Terry's practice log

Greetings! I've been practicing noting under the direction of Beth Resnick-Folk for five months and keeping a daily log at mindfulnessadventures.blogspot.com. I am now shifting my log to this forum so that I can participate in this community, and also so that I can keep the other site as more of a conventional blog.

I have been meditating in the Theravadan tradition in the U.S. since 2001. My first teacher was Gil Fronsdal. My practice deepened significantly when I learned concentration practices under Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder in late 2009. After two months at the Forest Refuge in 2011, during which I did mostly concentration practices, I found that my home Vipassana practice had intensified and suspected that I'd entered the A&P. This prompted me to search for a meditation coach with whom I could check in regularly, and so I began working with Beth. Beth thinks that I attained 1st path in July.

Hey Terry, welcome. Nice to have you here.

10/21/12 8:40 am: 90 minutes seated noting. At first it was silent, then whispered. I was eager to follow Beth's direction to relax and to not push away or judge thinking, or try to pre-empt it by searching for the craving which triggers thought. For most of the sitting I was content, experiencing nothing as either strongly pleasant or strongly unpleasant, but for about 20 minutes near the one-hour mark I experienced strong restlessness and craving to get up and do stuff. Yesterday Beth said that it's not clear where I am in the progress of insight, but maybe equanimity.

Welcome Terry!

Hi Terry,

Looking forward to reading more here -- your blog looks interesting!

Andy

Hi, Terry!
Looking forward to reading your log!

10/22/12 8:10 am: 45 minutes seated whispered "This/I don't know" noting. Beth taught me this on Saturday. I just arbitrarily said one of the following four things at any time: "I don't know", "I don't know what this should be like", "This", "This is exactly what this should be like". More powerful and interesting than I'd anticipated. Drew my attention to how much I judge, and try to manipulate, experience. I'd notice the judging and attempts to manipulate, and say, "This is exactly what this should be like". Even the judging, manipulating: this is what is! This is what it should be like. I experienced both pleasure and discomfort during this sitting, sometimes simultaneously. There was tension in the right throat and torso--the tension I associate with the residue of early trauma--and aversion to the tension. This tension had been absent from my experience for at least some days. Once I made an effort to release the tension--intentionally manipulating my experience--all the while noting, "I don't know what this should be like. This is exactly what it should be like ..."

Welcome Terry. Look forward to your detailed notes. Keep it up!

10/22/12 1pm 45 minutes seated whispered "regular" (6 sense doors) noting, in the quiet room at work. Continued to be relaxed and accepting about thinking. Attention was good. At times I seemed to get absorbed in a state similar to sleep. And once or twice I did sleep for a few seconds and begin a dream. Nothing super pleasant or unpleasant. Expanding (for in-breath), releasing (out-breath), aching (elbow pain), hearing, contact, pressure, moisture, pulsing, rocking, pressure, aversion, restlessness, hunger, sadness, pleasure, sleepiness, tingling, coolness ... Sometimes, instead of "sadness", I noted the component sensations: pressure, feeling, feeling, release ...

Thanks for all the words of welcome!

I am looking forward to this evening, when two or three people from my neighborhood sitting group are coming over to hear about pragmatic dharma. I plan to do social noting together with them.

Two dharma friends came over last night to hear me talk about pragmatic dharma. I was a bit surprised to learn that although one had been practicing since a sojourn in India in the mid-1970's, and the other had been practicing in the U.S. Theravadan tradition since the early 1980's and was a teacher of Buddhism and Western Psychology, neither was familiar with the four stages of enlightenment or the 16 insight knowledges (nanas). However, the one who'd been to India recalled that, after retreats with Mr. Goenka, rumors would go around that "so-and-so attained enlightenment on the last retreat" -- she assumed that meant stream entry. We did social noting. A question arose: can the practices we do here be successful without keeping a meditation log, without recording or remembering the details of practice sessions? The questioner said it would feel like a huge chore to have to write stuff down.

10/23/12 6:50am 45 minutes seated whispered noting. I'd awoken feeling quite out of sorts. Thought it might be dehydration; drank water, then meditated. At first I noted a lot of unpleasant stuff like nausea, restlessness, and aversion. Then, those faded and distinct waves of bodily pleasure appeared. I was observing the mind while a physical process--recovery from deyhdration--took place. Interesting, and much more pleasant than suffering through it, as I would have if I'd just continued lying in bed ... Continued to be very relaxed and non-aversive to thinking. Several times I drifted into trains of thought; when I noticed this, I simply noted "thinking" and moved on. Nice!

10/23/12 3pm 25 minutes seated silent noting to new-agey instrumental music. I had finished doing yoga in the movement room at work and sat down to meditate while others continued exercising. I may never have meditated to music before. After about 10 minutes, I sensed a shift -- perhaps a transition between nanas. The rest of the meditation was very pleasant and easy, and noting seemed a bit cumbersome. I seemed fairly solidly in the present. A&P? ... Anyone who's followed my previous log at mindfulnessadventures.blogspot.com knows I have a very, very foggy idea of the different nanas, except that I kind of think I might know what A&P feels like ... Music usually triggers uncomfortable feelings of longing, but a wonderful thing about this sit is that this did not happen, and I could just enjoy the music.

"A question arose: can the practices we do here be successful without keeping a meditation log, without recording or remembering the details of practice sessions?" -tfarrah

Yes, without question. Many of my private students make progress without a log. I only know about these cases because I have a ringside seat, of course; we don't hear about those folks on the forum, as they don't participate. Having said that, the peer learning and social support offered by the forum as well as the written recordings themselves can be a huge support for the practice and are highly recommended.

To add to what Kenneth said, I know it was an enormous help to me during my practice to see other people's practice journals on this and other forums or from those who shared parts of their journals with me privately. It is so motivating and supportive to see that one isn't alone in the ups and downs.

Thanks, Kenneth and giragirasol, for the comments.

10/23/12 10pm 30 minutes seated whispered noting. I felt a lot of restlessness. Later, I also had a lot of RLS (restless legs syndrome) discomfort, so I arose before completing my intended 45 minutes.

10/24/12 11:15am 37 minutes seated whispered noting to music. I put on the same music that was on yesterday, to similar effect. Pulsing, rocking, expanding, releasing, quivering ... thinking ... feeling, hearing, hearing, contact, swallowing, hearing, pressure, aversion tingling, sadness, sleepiness, craving. The usual. Some craving for the session to be over, but nothing was strongly unpleasant, nor strongly pleasant. Didn't notice the distinctive shift into something that's maybe A&P that I noticed yesterday, but maybe something similar but more subtle.

10/24/12 Two more sessions of seated noting, totaling about 50 minutes.

10/25/12 Only 15 minutes formal practice: seated whispered noting before sleep.

10/26/12 6:45 am 90 minutes seated noting. Easy, precise, a little pleasant, a little unpleasant. Disembedded another increment. Let's see if I can describe it. Well, firstly, when I noted aversion, I mostly didn't feel panicky about it and was able to let it go easily. I noticed that it could pass as quickly and cleanly as, say, hearing. Secondly, and this is something that's been happening over the past week or two, I think I'm noticing that some thoughts which seem to precede (and in some sense, cause) physical movement or "emotional" movement (such as tensing, anger), actually do not precede/cause those movements. They seem to be separate from them, and kind of simultaneous. Perhaps both the thoughts and the movements are caused by some same other thing. In other words, I seem to be deconstructing the illusion of free will. I've been noticing this off the cushion as well. Still have no idea which nanas I'm experiencing.

Enjoying a visit from Jacob, one my co-retreatants from the Pa Auk Sayadaw retreat at the Forest Refuge a year ago.

10/26/12 1pm 30 minutes whispered seated noting. A fair amount of pleasure; even my RLS symptoms, usually excruciating, were mostly pleasurable. In recent days I find myself more inclined to simply note "feeling" for almost any complex bodily/emotional perceptions, whereas before I used to apply effort to find a more specific name. I used to want to understand, classify, conceptualize the feeling, place it into a story, but lately I haven't felt compelled to do so. I can just name it and move on. This feels like a relief.

Life has been quite pleasant and easy since I emerged from my two-week retreat on September 30.

10/26/12 10pm 30 minutes seated whispered noting before bed.

During sleep, experiences of anatta, of not being the author of my experience, especially bodily movement. Of watching all of my experience.

10/27/12 6am one hour seated whispered noting. This session did seem to have some vaguely distinct phases: (1) phenomena seemed not very crisply distinguished, (2) they became crisply distinguished, (3) experience became infused with pleasure, (4) I stopped clinging to phenomena; I forgot them as soon as I started to note them. Is this the same as "noticing the endings of things"? (5) return to phase 3. Each phase lasted for roughly the same length of time. Throughout, there was a lot of sleepiness, perhaps because I'd awoken before I was fully rested.

Some general observations about life during this past year of high-powered Vipassana practice: Although in some sense it seems that the sense of self is deconstructing, I still experience, perhaps as much as ever, things like pride, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of being special, a sense of being on a path and moving toward a goal, a sense that what's important is the goal rather than the process. I've noticed only a slight, and sporadic, increase in compassion. Like, once when I observed a car being driven aggressively, my first thought was compassion for the driver, rather than irritation. But that was once.

D'oh! I wrote an entry yesterday and tried to post it, but when I woke my computer this morning, it was still in the process of posting. I pressed "cancel" and lost the whole thing.

10/27/12 10pm 30 minutes seated whispered noting. I found whispering to be a lot of unpleasant effort, and I only did it about half the time. My experience was similar to phase (1) of yesterday's sit. There was a lot of sleepiness. Eventually, sleepiness plus RLS discomfort prompted me to arise.

10/28/12 8:30am 90 minutes seated whispered noting. Experience was infused with pleasure. No desire to stop meditating. Immediately before practice, I had an emotionally upsetting experience. There was quite a lot of thinking, unpleasant throat/chest constrictions, fear, and aversion seemingly associated with this.

Beth suggested I might like to work with Kenneth for a while, and focus more on technical stuff. I'm curious to learn to identify the different nanas in my experience. I'll have my first meeting with Kenneth on Tuesday.

10/28/10 9:30pm 20 minutes seated whispered noting. As in phase (4) of yesterday's morning sit, I seemed to be noticing the endings of things.

During the early/middle part of the night, within sleep, I was meditating. This has been happening from time to time in recent days/weeks. It happened regularly last January, when I was in the A&P of first path. The recent middle-of-the-night meditations have, however, had a different quality. In January, I seemed to be deeply experiencing and investigating phenomena. These days, I seem to be investigating and playing with the sense of self, specifically. And it's in the middle of the night that I have the most distinct sense of not being the author of my experience.

More toward morning, I had a dream: I was in some sort of extended school or educational program with my good friend S, who is a much more experienced meditator than I. She did some sort of very intense thing where she removed the outer layers of her body, including her ribcage, did something to them or had something done to them, then carefully replaced them. It was a practice that took days, and there was a period where she was quite grotesquely naked, with most of her skin removed. It was understood that this practice was risky and that her health and longevity would likely suffer, but there was also a profound benefit. Months or years after she undertook this, I decided to do the same. It was terrifying, and somehow I had way less guidance than she did. In fact, I was pretty much going it alone. As in real life, it seemed too difficult to try to enlist help. When the time came for me to put my ribcage back on, I saw that the connective tissues were dessicated and slack, and I knew this was long-term, debilitating harm.

10/29/12 6:50am 60 minute sit. 15 minutes silent noting, 25 minutes concentration with piti as object, 10 minutes with breath as object, and finally 10 minutes silent noting. For the first 15 minutes, concentration was very good (as usual), experience was infused with pleasure. I was NOT particularly noticing the endings of things. Then, inspired by discussions about jhana yesterday with my friend Jacob, I decided to try taking piti (bodily pleasure) as object. This is how Leigh Brasington teaches the first jhana. I'd never tried it before. Once I decided to focus on piti, the shift was quite distinct. Piti increased, and my attention fairly easily stayed on piti. But I didn't seem to get absorbed into it quickly, and I lost interest. I tried breathing the piti into my entire body and increasing it (at first it was mostly in my arms), but I still felt bored and impatient. I shifted attention to the breath, which is how I was taught jhana 3 years ago. Finally went back to noting.

10/29/12 10pm Sat a bit before bed.

10/30/12 7:25 am 10 minutes seated noting.

10/30/12 7pm Session with Kenneth. He led me through a guided meditation through the first and second jhanas.

10/30/27 9:30 pm 30 minutes jhana practice: 10 minutes 1st, 10 2nd, 10 1st. I liked it best when I could really relax into it. Sleepiness sometimes helped. During the last 10 minutes I couldn't relax much. Had RLS discomfort, plus it just didn't seem attractive to sink into this state. I had planned to do an hour of alternating 1st/2nd jhana, but instead arose and did some hatha yoga.

10/31/12 6:50am One hour practice: 10min 1st jhana, 20min 2nd, 10min 1st, 20min noting. Practicing what Kenneth taught me as the 1st jhana, I felt comfortable and the experience had all the characteristics that Kenneth mentioned: focus on the tip of the nose, feeling solid, awareness of vitakka, viccara, and piti. Practicing what Kenneth taught me as the 2nd jhana, I didn't have any brightness in the visual field (no more than in 1st), and I could imagine pinching my nose with my thumb and forefinger (as easily as I could in 1st). As last night, 2nd seemed less compelling than 1st.

I switched to noting for last 20 minutes because my mind had been quite active, associated with some tensions in the right torso. Even after switching to noting, however, the tensions persisted in catching my mind, which continued to spin out its favorite story of the day.

10/31/12 11:15am 15 minutes seated silent noting

10/31/12 7pm 10 minutes 1st jhana