MuMuWu's Practice Journal

How does this relate to "the path is the goal"?

I don't know...

"Is truth `recognizable' - in the sense of its having already been experienced, so that one is able to say, `This is it'? So what is the value of seeking at all? Or, if there is no value in it, then is there value only in constant observation, constant listening? - which is not the same as seeking. When there is constant observation there is no movement of the past. `To observe' implies seeing very clearly; to see very clearly there must be freedom, freedom from resentment, freedom from enmity, from any prejudice or grudge, freedom from all those memories that one has stored up as knowledge, which interfere with seeing. When there is that quality, that kind of freedom with constant observation - not only of the things outside but also inwardly - of what is actually going on, what then is the need of seeking at all? - for it is all there, the fact, the `what is, it is observed. But the moment we want to change `what is' into something else, the process of distortion takes place. Observing freely, without any distortion, without any evaluation, without any desire for pleasure, in just observing, we see that `what is' undergoes an extraordinary change."

--Jiddu Krishnamurti
Flight of The Eagle
www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/flight-of-...e-eagle-3-meditation

Hey Jayson,
I really like your recorded noting sessions. I helps remind me that there are so many things in the feild of experience to note. I am trying to note out loud a lot more and I think it helps keep the ball rolling.
.

I should do it more too

If I may be so bold as to say: go mumu!

I experienced a very clear fruition while driving today. It's been a while since I had one that was as clear/impressive as this. I remember having one a long time ago that I described as looking as if someone had slashed through my visual field with a sword. This was kind of like that. I was driving my car up a hill, suddenly there was a discontinuity, the visual component of which was very clear. It was as if someone had taken two photos, the second one slightly after the first. Then they cut the photos in half diagonally and threw away the top of the first one and the bottom of the second and then put the remaining pieces together into a single photo (I hope this makes sense). So it felt like a piece of time was just clipped right out of the experience and the time before it was appearing at the bottom half of the visual field and the piece after it at the top (so they were slightly misaligned). It was very blatant.

After this I felt quite energized and blissful (I still do almost an hour later).

On Friday I had turned my attention to impermanence and got into a very clear experience of the particulate nature of experience. Everything was buzzing and flickering and it lasted for the rest of the day (this was very intense, more so than I had experienced it in quite some time, one of my clearest experiences of it). Saturday I felt pretty chilled out and in a good place. This morning while reading in bed, out of nowhere a very intense anxiety came over me. It was mostly a bodily thing, I was fairly equanimous about the anxious sensations. In a short while the anxious sensations felt like a harsh, tense, negative energy all over the body (more along the lines of misery vs. anxiety).

My girlfriend and I went out for lunch shortly after before she had to go to work. After lunch we went for a short drive through a wooded area to kill time before I dropped her off. It was during this drive that I experienced what I described above.

I also had a lucid dream this weekend, though I don't recall if it was last night, or Friday. I just remembered it. I was able to fly, but after doing it I woke up. It was the longest one I've had yet, though I no longer recall the details.

Woke up feeling anxious Sunday. Sat for a while with buddho (and breath). Got fairly concentrated and seemed to go up through the first 9 or 10 nanas (to higher stages of dukkha nanas). Sat again later that day and Seemed to go much quicker up to equanimity only catching brief glimpses of the nanas between Jhanas. Sat again later and seemed to just experience the first 4 jhanas, then a discontinuity/bliss then 2,3,4 blip ,2,3,4 blip pattern. Later in the day I meditated again, going through the same cycle once or twice and then going up as far as 8th jhana before experiencing the same sort discontinuity and then cycling from 2-4 repeatedly again. My mind was very clear/contented last evening.

Round and round and round we go!

Cool stuff!

I'm developing a fondness for buddho myself. It seems strangely effective and simple. Especially off the cushion. On, I seem to move up to equanimity(maybe) much quicker. Maybe it's just switching things up a bit that makes the difference.

I agree Rev. There's something very simple about it which my analytical mind really works well with. It simplifies thinks quite a bit for me and allows me to avoid speculation, scripting and all of that.

The one problem I have found is that if I am sleepy, after I have a few fruitions in a sit I get so relaxed that I often start to fall asleep.

---

Edit to say it is similar in a lot of ways to the instructions found here: kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Basi...itation+Instructions

Instead of focusing on the abdomen, I'm focusing on the breath at the nostril. Instead of rising/falling I am saying "bud" / "dho." Everything else is roughly the same.

I've been doing this practice Kenneth introduced me to where I do first gear until I get settled in. Then I bring awareness to tension in the body and I try to relax it, I breath deeply and let the tension go. After doing this I surrender, allowing whatever tension is still there to be as it is. This reduces the tension further.

At this point I inquire into the fact that there is still a subtle sense of self caught up in the act of surrender. Trying to stay surrendered is still some sort of manipulation and I let that go too (or it is let go of).

Doing this has made some things clear. One of these things is that I seem to have two (at least) competing mind streams, or thought categories, or something which I have created. One I call the spiritual guy, and one is the unspiritual guy. If unspiritual guy is talking it is pushed away, or shunned. If spiritual guy is going on with his stuff he is indulged. From the point of view that the practice above generates, both of these are nothing more than arising and passing thoughts.

Trying to maintain particular states, having preference for certain ways and modes of beings are just the sort of things that the spiritual guy hangs out in and it is these things that are propping up that illusion in some way. In reality it's all just stuff coming and going.

When I'm identified with one of these, it feels like some sort of reduction in awareness to go from spiritual guy to not spiritual guy. If I am inhabiting the non-spiritual guy persona and remember that I am spiritual guy and start doing spiritual guy stuff I feel like I am waking up. But from this other point of view, both of those are just a pile or words and ideas coming and going and there's no reduction or gain in anything by living in one mode over the other. Both modes are an illusion anyway.

This seems to be doing something, there's seems to be some sort of unmoving space opening up.

Following the line of investigation I have been on lately has been resulting in some energetic stuff in the way of negative sensations mainly (pressure in various areas, headaches, queasiness, etc.). Along with this, however, I have been very equanimous and have been experiencing changes in perception.

I seem to be defaulting to some sort of wider panoramic perspective that is much more center-less and inclusive. Several times some more subtle shift has occurred on top of this where I feel totally free. In that space, I can be having random thoughts, pain, tension, etc. yet there's some sort of global difference where everything feels ok. There's no stickiness and awareness seems unhindered.

Very interesting times indeed.

Great!

These perceptual flashes keep happening. It's happened at least once a day (sometimes several). It feels like the sense of self drops away. The center just goes and what remains is a wide focus. Things are just being seen / heard without a need to filter them in any way. Are these PCE's maybe? There's a sense of ease and comfort as well. Something feels gone at when this happens, there is far less (or none at all) tension in the experience.

Everything is very clear, it is fully functional and I can even think without disturbing the state. Eventually some sort of contraction occurs and the focus shrinks down. There is often a palpable sense of energy/pressure in the body & head as this occurs.

What seems to bring me close is just mentally affirming "just this." I simply relax into it. Any desire to bring it on, or attempt at manipulating my way into it is unsuccessful. It requires some sort of surrender.

Generally, being aware of the body, relaxing, surrendering, then self enquiry ("who is surrendering? Who could possible even do that?") seems to set me in the right direction.

There seems to also be this wider focus, quieter mind, general ok-ness which is here almost all of the time now as well. It seems to reach it's peek in the moments as described above.

I've had flashes of this before, but with nowhere near the frequency or ease (or duration) as seems to be occurring now.

Kenneth suggested I focus on noting again.

Did this throughout the day yesterday.

Seemed to get into some pretty heavy dark night stuff for probably about 6 or 7 hours. I did a sit around that time and seemed to move into equanimity then I had a nap.

I woke up feeling really great, there was a real sense of relief. The wide open perspective was very clear.

Later while lying down before going to sleep I got some heavy flickering in the visual field followed by what I take to be fruitions. It happened several times within a short period of time.

Today I feel good but not all that different. Just another cycle I guess.

Some notes after a conversation with Kenneth and my recent practice experience.

1. Thought of as a physioenergetic development, perspective changes and such occur as the development matures. That being the case one needn't look for specific things, but instead one should focus on the practice that brings about the development. Good noting technique will accomplish the development and is sufficient to bring one through all 4 paths. Kenneth's wife Beth recently attained 4th path using only the noting technique.

2. Noting is a feedback mechanism, what's important is noticing. Various techniques are means of bringing about continual noticing/awareness.

3. Noting out loud seems to be the best way to achieve extraordinary levels of uninterrupted noticing (e.g. my recent 50 minute recorded session)

4. Noting will also bring you into formless realms, etc. (as occurred in the 50 minute session I mentioned previously).

5. If you think of the pulsing and flickering that is occurring in the experience like a spinning wheel and the noticing as a strobing light, a fruition occurs when the two sync up.

Can I use the post above mu, for Benefits of Noting?

Nick

Edited to congratulate Beth!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

Of course you can!

Been mostly enamored with direct mode as of late. I'm occasionally hitting a wall with it and returning to noting or concentration practice. Yesterday I had a half hour anapanasati sitting and then a 45 minute noting sit.

Got fairly deep into equanimity and cycle through the jhanas up to 4th and then had several cycles of a fruition in 4th and ascending back up again followed by a fruition. Wound up fairly spaced out by the end of the sit and felt very relaxed / sleepy.

During the noting sit I seemed to go up through all the strata up to the 13th jhana (the first ascent up I experienced a reset in the 4th jhana and went up again from 2nd to 4th). The transition from 4th jhana (11th nana) to 5th was very clear. The experience solidifies/changes in a very clear way into an open spacious place. The transition from 8th to 9th Jhana is also very clear as the hard to describe movement of the 8th jhana solidifies into a bright pleasant space with a bodily focus centered around the third eye. It's like the 8th jhana finishes what it's doing and plop, 9th jhana arrives very clearly.

"Some notes after a conversation with Kenneth and my recent practice experience.

1. Thought of as a physioenergetic development, perspective changes and such occur as the development matures. That being the case one needn't look for specific things, but instead one should focus on the practice that brings about the development. Good noting technique will accomplish the development and is sufficient to bring one through all 4 paths. Kenneth's wife Beth recently attained 4th path using only the noting technique.

2. Noting is a feedback mechanism, what's important is noticing. Various techniques are means of bringing about continual noticing/awareness.

3. Noting out loud seems to be the best way to achieve extraordinary levels of uninterrupted noticing (e.g. my recent 50 minute recorded session)

4. Noting will also bring you into formless realms, etc. (as occurred in the 50 minute session I mentioned previously).

5. If you think of the pulsing and flickering that is occurring in the experience like a spinning wheel and the noticing as a strobing light, a fruition occurs when the two sync up."

Nice! Thanks for sharing!

'A Zen Master was walking in silence with one of his disciples along a mountain trail. When they came to an ancient cedar tree, they sat down under it for a simple meal of some rice and vegetables. After the meal, the disciple, a young monk who had not yet found the key to the mystery of Zen, broke the silence by asking the Master, "Master, how do I enter Zen?"

He was, of course, inquiring how to enter the state of conscious which is Zen.

The Master remained silent. Almost five minutes passed while the disciple anxiously waited for an answer. He was about to ask another question when the Master suddenly spoke. "Do you hear the sound of that mountain stream?"

The disciple had not been aware of any mountain stream. He had been too busy thinking about the meaning of Zen. Now, as he began to listen for the sound, his noisy mind subsided. At first he heard nothing. Then, his thinking gave way to heightened alertness, and suddenly he did hear the hardly perceptible murmur of a small stream in the far distance.

"Yes, I can hear it now," he said.

The Master raised his finger and, with a look in his eyes that in some way was both fierce and gentle, said, "Enter Zen from there."'

www.kenlauher.com/daily-wisdom/bid/33751...-The-Mountain-Stream

mumuwu, is the entry point the listening rather than particularly the stream? (I'm asking sincerely from a practice standpoint.)

Yes.

Listen for the ships in the harbour (as Kenneth described it to me). That's pretty much the whole instruction.