Mike Monson's Practice Notes: Dos

Disclaimer:
No matter where I may actually be on the "maps" I'm still going to practice the same:
1. Sit and note objects. Disembed.
2. Be gentle with myself and others while staying as awake and as surrendered as I can.
Boom.
Oh, so my point is, I don't know where I am on the maps but whether I know or not I'll be doing the two things listed above.

Anyway, I just went out into the rooftop garden area here at work and sat on a bench for 15 minutes. I resolved to "call up" a fruition.
Slowly and steadily I became aware of an energy pushing up from my upper chest to the area behind my eyes, inducing my eyes to begin to roll back. I cultivated this and let myself become aware of pulsing or vibrations in the area behind my eyes.
Kept this up for awhile. Energy grew while at the same time eyes rolled back more and this urge to "empty" appeared while the light behind my eyes got brighter and brighter. Watched each vibration/pulse. At times it strobed and at times it flickered. The energy surged and subsided several times. When my concenration on the vibes was steady, I had a very quick energy surge that kind of straightened me up and and twisted my neck slightly and shocked me a little.
Now, yes, I feel some joy and some energy, and things are a degree or two brighter and the top of my head is active with weak, very weak rapture feelings. None of this is as strong as as I've heard described by others post-frution, so who knows???
The whole exercise is nice though, I like that moment of "emptying."

You're a cool dude, Mike Monson.

Nice work!

Mike, your post inspired me to sit and try to cultivate a fruition. I've only managed to do it once before and this time it worked!

Thanks for posting. I'm looking forward to watching how it all unfolds for both of us.

For me the review fruition are exactly like that if I cultivate them. They really are not anything to write home about. Its really only the first couple fruitions of each path and a few other outliers that usually happen unprompted that really have blown me away...

My mantra/slogan/litany the past several days has been "whatever is happening." I can suffer so much from expectation-based resistance that this has helped greatly to remember to just open up and allow whatever is going on to happen inside and out.
Anyway, after my last post I was chatting with Nik on FB (SANGHA!!!) and he said that if I was having frutions they sounded like "no-self" fruitions (smooth, not too dramatic) and that maybe I should try resolving to have impremanance or dukkha frutions. Experiment, he said. One of these, I foget which one, would happen more in the "crown," he said.
So, on the van ride home I just stayed with my breath and "whatever is happening" and kept that momentum going to a sit in an empty house (except for four dogs and a cat) from 7:40 to about 8:30. I resolved to have either dukkha or impermancence fruition and then began to note rising, falling, stopping, etc. I pretty quickly got very deep. the vibrations got so strong that for much of the time I dropped the breath and just noted vibes. I got so deep I was no longer just awareness in a body -- I was much bigger than that and in a way couldnt feel anything but vibrations. Still, had some mind wondering moments that didn't bother me. I went from noting the breath to noting vibes to just doing .... nothing.
I resolved to have the other kind of frutions again and was compelled to empty my mind and, yes, my crown seem to be FULL of energy while I continued to be pulled into empty empty empty. Lots of surges of energy up through the crown. A brightness. Didn't notice any blips or anything.
Afterwards I felt unusually great and energetic. There was no friction in my world, you know?
cont.

My wife and I watched "Big Brother" and .... IT WAS THE GREATEST TV SHOW IN HISTORY!! (I was in a good mood)
We went to bed at about 9:30 and my hands and feet and legs general being were vibrating strongly. I told Rebecca about the vibrations and as I talked about them they got stronger and stronger and spread out. Once she fell asleep I lay there and, basically, did vapassana for I don't know how long. Noting, penetrating all of vibes as they grew. Eventually I was wide awake and would have these energy/bliss blips. This went on for hours interspersed with sleeping. Sleeping and meditation got kind of mixed. I'm not sure when I finally slept but it was well after midnight. I woke at my usual 4 a.m. feeling refreshed and happy.
As far as temporary, transient experiences go, this was pretty good. I pray I don't cling to it too much.

Oh, this is important: after my resolutions about the frutions I really focused on watching painfull, irritating sensations and on observing my own very unfullfilled longing for bliss or insight, etc.

" Eventually I was wide awake and would have these energy/bliss blips. This went on for hours interspersed with sleeping. Sleeping and meditation got kind of mixed."

Hi Mike,

This sounds familiar for me. I will have nights where I am half asleep and half a wake, or rather I have these memories of being snapped awake by the post-fruition bliss waves which seemed to continue throughout the whole night and it leaves the body buzzing with pleasant vibrations.. ...It feels like a mix of mediation and sleeping.Tell us more about these blips!

"Tell us more about these blips!"

Yeah, I second that! This is really great stuff Mike, inspiring! : )

Today I am definitely feeling a significant alteration "walking around." Significant.
I wish I could describe it accurately.
Lack of friction is an element, so is mental energy, so is ... happy.
I'm exactly the same, but my point of view on what I am is lighter, clearer, way less concerned, etc. Really, I can't describe it, but it is defintiely good and definitely what I've been looking for.
Of course, what I am going through right now will not last. It will get worse, way worse, and it will get better. Way better? I don't know.

anyway, I'm having a hard time remembering all that happened last night, both the sitting and the in bed part. I'll try to be more descriptive on that later, okay?

(I don't think Nik has any idea what an outstanding person he is. Doesn't matter, I guess)

suffering has decreased temporarily, more energy, calling up fruitions, ideas a hot coal in one's hand (ouch)

"Today I am definitely feeling a significant alteration "walking around." Significant.
I wish I could describe it accurately.
Lack of friction is an element, so is mental energy, so is ... happy.
I'm exactly the same, but my point of view on what I am is lighter, clearer, way less concerned, etc. Really, I can't describe it, but it is defintiely good and definitely what I've been looking for.
Of course, what I am going through right now will not last. It will get worse, way worse, and it will get better. Way better? I don't know.

anyway, I'm having a hard time remembering all that happened last night, both the sitting and the in bed part. I'll try to be more descriptive on that later, okay?

(I don't think Nik has any idea what an outstanding person he is. Doesn't matter, I guess)"

Awesome, Mike!!
And I agree--Nikolai is the man!

I was talking to some others who post here today and we talked about night time stuff that happens. It seems to happen to everyone. Not sure why but maybe it's because mind is not as actively pursuing what mind pursues. It seems to get stronger and happen more at certain key times and then it slacks off for a while. It's definitely progress oriented, though, and in a positive way.

Cool, Mike. Keep us posted.

Had my first "Skype" call with Kenneth on Saturday. So great. We talked about frutions and as we talked I think I had several, either way I was pulled into a state of great concentration on the area and the vibes and the strobbing behind my eyes and had wave after wave of blissful energy go up my spine and twist through my neck and scalp. I laughed and made some odd noises but didn't feel weird. After that we talked. He really helped me see the futility of trying to "figure" all this out intellectually in some kind of definable final way. I felt awkward and embarassed a couple of times when my verbal jags were shown to be just more fodder for future suffering but the message was worth any temporary discomfort I may have felt.
More later.

Awesome, just awesome! Big smily grin!!!!!!

As Nick might say,"Woot!!!"

Sometimes things just progress during the night. I dunno... Duncan Bradford talks about waking up and having crossed over into 4th path... I love that because it shows us how out of our hands most of this stuff is... Things are sounding good Mike... It wasn't until I started noticing fruitions in daily life (a couple weeks after SE) that my perceptual shift began to deepen... Much Love...

It is actually quite difficult to refrain from coming to conclusions and making pronouncements about what is happening and just state the bare facts. But I will keep trying.
For some reason on Saturday I thought I should "just sit" and not note and by yesterday that no longer seemed right and I just went right back to the same practice I've been doing all this time: basic noting.
I sat and noted about four times yesterday. During the fourth sit I don't think I ever noted "pain," or "resistence" or "frustration" or anything to indicate some kind of suffering. That's a first. (and maybe a "last," who knows?)
Still not getting the jhanic arc. I just get real deep real fast, start to really see and note all the details which are sometimes greater and sometimes less. There is a lot of pleasure (jhana?) beckoning along the edges that I can't seem to get to and don't really want to get stressed about. vibrations are like slow thuds all over the body and then will be fast buzzings in different parts and then strobes. My eyes would often go up in my head and I'd have energy surges and blissful feeelings that would grow and grow and grow and stop. And then come back again after noting bare experience for a while. This is always a wandering mind interspresed throughout all this but I forgive it. i prefer to be concentrated and not wandering but I refuse to get stressed over it.
I really have no idea what is going on but it seems exactly right.

"This is always a wandering mind interspresed throughout all this but I forgive it. i prefer to be concentrated and not wandering but I refuse to get stressed over it.
I really have no idea what is going on but it seems exactly right. "

An awakened mind does not seem to give preference to either a concentrated state or a seemingly unconcentrated state. There is no preference as it all just arises and passes away-all the same. What is the better state? I often ask myself this, at least, in the past few days; "Am I experiencing a preference for an extremely calm state of mind where joy just bubbles forth over a state with a rumbling heavy flow of pressure and pain in my stomach and chest and a chorus of fragmented voices (thoughts and feelings) that fall on deaf ears?" And this thought will then evaporate within a spilt second and I have my answer....there is no preference. I feel like I am in free fall, and there really is nowhere to place my feet. Nowhere to stick "myself" cos that now is not even sticky. Teflon surfaces everywhere. Do I hate this?.....slides right off....Do I crave that?....slides right off....Am I suffering?........slides right off....Am I free from suffering?.....slides right off.....there really is no preference for a supposed "enlightened mind" and an "unenlightened mind". That seems to be what awakening is all about....no damn preference!!!

If you can cultivate this experience, this view of no preference, even though the sticky "I" is still being pulled to stick/embed, I think only good things will result.

Mike, YOU da man! And I don't think I have much control over wanting to help others awaken. This is too much the shiznit to not want to share it!!!!

Just reading you saying you forgive your wandering mind... I was almost never that mature during 1st path... Niiiice

" luckily, enlightenment is an objective phenomenon that does not have much to do with what we believe. The real enlightenment is the grown-up kind. That is fortunate for us because if we practice, this process unfolds irrespective of our desires or beliefs about it. That is the beautiful thing about development."
Kenneth Folk

"" luckily, enlightenment is an objective phenomenon that does not have much to do with what we believe. The real enlightenment is the grown-up kind. That is fortunate for us because if we practice, this process unfolds irrespective of our desires or beliefs about it. That is the beautiful thing about development."
Kenneth Folk"

beautiful for sure

Something new I forgot to mention:
since friday there is a lot of vibrational/rapture-like activity in the lower spine. this really is new, I've never felt anything in particular in that area at all before now.

uhhhmmmmmmmmmm......
There is a purely physical aspect to this four-path developmental-insight process (apparently it's the ONLY aspect but more on that later) that can be JUST GREAT.
Is this supposed to be a secret or did I just miss that memo/meeting?

Makes me tear up I swear.

**scratches head**

Are you talking about the physio-energetic thing going on in the body?
Intrigued...please explain!

"
**scratches head**

Are you talking about the physio-energetic thing going on in the body?
Intrigued...please explain!
"

i think so