A Sitting Journal

Been down with a cold this week and found it hard to sit. There were times when I felt I had the droning DN-ish vibration in my head the whole day for a few days, I wonder if that is the cold or some effect of meditation.

After several sits over the weekend, I manage to regain concentration and some momentum again. In my last sit I found myself undistracted from the start, and able to calmly abide and observe the pleasant and unpleasant sensations dispassionately all the way from gross up to subtle and back down again for one whole cycle. The undistractedness is quite amazing to me as I can see in contrast how a chaotic and stressful monkey mind i've have been having over the last few weeks without realizing it.

At the highest level of equanimity I feel the eyes clicking again, but this time clicking is stronger, it feels like both my forehead and eyes are softly going tock...tock...tock.... then after a while a sudden shocking excitement welled up in my tummy and rised up my head and the A&P pulsing came, which is quite odd because I thought I was in equanimity before.

Mon-Wed was quite uneventful, my energy levels were low and work was quite tiring. My sits only lasted about 10 minutes before I started dozing off. The furthest I reached was DN where I had the irritating buzzing pulses in my forehead until I dozed off.

Today I came home earlier and put more into the sit. Started off with noting very gross feelings - itch, heat, pleasant coolness, tightness, tension, ache, images, music thoughts. Soon a bright itch came and I stared at it and watch it dissolved into a buzz of itches around the original spot. At this moment I feel a vibratory shell form up on the arms and head and face. Followed the shell closely as it shifted into stronger vibration and pulses. I feel a dull low frequency vibration at the base of my skull. Next eyes start to get energised and face starts the random expansions and contractions. Heart beats gets faster and louder and I can feel it in my head. Then boom the eyes contracts very tightly and the top of the head has waves of tensions. Next everything calmed down and gradually a constant irritating vibration in my head came. Boredom, annoyance, wish it will go away and I can just move on, and then drowsiness and I stopped and took a break for dinner.

After dinner I sat and in a short time the nasty vibration came back and I get the familar painful tightening in my temple...squeeze squeeze...ouch. There is also a dizzying array of clashing frequencies constantly switching like when you tune a television. Gradually my concentration got better and went into the spaciousness mood, even though the unpleasant stuff were still happening. I tried my best to let go and managed to get to a quite undistracted state where i feel like my head is an empty vibrating iron ball and the body has no boundaries. There seems to be some excited tension but also quietness, in fact it seems my ears are taking in 50% sound input. Soon I felt the heart beat got stronger and I know I'm descending.

I'm getting a better handle of noting mind states and thoughts now. I find I can see clearly the mind states like tension, frustration, desire, stress. When I sit sometimes a work-related stress thought appears, I note it, and notice physical sensations accompaning it, like unpleasant tension at the top of my head and tensing up of shoulders. I feel I don't suffer the stress as I look at these events impersonately.

As I disembed further I find I retreat into a perspective that seems to be looking back at myself, with the mindstates and sensations and thoughts arising and passing away by themselves in the background. Here I find some peace, as I just remain aware of whats happening quite equanimously.

Over the last week, my sits were getting more subtle, there's no longer any high intensity A&P moments, but I could still identify them clearly with the light, energetic eye lids, increase heart beat and excitement. It also seems I reach it quite easily, several times I sit down and observe and in a moment the gross sensations break down and excitement comes in. It also seems that the eye and forehead strobing starts right from the start.

I also reach equanimity quicker, usually in 15-20 mins, compared to before where I need 40 mins. I usually reach a point where I stop all noting as I can observe the sensations very clearly. At some point even trying to observe seems to feel quite loud, and i feel like i am just want to take in all the experience from the body, ears and mental constructs in a stream. This stream feels shaky as it pulsates and vibrates. I find myself leaning to a side or tilting my head. The ears feel particularly emptied and sensitive.

During the day my mindfulness is getting better again. e.g. one day I was standing in the train and I took a moment to observe the pulses in my arms a bit closer it almost feels like I can reached a&p without much more effort.

I find that as I progress into higher equanimity I have a desire to just let go, stop noting, and sort of blank out into a state where I'm not so aware of myself but just soaking in the rumbling sensations in my head. Not much thoughts come about but if they do they pass away easily after identifying them. I particularly find my ear drums physically relax and hearing sharpened into the present, and after the session my ears still feel tingly. I also tried to get myself out of this state by noting a little to disembed from it.

Am I doing it wrong to let go so much, or is it best to be clearly aware during what I think is high-equanimity?

Chuanose, if it is indeed high equanimity, you can go as deep as you want with no ill effects. You will get Path anyway. The question is, is it really high equanimity? Maybe so, but I'd like to hear more. How much are you sitting each day? What is your general attitude toward practice? (You don't mind it, or you do it because you feel obligated, or it's all you want to do with your spare time, etc.) And tell me more about the experience itself; how tight or diffuse is the focus of attention; do you have a clear skin barrier, or does your body feel more like sensations floating in space; are you able to be aware of the whole environment, all at once, including sounds and sensations?

Hi Kenneth, I am sitting about 30 mins a day and on weekends maybe 2-3 times of 30 mins. I look forward to practice with my spare time, as I can feel the momentum gaining on me and benefiting my daily life. I try to sit in the morning too but find it hard as i'm usually quite tired (and possibly lazy) before going to work. During the day I get periods of mindfulness and clarity I didn't have before.

The focus of attention is diffuse, I don't feel my skin barrier and I feel a mass of vibrations and rumbling pulses in my head. By diffuse I believe i mean I tend to just sit and watch everything that happens everywhere, instead of focused on my breath or certain pulses in my head. As I disembed further there are glimpses of intervals where I am aware of sound and physical sensations simultaneously, but they are periodically interrupted by separate desiring/excited thoughts, and thoughts of letting go of expectations and being with the present.

At the periods when I feel the sound and sensations together, there is a desire to go deeper and let go even more, but there seems to be less note, as everything already seems to be hanging out there vibrating and pulsing away in space and they seem don't belong to me...

Excellent. Sit as much as you can, note as much as you can during daily life, and don't worry about becoming too concentrated; go as deep as you want. At times, you might not even be able to say what is going on or at which sense door the phenomena are arising. That's normal at this stage. If you can sit for longer than 30 minutes, that would help too. I would sit 45 minutes at a minimum if you can free up the time.

Thanks Kenneth, I'll aim to hit 45mins. Yesterday night I tried to sit for 45 mins but after 25mins I fell sleepy as I got bored with the constant chaotic annoying pulses in my head. Perhaps its because I'm not so used to a 45 min sit.

I then took a short break and then sat for another 20 mins where I had better alertness, but the unpleasant rumbling pulses were still going on. I was quite awake after the sit and couldn't fall asleep easily as there was quite a lot of activity and energy going on in my head. When I woke up this morning I can still feel the activity going on.

Been having light strobing in the visual field whenever I start sitting for a while. Sensations are also getting more subdued and subtle. When a&p is coming the heart starts beating louder, the eyes start to roll around and energetically pulse, but there isnt any serious tension in the top of the head anymore. Same for DNs, no more painful involuntary tightening in the temples or very frustrating sits, just a constant slightly annoying energetic pulsing in the middle of the head that seems to go on forever. Noted impatience, desire to move on and attempts to surrender.

I can't really tell when equanimity sets in, it just seems to keep rumbling away in the middle of the head, but just that I find it easier to get along with the annoying pulsing and feel more spaciousness. On a good sit then I will find my arms and head and body as masses of sensations hanging out there in space. Then after that i stop wanting to note and prefer to just soak it all in. There's doubt as to whether this is really concentration or going deeper as Kenneth mentions. Sometimes it seems like the sense of I starts going away, like some part of me is being half-asleep but yet i'm quite awake. I can still hear the sounds coming in clearly and there's continuous pulsing going on in the middle of my head. Sometimes the eyes strobe then I'll try to follow their endings but nothing interesting happens, apart from desire and excitement.

Momentum has been going a little up and down as I get quite tired after work and sitting just makes me drowsy. I feel I am picking up pace again as I try to leave work earlier to get home fresher for the sit.

Some of my sits now are getting different in that it doesn't start off with my usual experience of gross sensations, itching or discomfort, so I couldn't tell which initial stage I started at.

Like today It was all just quite clear, subtle and I could follow the quiet sensations and thoughts and tones that are occuring from the start. In this way I sat for 45 mins, during which there seems to be three stages, 1) slight pulsing/excited heartbeat, 2) slight chaotic rumbling/pulsing, and then 3) expansive okayness where there is deepening concentration and alternating with slight disturbances like thought arising. I don't know if it is three different stages because it was mostly subtle and they seem to be happening one after the other repeatedly about 3-4 cycles in the sit as concentration rose and fell.

Whoa have not posted for almost 2 months.

I think I'm now consistently hitting equanimity. What I experience is that firstly the DN frustrating sensations seem to fade into the distance and then I can watch them slowly quieten and calm down. At this point I find that if I let go a little too much I will go into lala-land and it is like being half-asleep and numbed down. However if I put in slightly more effort then I remain clearly aware of subtle pulsing around the forehead and the eyes. Next as I disembed further from the pulses they seem to get more and more energised. Somestimes the pulses behind the eyes quite strong, and if i try to follow the endings they seem to pulse even harder. It is different from AP in that there isn't any exhilerating feeling, just a detached energetic pulsing/flickering going on.

The disembedding process at this stage feels like knots of mind tension unwinding progressively and then becoming freely pulsing before me. Sometimes I don't feel much "self" but just experience these pulsing senstions all around. I catch myself desiring to disembed or "relax" these knots more and more.

Wow, you progressed in the past 2 months. Seems like you are very close. Keep doing what you are doing and you'll eventually pop! Awesome!

"Sometimes I don't feel much "self" but just experience these pulsing senstions all around.
...
I catch myself desiring to disembed or "relax" these knots more and more."

Thanks for posting this. All of what you describe typifies my own experience with what (I take) to be equanimity and it recalls a key point for this stage that has been, as these things go I guess, articulated in so many different ways by our more advanced yogi comrades. I came across it this past week when I "rediscovered" no-self (a kind of mini-insight, I guess) in the sense of "knowing" it through a strongly embodied feeling that arose at a certain level of sustained letting go and dis-embedding.

It's a tricky balance, but I found on those few occasions recently I could "ride out" the no-self (i.e. sustaining the feeling/knowledge aka seeing one of the 3Cs consistently) but only, as you observe, by - the crucial point - "catching" the desire and thus dis-embedding from it.

When I in equanimity stage I find that there will be a point where there is tension building up in my eyes and forehead. The forehead muscles tighten and my eyebrows go up involuntarily in a reversed V shape, as if in an astonished expression, and my eyes also involuntarily focus very tightly and closely into a spot in the forehead area. After awhile it gets too tight and uncomfortable so i have to consciously relax the muscles and let go of the tension, however before long the muscles involuntarily get back to this state again. It's not a DN kind of unpleasantness, I still feel the calm and okness and diffuse focus, but the tightening sometimes gets overboard, a little like i am crossing my eyes and looking up.

Wonder if any of you experienced this or have any ideas what to make out of it?

Yes, I'd been wondering about this myself!

It happens to me during EQ every once in awhile as well and I was never quite sure if "I" was subtly doing it or if it was really a spontaneous happening. But as you also say, it always takes effort on my part to actually stop it. So perhaps it's just some random energy movement trying to balance things out?

In the end, it's all probably just part of the "cooking" process of EQ, but I'd also be curious to hear if other yogis have experienced this and what they make of it.

"When I in equanimity stage I find that there will be a point where there is tension building up in my eyes and forehead. The forehead muscles tighten and my eyebrows go up involuntarily in a reversed V shape, as if in an astonished expression, and my eyes also involuntarily focus very tightly and closely into a spot in the forehead area. After awhile it gets too tight and uncomfortable so i have to consciously relax the muscles and let go of the tension, however before long the muscles involuntarily get back to this state again...

Wonder if any of you experienced this or have any ideas what to make out of it?"

Yes, this sounds familiar to me. I think of it as a kind of energy bottleneck. Often, when this happens, I will deliberately squeeze my eyes together as tightly as I can. This seems to allow the energy to coalesce in the third eye area. There may be a light, which becomes brighter and more focused, in which case I continue to squeeze my eyes tightly and focus attention on the light. The tension builds to a crescendo, then seems to pass smoothly upward and dissipate. After this, I feel back to normal and can carry on meditating without the unusual tension and agitation in the head.

I think of this squeezing technique as a way of easing or uncorking the bottleneck so that energy can flow smoothly again. I agree with Chris_TK that it is all part of the natural energy movement through the body and part of the "cooking out" process. As always, the way forward is not to try to get rid of it but to embrace and accept it; we don't really know what it is, but we know that it *is*, if you see what I mean. In the moment of its arising, this experience is your life. You have no other. So, you surrender to it, give it your full attention, and watch to see what happens next.

Thanks for the tip Kenneth, good to know.

Thanks Kenneth, there was a couple of times I had a very tense forehead and I tried out the squeezing technique by deliberately squeezing or tensing it even further and after letting go there is a wave of energy that flows and relaxes, and the eyes brighten up with light for a while. The involuntary tension goes away for awhile, but does comes back again sometime. I'm trying to accept the experience as it is and just let it "cook" as Chris_TK mentions.

I think I managed to get pretty high up today again, there was very little feeling of "self", perhaps just a little "will" left that repeatedly tried to identify and disembed from all these impermanent fuzzy mental shapes that pulses and float all around. At this point it seems that I can note this "will" or thought that is wanted to do this noting it seems to bring me deeper, a little circular...

Ramped up my sits a little this week, sat for 20-30 mins in the morning and 45 mins at night, I can feel the progress.

For e.g. once this week, there was an incident which made me angry, which is not an often thing. I caught the sensations of anger relatively quickly, closed by eyes and rested to observe the sensations. It was mad rush of energy swirling around, mean thoughts surfacing and going away, but "i" wasn't angry any more. When it subsided I could feel the negative sensations of the negative actions i did when in anger (I said something impolitely and impatiently), it seems like it left a mark and surfaced whenever i thought of it. Its like I can see physical/mental effect of my own karma of doing those actions in response to my anger. I was quite happy though that I could contain it so quickly before any serious harm came out of it.

The very tense forehead effects went on for weeks, but started subsiding in intensity and frequency recently. I just came out of a sit that was quite interesting, I felt like i was disembedding more and more from the subtle calmness of equanimity, and it become energetic pulses in the middle of the head. I felt a progressive involuntary loosening of grip of some kind of "I" sense in the middle of the head, and soon i didn't feel much "self" but energetic pulses in the middle of the head and around the forehead. The space between pulses gradually got longer in duration and there was a desire to let go completely and try to get the quiet space lengthened. Then there was a very subtle unspectacular off-beat quiet space between the energetic pulses that lasted a micro-second longer than the rest and then soon i was swarming with energy in my forehead and eyes batting away energetically and seeing lights like in A&P mode.

I'm don't think this is stream entry yet, as it was so subtle I might be imaging things, but I'm quite excited by it and decided to share.

I'm wondering if yesterday's experience might be it. I'm feeling subtlely different today, like there is some kind of calmness and transparency in my awareness, and a previous knot in the middle of the head seems to be dissipated away. In my sit today I reach A&P in like a minute or two and there was hardly any DN and I was in equanimity again. In a short time I reach a pretty high state, and there was this gradually wave after wave of progressively losing sense and control. There wasn't any obvious point but gradually the sensations came back and my eyes were twitching away energetically and I think I am in A&P again.

I also tried accessing the jhanas, in this time it seems much more clear to me why they are called absorption states. With a little effort I can focus my eyes on my nose and get into 1st jhana, feel all the pulsations on the surface of my arms. Then I relax a little more and the energy seem to rise to my head and i can feel the a&p sensations. Then I relax it abit more and the energy spreads out around the body, and finally i let go and i don't feel my body anymore. Its the most absorbed state i have ever experienced.

Wonder what you all think? Could this be it? It doesn't seem very spectacular at all, except i find the absorptions quite cool.

Could be stream entry, Chuanose. Keep us posted about changes in your practice over the next few days. See if there is a typical pattern to the way your sittings unfold. Continue to explore the jhanas and let us know what you find.

Kenneth

wow man, I hadn't checked this thread in a long time and you are really cooking now!

If what you experienced wasn't SE, don't worry, you are right on the threshold. It will happen very soon. BTW, could you describe any changes you are experiencing off the cushion? People often notice some new things in daily life after SE.

Off the cushion I feel like something physical has changed in my brain, like some stickiness in the middle of my head is partially dissolved away. It is like some kind of omni-directional pressure being removed and the surrounding muscles are not used to the change yet and so are slowly relaxing and readjusting to accommodate the loss. I feel more light-hearted, contented and patient these two days at work, generally just happy

If I close my eyes and try to meditate I immediately feel the pulsations going on in the forehead like I'm starting in A&P. I think I might have experienced another fruition today but I cannot really pinpoint any exact moment. It feels like progressively losing sense of everything and then it all comes back energetically again.

As for jhanas, it seems that I can adjust my eye focus far and near, and either relax the mind or to put some effort to redistribute the focus of the attention/energy around to move from 1st to 3rd back to 2nd and to 4th, all in a matter of seconds. 1st jhana doesn't seem very stable, it seems that I have to exert a little more effort to get and stay there.