sparqis logs

Walked about kind of feeling ghost like with more implications of cause and effect between sensations being a post processing illusion/interpretation to bare sensations sinking in.

Meditated for half an hour with intent to investigate breathing in this light. Felt distracted by eye tensions...why are the eye tensions associated with directing the attention at the breathing. Why is there habitually a sense that the feelings of eye tension weild/control the attention foregrounding breathing sensations...This cant be so...but seems to be so. Started noteing again...eye tension, eye tension,eye tension,eye tension,eye tension,eye tension,eye tension, air in lungs, eye tension,eye tension,eye tension,belly,eye tension, etc.

1hour Continue disk Samatha
1hour Note with eyes closed sensations which foreground spontaneously.

intent: Awake! 1hour samatha of disk, hold 'diskness' in foreground at all time.

No fogging/grogging, sustained diskness in foreground for the vast majority of the time without excessive efforting...drifted off into 'shoulding' and 'method comments' occasionally. No new territory. End.

Im a bit of a pedant about methodology...but now I feel content that Im 'doing it right'. Have reviewed Kenneths comments here, reread what I can find on this site, as well as bearing in mind Ingrams comments and Jackson link to www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/gunaratana/wheel351.html

With the last meditation I feel content that concentration will deepen with practice without further concern for method. Just have to be patient that it'll develop by itself.

Noteing...
Did unplanned one hour while reclining and alert. Body seemed to come alive with many sensations coming at greater speed as noted freestyle, without worry about categorising to four foundations. Swapped to note-ing specifically mind frame and thoughts...as intent was clear to only note, when other thoughts arose, they were clearly not mine (so to speak).

Intent: note while walking. Route planned, no time-limit.
Harder going. Inclined note-ing more to quality of body sensations.

Intent: Note 4 foundations while sitting with eyes closed for 1 hour.
When reached mind frame/thought note-ing. Mind went very still and calm. Almost nothing to note. Perhaps minds bandwidth saturated with listening. Or very strongly tuned to head as flesh and thoughts were tuned out. Very interesting. Felt energy rushes and on the edge of something. Stark contrast to reclining and noteing mind stuff. Inspires further practice to investigate!

"The noting technique brings enlightenment, first on a part-time and later on a full-time basis."-Ovādacariya Sayādaw U Paṇḍitābhivaṃsa, aka U Pandita!!

Barebones Intent: 1hour disk samatha. Holding gently disk in foreground.

Finally seem to be getting the hang of it. Melting through perceptual fog and making contact with the 'actual' disk. Noticably sustaining for short periods beginnings of phase two chicken herding.

Looks like Kenneth wasnt just making it up when he wrote Jhana and Ñana!! heheheh

Glad to hear things are beginning to click...

"Glad to hear things are beginning to click... "

perhaps I shouldnt count my chickens before they hatch!

Yesterday did note-ing formally for 1 hour and while walking into town and back. The most memorable aspect of it was how I'd almost immediately forget to note when reminded while people were around. hmmmmm.

barebones intent: Samatha 1hour on disk.
Began well distinguishing between more actual disk sensations and the more haze-like diskness sensations. However as kind of ill, irritable and tired today, my chicken herd degenerated to arguing and fighting with philosopher chicken insisting on providing a loud commentary. Frustration chicken, soporific chicken, nausea chicken and give-up chicken joined the fray, but methodological fascist chicken put up a good fight. I endured the hour with disk chicken noticeable for brief periods. On the bright side 'i' didnt intervene much in the fight, and the intent of only making effort towards foregrounding the disk kept me on the cushion. All was not lost, as it was educational to attempt smathaing under these relatively extreme conditions.

haha just offering some encouragement...

This stuff always requires some getting used to. I mean maybe someone sat down, their mind was still as day old bathwater, they penetrated every object of awareness completely, attained arahatship, and understood primordial awareness in their first sitting-- but I kind of doubt it. One of the most important lessons that others have taught me is to try not to have expectations of what practice should be... just keep doing what your doing...

"haha just offering some encouragement...

This stuff always requires some getting used to. I mean maybe someone sat down, their mind was still as day old bathwater, they penetrated every object of awareness completely, attained arahatship, and understood primordial awareness in their first sitting-- but I kind of doubt it. One of the most important lessons that others have taught me is to try not to have expectations of what practice should be... just keep doing what your doing... "

ClaytonL...nice and timely!

Having read Jarrod's account of note-ing, I thought I'd go do some practice formal note-ing whilst 'feeling crap'...and after note-ing 'reluctance, inertia' it all pretty much changed and I had a very pleasant sitting, next to no agitation....just as ClaytonL mentions...the inertia, reluctance was due to an expectation of having to endure...

barebones intent: Fomal 4foundation note 50 mins.
Once sat found my 'no struggle, just sit, relax' place very quickly and noted whichever foregrounded. First body-locations to get the ball rolling, and then body-sensation qualities, 'squeeze, nausea, pull, tension, looking, squeeze, swell, tension, cool breath..etc' Then feeling-tone and finally, mind frame/moods/attitudes & thoughts. Im not clear on the distinction of the last two of the foundations...Im expecting it to become apparent with practice. In contrast to previous times noteing the mental phenomena, this time my head was slipping noticably into day dreaming mode, kind of sleepy head, yet I was aware and could note it. 'visualisation, comment, visualisation, review, visualisation, planning etc'. The images were seemingly random, such as faces I didnt recognise.

I drifted into 'fascination-investigation' mode aware of the difference between previous times and noticed this time I was 'feeling the head' rather than 'listening to the head', and my sense of centre was in the heart and my head was 'up there'. A bit off intention, but all to the good to notice!

Last few days I have been falling increasingly ill, apparently I might have broken ribs from violent coughing. The upside is that I cant move around much, so Im sitting around alot and when I do have to move, I move slooooowly, otherwise I cough....and I dont feel guilty for not working!! Perfect for:

skeleton intent: Awake! 24/7mindful noting.

I have a vibrator on my watch, I set to go off every half hour to remind me, to declare clearly this intent, and then let it go...and note...in this way I hope I'll receive frequent reminders to be mindful and note during circumstances where Iam too embedded/dominated/unconscious to remember to do so usually....and I wont have to be tense trying to remember, deliberately trying to hold the intent in awareness constantly (which is impossible methinks) so to speak.

I want to get a clearer idea the circumstances when I forget to note....so I can practice entering & exiting those circumstances, while note-ing.

Also continuing with samatha-ing of disk...nose to the grindstone here, have to be patient. I try and remember what Kenneth has written here...its not about me, Im not in control!

Hey man just figured I would answer your question over here... where does the witness hang out. Its hard to pin down. But it seems mostly in a strait line along the front of my body from around my third eye to heart/chest area...

Goenka method... its funny but I found the best description of the method is found on ehow.com
www.ehow.com/how_2101400_meditation-as-taught-sn-goenka.html

It is a simple practice once you get it down. It always feels more energy based to me... similar to tai chi or yoga (i guess)... If you go on a 10 day retreat in that tradition and follow instructions you very very likely will cross the A&P. The problem is the group itself is very mushroomy. Very dogmatic sometimes. But the method itself is just something useful for the old yogi toolbox.

yo ClaytonL, thx for the goenka link...interesting to see equanimity as recommended attitude. Presumably one would have to fake it/simulate it until one reaches that level of insight! Definitely a useful tool.

Im always interested to hear all the multitude ways people experience their witness. The Japanese point at their noses, the ancient romans thought they were in their guts...some hover behind their heads or dwell in the eyes...It seems all so arbitary!!

Practice sessions have been scattered over the last few days. Cover story was/is cracked rib, coughing agony, breathlessness, new work contract imminent.

Samatha: Ive kept my nose to the grindstone, with the occasional early bail-out. Today reached a state where kaseina was steady and not contrasting out with flesh eyes still. My body and the visual field became noticeably brighter, it felt bright clean, at ease & pleasurable. How pleasant!! I like. Previously my flesh eyes would flick at about 1-2 hz, constantly throughout sit...I'd considered this 'normal', kind of ciccadic, automatic image freshening, and I'd presumed not an issue...but this time I noticed windows where the eyes would get still, the disk image would also be still and there wouldnt be a contrasting out of the image. I chose to encourage this as an experiment...and to nice results. I feel a want to go back and sit and dwell/steep there!

This seems to me the first fruit from my samatha practice.