Omni's practice log

15 minutes of 1st jhana practice ("nose pinch")

When I came home the sun was shining, the temperature was just fine and I was alone, so I sat in the garden and closed my eyes to bask in the sun. I focused on the tip of the nose, the feelings in the body, trying to detect pleasant sensations. After a minute or so, a sort of sadness started to dominate. Something that felt like being on the verge of tears, but not quite. A slow warm throbbing area in the chest that seemed to grow towards the throat and when it got there, the whole body moved with it. This repeated itself all the time until I heard my wife come home. I felt like rubbish all day.

1 hour sit, insight practice (spoken, eyes open)
Attention was okay but felt superficial now and then.

Lots of futile mapping thought (so clueless it hurts). Frustration, envy, despair, inferiority, anger, disappointment, impatience, remembering thought, comparing thought ... bleh!

For a couple of minutes I stopped labeling out loud. Not because I was lost in thought, but it felt as if I couldn't do it because what happened required my full attention: a sort of warmth moving around in my head and a feeling of amazement. Nothing intense though, but I had to force myself to speak the notes out loud again.

Then focus went to the scalp: tingling, pressure and exactly as a couple of days ago: a feeling on both temples as if someone slightly pushed there with a finger at the height of the eyes. Left ear itched for a fraction of a second and then felt as if it was vibrating.

A couple of times I was startled by an imaging thought or talk thought that just wouldn't surface completely. It startled my body but didn't really enter my mind to know the contents. It did gave me a feeling like: "I never looked at it (?) that way".

For the rest, stuff that recurred a couple of times : photo grain, warm hands, crazy eyes, focus changing from outside to inside world, a micro-flashback to an old trip (no Jack Vance today, back to the trips apparently). An overall feeling of not having what it takes and feeling like shizzle.

"When the yogi attains to the crest of the wave in the fourth ñana, he believes that he has arrived at his destination. From here on in, he reasons, life should be a breeze. Even if he has been warned, he does not believe the warnings. He is completely unprepared for what is to come and is blindsided by the fury of the tenth ñana, which consists of the four previous ñanas of fear, misery, disgust, and desire for deliverance repeating themselves in a seemingly endless loop, and worse with each iteration. In addition, the strong concentration of the fourth ñana seems to have disappeared; there is no respite from the unpleasantness and negative mind states that flood the body and mind.

Actually, the yogi is even more concentrated than before, but he is accessing unstable strata of mind that are not conducive to restful mind states or happy thoughts. The yogi obsesses about his progress, is sure that he is back-sliding, and devises all manner of strategies to "get back" what he has lost. The meditation teacher does his best to reassure the yogi that he is still on track, but to no avail. The best approach at this point is to come clean with the yogi, lay the map on the table, and say "You are here. I know it isn't easy, but it does not last forever. If you continue to practice, you will see through these unpleasant phenomena, just as you have seen through every phenomenon that has presented itself so far. You are here because you are a successful yogi, not because you are a failure. Let the momentum of your practice carry you as you continue to sit and walk and apply the vipassana technique."

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/The+...sight+%28Part+Two%29

@mumuwu That sounds recognizable enough.

How are you feeling today?

@mumuwu I woke up like a different man: renewed energy, strong urge to practice more with very short relapses to the negativity here and there. I just sat for an hour (will log it later on) and this was different. Lots of short episodes of spacing out though. Weird thing is that the spacing out was so sudden every time. During one of those spacing out periods a startling lightflash brought me back to decent attention.
Thanks for your support mumu!

Hate to speculate, but it sounds close to a description of a possible fruition moment (well the aftermath of one really, the fruition is a non-event), the light flash being the reset back to A&P from equanimity.

It's probably too early to tell but see if it happens again if you sit (rising up to equanimity and then suddenly finding yourself back in A&P territory).

Keeping fingers crossed!

"Keeping fingers crossed!

"

Ditto!

Thanks guys. I'll keep you posted. I hope you're right!

I messed up the title of this log once again I see "Omni's practice log (2011-03-30 part two)" should've been "Omni's practice log (2011-03-29 part two)"

-- This is the log of 2011-03-30 sit 1: --

1 hour sit, 1st jhana practice (nose pinch) + insight practice (spoken, eyes open)
I started with the "nose pinch" concentration that really seemed to work today. For a couple of minutes there were clear feelings of happiness, almost euphoria (tingling in belly and chest, smiling). The body felt like a good place to be in.

After this I switched to insight practice which felt a bit superficial, even though the labels were spoken out loud, it felt quite dull. In stead of fixing my gaze on the blank door before me, I started to look around a bit while noting. This helped!

What was peculiar in this sit was how sudden the attention wandered. One moment I would be noting out loud, the next moment I'd be silent and off into some vagueness, the next moment I'd be noting out loud again. This was different than being too sleepy for decent practice. One of the short vague periods was suddenly disrupted by a fast white flash that shook me back to alertness.

The past days I've been having a recurring stabbing sensation at the top of my head on the right side. Really painful. It had been diminishing and I almost forgot about it today, but it came back a couple of times during meditation.

There was another mini-flashback to an image of another vacation trip of long ago. There was less focus on the photograin quality of the outside world. Towards the end of the sit I noted a lot of "deficiency" an intense feeling that something is missing in my life. This consisted of imaging thoughts, talk thoughts, tingling and tensions in the chest and throat... also disappointment, longing, fantasizing thought, grief.

45 minutes sit, insight practice (spoken, eyes open)

Attention was way better than sit 1 today. Everything was quite effortless and light. This sit seemed to focus from the start on "acceptance". I noticed a lot how imaging thoughts, talk thoughts, mental states and accompanying body sensations came up and almost instantly were met by resistance and even resistance to this resistance ... which resulted in a feeling of surrender that almost brought tears to my eyes while I smiled. What a relief to feel this stream of "stuff" come up, apparently trying to control itself by resisting its parts as if they need to be something else. What a relief to feel I really have no control over it whatsoever and being able to just let it all be, even the resistance.

Intertwined with the thoughts and mental states and the lightning fast layers of resistance were feelings of joy, happiness, relief, gratitude that I may bodily experience this insight. I almost dare not say it, but I'd guess this is what is meant by "equanimity"?

Yeah, sounds like a trip up to equanimity. Cool.

Keep it going, Omni! Great reports!

-- Sit 1: 10 minutes this morning practicing 1st jhana (nose pinch)
This went well. I focused on the whole body, the breath, the face, eyes, nose, pleasant sensations. I felt calm quickly and started to experience joy and contentment. I had intended to sit for 10 minutes and when I opened my eyes I saw that exactly 10 minutes had passed. Neat!

-- Sit 2: 20 minutes after work
I started out with the nose pinch practice but I was too sleepy and drifted too far all the time. Insight practice was also filled with spacing out. I started to look around to become more alert, this worked a bit. For a short period I very clearly noticed the warmth of the hands, some tingling there and the fact that all this was pleasant. But after that there was a lot of spacing out and obsessing about my neck condition. I kept trying to elicit the annoying "plonk" in my neck to see if it would go away eventually. Really obsessive. I noted a lot of anxiety, fear, worrying thought, powerlessness, despair, remembering, planning ...

-- Sit 3: 1 hour in the evening, 1st jhana practice (nose pinch) + insight practice (spoken, eyes open)
Very similar to sit 2, terrible concentration with the nose pinch, lots of spacing out during insight practice. Even more obsessing with the neck thing. Testing it out all the time.

Finally towards the end things calmed down a bit. There was a distinct feeling on the right side of the top of my head as if something light was moving on my hear, making the skin crawl for minutes on end. I noted a lot of speculating thought, imaging thought, anxiety, tension, moving ... Eventually I touched to feel if there wasn't a spider there. There wasn't of course.

Then suddenly a lot of focus on coolness on my limbs. Then back to obsessing about the neck, moving my head, hearing the "plonk", noted despair, anger, rage, fear, powerlessness, injustice, annoyance, coming back at me at random.

Yeah, so when you first tried the nose pinch you were in a part of the cycle conducive to that sort of practice (one of the stable strata - 1,4,5,or 11). Later when it didn't work you were moving through unstable layers (2,3, or 6-10).

@jgroove Thanks for the encouragement!
@mumuwu Aha!

-- 1: Woke up in the middle of the night and immediately started doing noting practice (or had I been doing it in my dream alreadey?) I had to stop it to be able to return to sleep.

-- 2: Home alone, cleaning the house noting out loud for about 90 minutes. Attention was good, Not sharp, not dull, but alert.

-- 3: 1 hour in the evening, 1st jhana practice (nose pinch) + insight practice (spoken, eyes open)
Too tired, too sleepy, continuous spacing out and even stopping the spoken noting now and then. Jhana practice went nowhere. My shoulders and head were heating up, so I switched to focusing on the sensations there. Instantly the visual field began to vibrate subtly (I get this a lot lately). A patch on the left side of my neck vibrated quickly. It was so clear that I finally felt with my hand if there was something on it (nope). When my hand touched the skin, the vibrations stopped. When I took my hand off they restarted half a minute later. Besides that, I kept spacing out, so I stood up in front of the mirror once again. This got me a bit more alert. There was some light rocking back and forth on my feet.

-- 1: 1 hour, 1st jhana practice (nose pinch) + insight practice (spoken, eyes open)
Jhana practice first felt as if it wouldn't work because of sleepiness and languor yet again, until I noticed these sensations were quite pleasurable in fact. This way I found a nice balance focussing on the bodily sensations of being sleepy and listening to the abundance of bird chatter outside. A big smile on my face.

Insight practice started with Lots of imaging thoughts about my daughters and feelings of love, tingling and glowing in my chest, throat and face. The wheel of attention was quite noticable. Short periods of sharp alertness were followed by longer and longer periods of dullness, vagueness, drifting, hypnagogic images and sounds, eyes defocussing.

Towards the end of the sit I noticed a tiny speck on the closet I was facing. I decided to use this as a visual focus to detect the drifting of my eyes and mind more quickly. This took some effort, but it helped to be a bit more alert.

-- 2: 45 minutes, 10x10 breath couting + insight practice (spoken, eyes open)
To my surprise the breath counting went well. I only had to restart once out of ten.
Insight practice however was just the same as the previous days: spacing out, drifting, vagueness, shallow noticing. Yet again I tried to stay focussed by using a speck of dust as visual focus point. I took it as an extra detector (next to noting out loud) to stay alert.
(continued)

(continued)

But then I remembered what I had read today about "the chronic achiever" and the importance of "surrender". I stopped focussing on the speck of dust and surrendered to the languor. Just a little while later (5 minutes?) practice felt entirely different. Not that I was ultra alert, although it was better, but I wasn't so frustrated anymore. There was an intense feeling of interest, curiosity and effortless noting (even the wandering/spacing out). It was as if each sensation lightly surprised me.

-- 1: 1 hour morning sit, 1st jhana practice (nose pinch) + insight practice (spoken, eyes open)
Jhana practice went well but now and then I had to put some effort in experiencing pleasant sensations in stead of following some thoughts.

Insight practice went well, considering that I now believe it's okay not to have "sharp" attention. At the beginning there was the effortless feeling again of things presenting themselves one at a time. Although this was less pronounced than yesterday. Towards the end of the sit, things often got more vague and spacing out happened on and off. It didn't become as extreme as before though. Attention cycled between sharp/deep and dull/shallow.

I noted a lot of brainstorm thought, scenario thought, alertness, sharpness, vagueness, dullness, defocus (visual), vibrating (visual), music thought, subtle amazement

-- 2: Nice Skype session with Kenneth. Finally getting a clue concerning mapping thoughts.

-- 3: 1 hour evening sit, 1st jhana practice (nose pinch) + insight practice (spoken, eyes open)
Jhana practice wasn't very stable. It "worked" on and off.

Insight practice was yet again full of sleepiness, spacing out, even boredom and wishing this nonsense would end (the spacing out, the frustration, efforting, doubt, longing to see some clear progress, longing for sharper attention, languor ...) and at the same time surrendering to all of it as much as possible.

Towards the end of the sit, attention got a bit clearer. Lots of intense itches I could focus on and finally "see" them change shape and motion.

-- 1: 1 hour sit, insight practice (spoken, eyes open)
Attention was nice and sharp. A welcome change! Some slipping into vagueness here and there, but only for short periods. There were some glimpses of the effortless quality and spontaneous curiosity I've been experiencing, but it didn't go all the way.

There was something similar, but more intense happening though. Throughout the whole sit there were periods where something like an ordinary sound would strike me as so utterly beautiful that it left me grasping for air. Tingling ticklish tension would take hold of my chest and throat while my forehead would tense and I couldn't make out if I'd start laughing or crying. This repeated itself now and then. Sometimes a sound would trigger it, or seeing the texture of the canvas in front of me, ... Suddenly I'd get baffled by some odd intense sense of beauty that I could hardly bare it. The resulting sensations would build and build for minutes and only slowly subside again. Whenever this happened it was almost impossible to note out loud, so I would just sit there, baffled, breathing fast, very much caught by the intensity.

In between that there were lots of feelings of letting go, of giving up control in stead of trying to manipulate/replace or deny mental states and thoughts. A thought or mental state would come up, instantly followed by a very fast judgement of it, instantly followed by letting go of the judgment and letting whatever arose in the first place carry through. It felt like a strong preference to the truth in stead of what would be 'appropriate'. All of this happened very fast each time. And it was only afterwards that I tried to describe it like I just did here. At the time it felt very liberating, as if a weight was lifted from me each time. I laughed a couple of times.
(continued)

(continued)
I noted a tendency to slow down or speed up the noting now and then. Attention would get a different quality when this happened. I really enjoyed experiencing everything as it seemed to happen all of its own.

-- 2: 1 hour sit, insight practice (spoken, eyes open most of the time)
Attention was fine again. The sit was similar to the previous one, but not with the repeating extatic rushes. I noted a lot of brainstorm thought, scenario thought, seeing, hearing, coolness on the thighs, visual blips, blinking of the eyelids, coughing, yawning, acceptance, smiling (at silly thoughts), itching, gratitude, doubt, hunger, imaging thought, remembering thought, ...

After about 40 minutes attention got different again, almost like spacing out. This time I made sure I wasn't fighting anything. When my eyes felt like closing, I let them. When my head felt like facing upwards, I let it. There was some imaging thought, talk thought, fantasizing thought and smiling and then something strange happened. Things seemed to blink on and off quite rapidly for three or four times: black-white-black-white-black. This left me startled, my head returned to a normal position, my eyes flashed open, I grasped for air, laughed shortly, felt goosebumps all over my body while a warm glow moved inside of me. This was similar to but different from the 'intense beauty rushes' from the previous sit. Afterwards everything felt softer, looked softer, even thoughts and mental states were somehow softer. I just sat there for minutes on end, quiet, surprised, happy, smiling, amazed, until I slowly started to note mentally at first and then out loud again.
Then analysing thought happened and I tried eye fluttering to see if what happened would repeat itself. But no. Towards the end of the sit there was clear pulsing and moving pain in my left thigh. While making diner and watching TV, everything remained softer than usual.
Wow!

Hmm, very interesting report! I'm curious to see what happens next.

Me too!