Mark P's Noting Journal

I've been working with Kenneth since February on noting practices that could and should lead to 1st Path. My confidence that following the instructions works has increased a lot over the last 6 months but I get regularly distracted from noting. So I'm renaming my journal as a reminder to keep my journaling focused on noting (until my practice reaches 1st Path).

(Previous journal: kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/40...k+P's+practice+notes )

For my 1st noting journal entry I can note resistance to journaling because I was just noting mild waves of pleasure during this mornings brief sitting. Woke up after 5 hours sleep and noted rising and falling of abdomen while lying in bed. Anxious thoughts about work presented strongly, then planning and strategizing thoughts. Attempted to note these rather than go with the content. Strong feelings of anxiety. Intention to take an ativan for anxiety and to sleep came up but loathe to the possibility of my practice being drugged by ativan so resolved to note my way through whatever happened. Noted thoughts and feelings, physical sensations. Anxiety, pressure, burning, pleasure, fatigue, pleasure, reassurance, gratitude, confidence, releasing, relaxing, fatigue. An hour and 1/2 of wrestful intermittent noting.

am sitting 20 mins: pulsing in head, strobing virbrations in both hands, itch->weakening, waning; other weak itches; pleasure in abdomen; waves of gentle smooth pleasure. Time to wrap it up. Confidence in the practice, gratitude.

Awesome!!

Way to gut it out, Mark! Please keep the noting journal going. I'm looking forward to reading more of these posts.
-Joel

Thank you, friends! May our efforts continue to support one another!

PM 1 hr meditation walk: focusing on body sensations; waking up from thinking about relationships, karmic connections, metta feelings; looking for itches, both ankles circled by bracelets of itches; following the bracelets, then noting fields of itches in the body: ankles, back, neck, head; noting the itches generally; noting waking up from series of thoughts; attempted to note any predominant sensation: fatigue, dullness, thinking, itches, shifting visuals, images, shifting pressures. Withdrawing from scenery and thoughts and reactions about scenery. Feeling of letting go into the chest. Attempting to note changing sensations in the chest. Attention drops to abdomen and feet. Dullness and fatigue, coming back from a thought train.

Went to a 1-day vipassana retreat today given by the Buffalo and Toronto vipassana sanghas. It was a 75 mile drive, but well worth it. 8 hours of unbroken sittings, walkings, eating, and more sittings and walkings with no interruption of the silence. The continuity of mindfulness and concentration was sweet. I worked with noting whatever was the predominat sensation, including mental. Based on Kenneth's recent pointers (if I get the drift), trying to stop making projects out of mental phenomena such as sense of self or knowing, and try to just keep it simple with noting. A lot of today was just trying to wake up to all of my body, which evidently is usually left so much in the dark that it gets tied up in knots.

"The continuity of mindfulness and concentration was sweet."-MP

Great! Continuity of mindfulness is exactly what will get you to the next level.

"I worked with noting whatever was the predominat sensation, including mental. Based on Kenneth's recent pointers (if I get the drift), trying to stop making projects out of mental phenomena such as sense of self or knowing, and try to just keep it simple with noting."-MP

Perfect! It's so much simpler than we think. Just note. Noting will set you free.

"A lot of today was just trying to wake up to all of my body, which evidently is usually left so much in the dark that it gets tied up in knots."-MP

Careful! That sounds suspiciously like another project in the offing. If you plan to work out all the knots before you awaken, you are in for a long ride. Instead, just note. Let the knots be exactly as they are. Freedom in heaven, freedom in hell.

Thank you so much, Kenneth, for nipping that one right in the bud!! It's true that toward the end of the retreat day I got involved some in trying to manage the processes I approved of that had been going on in my body, especially when it looked like they were changing in the wrong direction! Didn't catch that I was doing that. On waking this morning I started noting, then had the idea that I could visualize the energy in my body today to recall the retreat awareness. Sounds like project planning. Thanks for saving me the wasted effort!

Sunday am sitting 1 hr: the body felt unfamiliar this morning, like maybe the impedence level was down after yesterday's retreat, and so there wasn't as much gross sensation to rely on for object of meditation. Noted confusion and uncertainty, then tried to note whatever was in the body and head in the absence of more familiar sensations: "see how it experiences this ...", tried to roll with the unfamiliar as much as I could, until eventually more recognizable sensations started coming up. Had to push along a programming project almost all day after that. Did not succeed in bringing a lot of mindfulness to that.

pm sitting: noting strong mental images and physical sensations, sleepiness.
night: insomnia from around 4am to 5:30. Caught and noted thoughts about what a bad yogi I am pretty fast. Observed and noted unpleasant energies. Noted judgements. Noted energies changing. At one point had an unpleasant aversive energy in my head and the contrary pleasant energy in my chest at the same time! Noting both. Fun with insomnia and noting.

am sitting 1 hr.: tried to be choicelessly present and note whatever is predominat and appreciate it, if possible, just as it's presenting, letting go of agendas for what presents. Awareness seemed fairly inclusive and able to keep up with changes and not too meddlesome this time. So, just kept trying to go with it. I think there were some potentially interesting mental states, but choicelessness went more with the body. Just natural sensations. Hands in gassho.

am sitting: 50 mins. Started feeling scattered and found myself after a few minutes lost in thought. Collected and settled in to noting physical and mental sensations, especially images and sights. Noticed that mindfulness seemed steady but with regular, brief gaps. On a hunch figured the gaps were un-noted thoughts. Starting noting them and that closed more of the sense of gaps. Seemed that I could see thought-image-feeling-assertions come up and plume and disperse like energy bubbles in a lava lamp. Noticing them as discrete real-time events made the fact that they -- thought-intentions -- were happening feel like not a problem. This continued in the bathroom afterwards and I felt like I simply have to note these as they come and go. That confidence lasted for only some moments before waning. It's happened before but it's tenuous. It encourages confidence in noting practice though.

am sitting 75 mins. Woke up early gnashing in circles about how work wants to eat up my life, ruin my health, family life and end my practice and so on. Woke up again after a few minutes of sitting from the same cycle of thoughts. Then I thought, with such compulsive thinking, what a great chance to observe thoughts. Tried to be ready for the onset of each thought in order to notice it cleary and note it. Found that thoughts this morning started as a felt movement and connected with a fleeting image and then a word or some words spoken at the throat. So tracked the urge to move into thought, as well as noting fleeting images as they popped up and kept an eye on the throat for start of words there. This had indirect effect of settling me in my body although I wasn't deliberately focusing there. Noted how the urge to think is constantly trying to represent each moment in thought.

PM yesterday: after 3 nights of insomnia and 3 12 hour work days crunching for a deadline, felt like toast last evening. Went for an hour stroll intending a meditation walk of noting. After 1/2 hour of mostly lapsing into thought, tried broadening the noting with "look how it experiences this (whole thing)..". That worked for a few minutes, but didn't have the energy to sustain it. Noted aversion to exhaustion. Next tried concentrating on intense stress senstations in forehead. That worked for a few more minutes, extended to other parts of the body, before lapsing into dazed haze again.

am sitting, 1hr: able to mostly sustain noting of body sensations but felt disatisfied and didn't occur to me to note disatisfaction; tried to improve investigation by faster noting and switching between body and mental sensations; found that if I tried to keep up with body, mental and visual that felt more fully engaging. Didn't feel like I had the energy to sustain that very well, but tried.

I hear you about the work-related insomnia. For me, there's something about staring at a computer for eight or 12 hours a day that can really put me on edge, especially if I'm working on something that is extremely tedious and/or demanding. I also think the practice itself, maybe because of the energy-activation [?], can make the insomnia worse. I guess all one can do is be sharply attentive to the "second arrow" stuff. One thing I've been trying to do when in this kind of agitated state, apart from noting what's going on, is just relax and settle into the body with an emphasis on everything from the shoulders down. Seems to help...

Good morning, Jay! Yes, 8 to 10 hours at the PC I'm used to (though it still has its impact). 12 hours is pushing my sanity limits. The worst of that is just as you say, though, 2nd arrow!! 2nd Arrow is a huge thing to understand on a practical level, wouldn't you say? When the dire thoughts start stirring up they could lead to almost limitless behavioral complications and optional misery. To be able to cut that short by switching to the sensations-level (which often switch and become pleasurable), that's probably enough to justify doing this practice even if I never do become an adept.

PM Thursday. An hour meditation walk. 1st 1/2 hour spent gnashing repetively on justification speeches to bosses and so on. Then started noting the sensations of the momentum of work compulsion that has built up this week. Noted the resistance to letting go of the compulsion energy. Started settling into current sensations and felt the drive releasing. Went back to work for a couple more hours but without as much identification with the compulsion momentum.

PM sitting 1 hour. Unexpected intense energy, couldn't sleep. Seemed like I was intently involved in something other than my intentional meditation practice and became curious to see what I was up to. It was hard to see clearly but it looked like my brain had come up with what it imagined was a trouncingly clever short speach for one of my big bosses and was replaying the nub of it continually in order to generate an energizing state of feeling masterful and powerful. I had to admire its resourcefulness and it did feel intoxicatingly good -- natural cocaine! Took about 1/2 an hour to get what was going on. Spent the next 1/2 hour trying to find the discrete physical sensations to note.

Yesterday a.m. sitting 35 mins: noting sensations from anxious work thoughts. Grateful for palpable degree of disembedding.

PM long circumambulation of a large hill-top reservoir, 2nd highest point in town, with my 2 daughters. At first we were all absorbed in conversation but gradually became enawed by onset of sunset and then nightfall. Rather than attempting to surreptitiously partially note while walking and talking, or indirectly detach from scenery while focusing on internal noting, I just went with absorption in the raw beauty and eventually felt and attempted to re-find for a little bit the sweet sense of surrender to the moment.

am sitting, 1.5 hours. Recalled Kenneth's advice to note something about once a second without worrying about what it is. Then recalled Mumuwu commenting on how he noticed what he usually assumed was his visual field behind closed eyes in a fresh way recently. So started with regarding visual field as if it was some new thing I'd never seen before. Unmolested experience seemed really interesting. So went with immediate choiceless awareness. I was concerned that I would space out without verbal noting but it seemed obtrusive and not fast or detailed enough, and mindfulness seemed to be holding up without it. Shortly I had aversion to representing the sitting to myself in anyway and felt like I had some teflon to work with. So not sure how well I remember it. There's still aversion to even trying to remember it. It felt like there might have been a little bit of a samadhi of non-separation for a little while. Maybe even quite reduced self-consciousness for a stretch. There was a different angle on something I've seen a couple of other times a little differently recently, kind of like, there is nothing that needs to be done about it except see all of it once just as it is, but that's too verbose. When the clarity started to fade turned out not to have to be a problem, just - the clarity is fading, an unfamiliar sense of being able to continue seeing the fading evidently was there.

With considerably more difficulty, while brushing my teeth I could apply that sense of just watching the mind and body at the same time as they changed, the mind unconcentrated, just changing, but seen. Really tough when up and moving around to find that again. Later mowing the lawn I thought, if I can't find any of that now, how much good is it. But it was hard, verbal speech kept pulling me away. Finally just had to slow down. Neighbors might have thought I'm a basket case but, one advantage of a lifetime's experience of being a social basket case, when there's a good reason to be one, no problemo. Then something came back to me from the sitting, a tangible sense of the spareness, the bareness of what's actually happening. There wasn't much mowing left but the sense of being there for the sensate experience made me wish it wasn't time to get back to head work.

am sitting, 1hr 55 mins. Started noting pulses, trying to see them in detail. Attempting this kind of focus often dulls me and starts to put me to sleep. When dullness set in, widened to include mental images and sounds. Then allowed attention to note whatever was predominant object, changing every second or two. That woke me up. Felt drawn again to choiceless, non-manipulative examination. Had trouble avoiding drifting with this for 10 or 15 mins but then started to settle in to some momentum. It was utterly interesting to watch mental energies. Mental events would happen then physical ones, then mental, then physical. There was quietness at the throat. After 1.5 hours, opened my eyes, adopted an informal posture and saw it raining on the deck. The bare attention seemed to continue. Got a desire to go deeper or something and got back into posture with eyes closed. Noticed that I was getting a little spacey and started explicitly noting sensations. Attention to fine detail of sensations didn't seem acute. I guess bare attention doesn't necessarily develop that. There's a sense that one could see what's actually happening with it though. I'll be able to check with Kenneth in a couple of days to see if this is off track.

PM woke up during the night with traditional parade of anxious thoughts: I'm inadequate as a Dharma practitioner, breadwinner, parent and husband; nothing is reliable; everything is falling apart, it all goes downhill from here. Noted the thoughts and feelings for an hour or so until fell back to sleep for a bit.
AM Anxious and discouraged thoughts continued, continued noting them while running an errand and a.m. preparations.
AM sitting: 40 mins. Resolved to intently, even fiercely note pulsing/swaying of the trunk. Noted the intent to be fierce and didn't feel identified with it. It looked like an energy over there. Noted discouragement, it's sticking around but didn't feel identified with it. For fun tried switching it to encouragement, then let it flip back. Went with noting the discouragement: whatever wanted to come up. Noting pulses with an exclusive focus on the pulses didn't put me to sleep, but didn't fully engage my mind and it drifted somewhat. Started using pulses as return anchor while noting the "distractions" briefly. That made it seem like switching from 2-D to 3-D perspective on the pulsing. Toward the end felt a sense of stability and impartiality reminiscent of longer weekend sits. Didn't have time to go more into that. Habitual discouragement thoughts kept buzzing around during shower, just kept noting.

Mark, I think that a drifting mind is sometimes a sign of progress (moving through an unstable stratum of mind), not necessarily a non-fully engaged mind, i.e. fully engaging the mind to the point it is really getting going will eventually put it into unstable places (e.g. transition from 1st Jhana to 2nd has a rough spot, 3rd to 4th has a rough spot).

The anchor technique sounds familiar. It's possible that once you got through whatever layer was causing the drifting you moved into a more stable layer which didn't have that problem (the stability returns). You'll want to see if there is a point where you always drift, and if that's the case don't think of it as a problem with your technique, but a symptom of the layer of mind you are presently in. Again, something to think about, it might not be the case.

P.S.
You are great Dharma practitioner who is putting in time and getting noticeable results (and also inspiring others who have anxiety issues like myself).

Thank you, Mumuwu. Very interesting points. Your kind words really surprised me. You've given me some things to keep an eye out for!

"Thank you, Mumuwu. Very interesting points. Your kind words really surprised me. You've given me some things to keep an eye out for!"

I agree with mumuwu about the strata. I stink at the maps, but there was a period of time a few weeks back where my whole world seemed colored by doubt. Lately, the doubt is completely gone. The practice was quite energized for a couple of weeks, after an initial bout with sleepiness, and now--the sleepiness is back. My guess is that doubt will return as well and that it's just a matter of time. You can see that all of this is in service of equanimity if a yogi is willing to lie down and accept, as Kenneth put it in his poem.

I hear you! Consistency, steadiness, commitment, equanimity, these are definitely what's coming up for me to work through right now. I guess my last post must have sounded like I was on the ropes. Thanks for the encouragement! I was finding yesterday that the discouragement could just keep coming up through the night and through the day, and I could just keep returning to noting it! I was actually kind of liking that This work is definitely pushing my edges though. I'm starting to run up against life long patterns that I haven't gone through before. Looks like I have to develop my character and the practice at the same time. Edit: I think that just means working with whatever threatens to derail the willingness to keep noticing. Kenneth mentioned today, to paraphrase: that the practice is incredibly durable, whatever the mind gets up to, it can still be noted.