood images to very wide open awareness, clear, more peaceful.. Honestly cannot say anymore if maps are happening but more concerned about correct practice. Its clear that off cushion I seem to get some weak DN and sometimes it is very clearly that, but on cushion usually just rising tensions up to a clearer wide space. That clear wide space seems to be allowing old 'stuff' to arise and after working with it something feels cleaner. No rush.

same at lunch, extremely sleepy and dreamy off cushion , yet still concentrated, for many hours after the sit.

35/40 anapana/Freeform outloud noting.. similar to other sits lately, flip flop between mild difficulty/shaking/tensions/hindrances and more ease, simple, wide, clear, almost boring.

did a second sit saturday, 15/40 I think, and a shorter one Sunday - intended to do a second one yesterday but it didn't happen.