U Tejaniya, Dis-Embedding, and my first 5 day

My first five-day went like this:

Day 1-2: Non-stop noting as much as possible, brought great energy to it, but maybe a bit too much self-conscious striving, nevertheless, settled into pretty deep concentration right away, and got off to a focused start.

Day 2-3: Opened up a bit and dropped the noting, went into the feeling, and after a brief bout of misplacing feelings (watching wife struggle a bit and feeling remorse/other pulls towards helping her), really opened up into an abiding love/ecstacy pretty quickly. Went from a feeling/insight of "it's okay to love yourself for everything that's happened in your life here-to-fore, that was just your way of trying to show love to yourself, but was unskilfull because you didn't know what you were doing was leading to suffering" to "same applies for everyone, they're all just acting out their conditioned reactions, intending love, but failing due to wrong view" and then to "who is this "I" that's loving myself and other people?"

Day 3-4: Broke through into "I" is what's always been there and isn't separate, each moment "I" is simply a manifestation of the experiences and realisations to that point, so there's nothing to love or hate, just is what it is, which is beautiful and perfect, and back to the ecstacy.. Went through some intense meditation periods, 1:45 of straight sitting finally broken with "it's okay to be as I am, it's okay to get up", okay, let's get up, then realized I'd been completely outside of my body for a long time, had horrible knee pain, felt my hands again, and realized my jaw was shaking, everything stayed disconnected for a while, like a mushroom trip. Weird stuff, but again, ecstacy all around, complete bliss and wonder at everything, meditating in the rain/sun breaks, feeling wind, hearing rain, (cont'd)

cont'd-

feeling all this amazing body-awareness.

Day 4-5: Pretty much continued with just deeper insights into that feeling of watching this human form doing these things and smiling and laughing and really feeling like, "gee, I get it", but not so much "I", just this feeling like everything is flowing along. It's hard to describe, but it felt very dis-embedded, like the concept of "I" as "no-thing" actually was felt to an extent or wasn't just words.

Overall, it was just a wonderful and incredibly strengthening experience, the whole bit. There's more to the story, but I'll leave it there. Coming back has been interesting. Returning to the body and figuring out how to drive and deal with the city and all that.

Going about daily life, I now feel this detachment, like I'm separate from what's going on, like I'm seeing things as their component pieces, seeing people that way, conversations that way, and coming back to my apartment and everything else, it's all just a different relation now...or feels like it. It's like I'm just experiencing this feeling where I'm aware that my "tastes" or "preferences" aren't real and things just are as they are...like I clearly see my conditioned reactions arising. Not to say that I'm not caught at all in those reactions, but I'm aware of them, and seeing them for what they are.

And that, to me, feels like I'm experiencing a fairly strong dis-embedding, like my relation to the things in my life has shifted and that my practice now is just to go deeper into that experience in each moment and see how I'm either producing a grasping or aversion in each moment.

Which brings me to U Tejaniya (cont'd)

(cont'd)

The teacher on my retreat mentioned U Tejaniya and was heavily influenced by him, studied with him, etc. and as I felt like I had an incredibly beneficial experience with my teacher and loved the way she related/taught, I've done some looking into U Tejaniya since coming back.

And I love it. I've read "Don't Look Down on the Defilements" and a bit more and I for me, and where I feel like I am in my self-realization (or opening, or whatever) really seems to line up with what he is teaching...relax into the moment, let go of the striving, and just remain constantly aware of how you are relating to each object and experience in your life, which to me matches up with the process of dis-embedding and continuous awareness I find on here and in MCTB, but with more of a general awareness than a constant "noting"...which seems like a practice more suited to me, as when I do the noting, I also have to note my "striving to note", which, given my proclivity to get wrapped up in self-improvement and striving, seems to distract me from the more general practice of "remaining constantly aware/mindful of wahtever is happening" not in a slowed down way, but just in a "now this is happening, now this, now this" and there is no "I" in it.

So that is what I'm doing now. And starting to read "Be As You Are".

I also have been given the option to work with the teacher one on one, but I'm not really sure what to ask or how to do that...I feel pretty comfortable with my practice right now, so I don't have a lot of questions...but maybe that will change in a bit.

Anyway, just thought I'd share some experiences. Hope you enjoyed

I'll just add too, that this experience of posting stuff on a forum feels a little off...like it has a tinge of self-aggrandizement in it for me...so I struggle with that a bit. I think it's helpful to share experiences, but I'm aware of some amount of dis-ingenuity that's maybe just inherent in written words and an anonymous medium such as this. Part of me wants to delete the whole thing, part of me feels a pull to see what other's think and how their experiences relate. Hindrance = doubt and greed (?)

Hey lvinlite,

There are dangers for sure, but you can use this forum to post about your efforts in order to keep yourself honest. Nothing wrong with sharing. Note the self agrandizement and keep posting. It will help others and people can help you.

"I'll just add too, that this experience of posting stuff on a forum feels a little off...like it has a tinge of self-aggrandizement in it for me..."

Another thing you can do is post for others--just honestly try to post things that you have found are helpful to you and might be of benefit to others. You should know, for example, that I've found what you've written here to be very inspiring and a reminder of the value of intensive practice. Your point about relaxing into who and what you are and taking U Tejaniya's focus on acceptance to heart in a real way--that's very helpful to me as well. So it doesn't have to be about aggrandizement at all. Thanks!

"I'll just add too, that this experience of posting stuff on a forum feels a little off...like it has a tinge of self-aggrandizement in it for me...so I struggle with that a bit. I think it's helpful to share experiences, but I'm aware of some amount of dis-ingenuity that's maybe just inherent in written words and an anonymous medium such as this. Part of me wants to delete the whole thing, part of me feels a pull to see what other's think and how their experiences relate. Hindrance = doubt and greed (?)"

this post is helpful to me. thanks. particularly " but I'm aware of some amount of dis-ingenuity that's maybe just inherent in written words and an anonymous medium such as this..." I have just started posting and have had mixed feelings about doing so. againthanks. pi

I appreciate all that. Maybe it's my being new to the whole thing and being kind of wary about putting such personal stuff "out there". I feel relatively safe knowing that most people here know what I'm talking about, but it still seems a bit odd. But this whole practice is weird if you look at it with the lens of mainstream culture, so...fugg it. Thanks for the encouragement, I'll keep sharing what I can and see where the feelings of doubt come up.