Mark P's practice notes

I keep forgetting to tell my lucid dream story, had my 1st lucid dream a few nights ago. I'd read the advice to resolve to look at your hands to bring self-consciousness into a dream. In this dream a large, bemused demon was approaching me menacingly. Just as he was coming right up on me and stressing me out, I stopped and looked at my hands. Then woke up, so didn't get a chance to see what to do next. This was exciting because the idea that I could have a lucid dream (just barely), has seemed pie in the sky.

That is interesting, Mark. I think lucid dreaming is something that happens partly on its own and partly out of intention/training.
A cool technique I read about is to periodically stop yourself during the day and ask, "Wait. Am I dreaming?" If you're reading, say, a magazine, you would turn your head and wait a couple of seconds and then turn and look at the magazine again to see if the text had changed. You could do this with any normally static visual object. Even though it's your waking state of consciousness and you know the text or other object will not have changed, what you're doing is making these "check ins" habitual enough that you start to do this in your dreams as well. Married to a strong intention to have lucid dreams, it's supposed to be an effective technique. Thanks for the updates!

Thanks, J. AugustLeo explained recently why it's good to take practice into sleep time. I've been making a resolve for awhile to look at my hands in dreams, but wasn't sure what I'd do next. I'll try your tip as well (I think I read that somewhere recently too).

Here's a similar practice that was instructive to me -- stop during the day at any time and ask yourself, "Am I awake now?" Of course, you will think you are. Then think back to the moment before you asked yourself that question. Where you awake then? You will probably think you were not awake. Then wait a while and do this again, and again, and again. What's interesting about that exercise is that we always think we're awake NOW, when we ask ourselves the question and focus out attention on it. But we never think we were awake before we ask that question. To me this is illustrative of the true nature of awareness and attention.

am sitting: 35 mins. Resolved to hit the ground running and continue to the end, and mostly did. (Don't know if the resolves are what's doing it, but my sitting pattern has changed so that the 1st 1/2 hour is not just warm up anymore; so now I can have a productive sitting even when there's less than an hour to work with. One of several aspects of my practice that seemed to have picked up since I entered DhO a year ago and, especially, starting to work with Kenneth 5 months ago.)

Focused on trying to note physical sensations and feeling tone precisely, something I struggle with. Sharon Salzburg said once that people tend to be characterized mostly by desire, aversion or confusion. My habitual stance is definitely confusion. Spent several minutes struggling to characterize sensations that seem too complex and variable. Decided this time to push past the resistance and occurred to me that there must be parts of the sensations I could label precisely. This clumsy effort did result in better concentration and investigation (doh! Didn't have enough time to experiment with doing better with feeling tone.

Thanks, cmarti! I will try that. Sounds like a koan.

pm sittings, 2 hours: 1st 60 mins was a mild struggle with fatigue. Attempted to stay grounded in changing sensations in the abdomen, and could for seconds at a time. Probably kept returning to several second periods of awareness for most of the hour, with more time lost in spaciness. Didn't mind sitting but settling in to any kind of moderately continuous awakeness mostly didn't happen. Then 15 mins of increasing pain set in and used that as an object to achieve some awake focus, until around 80 mins the pain became too sharp. Took a break. The 2nd sitting of 45 mins I was completely awake but 1st 15 mins I wasn't very focused and wafted around in thought. Tried naming rotating parts of my body to focus on the sensations and deliberately spread out the awareness. Then expanded noting to include some images, visuals and thoughts. Then deliberately started honing in and specifying the noting as precisely and continuously on physical sensations as I could muster. This really seemed to work. Sitting became comparatively very concentrated and investigative apparently just because I decided to and worked hard. I know it doesn't always work like that, but good to have that option in the toolkit. I was feeling sleep deprived all day and it's late, but now I'm wide awake and lots of energy. Guess I'll try going to bed and with intention to stay awake and meditate lying down (one of my old tricks for getting to sleep).

am sittings, Fri & Sat, each 1 hr: didn't get a chance to jot these down soon enough to remember many details. Physical sensations are proving very interesting right now, they seem to be opening up to examination. It's very tempting to focus mostly on them, rather than all 4 foundations. But I guess I should get back to following the instructions.

Sunday, various sittings, 2.5 to 3 hours. The awesome student-teacher interaction between Kenneth and Ryan has really heightened my appreciation for more detailed, continuous, careful and effortful noting. A sign that it is catching, I had an interesting awake visual, like watching t.v., during one sitting of a vivid field of green grass with many yellow flowers and immediate involuntary response was to start noting particular noticings of "yellow" and "green".

I've been trying to identify what am I doing when I'm not continuing to note: the biggies are working, during conversation, and telling myself self stories. Since the self stories seem optional, and potentially dispensable, I intend to focus a lot more attention on that with intention to increasingly abstain.

Seems like someone is doing great if they're precise enough to notice "visual thought" or whatever you want to label it. To see and note the colors of the visual in the moment--that seems very precise to me. Way to go!

Thanks, J. !! I was in need of an encouraging word before a.m. sitting. Yesterday's practice mainly seemed to highlight the details of the deficiencies of my practice! This morning's hour felt more affirming. Started with focus on physical, noting as closely and continuously as I could anything active, changing, moving. After awhile expanded that to sounds and visuals, some thoughts and mental images. At one point it felt like I could clearly objectify a sleepy, tilted state. No need to change it, just watch but then not just watch but rather what are the details? Looking for precise noticings and labels. Gratitude.

Tuesday morning. Anxiety attack woke me up during the night. Fear, almost terror, that my cognitive deficits have & will continue to hinder my aptitude for Dharma practice and realization. Self-stories running wild: I'm the poster-child (well, old guy) for long term defective practice etc etc. a.m. sitting: anxiety, angry thoughts "years of insomnia must just be adding to the brain damage bla bla". Within 2 mins though noticed that the sensations of I guess you'd say anger, fatigue, anxiety were so phenomenologically fascinating that the content had no draw at all. These allegedly undesirable experiences, not to overstate or dramatize, but they were pleasantly and interestingly in motion with mildly orgasmic feelings. Looking at any of them opened up a very interesting range of new detail in motion. (Just a standard vipassana experience.) Feelings and mental and retinal images and sounds had a similar projectively observable and fascinating quality. Particularly sounds and physical sensations seemed to run together and become playfully hard to distinguish. Wondered continually how would I label any of this. It reminds me of being on acid where you'd need a new vocabulary for something that changes as soon as you look at it. Reminded of Suzuki roshi's comment about whether to concentrate in zazen; he said, "be ready to concentrate". So I tried to be ready to label, can I find a word for this one? Pulsing, tingling, stretching, vibrating, oozing. Those are in the ball park. Don't know about this. Now I'll go be largely lost in thought in the shower and while brushing my teeth and mostly forget to carry any of this into my day and usually just be just as deluded as ever. Except for maybe some magic micro moments a few times today to keep me going.

Not sure what was going on this morning, felt elated at the time but afterwards disturbed by the after-vibes of a self-pity party during the night, and trying to figure out if I was somewhat delirious or not while sitting and why. Speculation...

Not much luck finding mindfulness at work today. Had a blessedly long, slow walking meditation in a cemetery after work. After eventually settling into sensations, tried to watch them very closely to discover how to label them. That's being a fruitful challenge to Try to see if I can pin down the complex, rapid flow of sensations and label it with single words. It makes the sensations open up a lot more and feels like I should be able to find some adequate words for the experience: puls-ing works, billowing!, flaming, flashing, sparking, mushing, squeezing, squishing, that's closer. (Sorry if I'm seeming dense with this, just how it is for me, and it feels like it's starting to come along.)

pm sitting last night: 1hr+. Anticipated zombiehood after recent insomnia, but sitting down settled immediately into alert, concentration. Hadn't intended to sit long but felt completely energized and interested. Posture felt pleasantly, solidly planted on the mat and effortlessly balanced. Used minimal noting, like "touch, feeling" or even "that, that, ...that" but concentration on changing physical details felt honed in and quiet. Eventually the precision of attention to detail waned and even though felt quite awake, decided I still need to sleep sometimes. Woke up 4 hours later, felt alert, wide awake and tempted to sit. Not sure what to do with this. Would love to sit more but I'm afraid I could find myself altered, impaired or unstable during the work day after too much sleep deprivation. Decided to take an ativan and go for sleeping.

am sitting 35 mins: hit the ground running without the, until recently, traditional extended warm up period. Noting mostly body sensations with some feeling tone, sounds, mental images. Mostly drilling into physical sensations and continuing to try to find single words that go well with sensations that could be described in a couple of paragraphs. Didn't have time to write down the words and can't recall, now. I'll start bringing a pad and pen. Also continuing to develop the perspective of monitoring pulsing and moving sensations in multiple areas at the same time. Beginning to try to catch when a sensation flow drops off the scope and then if it resurfaces.

Better at remembering to be mindful at work today. Will get more religious about my daily resolution to be mindful at work. Oops, forgot my 1st path resolution tonight.
PM sittings: 1.5 hrs. 1st episode of practicing while dreaming? Pretty sure I was asleep sitting up for about 45 mins though did a little bit of noting. After supper quite awake. Jotted notes on noting, it came very easily tonight. For any who find reality more interesting than discussion: pressure, pushing, squeezing, collapsing, dropping, thrill, waving, pulsing, itching, pulsing, tingling, waving, spreading, clinching, relaxing; itching->spiking, waning, pulsing, throbbing, unpleasant; seeing, spasm; pain->up-down-gone-back-gone-pressure; itch->contracting-releasing-sparkling-waning-up-spiking-down-oscilating; interest, irritation, amusement, self-image, pressure, throbbing, neutral, seeing, pain, squeezing, burning, tingling, pulsing; itch->starting-rising-waning-spiking, sound, wondering, itches, pulsing, pleasant, start of a planning thought, billowing. Gratitude.

"For any who find reality more interesting than discussion..."-mpavoreal

You've come to the right place, Mark.

(And that's a terrific report!)

Turtles can be taught! (And sometimes find they've poked their unwitting head through a ring. How amazing is that?)

am sitting, 1 hour: from noting notes: ... like an air bubble moving around a plastic gold fish bag (my head); the bubble tingles. Itchy, thinking, seeing, throbbing, images, hearing, sound, hearing, coolness on skin, oscillating, pleasant, many itches, itches waned, coolness waned, moving pressure bubble: slips around, expands, contracts; neutral areas with itchy areas, pleasure, worry, straightening, head turning, neck loosening, rythmic head turning back and forth from loose neck like "not this, not this, not this"; loosening. Sensations pulsing and shifting across the body, are they related? Do they move together? Imaging, seeing, pleasure waves, pleasure waves seen, straightening, clinching around mouth, eyes and nose; neck rotating then rocking, arms come up like chicken wings, Gasho.

pm sittings: 1.5 hrs: even though it feels vaguely meditative just to sit on cushions with eyes closed tonight, a suffering edge makes it very clear that thought is drifting embedded by default today unless I make a deliberate, willful effort to make active, precise, detailed noting (namely, what's taught here). Even though the energy seems gravitationally drawn to distraction, it's possible to interrupt that and change it at least for moments at a time by doing the practice. It takes some courage to face the facts of this, as there is, without intending to dramatize, a river of momentum to distraction. But it's clearly possible. People are doing it. My daughter (with exceptional learning challenges) learned to become a concert violinist by practicing for at least an hour or 2 every day for 10 years.

Friday sittings: 1.5 hrs Forgot to bring notepad and didn't get up for it; thought that having to interrupt sitting to write notes would break the flow and keep the sitting from going quieter and deeper. Turned out, though, that this sitting had frequent driftings off into thought, even if not real long thought trains. Compared to yesterday, when the discipline of observing for the purpose of clearly recording, that ended up in more periods of precise, investigative noting. So, the "clumsiness" of jotting notes turns out to be actually a helpful technique. (doh!)

Had a bad migraine during the night that went into an anxiety attack, thought I was going to have a stroke and lose my chance to get stream entry. Eventually tried noting the sensations while also noting "Aversion". Amazing how much space that opens up -> any at all while freaking out is quite something.

am sitting 1 hr: Noted posture tensions, focusing on and mostly releasing them. Noted bright, irregularly shaped light behind my left eye, feels like left over from night migraine. Noting tensions in left forehead and cheek, squeezing in left side of brain. Undulating. Loud, active energies in motion across head and trunk. Noticed that pulsing leaves big trails of striations across the medium of migraine energy. Noticed that in visual field this could be described as "strobing". Investigated whether strobing sensation was also mental as well as visual. Not sure, moving target. Oops, forgot to note Uncertain. Noting the loud, splashing pulsing which all chilled down and became more subtle. Noted disappointment ("no free lunch"). Tried to follow the sensations into softer touch. Noticed that left brain still feels stressed and maybe acquiescing to the dominant right. Tried Kenneth's L-R alternating eye movement exercise. When handing off attention from Right to Left, focused gentle metta attention on the Left. There is an unusual fund of metta energy available in the heart (maybe from plugging into the metta discussion on KFD). Resolve to start making metta part of my daily practice.

"Resolve to start making metta part of my daily practice."-mpavoreal

Keep noting, Mark. You have been building up a head of steam for a couple of weeks. If metta arises, note it.

I remember hearing a Buddha quote (paraphrased from memory):

"It would be very meritorious to offer 100 pots of food to the Buddha and all the monks and nuns."

"Far more meritorious would be to spend one moment radiating metta to all living beings."

"Far more meritorious still would be one moment of mindfulness."

Translation: Keep noting. If you really want to understand metta, get stream entry. After that, you can really radiate up a storm. Meanwhile, stay focused. However wonderful formal metta practice is, it has the potential to distract you from noting and thus diffuse some of your hard-won momentum. Keep noting.

Got it! Thank you, Kenneth!!!