Nikolai's Practice Notes

I tried sitting in the witness last night but had a kind of jumbled mess of an experience where I couldn't really say what it was. I had some negativity flowing at the chest as well and it felt like I didn't go up the jhanic arc at all. So I noted the negativity instead so was not able to report on the jhanic arc. Being able to dwell in the witness and go up the jhanic arc seems only to happen when I am relaxed and in the equanimity of formations stage. Which I felt I was when I woke up this morning.

Lying in bed, I let the mind dwell in the witness. Within a minute I felt the mind enter the 1st jhana. Then within a minute it shifted to 2nd. Sometimes it feels the mind is so focused on the witness, making love to it so to speak that the jhanas reached are not registered by the mind. But I seem to always come round and realize when the jhanic arc gets to 5th and 6th jhana. Up it went to 7th then 8th.

These last few days the ball of pressure behind my third eye is feeling less like a hard ball of pressure and now more like a whirling wheel of movement. I felt it clearly as a flow of pleasant vibrations in the new jhana.

Now that I think and experience it, this is a big change. My third eye activity is now very very obvious at all times. I just focus on it and things start happening. I am able to push the mind up into the crown and I experience a very pristine calm state of absorbtion. Weird. My mind is changing fast. I feel more connected to the third eye area these past few days. Especially now. The third eye headache I once had is no longer felt but has been replaced by a flow of pleasantness. I close my eyes now and immediately I am in an absorbtion state of some kind, due to the flow of energy/vibrations at the brow. What is happening to me?

Nice job, Nick. Steady as she goes. No need to draw any conclusions at this point. Just keep practicing in this way, without manipulation, and let your practice unfold as it will.

Kenneth

"Nice job, Nick. Steady as she goes. No need to draw any conclusions at this point. Just keep practicing in this way, without manipulation, and let your practice unfold as it will.

Kenneth"

Righto captain!! Thanks Kenneth. No conclusions drawn. I dont think Ive gotten a new path just yet. My perception has no experienced a huge shift as one would seem to expect for 3rd path. It is way too soon me thinks.

Concerning the new abosrbtion after the 8th, I have read somehwere that you said late 2nd pathers can experience a pure abode? Is this true? I read it over at the DhO.

It is times like this I would love to just sit all day and explore. But alas, I have lessons to plan and do. Not much time for anything else. Sigh!

New development of some kind. I have been doing a lot of noting practice as I walk to work, travel on a bus etc. I will note continuously every consciousness that arises and takes centre stage. feeling (touch of feet in shoes) thinking, seeing (the eye consciousness taking centre stage), feeling (sensations on and in the body taking centre stage), seeing(mental image), thinking, feeling, seeing, thinking, feeling, feeling, feeling. etc.

Yesterday when i did this continuously for an hour as I walked to work to do a lesson, I felt the flow of vibrations/energy in the body shift and move around making upward motions in the body. Eventually it felt like the mind dispersed as the energy reached the crown. Then after some time still noting contiuously, I started experiencing something strange. I felt like as I walked and noted, that my body was rocking back and forth, but it wasn't..that was the feeling, almost like a feeling of free falling. It seemed like my centre point kept shifting around to different parts of the body, and it really was feeling in feeling as the "I" would not stick for several moments at a time. A very surreal experience. It felt very obvious. A feeling of the body getting hit by small waves at different spots on the body and it made it feel as if I were falling. I can't think of how best to describe it. My balance was perfectly ok. Very interesting experience which i can repeat if i note every second for some time. Anyone else get this?

"Yesterday when i did this continuously for an hour as I walked to work to do a lesson, I felt the flow of vibrations/energy in the body shift and move around making upward motions in the body. Eventually it felt like the mind dispersed as the energy reached the crown. Then after some time still noting contiuously, I started experiencing something strange. I felt like as I walked and noted, that my body was rocking back and forth, but it wasn't..that was the feeling, almost like a feeling of free falling. It seemed like my centre point kept shifting around to different parts of the body, and it really was feeling in feeling as the "I" would not stick for several moments at a time. A very surreal experience. It felt very obvious. A feeling of the body getting hit by small waves at different spots on the body and it made it feel as if I were falling. I can't think of how best to describe it. My balance was perfectly ok. Very interesting experience which i can repeat if i note every second for some time. Anyone else get this?"

A while back, I think I remember reading a post by Florian (Monkey Mind) at the old DhO where he described some sort of swaying experience while practicing noting when walking. I've never experienced this, though. Hmmm...

I am currently sitting in my sofa and I am experiencing the same thing as I thought initially it was only when I walk. But it only happens if I continuously note for more than 20 minutes or so. Then it starts and feels surreal for sure. It's as if a conciousness arises and passes and another arise and passes one after the other on different parts of the body. When one spot on one side of the body is seen, another spot is seen on the other side of the body within the tiniest fraction of a second after it, one after the other...and that seems to be causing the feeling of rocking back and forth and feeling of falling. Weirdness and cool!
I am starting to really love all these surreal experiences. What next?

"
I am starting to really love all these surreal experiences. What next?"

Bloody hell!
I keep having to remind myself everything I experience is not "cool"! What next I asked?

The biggest third eye headache I have ever had.

Yesterday in the morning I felt an intense amount of negative vibrations at the chest. When reacted to, the thoughts were ones of hate and agitation. Why did my fiance do that? Why did that person look at me funny? I hate this city! Oof!...I immediately knew this was dark night territory. The mind loves to look for whatever object to place the blame on for the negative flow of vibrations being felt. I started noting ..... hating, negative vibrations, feeling, seeing, feeling, feeling, hearing, seeing.....

My noting practice these days generally end up being those words, feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and thinking. Especially during the dark night.

As I made my way up on a bus to the university I was to work at, I felt the vibrations at the chest get stronger, expand and then contract, expand and then contract....then they started to spit and spurt and gurgle.....after 30 minutes the flow of vibrations shifted to the throat.....oof! Thoughts of giving it all up....leaving chile....going to india...teaching english to tibetan monks.....saving money to go and sit Kenneth's course.....renouncing it all.....I started noting again.....flow of negative vibrations, feeling, thoughts of renunciation, thoughts of fleeing, feeling negativity, seeing ,hearing, feeling, seeing , hearing, feeling.....

Continued from above...

The flow of negativity at the throat spat and gurgled and little escapes of air bubbles were felt moving up my throat, and I get little burps coming out as the vibrations shift upward...I felt the mind shift from darkness to lightness....I didn't hate santiago anymore....all that trivial crap that I thought briefly to be the cause of my agitation (bloody hell!) was nothing... substanceless....I felt good.....felt like I had shifted to equanimity.....

But half way through the day I started noticing that the pressure at my third eye had started growing stronger and stronger......my god...it felt like someone had put that part of my brain in a vice. The pressure got so strong that it affected the way I looked with my eyes...almost squinting....the pressure felt behind the eyes is intense and the top of my nose feels like it has been punched in a dozen times, the gums near my nose ache and ache..... I start to note it , pressure, pressure, pain, negative vibrations, feeling, feeling, .......Kenneth's advice comes to mind....be happy in heaven and hell.....this pressure is hell........head above the water!

Today, I am bedridden as I feel it is hard to concentrate and the pressure behind the eyes is just too "in my face"....trying to keep my head above the water by noting it continuously. My poor lovely fiance has left me to ride it out lying in bed.

What a challenge to disembed from this experience! Oof!

Nick

"Continued from above...

The flow of negativity at the throat spat and gurgled and little escapes of air bubbles were felt moving up my throat, and I get little burps coming out as the vibrations shift upward...I felt the mind shift from darkness to lightness....I didn't hate santiago anymore....all that trivial crap that I thought briefly to be the cause of my agitation (bloody hell!) was nothing... substanceless....I felt good.....felt like I had shifted to equanimity.....

But half way through the day I started noticing that the pressure at my third eye had started growing stronger and stronger......my god...it felt like someone had put that part of my brain in a vice. The pressure got so strong that it affected the way I looked with my eyes...almost squinting....the pressure felt behind the eyes is intense and the top of my nose feels like it has been punched in a dozen times, the gums near my nose ache and ache..... I start to note it , pressure, pressure, pain, negative vibrations, feeling, feeling, .......Kenneth's advice comes to mind....be happy in heaven and hell.....this pressure is hell........head above the water!

Today, I am bedridden as I feel it is hard to concentrate and the pressure behind the eyes is just too "in my face"....trying to keep my head above the water by noting it continuously. My poor lovely fiance has left me to ride it out lying in bed.

What a challenge to disembed from this experience! Oof!

Nick"

Nick, thanks for sharing all this with us. It means a lo.

No worries Mike....I find it is quite a good way to be honest with myself by posting my difficulties for all to read. It's liberating and helpful to others hopefully.

All day Saturday I stayed home because the third eye headache which had come on so strongly on Friday had grown worse. It really has never been so achingly in my face. I think I reacted a few times during the day....a few expletives were yelled in frustration. But I eventually settled down to try and work with it in the correct way. This was on Saturday night....i started to note everything going on....including the pressure. At times I felt the mind note the pressure but with the slightest of sneaky desires for it to disappear arising. It is the subtlest of aversions and sometimes hard to see. So once I had seen it arise, connected with the sensations on the chest, I noted it too...pressure, pressure, aversion, sensations (at chest), desire (fro it to go away), feeling, feeling.

But the aversion kept arising...now I was noting aversion to the aversion....I tried another approach...I would ignore the intense pressure in my head and note everything else. Everything else but the pressure. That way, I seemed not to dwell on the negative aspects of the pressure....I noted the images and sensations of "I".... image, seeing, seeing, feeling (chest) feeling feeling, hearing (sounds on the street) hearing, seeing, (images drifting across mind) seeing seeing, feeling, seeing, feeling.....

Continued from above....
I did this for a good 30 minutes lying in bed....focusing only on the phenomena that gave the impression there was a "Nick" here. Suddenly I felt the pressure move and shift...it shifted quickly upwards to the crown. I felt intense jolts of pain on the scalp...like someone was giving me knuckle punches there. I kept noting the "I"....after 10 minutes or so I felt the mind disperse outwards. Everything is seen in this state....the mind becomes so light and still. I kept noting even during it....especially the subtle feelings of a presence, of "Nick" at the back of the head.

Out of the blue, I felt the several moments of "clenching" or "pulling up" sensations within the crown, which I am starting to see as the moments just before a fruition...there is movement/sensations within the brain...a tensing of something and Plop!, a fruition occurred and the subsequent blisswaves were a comforting relief from the pressure I was still feeling at the crown....it hadn't dissipated yet. Then i felt something, energy, move quickly up the body from the base chakra upwards....when it reached the crown, plop!...another fruition....and on it went for about 30 minutes repeatedly, something moving up the spine, reaching the crown and culminating in a blip out. Non stop fruitions. Eventually the pressure in the head disappeared. But the crown and third eye area were left buzzing and they felt weirdly "alive'....throbbing with energy/vibrations...but not uncomfortable at all.

There, the throbbing energy/vibrations has remained till now. I feel very calm and peaceful. No negativity anywhere on the body. In fact I feel little different. I think I have just finished yet another insight cycle and I feel great....very relaxed. I close my eyes and I feel immediately pulled into jhana...the mind feels extremely strong and concentrated.

Steady as she goes....

Hey man sounds rough. Glad to hear your feeling better...

Hey Nikolai,

A lot of what you're writing sounds familiar to stuff I've been through. This kundalini stuff can be such a headache; literally and figuratively. If you're anything like me, it will get better over time.

Thanks for posting the detailed updates. It makes for interesting reading, and I'm sure it's helpful for anyone at a similar place in their practice.

~Jackson

Thanks for the encouragement Jackson,

In the spirit of being honest with myself and this wonderful community....

So yesterday as I finished work and got home in the evening, I started feeling the most anxious flow of vibrations at my chest and sometimes at the throat. I felt extremely stressed and anxious for no reason until the mind leapt onto the fact that i had to plan an English lesson for a particularly hard group of advanced business men I have as students. Thoughts of "Woe is me!", " Why do i have to teach them?".."They hate me!"......I laugh at it now, but my god...I felt so much fear and trepidation for such a trivial thing as teaching a simple lesson....which I have done countless times....but this flow of negativity was so intense and relentless and the mind needed an object.

I went shopping with my fiance while this kept going on....I made sure to tell her why I was wearing a poker face....my poker face signifies that i am noting and being equanimous with the negativity...I find it hard to fake a smile in such situations...She laughed and let me push the shopping trolley.

Continued from above...


I eventually went to bed having complained to my fiance that I hated my job because it made me anxious...she laughed and because I told her to do so, she told me that it was probably dark night.....I thanked for reminding me through my teeth ( I really made her promise to slap me in the face whenever she saw me reacting badly like this)...and it probably was just pure dark night. I certainly was feeling high as a kite after the whole third eye headache fiasco. Probable AP?

But what really made me think dark night was when I woke up yelling in fear for the poisonous snakes and funnel web spiders which were attacking me in the nightmare I had last night. Pure fear! I screamed like a little girl and almost woke my fiance up.

Anyway...I feel a little weirded out by the nightmare....Man, snakes! Ever tried noting fear of snakes?

But now I have to prepare another lesson for the same bloody class again....but the feeling now is more of...."Man, this whole fiasco...the illusion of "I" is such a pile of BS.....Can't wait to sit.......disembed! disembed!

Nick

Continued from above...

I was noting furiously...... negative flow(chest) vibrating, feeling, seeing, feeling, thought (of that damn lesson plan), thought (of the same damn lesson plan) fear, negative sensations, feeling, feeling, feeling.....at one point I think I reacted to the flow of sensations and got fed up with noting.......so I resolved to just plain stare at the negative flow of misery in my chest....just stare at it and accept it...rather than squirm under it. I just had the biggest rush of strong determination ever and I focused all efforts on just staring at it...no noting.....It was extremely intense at this stage...a very bitter sensation that when reacted to, the thoughts were just pure fear related.

After about 30 minutes of just poker face staring at this flow of negativity, it began to bubble and spit...I use these words because that is the experience. They bubble and spit, first at the chest, then it shifts to the throat...I felt it get weaker... but it did not disappear completely.

For the rest of the night, there was an undercurrent feeling of anxiousness.....I prepared my lesson...but even with it prepared, it still remained as the object of the fear sensations... What a load of BS!!! .....It is so interesting how the mind just jumps on any object to give a feeling a reason for being. BS!

This is where I started seeing that I'd lose that state and shift into the bystander state where I was watching Nick "think and feel". This has the focus shift to the front of the head where it feels like the "I" is thinking and images seem to arise of my face etc. But when I remember to bring the focus back to the Witness, the focus shifts to the very centre of the head, from the crown downwards, centering that feeling of "I" smack bang down the centre of the body. When this is done, I get an obvious feeling of "I AM"and interesting things start happening....the flow of energy in the body, a blissful flow starts shifting upwards very quickly. I get shivers of blissful vibrations shoot up the back and there is just a strong current of upward movement inside the body. This seems to disperse the mind and I keep having to remind myself to stay in the Witness otherwise, I might space out......I do this by asking who am I?...as I say "I"...I get a strong re orientation towards the centre of the crown right down the centre of the body...."I AM!".....I sat like this for an hour....not paying any of the slightest attention to jhanas, but solely that feeling and experience of "I AM"....the energy flow got so powerful that I felt like something "big" was about to happen...kind of like the feeling I got before stream entry.
Lights started flashing through my eyelids, geometric shapes started blinking in and out......the blissful spurts of energy seemed to flow through every part of the body. Remembering back, I think the jhanas were arising one after the other extremely fast, but I wasn't really paying close attention.....suffice to say it was an extremely blissful experience.....Is this what they talk about when they say sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss)?

I believe now that this was my first true experience of really dwelling in the witness. Wow!

Just now ended an hour sit in the Witness.

I think I have finally realized what the witness is. I thought I had it down, but perhaps it was slightly wrong. Today i experimented with subtle differences in how it felt.

Firstly I asked myself who am I and I quickly enter the 6th jhana to get my blueprint for where it feels like the Witness is in the head. It is directly in the middle of the head, looking out through the eyelids. So I anchored the mind in that position.

Most of the time, it takes a number of minutes before I feel the mind shift into jhanas. But like I've said before, I am so focused on staying in the Witness, I don't realize the mind is shifting up the 1st 4 jhanas. I usually realize it is in jhana when i shift from the 5th to the 6th....when it shifts to the 6th, I feel like I don't have to concentrate so hard to stay in the Witness. I am still experiencing one state after the 8th. It is a shift from the almost mental shutdown focus of the 8th to an open full body, vibrational, clear, light expansive jhana which makes the body feel lighter and open.

But in this recent sit, I wanted to really 'dwell" in the Witness, so I didn't care what jhanas I was accessing...I just "made love" to the Witness with all my focus and intent. I think that is what I really never really did continuously before....it was like I always had one foot in the Witness and one foot in the experience of jhana. This time, I focussed 100 percent on the feeling of the witness.

Something new I have been experiencing these past few days... my sense of self seems different. Almost like it is further in the background of the mind....much subtler than before...still there...but at times it feels it is not. I don't feel comfortable trying to explain this because I don't know how. Yesterday, I spent a 2 hour car ride from the country to the city looking at what seems to be the feeling, sensations of "I".....They always seem to arise and pass away at the very back of the head. When I just stare at that feeling of presence, of "I"....it shifts around, disappears, arises again, perhaps in a different part of the head, sometimes shifting to the throat and back up behind the eyeballs. There truly is no "I". It's all just a mass of impermanent sensations.

Anyway, when I did this...I felt the mind disperse and the pressure at the crown grows stronger and I get the anticipation I get when a fruition is about to occur...a build up of slight energy/vibrations at the crown. I can do this when I want....it feels like it speeds up some process.

I feel like I am very over the whole idea that getting frutions are key to progress....there is no wow factor anymore.....I seem to be experiencing a kind of frustration with the whole cycling process....it doesnt' seem to be the answer. And all this talk lately on this site, mostly in Chris' thread and the essay at buddhist geeks by Daniel Ingram on the simple model of enlightenment seems to be relevant somehow to how I am experiencing things me for some reason.....I have been looking for something as well, like Chris has said. But there is nothing to look for. There isn't anything but what is already there. So is it the way i am looking at it needs to change?....just accepting it as all there is?....there seems to be less "I".....hmmmm......strange days...

Got a question

When I was dwelling in the Witness, and the whole focus was right down the middle of the head, from the crown down. ...dead centre, I sometimes felt like that presence, the Witness would become much subtler and almost dissapear for several moments...when it did that it felt like the mind would expand outward...but a thought would arise telling me, maybe I was spacing out....... should i allow the Witness to get subtler, or constantly remind myself with "Who am I?" and "I AM"..?....I remember repeating that "I AM" during the sit...and it made it so the focus was dead centre on the feeling of that watching presence.

I had the exact same thing happen to me just a few minutes ago during my sitting... I thought, "I know the witness is still here, I am just scripting" then I would ask Who am I find it again... only to have it slip away... but never for very long...

What a trip this whole enlightenment thing...one moment I am experiencing amazing burst of bliss and far out states of mind and the next day I'll be looking as depressed and manic as a far gone junkie. This past week was a doozy. I had way too much work on my plate and constant night classes so i had virtually no time for any formal sitting. Which when missed for long periods means I start going downhill and getting cranky, reacting like a little baby especially when the dark night hits hard. Man, I think I just plain forgot to note anything this week.

Today in the morning I felt like crap. I woke up with the weirdest of feelings and a flow of such negativity at my chest. I was disgusted by everything...and I mean everything. Life was just a sack of shiit! Every little trivial thing that happened to me caused a reaction of hating this whole life even more...."where the hell are my keys?", "Why is it raining and where the hell is my umbrella!" , Why are people so miserable and depressed here!", Why was I born", Why why why!!!?? Hahaha!...It makes me laugh now...but wow does it really suck you in if you aren't on top of it.

It sounds like a joke but it was quite an intense episode of disgust. One of the worst I've had. With the disgust there came thoughts of renunciation again, of wanting it just be done already..I'm noting a lot of frustration towards all the confusing cycles within cycles. I guess the honeymoon period is truly over and I've had enough.

Continued from above

As I tried to just get on with work today I felt a quick shift in my thought patterns which for half the day where just of having had enough of everything. From one moment to the next without me doing anything,the majority of vibrational activity in the body , which was mostly centred in the chest, shifted up to the head and I felt the depressing thoughts just stop dead. Amazing how it does that. From one moment to the next , complete equanimity!

During the day, between teaching uni classes I got a chance to just sit in a big comfy chair in the teacher's lounge. I keep forgetting I have access to jhanas. I really just don't think about it often. And the mind often just does not feel compelled to dwell in them. But I let it for an hour or two today and it made me realize that I can use that access to make my life a little happier. I wanna enjoy some of it! Jesus, that's all I want these days...just to be happy/.......happy in hell and happy in heaven. Just a heads up....the road to full enlightenment can be quite a roller coaster. Sometimes I feel so very unenlightened!

Nick keeping it real as always. Yikes! Hope you find the time to do some formal sitting...