Nick P's practice log

Hi,
I have a practice log in the DhO ( www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/3687688 , and a few recent experiences here www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/3777616 ) and I'm now going to post more or less regularly after a break of a couple weeks. But I'll try to start posting the updates here rather than in the DhO, hoping for a higher level of interaction with other yogis.

Back to vipassana practice after one week of pure samatha practice.
As a summary of the samatha week, I'd say that one-pointedness has become progressively weaker. 1st jhana is accessed at around 10 minutes into the sitting, 2nd jhana around 20 mins in, 3rd around 35 and 4th around 45-50 minutes in. I'm not so sure about 4th, it feels so normal and mundane that it could as well be no jhana at all, if it wasn't for the deep calm and really high sensitivity to anything happening to/around me.
Today's practice:
- 15 minutes samadhi at work. Reached strong 1st, weak 2nd jhana.
- 2 x 10-minute walking periods focused on samadhi. Terrible focus on the first one, good on the 2nd.
- 30-minute sit at home, count 3x10 outbreaths then 2x10 inbreaths, and the rest noting aloud with a recorder (first time ever) at a rate of about one note every 2 seconds. Some excerpts:
warmth, confused, dark, in, out, relaxed, calm, seeing, relaxed, seeing, touching, pleasant, enthusiastic, rehearsing thoughts, practice thoughts, warmth, scanning, vibrations, searching, calm, touching, warm, practice thoughts, mapping thoughts, in, out, relaxed, confused, anxious, hearing, vibrations, tension, scanning, practice thoughts, tension, tension-pleasant, vibrations, throbbing, warmth, touching, seeing, waves (the notes between "practice thoughts" and "waves" were repeated many times throughout the sitting). Towards the end I also noted a bit of pain-neutral, pain-unpleasant and posture thoughts.
Time passed really quickly, unlike my usual practice where I've noted a bit of boredom and/or timer curiosity. Concentration built up to weak 1st jhana by minute 10 and stayed at that level. After the sitting I realised I was a bit disappointed at the rather uneventful sit. During minutes 20 to 25 I only did scattered noting, to enable focusing on some solid tension in the 3rd eye area that was starting to move and grow in size.

15 minutes of sitting today in the office after work, then 30 minutes of walking.
Sitting was mindfulness of breathing, struggling with sleepiness all the while. Although on the other hand the mind didn't wander off to thoughts that much. I kind of spaced out quite a few times, starting to sink into sleep a little bit. Weak 1st jhana for the last 5 minutes.
Then 30 minutes of walking from the office to another place while meditating. Main practice was mindfulness of the sensations in the soles of my feet, but when I had to wait to cross the street I switched to choiceless awareness of the 6 senses while actively trying to remove the self from the picture, actually with some success. Found that doing that after/interspersed with a period of concentration is much more fruitful than trying to do it out of the blue. Not sure if I'd call that 2nd gear practice, would gladly take some help with the terminology.
Concentration didn't appear in the form of a jhana while I was walking (it rarely, though sometimes, does), but for a few minutes it was very easy to concentrate on my object. It's like the mind changes its default to that, as opposed to thinking.
Overall mood was really OK today, although fairly sleepy from not having sleep much last night. The last few days, up until yesterday, it was like a bad mood was in the background although pretty OK in the foreground. Now the OKness is also noticeable in the background. Not really sure how to explain these concepts of background and foreground moods, but that's how it feels.

40 minute sit yesterday evening at home.
Notes throughout: itching(xx), unpleasant, floating, pleasant, itching unpleasant, flashing lights, hearing, throbbing, energy, itching, unpleasant, warmth, itching, energy - rising, itching, rehearsing thoughts, anxious, hearing, energy waves, spacing out, pain, itching, tension, timer thoughts, storytelling thoughts, light, pain, expecting, warmth, visuals(x), anxious, social thoughts, jerking, happy, tingling, spacing out, pain, calm, peace, pain, practice thoughts, path thoughts, sensitive, pursuing, calm, expecting, daydreaming, path thoughts, timer thoughts, path thoughts, practice thoughts, spacing out(x), pain, mapping thoughts, rehearsing thoughts, timer thoughts, calm, pain, visuals, timer thoughts, itching, boredom, timer thoughts, desire to end session, moving, floating, path thoughts, rehearsing thoughts, timer thoughts, rehearsing thoughts

(cont)

(cont)
Before it began, felt aversion to sitting and sleepiness. Neither appeared during the sitting itself. Overall the whole tone was very relaxed, with 1st jhana setting in very quickly, and then a few energy flashes going up in the visual field, and when they impacted its "ceiling", breaking up and coming down its "side walls". When they crashed against the ceiling, a sensation of floating of being lifted up accompanied the event. As the result of one of those "impacts" 2nd jhana set in in a sudden way. 2nd jhana was pretty weak, not sure whether to call it vipassana or samatha jhana, then things got pretty calm and relaxed, quite pleasant, not very solid, and then it just got really calm, with no special pleasantness. Over the 40 minutes of the sitting, probably (the last) 25 were spent in this state of calm abiding, and it felt like it could have gone forever. Attention was mainly on the visuals, particularly on energy waves coming in and out, flashing, moving. I noted only when there was something new to note, rather than at any fixed rate. Long periods of silence between notes. Towards the end there was expectation, with the heart rate picking up, as if something was going to happen, also some pain and spacing out (typically for 30 seconds). Mapping thoughts in the background or the foreground whenever a ñana "marker" arose (such as powerful visuals, pain, deep calm). Quite a few thoughts on how to report the sitting.

Just sat for 72min. Pattern somewhat similar to yesterday's. No out-loud noting as wasn't alone at home. Started off with breath counting and then mainly silent noticing/observing, switching to noting only when feeling spacing out, and even then only for a few moments.
After the breath-counting, the mind was in a nice one-pointed concentration state. Even though I heard my flatmate all the while making noise and walking on the other side of the door, those distractions were in the background compared to the feeling of floating, the subtle tension on the 3rd-eye area and the focusing on the visuals. A few minutes later all that intensified, reached a peak, and slowly subsided, leaving behind a subtle feeling of joy and good concentration but very ordinary compared to the peak. Then joy also subsided, my posture started to become uncomfortable, itches grew in intensity and I started getting annoyed but no less concentrated. It took me a while to realise and note "annoyed". Itches on the face/head started vibrating and throbbing and changing fast whenever I focused on them, then fading after a minute or so. Itches elsewhere on the body were much more solid, generally requiring a lot more focus, vibrating less, and not fading. I scratched a couple of them after focusing on them for what felt like an eternity. After noting "annoyed" I realised how absurd it was, and then the annoyance disappeared too.
Then I spent some 30min in a state of good concentration, OKness and very broad focus. Noting was easy, thoughts and sensations were obvious. Many mapping, practice, rehearsing, path thoughts appeared. Eventually boredom started to set in and I tried to investigate the background feelings of investigation/observing. Asked myself what was missing, and the mind answered "nothing's missing, there's only an excess 'I'". Feeling I hit a dead end, feeling stuck, wondering what approach to take from this point.

Sat twice today, first one for 2hrs, untimed. Started off with breath counting, aiming to get some concentration and then switch to vipassana. Out-loud sparse (as in post #4) noting for the first 50mins, then noticing. Mins 30-50 included prompting à la "I wonder what my next thought will be".
Notes up to min 50 (notation: x means repetition, T means "thoughts"): touching, vibrations, pleasant, coolness, hearing, visuals(x), waves(x), touching(x), tingling, itching(xxx), heartbeat(x), touching(xx), vibrations, tension(x), itching(xxxxxxxx), tension, seeing, tension, flashing(x), tension(xx), focusing, remembering T, energy waves, itching(x), flashing, heartbeat, future T, jerking, anxiety, jerking, timer T, focusing, itching(xxx), imagining T, vibrations(xxx), visuals, neutral, floating, crown tension, energy waves, itching, waves rising, tingling, jerking, floating, reporting T, throbbing, flashing lights, jerking, heartbeat, tension, unpleasant, tension(xx), reporting T, throbbing, tension, practice T, daydreaming, pain, desire to think, breeze(x), tension, speculation, reporting T, pleasant, reporting T, restless, desire to stop noting, throbbing, restless(x), pain, pain dissolving, pleasant, remembering T, itching, posture T, remembering T, visuals, yawning, aversion to throbbing, itching, searching, calm, desire for something to happen, vibrations, itching-unpleasant, vibrations-neutral, restless-unpleasant, energy waves-neutral, floating-pleasant, itching-unpleasant(xx), frustration-unpleasant, calm-neutral, mapping T, practice T, timer T, swaying(x), pleasant, calm, leg going to sleep, back pain-unpleasant, floating-pleasant, noting T, tingling, remembering T, wondering T, engaged, pleasant, remembering T, pleasant, engaged, coolness, stopping swaying, pain, heartbeat, itching, posture T, timer T, itching, planning T, timer T, tingling. [Checked timer.] Anxiety, desire to end, tension(x), pleasant, pain-neutral, tension-pleasant, ...

...swaying, reporting T, tension, spacing out, pain-unpleasant, mapping T, heartbeat, timer T, itching, space.

After finishing breath counting, found myself in a weak concentration state, started fast silent noting for a minute, then sparse out loud up to min 50. The primary object was the visual sensations rather than the breath. After some 25-30mins of sitting, I started to experience postural discomfort and started to sway to ease it rather than recognising it and just sitting with it. Only realised that after quite a few minutes, and noted it. That physical discomfort and a foreground mental feeling of unpleasantness was on top of a background mental feeling of calm/OKness. After 45 mins I checked the timer and committed to keep going until 1 hour had elapsed. But then after settling down for 5-10 more mins I experienced some space, then more space (although pretty sure it wasn't 5th jhana), then something shifted and practice became really easy to sustain and I ended up sitting for 2hrs. Mins 55-100 were just seeing thoughts and feelings unfold, which happened in a very transparent, obvious way. At some point (min 75?) the mind naturally leaned towards bystander noting, which ended up showing me much stuff too subtle to see without. Things like being very happy with my perceptual abilities, and how I was striving to focus on space and get a taste of the immaterial jhanas. The final 20mins were just calm abiding and spacing out.
A humbling lesson for the real-time mapping mind is that whatever stage I was in up to min 50, it wasn't EQ, although I believed it was before the shift. After this experience of the second hour, I now think I'm closer to my cutting edge.

The second sit was 1 hr, timed, pure concentration. The jhanas feel different every time, showing different combinations of markers. 1J was pretty standard, with tension in the 3rd eye area, flashing lights, with muscle contraction around the neck and a grimace.

(cont.)
In 2J the tension was somewhat more diffuse and intense, with joy more prevalent, the grimace, visual energy waves rising and the tactile sensation of energy crawling in two ways: first upwards from the 3rd eye area to the crown, and then backwards from the 3rd eye area to the throat and then from there to the crown. This is the first time I've ever felt any energetic activity in the throat. Also it's great to know there's no way I could have scripted this (which I'm always fearing, sometimes justifiably so), I just looked up the chakras in Wikipedia and there seems to be one at the throat, didn't know that.
3J, the grimace lessened and the visual energy waves started to go downwards. Neutral tingling. Fewer pleasant sensations of floating, very prevalent in the first two jhanas. During this jhana I focused on an itch on my nose and saw it started vibrating. I'm not sure when this jhana ended but between the pleasant sensations felt here and the EQ of 4J, there were quite a few unpleasant sensations including pain, boredom, mind spacing out/wandering away with its corresponding self-loathing when coming back, desire to check the timer, etc.
Eventually 4J arose and all was very peaceful and silent. Energy waves still going downwards sometimes, although most of the time visuals were just diffuse or nonexistent, looked like a partially cloudy moonless night. Very easy to focus on anything, but soon I became bored and started trying to visualise space to get into 5J. That didn't work out but I ended getting even calmer. After some 25-30mins abiding there the timer went off, but I always get bored in 4J and feel that I should be doing something other than just abiding.

Sat for 15 minutes doing samatha at lunchtime at work, reached a weak version of 1st jhana and surprisingly I didn't care. I was able to concentrate on the breath and the visual sensations for nearly the whole period and was quite happy about that. I think that ability to focus is a healthier metric than the jhana number or hardness that one gets, but so far hadn't managed to make my gut understand it. Today it clicked.
After the gym I tried walking meditation to the station, and then from the station home. Was totally focused on the sensations on the soles of my feet, and felt so much as a default, as the monkey mind normally feels. Whenever something distracted me, the mind returned to those sensations on its own. I "sat back" and observed the process completely amazed. It's been a while since I last experienced it. At some point this thought occurred "tomorrow I'm going to cling to this experience".
Then came home and sat for 82 mins, untimed. As soon as I sat started counting breaths and already felt itches arising and becoming masses of tingling and vibration. After finishing the counting there was neutral intense pressure at the temples (which didn't last long) and pleasant intense tension in the 3rd eye area (which did). Sensations and thoughts were very easy to follow and I just kept practicing with those sensations, really engaged and uplifted, sometimes noting, sometimes just noticing, with very few hindrances. After some 15 minutes the tension subsided and I just felt good for a few minutes, then the hindrances came back, and I was trying to navigate this by noting (a little) and concentrating (more than a little). It felt like all the hindrances came together, there was torpor, dreamlike images and thoughts complete with incoherence, spacing out. Then I spent the last 40-50 mins in a calm state where noticing was easy again, and sitting was effortless. It felt like I was going deeper as time passed.

Woke up with a lot of energy today, although I hadn't sleep that many hours, just the usual 7. This energy lasted until about lunchtime, when I had a 15-minute sit at work. In the evening I sat 2x15 minutes with a local vipassana group.
The momentum that was apparent in the previous two days is not that obvious, and didn't manifest in the sits, although it might be related to the fact they're so short. In all three sits I was just tired of directing my practice labeling it "samatha" or "vipassana" beforehand, and just let it do their thing. The mind drifted to vipassana in the lunchtime sit and to samatha in both group sits. I'm doing almost no noting, instead mixing anapanasati with choiceless noticing. Or actually not that choiceless, as the visuals are still my main focus.
Had to fight the hindrances a lot today, many timer thoughts, mind drifting off in chains of thought, and more pain than I would expect from such short sits. For half of the time on these sits, itches changed to tingling as soon as focused on, and on one occasion I felt generalised tingling on both forearms (on the same side as the palms) for about 15 seconds. Also some ringing in the ears, slightly different in pitch, intensity and laterality each time I focused on it.
Also did some involuntary practice of "mindfulness of remotely helping grandma fix her computer while my own laptop fan was making very loud noises". Felt increasingly irritated until both the noise and the mutual incomprehensibility with grandma (effort to avoid bleedthrough) were unbearable for a couple minutes and then something shifted and kindness to grandma was more natural, and the loud noises felt just OK. A couple minutes later I was able to solve grandma's problem, and the noises calmed down - it seems that my laptop shares my EQ

Good stuff, Nick. Good practice and good reporting. Keep up the good work. Don't be discouraged that no one has responded yet; they will. In the meantime, you'll continue to make progress if you keep up the regular practice and journaling.

Agreed Nick. When people don't respond it usually means keep doing what you are doing, you are on the right track.

Thanks for your support!
No lunchtime sitting today, no walking meditation to speak of, it was a bit of a busy day at work. Went to the gym and then sat for an hour at home, untimed. The bit about the gym is relevant because I came back very tired and then torpor/dreaminess was a persistent issue in this sit. Much initial aversion to sitting, just wanted to eat and go to bed. Started counting the breaths, and lots of stories came up about the work day, it was hard to stay focused on the counting. Tried to focus on the visual sensations. Through the sit I felt tingling in random spots in the body. After a few mins trying to bring the mind back after it made up stories nonstop, I started to note aloud and that seemed to work. The noting seemed comprehensive, and when I stopped and returned to bare awareness the stories were fewer and easy to spot. No ñana markers I could perceive, until around half of the sit when a nice calm appeared. Still, there was much restlessness in the calm, and I noted its manifestations: a lot of path T, practice T, reporting T and expecting, more than usual, but also remembering T, planning T and social T which hadn't been hindering my practice recently. Towards the end I noted a lot of timer T and desire to end the sit. When I finally checked the timer 57 mins had elapsed, and just sat in awareness until 1 hr mark. At some point when things went subtle, I tried bystander noting but that didn't last long, maybe 2 minutes. Asked "Where is the self looking from?". Asked "How am I feeling?", the "answer" I got was a bunch of 10-15 notes competing to fill up the space at the same time. "Thanks, but how am I feeling?" ...another bunch of notes. Repeated that a few times. Also at some point I found I didn't care about getting path. Did some repeated enquiry to find whether I was just deceiving myself. Couldn't answer conclusively, but the familiar path obsession returned soon enough

No practice today, life got in the middle

Hello, Nick!

Are there any "off cushion" practices you like to do, when you're not doing formal sits?

It sounds like you build a lot of momentum in sitting, but don't feel the value your off-cushion time.

When you had your "helping grandma with computer maintenance" meditation, that was practice in action and it's not just the result of your momentum, but it feeds it, too.

In my first big pre-SE cycle, I went from Re-Observation to Equanimity during a period where I couldn't get time to sit at all, so I just resolved to be helpful to everybody. I made that resolution to prevent "bleedthrough", but in retrospect, I think it helped me carry my practice off the cushion and make that momentum more permanent, rather than just waiting for the cushion to be my refuge.




Rob

Yesterday was also a bit busy, and I only sat for 15 mins, good sit. Although to be fair I can't blame the circumstances this time, it was just aversion to sitting.

Today I just sat for 45 mins. Silent noticing with sparse noting. It took a while to settle the mind, as it was constantly chatting about one topic for about 10 mins. Pressure building up in the 3rd eye area, and at one point it _suddenly_ got slightly bigger, much more intense and the narratives stopped almost completely. Visuals: circle on the right of the visual field irradiating energy towards the left. Noticed distractions at play during most of the sit, most of the time in the background, while the noting of those distractions was in the foreground, while noting the sensations that appeared. The real-time mapping mind is still very active, but this time it didn't pester me with narratives, it was just non-verbally "saying" 3C, DN, EQ. The stages of insight appeared very clearly, and they've done so so many times that it's no longer exciting to label them. After the pressure subsided and pain/restlessness/uncomfortable tingling started to be apparent, the visuals were luminous circles on the center of the visual field escaping forward (as in 3D). After some 25 mins I saw a shift to this expansive calm, but also had great doubt on what to do in this territory. Didn't know whether to note, to just pay attention, to relax into the moment, or to start asking questions like "who am I". Didn't note the doubt, but chose to just pay attention. At min 28 checked the timer and stretched. Sat for 15 more mins, and an itch in one eye mapped to a luminous patch in the visual field. Chased it for a while and enjoyed watching how it escaped. It disappeared, and so did the itch, leaving great calm and some spaciousness.

"Are there any "off cushion" practices you like to do, when you're not doing formal sits?
It sounds like you build a lot of momentum in sitting, but don't feel the value your off-cushion time. "

Hi Rob,
you're pointing right at the missing piece in the puzzle. I try to stay mindful during the day but to be honest when I do that it feels like I'm just being obsessive about meditation, and I back off (i.e. just get embedded), can't "note my arse off" or at least, not for too long. During most of typical day I'll be either focusing on a left-brainy problem which requires me to be 100% embedded to solve, or interacting with people. Staying mindful while talking/listening to someone probably looks very weird and I avoid it.
Normally what I do is to be mindful of the sensations on the feet when I'm walking from A to B, of the breath when I'm just sat waiting or in a lift, and sometimes Bahiya meditation even if for a few seconds. On my commute I read, normally either dharma books close to the pragmatic approach, or other people's practice logs. I tried to meditate in the train a couple times, sometimes with good results, but it's much more mental effort than sitting at home/lunchtime at work so I don't normally do it.
All that said, I think my off-cushion practice waaay behind that on-cushion. I will eagerly accept any advice people here might have to improve mindfulness levels because in daily life, because I'm kinda lost on that one.
Mood has been very EQ-like in the last 5 months except for a few week-long lapses. Sits are generally good, but I'm looking for the much needed prop to get to the other side.

"Staying mindful while talking/listening to someone probably looks very weird and I avoid it."

You're right I've made that mistake.

"a left-brainy problem which requires me to be 100% embedded"

100% involvement in a task that you need to accomplish isn't necessarily "being embedded". If you're doing with engagement and not on autopilot, that is mindfulness.

I have some good news: SE doesn't require you to become a perfect wall-to-wall meditator. Living in "what is right now" is more important than keeping up a particular technique 24 hrs a day- especially one that was probably only designed for sitting meditation.

You can use formal techniques like a light, simplified noting into downtimes (walking, taking a train/bus), just to hold off the tendency to fall into self-judgement, internal monologues, etc. I find Shinzen Young's "See, Hear, Touch, Feel, Image, Talk" a nice useful scheme. But any scheme is good. The point is to observe that the nature of your experience is changing second-by-second. I find it helpful to just ask myself over and over: "is anything about me- my mood, my thoughts, my body sensations, the same as it was even five seconds ago?"

But when you actually are fully engaged, staying fully engaged is the right thing to do. At times like that, take a pleasant deep breath to re-center yourself from time to time, just to keep from going into "autopilot" or compulsive mode. Deep breaths are also physically and mentally calming. It doesn't seem like much, but every time you do it, you're stopping all sorts of little mental threads from proliferating.

It sounds like the effort you're putting into it is just right- just make it a bit more fun and like a game. All you need is to not doubt yourself and know that what you're doing is right. It is.

Today I had a good chunk of time to devote to practice, and did so for 4.5 hrs: 30 mins walking, then 1hr sitting, then 30 mins walking, then 2hrs sitting, then 30 mins walking, with 5-min breaks in between. Mainly doing silent noticing (50% of time), out-loud noting (20%) and silent noting (20%), the other 10% is anapanasati, bystander noting, and asking tricky questions (who am I? who is this happening to? who feels sensations? who looks out of these eyes?).
Lots of vibratory activity throughout, but the novelty is long gone. The first walk was just settling in, good mindfulness, although with some lapses. The 1-hour sit had some activity and hindrances at the beginning (particularly narratives) but the mind settled and there was much peace for the last 45 mins. Thoughts kept intruding, but were relatively easy to note. In the second walk I was very distracted and I kept making an effort to stay mindful but the mind was hard to tame; did no noting during this walk which in retrospect sounds silly. In the long sit, originally timed for 1 hr, after 50 mins I checked the timer and as I was really engaged, I set it to 2. Much peace and calm, some vibrations, feeling of normalcy, and the usual thoughts about practice, maps, SE and reporting. Noted many of those with bystander noting, which feels spot on for disembedding but is sometimes too verbose (almost like a narrative). Tried to visualise space and got very concentrated, with very few thoughts thereafter. (Maybe because of that, ) towards the end of the 2 hours, boredom was crushing. Noted it, kept noting it, switched to anapanasati and tricky questions, but boredom was boring. Made it to the end in a heroic effort. The last walk felt very ordinary, out-loud noting throughout, repeating the same patterns as before except that I had some papañca on SE at some point, going on for minutes

Hi Rob,
I think I'll try to ramp up my off-cushion mindfulness, because TBH I wasn't putting much effort in it. I must have subconsciously thought of it as a lost battle and was trying to get SE purely based on on-cushion momentum. Sometimes I do see my experience changing second-by-second off-cushion...until mindfulness is trampled by some thought that I don't resist or even recognise. I'll try to pay more attention in that area.
Regarding autopilot vs. fully engaged: many times when working on the left-brainy tasks I'm after the experience of flow, as defined by Csikszentmihalyi, which is very rewarding and productive but feels like the opposite of mindfulness, it's probably more similar to what you'd refer to as autopilot.
I hear what you say on doubt, and SE not requiring perfection, but right now all sits feel the same and I feel stuck in EQ. I can't avoid doubt. I can only note it. But AFAIK the only way out is through, so I'll keep going.

Thanks for your advice

You're exactly right, you can't avoid it, only note it. But that's still worthwhile, even if it doesn't feel like it

When I said "autopilot", I was thinking more of a kind of compulsive "gotta get this done" stress feeling. "Flow" (as I understand it) is appropriate attention. This may not apply to you, but I did (and still sometimes do) forget that "mindfulness" doesn't mean "constantly commenting on our experience". In fact, in EQ, mindfulness is working faster than our ability to consciously be aware of it. IMHO, EQ *is* "Flow", as applied to mindfulness. But because, in EQ, we no longer feel like we're "doing" something, or feeling dramatic results, we can feel like we must be doing something wrong.

Again, ignore this if it doesn't apply to your situation!