Jarrod's Practice Notes

Inspired by the other journal threads and at Kenneth's suggestion, I've decided to join the fray and start an online practice journal as well. A bit about me and my practice thus far: I'm 33, have a wife and 18 month old son, and have been sitting regularly for the past 11 months. I've slowly increased the time and frequency of sits and currently sit for 20-30 minutes each (or most) mornings during the week and 45-60 minutes on Saturday and Sunday. I try to occasionally also get in an evening sit when I can. I have not done any formal in-person retreat work, but have done 4 or 5 Shinzen Young phone retreats. Within the past couple of months, I have found that I have been spontaneously remembering to be mindful more and more during non-cushion time, so I try to note what I can, when I can. I've had a few starts and stops over the past decade or so, but it seems that I have been able to consistently sit during the past 11 months, primarily because of the source of tips and information that is now available online. I have been experimenting with different techniques, but primarily have been doing vipassana-type work.

Here are some notes on my 2 most recent sits:

45 minute sit focusing on the 4 foundations of mindfulness. For the most part, I did the noting out-loud, which as Kenneth points out turned out to be a great feedback loop to keep on track. I started by settling into the posture and felt the sensation of the cushion. Focusing first on body sensations, I noted 'pressure'. As I settled in I noted 'relaxed'. There was tightness in my back, and I noted 'tight', then my feet fell asleep, so I noted 'numb.' For the most part, I found myself alternating among these notes and if nothing dominated the body sensations I defaulted to the pressure of sitting on the cushion.

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I dropped this and then shifted to noting feeling tone (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral). The body sensations I mentioned above still dominated, so I noted 'unpleasant' when I felt the tightness and numbness and 'pleasant' when I felt the relaxation. Occasionally I felt the coolness of the in-breath and noted 'neutral'. These notes started to pick up pace significantly compared to noting the body sensations directly.

Then I shifted to noting emotions (was mind-tone the correct phrase?). Here the noting slowed down at first, but eventually they picked back up again. I noticed the slowness was kind of a pain, so I noted 'confusion' and 'annoyed'. As these became clear, it seemed I was back on track and I noted 'joy' and from there the noting started coming more naturally, noting 'joy' or 'happy' when it seemed I was on track and noting 'irritated' and 'annoyed' when the tightness in my back or numbness in my feet became stronger.

After a few minutes, I shifted to noting thoughts. Here things really started to pick up pace. It was a nice day and there were several birds singing outside my window. Each time I heard them I pictured them in the trees outside my house and noted 'image thought.' I frequently remembered my recent discussion with Kenneth and noted 'remembering thought.' Then I started to plan what I would type here in this thread and noted 'planning thought.'

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These notes were coming quite quickly (about as fast as I could say them) and I opened to all of the 4 foundations and noted 'See how it '¦'. There were various combinations of the notes above in this format and pretty quickly, my mouth and tongue got in the way of the out-loud noting, so I dropped that and shifted to mental noting in the 'See how it '¦' format. Eventually, my body felt very light, there was a tangible pulse underlying all sensations and eventually most sensations took on a vibration quality of pretty high frequency (kind of a buzzing all over). I noted 'See how it feels pulsing', 'See how it feels light', 'See how it is excited', 'pleasant', 'See how it vibrates'. Eventually, even this form of mental noting was getting in the way, so with each sensation I mentally noted a 'beep.' After a few minutes of this, the buzzing and pulsing slowed down and disappeared. The itching and tightness sensations became predominant again and I started back up with the out-loud noting 'See how it itches', 'See how it feels tight', etc.

The last couple of minutes were a mix of excitement for what seemed like a 'good' sit and an intense desire to shift, get up and/or look at my timer. So, I noted some combination of 'See how it feels excited', 'See how it desires', 'See how it intends', 'See how it resists', 'See how it feels victorious', etc., etc.

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The next day for 30 minutes and I used the same approach as above. For the most part, I noticed the same basic pattern with a couple of exceptions. One, there was less pulsing but I had a distinct but subtle back and forth sway. I wonder if it would have been noticeable for someone watching the sit. I doubt it, as it seemed sort of 'internal.' Anyway, when this happened, I noted 'See how it sways.' Otherwise, similar to the day before until the last few minutes of the sit. Instead of the intense feelings of wanting to check the timer or to get off the cushion, this time, a deep stillness and quietness arose. I noted 'See how it feels still' and then decided to just drop the noting entirely. It was very peaceful and there were occasional stray thoughts, but they were very few and far between and sort of wispy. I knew I was likely towards the end of the sit, so I decided to just sit with the stillness, which felt great.

Random thoughts:

One thing I noticed about the out-loud noting was that it seemed to interfere with the natural breathing pattern, at least towards the beginning. This eventually seemed to work itself out though. Also, as I mentioned above, eventually, the mouth and tongue are just in the way and at that point, I would just shift to mental noting to keep the momentum going.

Thanks for reading this far. Thoughts, tips, inspiring haikus?

Jarrod

thanks so much for sharing your practice. please keep it coming.

Thanks for the encouragement Mike. More to come later today ...

I sat for 30 minutes this morning and used the same 4 foundations + 'bystander' technique described above. The first few minutes I noted body sensations, which were predominantly pretty annoying after I settled into the posture. Most notes were 'itching', 'tension', 'tight', with an occasional 'relaxing'. Similarly, feeling tones were probably about 70% 'unpleasant' (just a guess) for the next few minutes. As I shifted to emotions, nerves and anxiety seemed to dominate (I did have a review at my job today). I noted 'anxious' and 'nervous' quite often, but occasionally felt 'content'. Generally, all sensations were arising much more slowly than in my previous few sits. Overall, the slower speed did lead to a more relaxed feeling and I did note 'content' mixed in with all the anxiety. Similar, for noting thoughts. Much slower than in previous sits with a lot of visualization (noted 'image thought'). As I moved to the bystander ('See how it '¦.') phase, it was more of the same. Eventually, the vibrations throughout the body started up and there was no pulsing like in previous sits. The vibrations were at a much lower frequency and were more like slow undulations. I started to visualize green circles behind my closed eyes which were shrinking as they moved away 'in front' of me. The next circle would enter the visual field shortly after the previous one disappeared. I noted 'See how it sees circles', 'See how they disappear'. Again, a deep stillness and quiet kicked in ('See how it feels still', 'See how it is quiet'). At this point I dropped the noting and just observed the stillness, which was much 'heavier' than the stillness I described above. I did mentally note some thoughts and sounds, but in general, everything felt a bit sluggish and heavy, but very comforting and calm.

I set the timer for 30 minutes this morning with the intention of doing mental noting anchored at the abdomen, noting the rising and falling sensations. Unlike the out-loud noting, I found my attention wandering a lot and getting lost in thought. I opened up to all body sensations with the intention of working through the 4 foundations but with the silent noting. This kept me focused for a few minutes, but I was getting very spaced out when I shifted to noting feeling tones. I moved to noting emotions and noted a lot of "sluggish", "sleepy", etc. I moved to noting thoughts and was getting quite lost in them. Moving to the bystander approach, I did a few notes out-loud to try to insert a bit of energy into the session. This helped a bit, but overall I was still pretty sluggish. My focused seemed to be primarily on body sensations with little ability to stick with feeling tones, emotions or thoughts. Energy waves started to appear over my body which helped me perk up a bit and I noted the increased energy with "see how it feels excited", etc. I felt some upward pulling towards the top of my head ("see how it pulls", "see how it feels tingling", etc.) This passed very quickly ("see how it feels disappointed"). My timer went off soon after that and I was pretty shocked that the 30 minutes had already passed. Clearly a lot of spacing out going on, but I tried to stick with noting the sleepy and zoned out sensations as best I could. It just goes to show you how the out-loud noting can really add some energy and efficiency to a session.

Another 30 minute sit this morning. I got a better night sleep last night than the night before and I started with out-loud noting for the first half or so of the sit. I found this sit to be more energetic than yesterday's. After a few minutes when noting pleasant/unpleasant/neutral, I became acutely aware of the space around me (visualizing the room and my position in it behind closed eyes). The odd part was that the size/perspective of everything was out of proportion. The walls seemed very far away and I felt huge! It was almost like I was in a house of mirrors. I noted the pleasant and unpleasant aspects of it and moved on and it went away after a few minutes. Later in the sit (at which point I was silently noting 'see how it '¦'), I began to detect a subtle audible buzzing. It was a sort of background hum that had moved to the foreground of my attention. What's up with these?

I also seemed to be sensing which strata I'm in/passing through. At least I think I am. Today, for example, the usual waves/energy/vibrations kicked in and then the green circles I described above (4th moving to 5th?). The circles lasted only briefly then the waves became prominent again and shortly after that my posture started to feel off balance (descending back down to 4th then 3rd?). My right side seemed heavier than the left which cause a sort of twisting sensation. That lasted a briefly, then 'remembering thoughts' dominated for a few minutes (down to 2nd?). Then I sort of relaxed into mostly pleasant body sensations (down to 1st?). Then it seemed to start moving back up again, as the memories dominated, then the irritating body sensations and then the sit ended with some lightness and energy waves.

Is there a predictable amount of time one spends in each strata? I'm guessing this will vary depending on the stage one is in and perhaps may even vary sit to sit for any one person.

Thoughts?

More of the same on recent sits, but I've been making an effort to do the 4 foundations/bystander practice in daily life. When on the train yesterday, I started the practice as usual, but after a few moments of the bystander technique, I found myself doing a body scan to search for body sensations to note. Typically when doing the bystander I would just open up to any sensations that would arise, but I sort of fell into focusing on the body by actively scanning for sensations. After a moment of this, I couldn't help but wonder what exactly was scanning? There was clearly movement through some medium. But what was moving and what was the medium? The scanning was automatic so I noted 'see how it scans' and for maybe 10-15 seconds was just sort of fascinated with observing the movement itself. This sense then dropped away. Without success I tried to start scanning again to capture this ability to objectify the scanning. I just noted the desire and disappointment of not being able to get it back and moved on.

I haven't really tried 2nd gear practice yet, but did I just stumble into 2nd gear?

"I haven't really tried 2nd gear practice yet, but did I just stumble into 2nd gear?
"

Sounds like you were taking a closer look at the subject--starting to see the subject as an object. Sounds like 2nd Gear to me, but I'm no expert.
Overall, you're doing great with the practice. Thanks for the practice notes. I particularly like the way you're not getting caught by the stickier stuff but are just noting it when you're, say, sleepy or sluggish. I'm slugging it out with this now--I keep falling asleep and spacing out and am just trying to note it and keep at it. I like the way you're incorporating the bystander practice as well. Keep up the journal!

Thanks Joel. For sure, one of the harder parts of the practice for me so far has been fighting off the sleepy/sluggish sensations. It seems that lately I can detect the sleepiness arising earlier on and note it away rather than get too caught up in it. Or, if I do get caught up in it, I snap out of it quicker. Other than just noting it, one thing that I have found to be helpful is to generally note out-loud if the sleepiness seems persistent. For me, the out-loud noting can add just enough energy to the sit that can keep the sleepiness at bay, at least for a little while.

I had a little extra time this morning so I set my timer for 40 minutes and ended up sitting through 39 minutes and 30 seconds of pure torture. I took my usual approach of running through the 4 foundations then switching to bystander. The itching and irritating body sensations came on more quickly than usual. I was expecting to note 'unpleasant' throughout the feeling tones stage, but to my surprise that phase was primarily pleasant with a general calm, relaxed settled feeling. This did not last very long, however, and I soon entered through the gates of hell. By the time I was using the bystander approach, my noting was something along the lines of: See how it feels hot. See how its head bangs. Unpleasant. See how its annoyed. See how it is tortured. See how it feels nauseous. Unpleasant. See how it feels overwhelming pain. See how it desires to stop. See how it resists. See how it feels hot. Unpleasant. See how it wants to check the timer. See how it pushes through. See how it feels nauseous. Unpleasant. See how it strives. See how it gets excited. See how it has talking thoughts. See how it has screaming thoughts. See how it wants to stop.

Eventually I gave in and checked the timer. With 30 seconds left, it seemed like that was close enough and I stopped. Generally, there was a lot of internal commotion and no stable place to rest. I had the occasional wave of excitement for enduring the pain and pushing myself, but those were fleeting. The noting seemed fast and furious. The speed seemed mostly motivated by a desire to just push through the chaos.

"one thing that I have found to be helpful is to generally note out-loud if the sleepiness seems persistent."

nice tip!!

Also good example of being with the unpleasant and note-ing the riotous inner punch-up!....Im taking note.

" the riotous inner punch-up!"

That's a perfect description!

I did a 40 minute sit this morning. Hell's minions must have been bugging someone else today, which was a nice relief compared to yesterday. I started with the usual 4Fs and it seemed that I was taking a more leisurely stroll through the strata, rather than the fast and furious trip up the strata superhighway like yesterday. I did not switch to the bystander approach today. Instead, there were pretty strong undulating energy waves coursing throughout my body, so I let them come to the foreground and dropped the noting all together. I just watched them move and undulate (more of a interested noticing, rather than noting). On the rare occasion that a thought or some other sensation became distracting, I did mentally note that with a 'see how it '¦', but then returned to the curiosity of the wave-like motion. This lasted for several minutes then began to fade and disperse. At that point, I switched to noting (and then just noticing) the breath at the abdomen. Concentration seemed quite strong. Eventually, my attention seemed to narrow. The breath was very slow and shallow. A small narrow sort of tunnel between my diaphragm and nostrils moved to the foreground of my attention. Everything else seemed very distant. As other sensations arose, they were not distracting, but seemed to move from in front of me to behind me and then fade away. A general heaviness set in over my entire body, like a heavy blanket was placed over me. That lasted a few moments, then lifted. I gently opened my eyes with 1 second left on the timer.

"Hell's minions" -- more good note-ing vocabulary!!

Wow, it's been awhile since I've updated my notes. I've continued daily sitting but overall I've felt more sluggish and am easily getting caught up in thoughts. I do what I can do note these sensations when I snap out of it. On occasion, I can almost feel the sleepy sensation being pulled away. As if I'm observing the dis-embedding process. It is hard to describe but seems akin to what I would imagine slowly peeling a latex mask off your face would feel like, including the final snap of the last bit of latex pulling away. Kind of strange. In many ways the sluggishness feels like a step backwards as far as progress goes. Noting these thoughts and the accompanying disappointment seems to help. I also found that if I am feeling particularly sleepy, I can muster up some intention to note more rapidly and out-loud. Doing this for a minute or two helps keep the energy up and then I can settle into a more natural noting rhythm. Overall, I've had a sort of gloomy mood for the past week. Speaking with Kenneth certainly helped put this in perspective.

This morning's sit was more optimistic, as I could once again recognize the lower strata when I was in them. This was something that I seemed to have lost last week. I was using the usual 4Fs and bystander approach. After awhile of steady bystander noting, my concentration seemed quite high and I got the sense that I was noting more subtle activity than I have noticed before. There was very subtle and quiet self-talk thinking going on that I noted as 'See how it has talking thoughts' or 'See how it talks'. There was a lot of subtle planning and sensation-manipulation going on at that subtle level. It would quiet down as I noted which in turn caused my to concentrate harder to listen for it. A nice rhythm ensued and blissful sensations arose. It seemed easy to note these pleasant sensations and the later disappointment when they dropped away. After a few minutes, I became increasingly aware of unpleasant body sensations, which lasted for a few minutes. I had one last little energy burst of vibrations with accompanying bliss. I rode that for a couple of minutes until the bell rang.

I've been away on vacation and consequently lost a bit of momentum on the formal sitting. I did find it easier to do some bystander noting throughout the day, so I'm hopeful that not too much momentum was lost. It was nice to do some noting on the beach! Not surprisingly though, not all the sensations were pleasant. Now I'm back and sticking to my old routine. My morning sits have been mostly uneventful this week, although this morning I had a major headache which provided some good material to note. In general, it feels as if I'm in a "stead as she goes" type mode.

In the spirit of getting back on track I got a good night sleep last night and did a 30 minute sit this morning. I did the usual 4Fs and bystander approach but in between switching from one F to the next, I took a couple of minutes to do some breath counting with a focus on the breath at the nose. I counted to 10 twice between each. The first several minutes were the typical tightness, itchy sensations that are often at the beginning of my sits. Eventually a sense of stability arose and a familiar sort of energy buzz mostly in my legs then carrying up throughout the body. Visual imagery seemed stronger than usual (stronger in the sense of brighter and more clearly defined, not necessarily more frequent). I was noting thoughts and a strong visual sense of my body persisted for a few moments but quickly dropped away. It was almost like pulling a shade down and letting it quickly roll up, except upside down. Surprise and curiosity followed, so I took that opportunity to switch to bystander noting after another couple minutes of just counting the breath. Concentration was pretty strong by this point and I was picking up pretty subtle coolness and movement sensations at the nostrils. The rest of my body seemed irrelevant. I carried this concentration into the bystander noting for a few minutes. I started to sense that perhaps the 30 minutes was almost up and eventually gave in to opening my eyes to check. There were 5 minutes left, which surprisingly caused some panic to arise. But I stuck with the technique and after a few more moments, the sense of the body came back and the itching and tight sensations dominated again.

Here a re a few notes on my last few sits:

Saturday:

53 minute sit starting with 4Fs and bystander approach. I was very sleepy during the first 30 minutes and noted sleepy as I snapped out of it. I was easily caught up in thoughts but continued the noting the best I could. The noting seemed to be on auto-pilot even when I would get caught up in a thought. On a couple of occasions the notes that came out of my mouth were nonsensical and were part of the day-dream state. Both times, the non-sense woke me up a bit and I noted the confusion. This was frustrating and felt like a waste of time, but I just noted the frustration and disappointment and stuck with it. I could hear my son starting to cry (he was napping while I was sitting). I noted being startled and disappointed that I may have to stop. Luckily he continued to nap and this gave me a jolt of energy that sustained me a bit more for the rest of the sit. I felt more awake and stable and noted these sensations. I decided to work on concentration a bit by focusing on the breath. Concentration seemed good and tightness, itchy sensations and distracting thoughts seemed to move to the background. After a few minutes the flow of the breath really took on a life of its own and I could feel my whole body expanding and contracting with the breath. For several consecutive breaths my body contracted to a single point on the in-breath and then expanded out on the out-breath. The contraction stopped and the expansion eventually stuck and I noted how I felt big. I tried to re-create the expansion/contraction movement but couldn't. I noted the disappointment. It was quite dark behind my eyelids and I felt some vertical energy flow. At first it was an upward smooth flow of energy but then it felt as if I was descending down through it. This lasted for a few minutes and then some pain/numbness in my legs became quite strong and I stopped the sit.

Sunday:

40 minute sit once again predominated by sleepiness at the beginning. The most notable thing this time was the extreme pronunciation of snapping out of day dreaming. There was such a stark contrast. One moment I would be completely caught up in a thought and then POP, suddenly aware that I had dropped the noting and wasn't present. This lead to frustration, which was noted. A strong determination to continue noting arose, which lead to increased energy (also noted) and then contentment that I felt that I was on track. It eventually became obvious that I was struggling against the sleepiness which lead to the frustration, and for the first time I felt as if I really just surrendered to that and stopped fighting it.


Monday:

45 minute sit. Finally I had a sit that wasn't predominated by sleepiness. Generally I felt pretty focused and I stayed with noting the breath frequently to build up some concentration. About half-way through the sit I felt a strong buzzy feeling on my scalp, which is not an area I typically feel much sensation on. A strong sense of stability followed this. I shifted focus on noting the stable qualities and tried to just be fascinated with them. There was a lightness, stillness and was very quiet. The flow of thoughts was relatively slow. Leg pain would arise and I would note the pain and then I could see the resistance that followed it. The tendency to try to control and manipulate the pain. I noted the manipulation and stability was set in again. This felt good and peaceful. I noted the lightness of it and noticed that the awareness was mostly in a mental space with little awareness or concern about my body. I frequently began to evaluate where I must be on the maps, but noted the evaluation, searching, manipulation and stability would arise again.

Tuesday:

30 minute sit. I decided to try Mahasi style noting at the abdomen, which I haven't tried in a little while. Overall, this was very uneventful but quite peaceful. Concentration seemed very high. There was a lot of stillness with very little wandering away from sensations in the abdomen.

30 minute sit this morning noting 4Fs, but never quite made it to bystander noting. Lately, I've had a tendency to focus on balancing concentration and surrender. This feels like the right approach. I started with some breath counting to build up a bit of concentration and returned to some breath counting for 2 cycles of 10 in between switching from one foundation to the next. This approach seems to work well for me. I made a conscious effort to note more slowly than usual and to really soak in each sensation before moving on to the next. I sat with each for a few seconds, unless it went away on its own before that. This approach gave a relaxed mood to the sit and took a bit of the edge off from any frantic noting. When I reached noting Thoughts, a strong pulsing took over, so I dropped the noting and just followed the pulse. It was centered mainly in my chest and had a upward and out rotational quality to it. The frequency was about 1 per second. It felt quite pleasant. I noted the accompanying bliss and brightness behind my eyelids and the upward pulling sensation when it started, then just rode the wave for a couple of minutes. It dropped away briefly, so I noted that and noted the disappointment. I relaxed and it returned briefly and then dropped away again. The buzzer went off shortly after that.