Mark P's Noting Journal

Didn't appreciate what a state I was in last night. I'm going to journal weekly for now until I get a better handle on circumstances and have something more usefully practice-oriented to journal about.

I, for one, really appreciated that post from last night. I also work in IT, and I also have wondered about SSRI's. I would really like to know the answer to that one.

Guess it must be about 3 weeks now since I had a full day off and none in sight. Would have thought these circumstances would be a body blow to practice, and maybe it is, but I can't tell for sure. Seems like I have to keep re-finding square one with this practice while befuddled by ancient-twisted karma and complexes of 2nd-arrow reactivity.

My assumptions keep being challenged by the daily mind-blowing stuff on KFD. Last week I was questioning the possibility of noticing/noting during intensive computer work and seemed to make a difference, at times. But I feel kind of lost right now. That might sound promising, but it feels to me like it could go either way. Hence, contemplating prescription drugs, but the drive to keep attempting half-as*ed noting (however incompetently) still hangs around.

For decades I've had an uneasy relationship with constant self-image that's always popping up. Decided to regard it as a neutral, natural phenomena and just welcome it and get to know it. Interestingly, seems like it's not usually a full-blown image. Almost more like a suggestion of an image and the mind fills in the blanks. It's vague but evocative. And it's always changing, most often in loose synch with the emotion of the moment. But sometimes it gets out of synch. Hard to tell exactly what's actually happening. So, just kept trying to watch it, like sticking investigatively to an itch. Deliberately not investigating a sense of self (as I think that is a different practice than vipassana), but just the self-image visual sensation. Noticed that it was sometimes replaced momentarily by the image of someone else when I thought about them.

My particular habit seems to be to associate clumps of thoughts with a momentary self image that represents how I think I feel about the thoughts. So, keeping a close eye on the self image, which evidently kind of oddly glues that process together, brought little busy balls of thought and emotion into view and they'd relax. (This does not feel like going into deep strata, just seeing behavioral complexes hiding in the surface strata.)

I was home sick yesterday, working with laptop in bed on new problems popping up at work. Feeling overwhelmed. Then got an email that this mythical, huge project no one thought would be approved was just handed to me with start-up meetings scheduled for Monday. Tried to sit for an hour & 1/2 after that and could barely get an awareness toe-hold on the reactivity.

Later, sat again for an hour or more and settled into investigating the image. Went to bed early and found a steady, calm awareness of the changing image continuing, even when my body started to doze for a moment. Seemed pretty clear that the image was just a series of momentary sensations. I think my head energy had become relaxed and settled back from the forehead. Surprisingly when I was relatively precisley clear about the self image sensation of that moment, it was something like the body sensations were just all there in their place and how could there be a problem -- in the way that I usually think of a problem, with that image collecting thoughts and emotions. That process just couldn't get off the ground and I felt free at that level. Seemed so simple and obvious. And also like a transient state, maybe I was disassociating under shock. But it re-charged the interest to keep stumbling around with off-and-on mostly off attempted vipassana. My sitting this morning was disappointingly distracted, though it had a nice samatha-chilling effect.

My contribution this week to the advanced physics forum is a report of my progress with my 6th grade science lesson. Had trouble finding time, but worked on it everyday

No replay of that for me unique experience I described in 53, above, last week. Kenneth kindly offered to Skype and gave me a training in grounding anxiety in the body via the lightning rod. This combined with handing it over to the toll collector has worked well to deal with work stress and to provide a more equanimous basis for my primary noting practice. With the current out-of-balance work hours (ah, there's a coin in my pocket), I'm just happy to be keeping up a daily practice of sitting and trying to remember to notice/note during daily life. An upwelling of gratitude to all the generous genius physicists here, and offering it to the lightning rod.

Morning sitting: 65 mins. Started as usual observing pulses for a few minutes, then for most of the sit general noting of predominant sensation, making a new note with each pulse. Then the Wheel in the last 10 mins or so.

Kenneth pointed out in a Skype that my noting got vague when I started settling in and said this was the time instead to stay precise. Since then I've confirmed that my noting does tend to get vague when things get still and have been trying to catch that and keep explicit noting going when the sitting gets concentrated and quiet. This time I was also going with trying to be non-interventive, just to see what's happening.

Today it had the flavor of just trying to be conscious of what is already presenting anyway in background awareness. I noticed that this requires no movement to look at somethin over there, and no intention-related tensing in the face or head. For a few minutes it seemed (in retrospect) like the still awareness was watching, as if from the outside, the localized energy of the brain. Then the attention moved by itself to eyeball fluttering and the sitting was over a few mins later.

Haven't done that well with being mindful at work so far today. Resolve to do better the rest of the day.

A couple of weeks ago I felt like I was in a psychological and indentity crisis. In a mundane, Non-advanced-meditation-stage sense, I felt like I was somewhat un-raveling and that my reliance on meditation to keep it all together was failing, partly in the face of relentless 60 hour work weeks and job insecurity. Surprisingly I'm still functioning in the world and my practice seems to have some momentum despite not much change in circumstances. Kenneth kindly spent an hour with me teaching me an anxiety-grounding focus on the lightning rod and toll booth practices that really helped. I tried taking an anti-anxiety medication, celexa (actually an anti-depressant) for a week and discovered that likely isn't an option for me. Evidently low-serotonin can aggravate anxiety as well as depression, and SSRI's like celexa increase serotonin. Celexa helped a lot for one of my daughters who had not anxiety but clinical depression. Turns out my tendency to anxiety disorder is not caused by low serotonin, I may have more of serotonin than average, having a tendency more towards the manic end. So celexa eventually gave me a couple of very unpleasant (and potentially dangerous) serotonin overdose episodes. Something to look out for if you consider this option. It was interesting though to confirm Kenneth's advice that being on SSRI doesn't affect basic terms of the practice. You're not impaired, just experiencing a somewhat different range of states. I found it entirely accurate that you can note that range of states as well as any other. In fact it was a relief to not get caught up much in weighing and reacting to the changes but just taking them as more material to note.

""For a few minutes it seemed (in retrospect) like the still awareness was watching, as if from the outside, the localized energy of the brain." "

Hi Mark.
Great description! Could you say more about what it means to be vague with noting? I'm not entirely sure I get what that means.

Hi Joel. oh yeah, I guess that's being vague about describing being vague with noting. I think I borrowed that word from Kenneth, who might have been being polite. Just means that from the outside, I'm starting to note less frequently and looking absorbed or drifty rather than keeping up the pace of explicit noting. Subjectively I think it's going into more of an embedded relationship to the object, maybe grooving on the samatha feeling, rather than keeping up objectifying with explicit noting.

Zinged by all the pointers about actually following instructions, I owned up to the fact that I haven't been starting general noting with a few minutes of each of the 4 foundations, and started being sure to start sittings that way this week. Feeling circumstance-overwhelmed for about 3 weeks I had gone for just whatever gets me thru the night, but now I'm wanting to get back on the straight track. Usually I'm on the straight path long enough to wander off into the ditch on either side. A value of reading KFD everday for me has been I notice I'm in a ditch sooner and get fired up to get back on the path at least daily. Hopefully I'm crossing the path kind of diagonally each time on the way to the next ditch, so there may be some forward progress.

Actually, the soul-searching is turning up other ways that I don't follow the instructions and rousing myself to take on each of those as well. Another one I worked with this week was admitting that Kenneth alway describes and models coming up with and verbalizing an accurate descriptive word for each object noted. I've been semi-consciously deciding that that's a bit clunky and slow and preferring to try to see a complexity of rapidly changing objects and just spot noting some of them. Hasn't got me 1st path doing it that way. So, I tried following the instructions this week and it didn't turn out to be clunky. It's different but feels very effective and interesting (doh!). I thought, umh, better continuity this way. Actually I'm not sure if it has better continuity or not. Maybe more continuous during the stretches when attention happens to be happening anyway, but don't know that it causes attention to happen more. But it Is following the proven instructions. I've got a list of those to work on.

Sun a.m. sittings, with various hoursehold interruptions, around a couple of hours net sitting. Noticed today why I got out of the habit of noting each of the 4 foundations at beginning of a sit. Often the beginning of a sit is overrun with perseverating thoughts about competing work and householder priorities and how to cram the must-do's into the schedule, followed by resentments and bemoaning about the quality of life things that will be skipped and so on. Usually a single foundation of mindfulness can't take all of that on and I end up having to throw as wide a range of noting as I can muster at it just to avoid an hour lost in anxious thought. Sometimes in desparation I end up noting as fast as I can when noting all available foundations doesn't work. This isn't always necessary but it is often enough that it becomes habitual. So, I'm not just a willfully bad yogi turns out, just unconscious. But now I've seen what's up with that.

Had a full-scale aversion attack today with intense aversive energy. It was really hard to find an identifiable object in the intense upswelling of energy, so tried just noting "feeling that" or "seeing that" but that felt like something was missing so kept searching for objects to identify with descriptive terms. After a long time I was able to get some handle on the reliables, alternation of physical pressure or tingling, retinal seeing, images, and self image. Lately, I've been trying to not go looking for these but lay back and wait to see which one is taking over the slide show right now and clearly put a word on it then catch when it actually gets replaced by the next one. It's been particularly interesting to see how self-image alternates back and forth with other objects in the slide show. It's been seeming like it's possible to catch right around the actual beginnings and notice the duration and change of these sensations. This is especially interesting with self image to catch it coming and changing and start to notice that it must also go because right now a different sensation is presenting, then self image comes back in some form. Sometimes it feels obvious that the self image is not me because I can see it arising, changing and catch sometimes when it's gone. Not clearly seeing the endings, but I'm not trying to make a project out of any of that. Just curious. Today it took about 2 hours to finally get a taste of that. And not until I had noted some full blown anger for a few minutes, even though it scared me.

Found an hour last night to talk with an old friend who has done some stretches of Zen and other practices at times and has had a life-long interest in theories of awareness. Lately he's struggled with severe depression, old age and health problems, under-employment and family responsibilities, the stark absence of a social safety net. He said he no longer has an interest in paths, maps and ambitions; they never materialized for him. He'd just like to be able to be himself with some peace. This joins the chorus of things mobilizing me to try to cut through somehow and really note/notice.

a.m. sitting: 70 mins. Started right off embedded in heartful sorrow that came up for the endless struggles of family members. Resolved to spend 5 mins with each of the 4 foundations (which are often hard to clearly remember/distinguish). A whole bunch of psychological stuff came up and tons of aversion, self-recrimination, defensiveness, analysis, anger, the body twisted in painful, stressful posture. It felt hopelessly enmired. Kept trying to find at least a few minutes of each foundation. After about 40 mins I figured I'd managed to touch on each one but I was a mess. It occurred to me how other family members struggle with these learning and performance challenges. Finally all that was left was to surrender, but still trying to balance that with noticing what was going on. Effortful struggle was totally not working. Very quiet noticing, questioning from within surrender became available, but I knew it wouldn't last long on its own, I'd get vague and embedded in the peacefulness. So noted peacefulness and tried to raise the specificity level with quiet noting without engaging the struggle again. Managed to stay with that balancing for about 15 mins.

Seems like at least 2 or 3 months now that the ambition to simply do the noting practice competently and make progress has been stirring up a humiliating and eventually humbling bunch of pyschological muck. It's so thick I can hardly find my practice throught it half the time. These days the content of the muck seems to be more out there where I can see it and potentially be fascinated by it, have psychological insights about it, get sunk in it, and otherwise identify with it. Tonight's sitting it was dormant and I enjoyed a chance to sit calmly if drowsily and just try to do the practice.

I don't seem to have the option to do a clean separation from content and practice as seems to be the ideal. According to the upper-middle path, I would have had years of therapy and body work and cleared the knots and content out before it backed up like a muddy geiser. But that's not part of the repertory of a working class background. Looks like my karma involves doing this practice while the crazy content is doing what it's going to do. Hopefully it can do all it's fireworks mostly on the internal stage with me carefully watching and not jumping up to act it out.

Getting this sitting down while I can remember most of it, about 1.5 hours. The personal content stuff seemed at bay so determined to get some work done. Started with resolve to clearly do each of the 1st 4 foundations: after about 5 mins of body sensations moved on to feeling tone. As often happens with 2nd (& 3rd) foundation, got lost in some thought trains about work and planning, so reflected on whether I actually feel feeling tone or do I often just assume what the feeling tone would logically be given the sensation? Tried to find if any feeling tone was clearly presenting. Usually I just decide on "neutral", decided to try erring on the unpleasant side. After about 10 mins decided I had actually found feeling tone this time and determined to do F.#3 and couldn't remember what it was. After struggling with that for a 2 or 3 mins remembered that it was preference & aversion, oh yeah, moods and emotions. (You gotta work with what you've got. )

Feeling a little humiliated by all the effort just to get past square one, still I noticed some surprise momentum and decided to do triplets of the 1st 3 foundations, even though it seemed kind of clunky and busy. Right off energy started rising and my body started doing the spontaneous yoga moves, my inner mood got light and expansive, though part of me felt somewhat skeptical and a little resistant. As the upper body yoga moves (that I haven't had recently) continued more pronounced than usual, I determined to move on to the 4th foundation.

By now awareness seemed expansive and the body awake. While keeping in touch with the body, started noting the changes of the flow of visual images that seem like self-images. It seemed unusually clear how changing they are. Tried to stay very close to all the changes, coming and going. My body really took off with rolling neck, shaking head, shaking hands. It was clear that usually I'm so impressed by an experience like that, that I look at it while embedded in the amusingly simple little self-image cartoon that represents what I'm supposedly doing/feeling. Stuck with the self-image like a dog with a bone and hardly considered all the body stuff, although it was likely the most intense I've ever had. The more I didn't get embedded in the self image, the more the body and energy took off. The evil demon laugh came up, and this was the first time I've stayed disembedded from that. It started to feel like I was running really fast, my upper body was flailing around so much that I was getting worn out, but stuck with disembedding from the self images by carefully observing their changes.

At a certain point I realized there were 2 self image sources with a different flavor and it looked like one was coming from the right side of my brain and the other from the left side. (I've wondered for quite awhile now about how I could be looking at a self image and then suddenly realize there was another self image from a different vantage I had become embedded in while watching the preceding one. Don't know if this "explains it" ..., who cares.) As I started to discern the different quality of self images from right and left, and which was which, my eyes started strobing in a way they haven't before. Since that's supposed to be a noteworthy thing (that I don't understand at all) tried to give it its due while staying with image changes.

Then I turned to the vague awareness that, while disembedding from the mental imagery, I was embedded in verbal thought. That's my next frontier. Tried to let go of my fascination, stay in touch with the body and self image cartoon show, and sit back some more to watch for verbal thought. But noticed my sitting time had flown by. While preparing for work, saw an intriguing glimpse of how being embedded in the cartoon show and verbal thought, while spacing out the other sensations, makes things seem solid.

Great reports, Mark. Sounds like you're really trying to be precise. I appreciate the high level of detail and careful investigation.

"Hi Joel. oh yeah, I guess that's being vague about describing being vague with noting. I think I borrowed that word from Kenneth, who might have been being polite. Just means that from the outside, I'm starting to note less frequently and looking absorbed or drifty rather than keeping up the pace of explicit noting. Subjectively I think it's going into more of an embedded relationship to the object, maybe grooving on the samatha feeling, rather than keeping up objectifying with explicit noting."

OK. That's very familiar to me as well. I've spent the last three or four days, this morning excepted, trying to combat this.

"the cartoon show" -- that really resonates for me

Thanks for the feedback and encouragement, guys!

Thur & Fri had only 35 min for a.m. sittings and short pm sittings, too. Long work days. Luxury of 1.5 hours today. All 3 days started with deliberately working through each of the 4 foundations for several minutes before going on. A couple of Skype sessions ago, Kenneth walked me through the Wheel and gave me that practice ongoing but I haven't had a chance to talk with him about it since. I don't much understand it and don't feel that I do very well with it yet, but it seems like something I could grow into. So I try to do it for at least a few minutes at the end of each sitting to give it a chance to develop. Between initial 4 foundations and closing Wheel, I just do general noting. The last 3 days have had a more pleasurable flavor than usual. I've been continuing to try to get more specific and conscious about feeling tone. Doing doubles with body sensations seems to work best. My prejudice has been for a long time to slight feeling tone and regard physical and mental as the important stuff. Have been discovering the obvious, that feeling tone is part of what's happening and if I'm not aware of it I'm missing something plus embedded in it. Noting feeling tone has, the last 3 days, given more sense of what seems like the energy body and clueing into that has involved a lot more pleasurable feelings, at this point, that seem to have put me in a better mood all day. (Could totally change going forward

This morning with that relaxed, pleasurable feeling, I had an attitude like "so what's happening here, I wonder what the show is right now", kind of sitting back ready to be entertained by whatever rather than making the right effort to do it well. This led to a relaxed, spacious, still and quiet observation that seemed able to see a lot of what was happening, in detailed real-time. A pronounced feeling that each sensation has it's own space and does not need another sensation to move over and look at there. The would-be looking sensation is just in its own space. The idea that no sensation (needs to) know another sensation seemed very apt. No movement to know was necessary. The sensation was already there, why move? Variations of that have been seen to some extent for some time (I remember the 1st time 30 years ago), but it was pretty stable and equanimous this time. Eventually insecurity about distraction and the habit to go looking for right awareness started to try to get revved up, but could see it and tried to relax again, partly successfully. I like ending with the Wheel when there is good concentration/attention because otherwise I tend to drift.

As I got up to jump into a busy interactive day, something felt different and tried to see if that difference could inform my behavior, which it did for about 2 minutes. Then got submerged in my usual distraction.

Enjoyed my 6th grade science homework today that I'm meekly posting to the advanced physics forum. Started with the 4 F's. Noted body knots and tensions. Feeling tone, mostly upleasant. Sat back to note the body as a whole and then all-over feeling tone. Like prior 3 days that caused the feeling tone to feel like sort of an energy body and turn overall pleasurable. The physical unpleasantness seemed washed away by the nice energy. Unlike years past tried to keep specificity and accross the foundations rather than just grooving on the light and nice, expansive energy. Didn't feel like time to focus, though. Instead tried to attentively lay back and somehow see the body and the energy and mental events without narrowing down to look right at them. After 75 mins the household started bustling, so stopped. Would likely have happily continued sitting but didn't feel the usual craving to do so. Wondered if this could be an equanimity, but found an itch and it persisted on examination.

Wow, Mark, your practice yesterday and today is the best I've seen from you. See if you can keep up the momentum as much as possible. Steal as many mini-sits as you can during the day and note whenever you can remember during daily life activities. And see if you can extend your formal sitting as well. How much sitting are you doing now?

Thanks Kenneth! I'll certainly do what I can. Not the most fortuitous day, it's booked with lots of computer programming (work deadlines & helping my wife with hers). But maybe I can cut some corners to free up some time. My average is around an hour & 1/2 per day with some more on weekends. Maybe there is a connection between my recent efforts to Really follow the instructions ...