Nadav's practice notes

I'm sitting once a day for an hour (walking for some of it), noting continuously out loud.

"I'm sitting once a day for an hour (walking for some of it), noting continuously out loud.-nadavspi"

Beautiful.

Seems like maintaining the continuity of noting throughout the sit is getting slightly easier every day. Today I started with lots of anxiety, tension, judging, frustration, fear, irritation, planning thoughts, doubt, etc. Yep, school is about to start. Noting was easy, one per second or so. I think I walked for about 20 or 25 minutes and the negative stuff was mostly gone by the time I sat down.
Some tingling in the hands as soon as I sat down. Stayed with it for a bit and then turned to itching. The tingling spread out a little bit as I became more concentrated. It was pleasant and was regarded with curiosity. At some point I noticed visuals... intense light patterns with the eyes closed, and everything dancing around with the eyes open. The itching was different at this point... more vibratory, less threatening. I knew it was an itch but it wasn't really... itching and there was no aversion to it. A couple of pulsations here and there, and subtle tingling ('grasping, excited, desire' here). Felt some energy in the body... a sudden surge. I usually want to stretch when this happens, which is very pleasant.
The tingling and visuals subsided, and the external environment returned. Noting became more difficult here, and I became restless and impatient. I would usually check the timer or start walking here but I had decided not to do so during this sit, so I stayed seated and kept noting. Some wandering thoughts, planning and anxiety returned.
After some time, the impatience passed and I became more still again. A good lesson in impermanence. Stayed with some itching. Soon, the visuals returned and the tingling. Stronger pulsing this time. Stayed there for a few minutes until the timer rang.

Great report, Nadav!

It's the first week of classes. Very busy. I've sat for 45 minutes every day this week and also walked for 15 minutes this morning. I've been very tired during the sits and more prone to habitual robo-noting. I'll wake up and realize I've been noting something (itching is the most common one) while being embedded in thoughts. Maybe I should do some categorical work with thoughts next time I sit.
Once my schedule is finalized and I get used to having to do stuff again, I hope to go back to sitting for an hour and maybe a shorter morning sit on my lighter days. Mindfulness throughout the day has been very good... doing lots of bystander noting.

Just meditated for an hour (15 minutes walking, 45 minutes sitting), noting out loud. I've had a problem with checking the timer throughout sits lately so today I put it out of reach made a deal with myself to stay seated until the end, and to add 15 minutes of walking at the end if I failed. It worked. This was the first sit in a while that wasn't dominated by sleepiness. Coolness-pleasant, tension-unpleasant, softness-neutral, walking, shifting, taste-aversion, hearing, self-conscious, amused, brightness, planning thought, remembering thought, image, itching-neutral, itching-unpleasant, remembering thought, planning thought, coolness-pleasant, etc.
When I sat down, I noticed a tense spot in my forehead/3rd eye area and stayed with it for a few minutes. Mostly pressure, very focused at that one spot, and also tension, itching, etc. It expanded a little bit with time. I turned to some itching, staying with one spot until it passed or a stronger one pulled my attention away. Concentration increased and at some point I got very intense visuals (eyes closed). Flickering, light patterns, vibrations, etc. Itches were 'breathing', pulsating occasionally. Hard to describe what the body felt like at this point. Pleasant, expansion, external environment 'disappeared'. I mostly stayed with 'itching' with thoughts, coolness, pleasant, visuals etc noted in between. I became more and more concentrated/absorbed while still noting out loud at a consistent rate. Finally there was a 'gap', as if I fell asleep for a second but I don't think I did. Noting became difficult and I felt very sleepy. I recognized that I was stepping out of concentration. I soon found myself wide awake, looking around. I was back where I started: sitting, aware of my surroundings and leg pain, itches were shallow, wandering thoughts, etc. Noted some impatience, desire to get up.

continued below...

Returned to 'itching' and started getting a little more concentration again by the time the bell rang. The cyclical nature of this thing has become more apparent over the past couple of weeks.

I sat between 30 minutes to an hour every day this week, 45 minutes most days I think. Mostly in the afternoon and dealing with lots of sleepiness. Some days I have to walk for most of the period in order to stay awake.

Hmmmm, nice! Keep it up, Nadav! Great reports! I'd be interested in if that "gap" repeats.

60 minute session. Started with lots of general unpleasantness, including mind states (frustration, doubt, impatience) and bodily discomfort / awkwardness / tension. Couldn't focus on any specific point of itching/tension for the first 20 or 30 minutes. Some vibrations started in the legs, kind of harsh and even unpleasant at times. They spread out to the pelvis as well, except here they were subtler and more pleasant, exciting. Desire relating to these and progress. Around this time in the sit I started seeing colors in the visual field (eyes closed). It was like a screensaver that gradually shifts between colors... grey green, purple, yellow, red, blue, etc shifting every few seconds. This continued for a minute or two without any involvement on my part... just watching. I was pretty concentrated at this point but nothing like yesterday (noted some disappointment and desire regarding this too). After the vibrations faded the familiar itching appeared. Bright and vibrating subtly, easy to rest my attention on it. I heard myself note itching-pleasant and laughed. Low concentration for the rest of the sit, noting "mundane" stuff without much grasping for the fireworks by this point.

60 minutes. The pattern is becoming more apparent. Today there were many itchy spots as soon as I started. As I focus on these concentration increases, visuals emerge (today, like someone was turning the lights on/off rapidly), sometimes subtle vibrations and pulsations (intense pulsations today for less than a minute). No thoughts about time, the future, etc. Eventually the concentration goes away and I 'wake up', open my eyes and look around. Physical discomfort that I did not notice at all during the last part returns here and I feel restless, irritated, impatient, tempted to get up. Noting slows down here and becomes difficult, like there's nothing to note. Then the itching returns and given enough time the whole thing will repeat. It repeated 3 or 4 times today. Usually only once or the timer will ring at the beginning of the second time.

"I sat between 30 minutes to an hour every day this week, 45 minutes most days I think. Mostly in the afternoon and dealing with lots of sleepiness. Some days I have to walk for most of the period in order to stay awake. "

This sounds a lot like my practice.

Kenneth taught me "The Wheel" on Thursday and I've been using it since. The impatience of the past few weeks has been absent and the sits seem to go by very quickly. I'll set the timer for an hour and feel like I'm halfway through when it goes off. This happened today so I continued sitting for 30 more minutes. Itching still abounds and in great intensity. Some time ago I wrote about how there seems to be a threshold for unpleasantness/aversion of the itching... how it will get more and more unpleasant and then the aversion will suddenly disappear and I can keep watching it without any unpleasantness. The past couple of days I've had a few itches during each sit that are much more unpleasant than ever before. The desire to itch them dominates everything else. More intense and long-lasting than before.
Off-the-cushion mindfulness has been improving lately, starting to extend to activities in which I'd usually be embedded.

I like "The Wheel". The subtle part is very, very relaxing (I only notice this after I come out of it). I'm still learning to let the gross/subtle cycles happen naturally, but I immediately know if I try to force it too quickly because my eyes/forehead get sore. Lots of strobing going on. I had a very strong vibration of the entire head in today's sit that lasted for a minute or two. I imagine it'd be visible to an observer.

Night session, 45 minutes (5-10 minutes walking at the beginning).
No absorption here, pure out loud noting throughout. Overall, a very unpleasant sit. Bring it on.
Hearing, remembering thought, amused, heaviness, softness-pleasant, desire, anxious, planning thought, image, proud, remembering, reflecting, judging, irritation, itching-unpleasant, itching, itching, itching, itching, aversion, tension-unpleasant, heat-unpleasant-aversion, frustration, impatient, hearing, self-conscious, embarrassed, shame, self-loathing, pressure, itching, itching, itching, itching, itching, aversion, irritation, impatient, desire to get up, tension, uncomfortable, imagining, desire, delusions of grandeur, amused, frustrated, impatient, itching, itching, etc.

"Overall, a very unpleasant sit. Bring it on."-Nadav

You said it! Excellent practice! You are an inspiration to all of us.

No hiding, no rationalizing, no avoiding, no sublimation, no intellectualization, no BS. Just the raw experience and the willingness to be with it.

Simple. Solid. Effective.

Bring it on.

This is the way to enlightenment. All you have to do is keep it up.

An apt quote me thinks:

'You need not make efforts to create non-conceptuality. You need not regard thoughts as a fault. And so that your practice does not succumb to famine, from the beginning have a bountiful crop. Not searching for a state that is calmly resting, vividly clear, and filled with bliss, bring into your experience whatever arises without taking it up or discarding it.' '“ Orgyenpa

Taken from the latest Buddhist Geeks interview.

Sat for an hour every day this week (except for one busy day.. 30 minutes). Sat twice today. Off-the-cushion noting is a lot of fun. Some days are harder, with longer gaps, but eventually I remember and start noting with my reaction to remembering to note. I experienced more vibratory activity at random points throughout the week, often before going to bed.
The pulsations/fluttering during the subtle parts of my sits have been more pronounced the past couple of days. Sometimes very rapid and continuous, sometimes shorter discontinuous packets. Lots of strobing... the rhythms and patterns are interesting.
I've found myself dismebedding (little by little) while playing music, even in performance situations. I think I usually try to suppress planning thoughts, judgements, etc to stay focused on the music which probably makes them linger for longer than if I note them. Of course noting is not always possible. I wonder if I could use Mike's "anchor" idea ( kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...ery+day+is+a+retreat ) in involved music situations.

Nadav, have you read Kenny Werner's "Effortless Mastery"? It's all about disembedding while playing music. It's a little on the New Agey side but has some pretty cool stuff in there. Talk to you later,
Joel

I read it a few years back. I liked it, though it is a little cheesy (especially the meditation CD - "imagine you're eating a big piece of pie...") It did point me to Zen in the Art of Archery which I enjoyed. Might be time to revisit it!

Yeah, I agree. I liked the idea of listening while you're playing, as though you weren't the one playing. That seems to be cool when it actually happens. Once I was playing banjo rolls and there was some kind of shift where it was like someone else was playing the instrument. It actually scared me for a second or two: "Who's doing this?!" But then I snapped back to normalcy. Seems like it would be really interesting to be able to disembed in a profound way while playing.

This is how I play guitar a lot of the time. Fingerpicked blues is a great vehicle for this as there's a structure that you can kind of fall into. Lovely stuff!

I'm meditating for 70 minutes a day (15 minutes walking, 55 minutes sitting). Not as long on the 1 or 2 crazy days of the week. Noting out loud and observing strobing/fluttering when things get subtle.
Today, the sitting portion started with high absorption and sleepiness. Found it too easy to get distracted during subtle stuff so I noted through most of the sit. Sleepiness went away for the rest of the sit, as did the pleasant absorption (disappointment, desire, judging, reflecting, irritated, amused). Itching not as intense and long-lasting in this sit. Constant strobing for about the first half of the sit. Noticed a small energetic spot on my head that made me very happy for a few seconds (laughing, curiosity, wonder). It felt a lot like the bright itches but not unpleasant. This was followed by a few seconds of subtle vibrations all over the body including very rapid strobing in the visual field and a few pulses in the chest (flickering, excited, vibration, coolness, pleasant, desire, pulsation, desire, imagining, pulsation, anticipation, disappointment).

Wonderful. Your mind and body are waking up.

Meditated twice today, for 75 minutes and 60 minutes (walking for the first 15 of both). Very difficult sits with lots of sleepiness, itching, tension, anxiety, anger, self-loathing, restlessness, frustration, judgement. Noting was significantly easier compared to my last patch of sleepiness... I was very tired, yes, but noting was still happening. I did the subtle wheel stuff once during each sit until the sleepiness kicked in and I started dreaming a little bit. I opened my eyes and noted for the rest. So, even the pleasant absorption of the wheel was denied today. (Desire, frustration, amused)

Just finished meditating for 2 hours. I've been unusually anxious, judgmental and sententious lately. I'm sick of it. I don't know if I can spend more time sitting during the week, but I'm determined to spend as much time as possible noting off-the-cushion.

"Every moment that you spend making love to ideas is a moment you could have been noting." -Kenneth Folk

Sat for 55 minutes this morning and 45 minutes this afternoon. Noting lots and lots of itching and tension (shoulders/upper back, forehead, jaw). Also noted coolness-pleasant, impatient, frustrated, remembering thought, amused, planning thought, desire, judging, reflecting, hearing, anxious, self-conscious, embarrassed, angry, frustrated, restless, anxious, impatient, timer curiosity, desire to get up, impatient, planning thought, doubt, fear, heaviness, pressure, softness-neutral, heat, hungry, thirsty, planning thought, swallowing, etc.

Yesterday I had a strong vibration of the entire head that corresponded with very fast flickering/strobing in the visual field. It was made me very excited and desirous.