Fast or Slow, Untangling the Knot...

I haven't had the desire to keep a practice journal, but now I think it will help encourage consistent practice. So here it is.

More to follow...

Looking forward to it!

Be prepared to be bored to tears...

Haha, that's how i feel about my log. "Hey I'm confused" blah blah blah. One day other confused people may get some benefit from it.

45 minute sit

Reminded myself that thoughts about practice, analysis thoughts, judging thoughts, assessing progress thoughts, etc. needed to be noted as practice thoughts.

Wanted to start with Ken McLeod's "Air Dakini" meditation, but became very concentrated quickly. Eyes squeezing shut, sense of big dark space in front of me. Darkness and contracted feeling weakend and the field of vision became a gentle glow. Everything normalized (i.e., just me, sitting on the cushion in the room).

Focused on sensations of breath, committing to do at least three rounds of ten. Lots of adjusting and dropping tension as I did so. Where is the tension, the ill will? Continued to keep breath as object of attention, allowed field of experence to occur around it. Dog barked and I saw the experience move from an internal event to something located outside the house in the next yard. That seemed important and began sensing the "inside-ness" and "outside-ness" of experience. Returned to sensations of breathing.

Sense of contraction another kind of spaceousness in front of the eyes. Saw my breathing become labored, experience from from a very witness-y point of view. Had a pretty good thought related to work and breathing relaxed. Mind felt very calm and opened my eyes.

Mind was very still. Very present. Objects crisp. Lots of space around objects. Very equanimity like.

Asked who was experiencing this state? What experiences? Kept this gentle questioning going. More and more present, more simple, more this body is another experience, not me.

Hung out there for a while. Normalized.

Realized it was a good time to do Air Dakini meditation. Did it. Felt very grateful for practice. Thanked teachers. Intended that the practice lead to awakening as quickly as possible for the benefit of all beings. Offered the benefit of the practice to all those who needed it.

Speaking of Ken McLeod, in one of his talks he mentions a sky or star meditation but doesn't say what it is. Does anyone know?

"Speaking of Ken McLeod, in one of his talks he mentions a sky or star meditation but doesn't say what it is. Does anyone know?"

I'll bet it's "sky traveler" meditation. That's another name he uses to refer to dakini meditation.

For those who might be curious, these meditations are meditations on the 5 elements (earth, water, fire, air, and void) which if out of balance are the pathologies of (rigidity, fluidity, intensity, busyness, and dullness) and which if balanced are the clear qualities (stability, clarity, knowing, effective action, and union). The point of these meditations are to get familiar with how the pathologies manifest in our mind/body and develop the equanimity to the sensations that automatically transforms the pathologies to the clear qualities.

(Obviously I'm not even attempting to describe this in all of its detail or nuance.)

And I'm doing the Air Dakini meditation because I tend to make myself too busy.

Welcome to Diarist's International - KFDh chapter, shargrol.

Heh, thanks. May it be a benefit to all beings.

Tonight I stumbled for a long while, not even able to count ten breaths. Just kept restarting when I spun off and tried not to get too frustrated. Desparate there for a while, down shifted to noting sensations on each in breath and out breath. Kinda gave myself up to it and got concentrated.

Dark space in front of me. Cultivated it by accepting it and letting full experience. Felt like I went deep into it. Could see my intention itself a resistance, kinda gave up yet at the same time willed it too. Deepened maybe and then became airy and normalized,

Mind clear, opened eyes. Noted variations of clearness for a while, but then noticed a dullness I was overlooking. Looked around, uncomfortable. Noted negative states. Kinda quickly saw how forward looking expectation and backward looking judgement brought suffering into the moment. Sat with that for a while and seemed pretty fundamantal. Made me deeply sad, eyes soft. Watched how this this soft emotion of sadness and caring occurred, mind and body, moment to moment.

Normalized.

Did Air Dakini meditation.

Done.

Reading your journal, Beta!

Much appreciated (and I'm not bored, am I reading it wrong?)!

"am I reading it wrong?

"

Probably not. Other people's posts seem much more interesting than my own.

I guess "straight ahead" practice is not interesting if it's my own "straight ahead" practice, but one person's straight ahead is another person's curvy.

Today's sit pretty much a numb-bliss fest. 45 minutes of it. Just cooked up in it, guilt free.

edit: in retrospect... couldn't tell if I wanted the numb-bliss state or if the meditation was naturally a numb-bliss healing kind of sit, so the "guilt free" was more like acceptance and enjoyment tinged with a spice of distrusful guilt.

Yesterday's sit. 45 minutes at the end of the day, somewhat sleepy and dreamy. Counted breaths 1-10, until I switched to sensations of breath as they arose. Less than ideal mediation circumstance. Wife in the room reading, people BBQing outside, dog twitching in sleep, wife going to bed, lights in room being turned off... looked at those sensations of aversion, so funny how suffering is right there. Recognition of how this stuff can blossom into a baseline sense of negativity. Awareness of frustration at "not being in control" of meditation. Aversion of the dreamy thoughts that happened toward end of sit. Accept, accept, accept... and done.

Yesterdays sit. 45+ minutes, a little more normal. Quick initial consolidation occured by itself, then breath counting for more consistent attention, then noting. Straightforward beginning, becoming stable. Then a period of discomfort, looked for where ill will was. It was in the mind, judging, aversion. Looked at thoughts, "wonder what my next thought will be." Became nearly verbally thoughtless, but it wasn't that high equanimity twilight state. Momentary experiences still had meaning, I was still judging, reacting... could see very subtle narrative thinking going on, easily overlooked. Seemed very subtle and hard to approach. Felt dull, blamed it on doing meditation at end of day. Then realized "dull thinking/awarenss" was just as legitimate an object as anything else. Spent time on that, but hard to approach, too. Hmm... somewhere in here I did a quick metta (me, wife, dog, every being, me). Last fifteen minutes went quickly, in fact sat a few minutes longer than I planned. Feels like I'm getting momentum going, starting to get into awkward territory (which is a good thing)... but time will tell.

Yesterday's sit. 45 minutes, a little edgy. Pretty straightforward non-verbal noticing, no concentration states.. Some very light free floating anxiety-type mood as background. Might be a tint of dark night, woke up early this morning due to a dark and moody dream. Did metta for about a half hour while still in bed: me, wife, dog, family, humans, all beings, me, all beings. Sat for about 15 equanamous minutes before starting the day.

Was reading about the dying process in Ken McLeod's "Wake up to your life" while on a road trip... I found it interesting that one f the latter stages was dissolution of fundamental anger (and then fundamental desire and next is fundamental ignorance). Fundamental anger seems related to the "free-floating anxiety type mood". General sense that while accepting an experience is possible, it's easier to just do battle. To critique. How dare Now be like this? How dare now put me out like this?

It's interesting because it seems like another level of suffering/solidity to understand -- yet while it seems "big" it isn't giving me the kind of dark night suffering that such a notion would pre-path(s).

We'll see what tonight's sit is like...

Yesteday's sit: 45 minutes, very daydreaming/thought-filled. In retrospect, would have been better to take a short walk before sitting, too much on my mind and rushed myself into sitting. Noted the thoughts and went into the mood senssations, became sleepy, had a few nodding offs.

Yesterday's sit: 45 minutes, body scanning and tension releases... Initially focused on breath, then began noting, transitioned into wordless noticing, narrative thoughts were few and quiet, attention naturally going to subtle tensions in body and "mood", rather quick noticing, moving on it's own, questioned if this was just autopilot but it seemed to be doing the right thing, experiences seemed raw-er more primal, body would periodically squirm from unease as if it needed to reset after all of these subtle releases, dropped into a concentrated state for a while, then normalized, mind clear but not as penetrating, yet the investigate-release instinct seemed to be weakly going on in the background, and done.

Yesterday's sit: 45 minutes, still looking closely, some twilight states... Feeling very plain, as if life and what to do is obvious. Settled in quickly, naturally noting, especially adversive/resistive/suffering sensations. Became concentrated from moment to moment attention. Some of that immediate-yet-confused state, that pre-complete-thought state, which often seems to be a gateway to insight. One head nod, so close to sleep state, too.

Yesterday... Fail! No sit.

Yesterday's sit: 45 minutes... Counting breath 1-10, concentration developing, crown tingling, pulsing in center of skull, closely following sensations, pulse, pulse, pulse, maybe 6hz, concentrated, feeling that something will happen, remember to note practice thoughts, mapping thoughts, work thoughts, life thoughts, concentrated, realize that unless I honestly think/believe this very moment is a possible time for awakening then I'm holding back somehow, detect subtle ill will sensations/moods, the possibility of waking up is here now, pulses seem deeper and more bright, get lost in thoughts, return to moment, feeling tired, plain noting, done.

Sick yesterday, no sit.

25 minute sit, basically watching me squirm. Still recovering from yesterday's stomach flu/food poisoning, at least that's my excuse. Body weak, hard to just sit up straight. Mind is funny, it wants to lay in bed and read about meditating. To bed early tonight...

Phew! Back to regular practice: 45 minutes. Eyes flickering and quickly centered, noted sensations on every outbreath until consolidated, began noting moods and categories of thought. More crown/forehead tingles, seems like that's been happening more. Became very momentary, spacious, and feeling loosely bounded. Noted subtle ill will, seem to be really clearing experience of any resistance. Suddenly felt a rising of energy which was percieved as scary and reflexively I tensed. (Seems like this happened slightly a few days ago.) continued noting. Moved to an open eyed appeciation of just being in the room, the cleaness of experiencing. Realized that this was a noticable state. Became confused and stumbled a bit. Felt gratitude for the sit. Metta for me:all:me, timer went off, wished for a quick awakening for the benefit of all beings.

Yesterday's sit: 45 minutes. Hmm, not much of note, was drifting off in the second half. I think I only halfway showed up for this practice session.