Nikolai's Practice Notes

hope the headache stays gone

"hope the headache stays gone"

Hey Mike,

I hope so too, but something tells me I shouldn't get attached to that idea as now the top of my head feels like I am wearing an iron skullcap. What an awesomely weird ride this is!

So I haven't slept a wink this last night. I think the fruition I had yesterday set something off. I feel a difference in perception. This is for sure. But I can't really explain it well. I have been lying in bed all night having fruition after fruition. Exactly like when I got 1st path. I havent had this many fruitions since my the review period of first path.

Kenneth,

Does one go through a review period even during a path's insight cycles? Or does the review stage happen only once per path?

I am buzzing with fruition bliss to the point where I kind of dislike it. My body feels like it is about to explode into tiny bubbles. Today in a couple of hours I am to begin a day sit with the local Goenka meditators. So we'll see what happens.

Yesterday, I did a day meditation course which lasted 7 hours. It was the first time I have practiced longer than an hour at a time since my 10 day retreat over new year's. I practiced primarily dwelling in the Witness.

My experience of it was really strange. I have been feeling "strange" since the recent significant fruition I mentioned above in another post. Firstly i don't believe it was a path fruition but yet another 2nd path one. I feel slightly different from before the fruition occurred but it is not a big enough difference to be 3rd path as I have read that it truly is a big perceptual shift. And the one I have just experienced feels too close to how i was perceiving before. But it seems easier to shift the mind into a perception where for example, there is just seeing in seeing, feeling in feeling and a for a much longer time than before. The "I" seems smaller, and when I try and locate it, it seems right at the back of the mind and seems less sticky and less solid. What really sticks out is that i can focus on one of the senses and it will just be that...hearing in hearing. When I do that, I see clearly the "I" blipping in and out of that experience. That "I" just being a mix of mental images and sensations. It is so much clearer than before.

Did anyone else feel slight perception shifts as they completed cycles within a path?

Continued from above..

And I am thinking that those repeated fruitions that I experienced all Saturday night were the A/P of this new cycle that I started again. What else could it be?

Has anyone else experienced repeated fruitions over and over that occurred without willing the mind to do so? They just came one after the other at maybe 5 in a minute. As one occurred, I felt the sensations shift back to A/P and there would be base root chakra vibrations activated then it would move up the spine passing by each chakra activating it with a flow of vibrations, then up to the third eye area which then felt myself shift into equanimity of formations and then to the crown where there would be a couple of moments where I felt a flow of energy/vibrations there and then POP! and I would have a fruition. THis kept repeating , for what i felt was all night long. It left me feeling extremely edgy as the body was just overloaded with blissful vibrations that it kind of lost it's positive quality and became "too much" at one point.

THis all happened the night before the day sit.

The day sit was strange because I think my mind was reeling from all that fruition bliss and it felt hard to concentrate well.
So when i started trying to dwell as the witness, It felt really trippy. and I am having trouble remembering exactly how it was. The mind full of bliss is not really conducive to concentration for me.

But I kept at it and had two different experiences of the Witness for which I think I need clarification.

Continued from above

One is where there is awareness of "Nick", of "I" as a sum of phenomena that seems to be at the front of the mind and the WItness is at the back of the mind aware of this "I".

The other experience is where rather than having the awareness/Witness at the back of the mind looking at this "Nick" do his thing, the awareness now feels smack bang in the middle of the experience of "Nick" but at the same time not lost in it. Aware that it is still the object, the thing being observed. It feels like the Witness and the "I" are directly in the middle of the head.

The latter experience is more pleasurable and it seems to allow energy to flow more freely in the body and also it seems easier to see the nanas and jhanas pass by. The other one, where the awareness/Witness is at the back of the mind and "Nick/ I" is at the front, makes it difficult to pay attention to the strata that float by. This seems to be the case because the Witness/awarenss is focused on the experiecne of "Nick" ie, Nick thinking, Nick feeling, Nick being, .... in the front of the mind and so it doesn't pay attention to anything else....I'm not sure I am making sense.

Which one is dwelling in the Witness?

I hope someone gets what I am trying to explain. They are two different experiences of what i thought was the Witness. So I am a little confused. Although when I ask myself the question, Who am I?...the answer is always the 2nd experience where the Witness is immersed but separate in "I".

..Continued from above

So a whole day of doing this left me with a blank mind where I had nothing going on there. Completely free of thought. Almost zombie like but I felt alive and present. It felt hard to start talking again to my fiance as it took some effort to think of things to say. One unfortunate occurrence though is that my third eye chakra headache came back with a vengeance.

This time it felt like something was trying to drill a hole in my forehead and my eyes,nose and cheek bones felt extremely sore. Even to touch they felt sore. My eyes felt very strained and light sensitive. It feels really hard to concentrate when this happens. Damn pineal gland! This was all last night. But now it seems to have dissipated somewhat.

And around we go again!

Something else worth mentioning. In order for me to dwell in either of these two experiences, I was either asking myself the Who am I? question or I had this mental image of my hand making a cutting motion through the air at my neck, essentially cutting or separating the experience of "Nick" from that awareness that is able to be separate and objectify the experience of Nick. This little tool helps me quickly become aware of the experience of Nick as object.

If I am not making much sense today it's because I still feel a little affected by all those fruitions. And the return of the third eye chakra headache.

Disembed! Disembed Disembed!

Nik:
You may have already said, but do you have a job, kids, etc?

"Nik:
You may have already said, but do you have a job, kids, etc? "

Hi Mike,

No, no kids. Unless you consider the little pet hedgehog that my fiance and I have. She (the hedgehog) has free reign of our small apartment and , bless her little heart, leaves the biggest mojones (**** pellets) that you could imagine so that I have something nice to squish between my toes in the morning.

I work as an English teacher here in Santiago, Chile. I have connections so I get payed well and have heaps of free time. I don't work a 9 to 5 job. it's very random. Today for example, I just have one class at a very rich school for girls. The rest of my time is spent cleaning up hedgehog poop, exploring and having adventures as a meditator and posting some of those experiences here.

"Hi Mike,

No, no kids. Unless you consider the little pet hedgehog that my fiance and I have. She (the hedgehog) has free reign of our small apartment and , bless her little heart, leaves the biggest mojones (**** pellets) that you could imagine so that I have something nice to squish between my toes in the morning.

I work as an English teacher here in Santiago, Chile. I have connections so I get payed well and have heaps of free time. I don't work a 9 to 5 job. it's very random. Today for example, I just have one class at a very rich school for girls. The rest of my time is spent cleaning up hedgehog poop, exploring and having adventures as a meditator and posting some of those experiences here.

"

wanna exchange lives for a couple of months? (minus the hedgehog)

"wanna exchange lives for a couple of months? (minus the hedgehog)
"

Hahaha!

Do you have kids that poop on the carpet or in your shoe?

Yeh, I am quite lucky when I think about it. But I've never had a nine to five job in my life.

That doesn't mean I am always happy though. If you traded lives with me, you would have to take on this third eye chakra headache and continuous feeling of having no idea what is happening to me and the occasional outbreaks of rosacea.

Deal?

"Hahaha!

Do you have kids that poop on the carpet or in your shoe?

Yeh, I am quite lucky when I think about it. But I've never had a nine to five job in my life.

That doesn't mean I am always happy though. If you traded lives with me, you would have to take on this third eye chakra headache and continuous feeling of having no idea what is happening to me and the occasional outbreaks of rosacea.

Deal?
"

You get to get up a 4 a.m. in Modesto, work from 8 to 5 in San Francisco for about 8 intense highly amitious lawyers, home at 7 p.m. with sole custody of two wonderful teenage kids, four dogs and a cat. Plus the occasional migraine.

I have been reading over August Leo's Practice notes and I came across his explanation of the "blips" he experiences. This is the best explanation of what I have been calling fruitions I have come across. Awesome! Thanks August for being so articulate!
A question though for August or anyone else,

Do your eyelids tend to want to close automatically when you experience a "blip"?
If I have one with my eyes open, then the mind comes back online with the eyelids mostly closed.

There really is some sort of flexing of something physical right above the pineal gland and then it relaxes back down as the mind comes back online.

"The first is a momentary discontinuity, a 'blip' in awareness. It is preceded by what feels like a build up of charge between two capacitor plates somewhere in the head (behind the eyes, forward of the pineal gland, about where the pituitary gland is located). There is also the sense of a physical flexing of some structure in the same location. When the charge builds up to a certain threshold, there is a very quick (milliseconds) discharge of energy during which consciousness winks out. After the discharge, there is the sense of the same structure relaxing." August Leo

Hi Nick,

Here are some responses to some of your questions:

Q: Does one go through a review period even during a path's insight cycles? Or does the review stage happen only once per path?

A: The review phase happens with each cycle, including those mini-cycles that happen so frequently for someone who has 2nd Path. That's why the only reliable way to diagnose 3rd Path is the ability to access either nirodha samapatti or one or more of the Pure Land jhanas. It would be hard to say if there is one big "special" cycle that signifies the transition between 2nd and 3rd Path because a 2nd Path yogi has so many cycles as a natural course of practice. Some of them seem spectacular and some not so much.

Q: Did anyone else feel slight perception shifts as they completed cycles within a path?

A: Yes, it's common to feel a little (or a lot) clearer after one of the "intra-Path" cycles.

Q: It will be good to make a clear distinction between fruitions and A&P events. They are very different. A&P events are joyful, often spectacular, characterized by white lights, unitive experiences, orgasmic bliss, wave after wave of vibrations throughout the body. Cessations (Mahasi-style fruitions) on the other hand, are subtle, anti-climactic, and followed by a very subtle kind of happiness unlike the over-the-top joy of the A&P.

Q: Which one is dwelling in the Witness?

A: With the "bystander," the 1st Gear practice that is the symphony of looking at all four foundations of mindfulness arising in real time, the objects ARE the point. The Witness, on the other hand, which is the beginning of 2nd Gear practice, doesn't care about objects at all. It only cares about itself. There is only one focus of attention while dwelling as the Witness, and that is the sense of transpersonal observer. It's much simpler than 1st Gear.

"Q: It will be good to make a clear distinction between fruitions and A&P events. They are very different. A&P events are joyful, often spectacular, characterized by white lights, unitive experiences, orgasmic bliss, wave after wave of vibrations throughout the body. Cessations (Mahasi-style fruitions) on the other hand, are subtle, anti-climactic, and followed by a very subtle kind of happiness unlike the over-the-top joy of the A&P.
"

Hi Kenneth,

Thanks for the clarifications. Especially about the Witness. I now know what the Witness feels like and your clarification helps.

Concerning what I thought would be an A/P event. Yeh, it was many, many fruitions one after the other. Many many rapid cycles at about 5 a minute for maybe a number of hours. i am unsure if I slept the night it happened. it felt like it was happening all night and the fruition buzz zapped me of any sleepiness.

The constant fruitions I talked about are subtle compared to say the kundalini type energy that surges up the body at times.

What was not subtle afterwards was feeling the body overloaded with those blissful vibrations which permeate the mind and body after a fruition. I felt extremely hypersensitve and well, just overloaded with bliss. It wasn't extremely unpleasant but at the same time it's not something I would actively repeat.

Are these occurrences of repeated fruitions one after the other common? I remember having them several times after 1st path while on retreat. They only occurred if the mind was equanimous 100 %. If there was a mental reaction they would stop and continue again when the mind dropped back into an equanimous state.

This hasn't happened to me since then in January.

Has anyone had this happen to themselves?

I am having an extremely lot of activity at my third eye these days. At the moment my eyes are feeling extremely strained. Last night the very hard ball of pressure which is felt behind the eyes just above them slightly has become more like a steady flow of obvious vibrations. Last night while in bed I observed it spitting and whirling about and when I did this it eventually became a lot smoother and then I had a strange experience of the mind sinking into something. I had a mental reaction to it and it stopped. But as I felt the flow of something behind the eyes with all the focus on that, the mind sunk into a really pleasant state. The entire body started buzzing like it has never before and I felt the mind kind of touch something...it felt like something physical flexing as August Leo explained it perfectly and then Boom! a massive dose of fruition bliss which spread throughout the body. Unlike the fruiton bliss I normally feel.

I kept doing this for an hour or so just kind of slowly sinking into this state and having the mind touch what seems like a cessation moment. I say touch because it feels like at that point where I had the ball of pressure there is physical movement.

As I sit here in Starbucks, I can do this again. That little ball of pressure seems more relaxed and loose but very obvious inside my brain.

Anyway, I think I've dropped into Dark night cos I feel quite agitated at the moment.
Scuse me while I disembed...

One more thing, i am feeling very grateful at the moment because of this place and Kenneth's and other's help. You are all my sangha. Who else can i talk to about this.

Thank you!

Nikolai, I just wanted to chime and say that my 2nd path experience is comparatively similar to yours. There was an over-abundance of energetic stuff, multiple fruitions, explosive moments, kundalini headaches at the brow and crown areas, etc., etc. I still haven't the foggiest idea of why all of this happens. Part of me thinks that 2nd path is like the A&P event of a larger Progress of Insight fractal. This would make sense in light of the amount of energetic stuff involved. But who really knows?

I'll be interested to know what you're overall experience is like in 3-6 months, or perhaps even a year from now. It's fun to compare notes!

Keep on truckin'.

~Jackson

Thanks so much Jackson!

In this current agitated state with hardcore brow activity and strained eyes, your post is like music to my ears. It is good to know I am not the only one going through all this. It really helps deep down to know others like yourself have similar experiences.

i mean who the hell am i gonna talk to about this? Who is having kundalini spurts up the backside constantly? Who is blipping in and out of conciousness now and then and looking blissed out most of the time? Who keeps rubbing their head and saying no to aspirins because it isn't your normal headache?

You guys are a blessing! I don't think i would have found this kind of support back at the Goenka centre i frequented.

Now back to truckin......

I know what you mean. I feel incredibly grateful to have a community like this to participate in. I can't imagine that I'd be where I am today without the guidance and support of the friends I've made here.

Yep, that all sounds like my experience, too. Lots of weirdness, lots of cycles, lots of wondering where I was, what was happening, would that crap ever end and would I ever move on? I do recall one very large and impressive fruition that I think ended second path, or was at least somehow involved. I remember it because Kenneth almost ordered me to write it down one afternoon. I was sitting in a hotel lobby and I had asked him what the transition from second to third path was like for him and he said couldn't recall it. I had just self-discovered nirodha samapatti and one of the Sudavasa Jhanas, so he was telling me this was, indeed, third path. I was struggling to believe him. What I recall (thanks to Kenneth) was a very large fruition that consisted of bright violet lights arranged in a donut shape around the periphery of the visual field. It happened, like so many things do in my first gear practice, in the middle of the night after waking up in some jhana or another. It followed a ton of third eye tension and energetic tinglings in the forehead.

Hang in there, Nikolai!

And yes to this place and you folks, too

Haven't wanted to post anything about my own practice of late becasue I have been passing through a wierd phase were I feel so very blah, blah meh! about things happening to me. I know now that it was probably part of another Dark Night . The sensations I was feeling for over a week made it so hard to care about anything. Very heavy sensations in the chest, that made any mental reaction to it , be one of disgust or boredom, I kind of a "who gives a crap!!!" attitude. Very dark night related now that I think of it. Got apologize to Kenneth. Because of this state, I haven't had any desire to do any translating of this site for the Spanish section. But I'll be getting on it soon enough, as I think yesterday I finally crossed into equanimity of formations.

Yesterday I went and did a special day of yoga and various yoga related activities at a local yoga centre. All this with my fiance. It was a whole day with 5 different practices to do during the day, an hour at a time. I chose to do, in order, Purna yoga, kundalini yoga, kundalini meditation, Nidra yoga, a special massage session and then Chakra meditation.

I am not really a yoga practitioner. I have done it in the past but haven't done anything of the sort for a year or so. I decided at the beginning, in the spirit of participation and experimentation, i wanted to see what I could learn from such activities. I also decided to do all this dwelling in the witness.

I really enjoyed the movements of purna yoga. It was a nice way to start the day, very energizing. Then we did kundalini yoga. I was excited about this cos of all the kundalini stuff happening to me. The practice was quite energizing as well. Lots of arm movements and chanting mantras. Kundalini meditation was more of the same.

Continued from above...


The Nidra yoga was just having you lie down and half go t sleep while the instructor gave you instructions to "walk through peaceful woods, see lights etc". As soon as I closed my eyes, my mind was pulled into jhana and that is where I dwelled for that hour so i probably didn't do what they were instructing.

Then there was a nice period of massaging your partner and receiving a massage. All this was done while observing the respiration to keep the flow of awareness going.

Then finally, there was some chakra meditation where we chanted specific mantra words corresponding to the charkas. I again felt the mind shift into jhana and strengthen and become hard from chanting the mantras.
During the whole day I felt negative sensations at the chest and throat, shifting about, spitting and spurting. Then towards the end of the day, when we were finishing up the nidra yoga session, I felt a very strong almost "bitter" sensation which rose out from my throat like little bubbles and escapes of air. It was a really bitter feeling that accompanied it. I had to really remind myself to be equanimous and just let it rise without mental reaction.

Then as it spit and spurted and dissolved away, I felt a shift upwards of flow of energy to the brow area. And once again, the dreaded third eye pressure returned with a vengeance. Amazing how this pressure effects the eyes and whole nose and cheek bones. So much pressure and aching. I went to bed last night with the pressure staying put there.

Continued from above..


Then this morning as I was slowly waking up, I felt it shift upwards once again, to the crown area. It is such a relief when it does this. I really feel the state of the mind become lighter and less confusing. It is easy to concentrate well, and all phenomena which pass through the mind is easy to see. I guess this would be high equanimity, just before a fruition would occur. But so far, no fruition. Just back with the metal skull cap I've mentioned before. I feel intense pressure on the top of my head. It seems to cover the whole scalp area. Anyway, apart from all this going on, I feel very ok with the world, relaxed, and in control once again. Good to be back. Don't know how long it will last...hehe!