Omni's practice log

No formal noting practice today. Lots of informal practice during the day though. The kids were with their grandparents and I spent a big part of the day with a friend, walking and talking for hours in the sunny city. Things felt very clear all the time, my body, mental states, the input from the environment, the thoughts and feelings in reaction to what my friend said. I could feel the switches between listening and talking, thinking and just noticing whatever presented itself in between all that ... expanding and contracting of awareness, broader and more narrow focus, efforting and surrendering ... stuff like that.
In the evening my wife joined us, my friend went home and me and my wife went for dinner. The same clear meditative attention remained and I clearly noticed how different interacting with my wife felt in contrast to my friend ... I'm not sure if I'm conveying all this a bit with my writing, but this day felt very meaningful to me.

1 hour sit, insight practice, noting out loud, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open

Not too mindful today. Lots of daydreaming. A bit the same during formal practice: sleepy and easily spacing out.

There were many episodes with intense pulsing itches. I noted "stomach" a lot, because I couldn't make out whether I was a bit hungry or a bit nauseous. Some pressure on the head here and there again, but nothing as clear as some days ago.

1 hour sit, insight practice, noting out loud, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open

Attention was good. There were some thoughtstreams that went on unnoticed underneath all the noted sensations before they were consciously spotted and named. I always find it surprising that something suddenly comes into conscious awareness and then you know it's been going on for quite a while. Like a background noise suddenly being heard or suddenly stopping ...

One clear light fluctuation. My eyes were nearly closed when a short white flash startled me. My eyes opened and I could see everything becoming brighter. Attention was sharper afterwards.

There were recurrin episodes of intense itching, crazy eyes, strobing, light kriya's and anticipation of "fireworks".

1 hour sit, insight practice, noting out loud, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open

Attention was good. Lots of dissatisfaction, doubt (about my life in general), evaluating thought, despair, sadness, regret, fantasizing thought, anger, insecurity, frustration, imaging thought, (worst case) scenario thought. Not much different from what has been going on for the biggest part of the day actually.

It feels almost like the opposite of last thursday 2011-04-21, when everything was pleasant, flowing, effortless ...

1 hour sit, insight practice, noting out loud, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open

Attention was mediocre. There was sleepiness and dullness. Again lots of dissatisfaction, doubt, despair, worrying thought, sadness, inferiority, planning thought, remembering thought, evaluating thought, regret, (worst case) scenario thought, fantasizing thought, irritation, frustration, anger, feeling trapped/stuck/unfree ...

Amidst all this was a light vibration throughout my upper body and head for a couple of minutes. A while later the visual outside world was vibrating lightly.

1 hour sit, insight practice, noting out loud, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open

It seems like I'm going through another "dullness period". Attention was strange, as if a part of me was noting things out loud and a part of me was dreaming. No real sleepiness, but no sharp awareness either.

Now and then I could see the visual outside world disappear (with my eyes open) and being replaced with the dreamy visuals of the inner world. All the time my voice was noting things like "itching, remembering thought, hearing, pressure, irritation ..." but I didn't feel very present with all that.

Intense itching came and went a couple of times. Now and then there was some disgust in reaction to the dreamy visuals (I 'saw' ugly hairy things, 'saw' how something moved from my stomach to throat). I noticed how my facial expression reflected this disgust (frowning, upper lip moving up). For some minutes there was subtle vibration through the whole upper body.

1 hour sit, nose pinch + insight practice, noting out loud, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open

Jhana practice didn't go very well. It was hard to stay with the breath.

Insight practice was VERY similar to yesterday's. Alternating between normal alertness and dullness/dreaminess. I paid special attention to notice if my eyes were closing themselves or not and many times I could clearly feel them remaining open while the outside visual world was replaced by dreamy images of the inner world. A weird experience!

The 'increased vigilance' I described on 2011-04-18 is nowhere to be found lately. Noting feels shallow on top of an undercurrent of dreamy inner images and sounds + sticky thinking.

The periods when alertness was normal and the outside world was clearly there I tried to remain as close to "now" as I could. Catching myself when I stuck longer with a thought than felt right.

Although I feel a strong preference to sharp alertness and I miss the effortless clarity I experienced on and off in the past, today I could just accept it's different now and I try not to blame myself for "not doing it right anymore" or whatever.

Sounds like you are moving into dissolution to me.

"Sounds like you are moving into dissolution to me."

Yes that might be it. Again lots of "tail lights" during my formal sit today.
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/The+...sight+%28Part+One%29

1 hour sit, insight practice, noting out loud, eyes open

Attention was clear at first, for about 10 minutes. Instantly there were some light kriya's. Several times the head jerked to the right and a couple of times a hand or the arms moved involuntary. More and more I experienced how I exited a dreamlike episode, but entering it was never obvious to me. This might be what Kenneth means with only seeing the "tail lights" on this page: kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/The+...sight+%28Part+One%29 .

Once again, these dream episodes happened with open eyes, which keeps amazing me. There were images and sometimes sounds as well. A couple of times the contents was about a project I'm working on, but most of the time it had nothing to do with my daily life whatsoever, it was pure fantasy. Again and again I could see the last dream shards disappear as attention got clear again, the outside world reappeared and I felt frustrated for not having noticed how it all started. Most of the time I was aware of my voice noting sensations (itching, pressure, imaging thought, curiosity ...), but it happened several times that I stopped noting out loud for almost a minute.

The last 10 minutes or so, attention got clear again and remained clear. I felt the urge to whisper the labels and do this very quickly, as fast as I could speak. There were very few thoughts now, the eyes started making tiny but very fast up and down movements, and light kriya's reappeared.

Omni,

What is a nose pinch? Enjoying you posts.

Jack

1 hour sit, insight practice, noting out loud, eyes open

A different environment and time than I'm used to: after lunch all alone in the spacious room where they teach yoga at work.

Great alertness. Almost instantly there were light fluctuations, like a beam of blurry brightness was moving up and down through my field of vision. Some kriyas now and then. They came and went throughout the sit: head jerking to the right, arms moving by themselves, back and forth swinging of upper body (long time no see), hen kriyas (semi-circular movement of upper body), chaotic trembling of body and eyes, visual field resembling an earthquake. I enjoyed hearing my voice reverberating (English?) through the big room, hearing women's voices outside on the street. A short hilarious fantasy of collecting samples of beautiful female voices, laughing as a result, contentment, clarity, restfulness, planning thought, love, gratitude, itching, tension, pain, and at the very end: the outside world flickering as if daylight was strobing all by itself (eyelids weren't flickering). Also some tiny bright lights moving around. This lasted for a couple of minutes, until I went about my day.

"Omni,

What is a nose pinch? Enjoying you posts.

Jack"

Hi Jack!
It's a Jhana practice that Kenneth recently taught me: with closed eyes, you "look" at the top of your nose. It helps to imagine you are pinching it between thumb and index finger. In the meanwhile you follow the breath at the nostrils and enjoy pleasant bodily sensations that arise.

Great!

1 hour sit, insight practice, noting out loud, eyes open.

Great alertness once again. No kriyas or lightshows this time. I paid extra attention to spotting thoughts, because lately I have seen how they can go on in the background for quite a while before being noticed.

For the first half of the sit I noted quite fast, about 2 per second I guess. Then I slowed down deliberately, because I have often noticed that this allows me to focus on the sensations for a bit longer and deeper (soaking). Also, there was a lot of bird twitter going on outside that I enjoyed focussing on. The sound of my voice was drowning that, so noting slower helped. In between spoken notes, there were many mental notes as well, so attention kept feeling right.

Throughout the sit there was a lot of contentment and restfulness. Though for a couple of minutes a very sticky thoughtstream got hold of me (a sudden insight about a project at work). When I got out of this thoughtstream, everything seemed clearer and more flowing again.

No formal meditation today. It was a relaxed but full day with friends and family. Between talking there was open awareness, but almost no mental noting.

1 hour sit, insight practice, noting out loud, eyes open

Good alertness.

Attention cycled between inside and outside world as I've gotten used to the past week. Almost no dullness anymore though.

Suddenly I saw a mental image of something that happened earlier today: we had visited a couple who recently adopted an Ethiopian baby girl. They think she's about 11 months (the age of our youngest). Up til now she had been underfed. She crawls towards each bottle that catches her eye. I was drinking a bottle of soda when suddenly she crawled on my lap, took the bottle in her tiny hands and tried to put it to her mouth. I didn't have a strong emotional reaction when it actually happened, but when this scene popped into my mind during meditation and I saw her face again, an intense sadness overwhelmed me. My face grimaced and I got goosebumps all over. I was surprised by this.

There was an interesting period where the visual inside world and the visual outside world were flowing into each other, sometimes existing together. For example: I could simoultaneously see mental images of orange stairs and the white closet in front of me, as if the inside world stairs were projected on the outside world closet. There was some kind of restfulness and contentment accompanying all that, like I was just sitting there enjoying the show.

I had a renewed appreciation of insight meditation as a way to synchronize with reality.

At a certain point I got this sudden inspiration for an art project. I was very much surprised by that (where did that come from all of a sudden?), laughed and saw the mental images and heard the mental talk of my mind seemingly brainstorming on its own. After a while I had to watch out though not to get lost in the contents, so I took a note on a piece of paper and could let it go and move on with my meditation.

Another personal mini-reteat today.
Noting out loud while sitting for 45 minutes.
Trying to remain mindful while visiting the dentist.
Noting out loud while doing chores at home for an hour.
Noting mentally while eating for about 20 minutes.
Noting out loud while doing chores at home for an hour.
Noting out loud while sitting for about 20 minutes, then feeling so tired I took a nap for 50 minutes or so.
Making some notes.
Skype with Kenneth for half an hour, which was very inspiring.

During the sitting meditation attention was fine, but a bit dreamy now and then.
The visual outside world was vibrating very clearly again for 10 minutes or longer.
Sudden humorous inspiration that made me laugh out loud.

During the chores, attention was just fine. There was some wandering mind now and then, but nothing major.
The dentist visit was challenging, especially when we got into a conversation. Noting the worry and some mild fear went well.

2 hour sit, listening (Mahamudra) & binary noting (narrative/stillness), noting out loud, then whispered, then silent

Wow! I really enjoyed this session!
I started out noting randomly for a couple of minutes, until I remembered Kenneths instructions from yesterday.
I started listening for "the ships in the harbor" (in my case trying to hear trains in the distance) alternated with detecting thoughts using binary noting (narrative/stillness).
The listening practice changed a bit over time. I kind of made an inventory of all the sounds I could occasionaly hear in the environment (white noise from my own ears, kids playing outside, rustling of leaves, cars in the distance, cars nearby, bird chatter, sounds from my wife downstairs ...) and tried to listen "further" all the time. I never heard the trains, but kept trying to. When this didn't feel right, I switched to detecting what was missing from my inventory (bird chatter for example) and tried to detect the first event that belonged to this missing "category". This kept me on my toes so well that I really got hooked by the clarity and sharp quality of attention.

In the meanwhile talk thought crept back into the background and I switched to binary noting of "narrative" & "stillness". An excellent method to detect thoughts!
It reminded me of the times when the spontaneous effortlessness and continuous curiosity presented themselves in my meditations.
When it felt right I switched back to listening, and so on ...

In between all that I noted a lot of contentment, restfulness, gratitude, anticipation, openness, well being, happiness, joy, tingling ...
Just SUPER!

1 hour sit, insight practice (1st gear, listening, narrative/stillness), noting out loud, eyes open

Far less alert compared to yesterday's sit. A bit exhausted after handling our 3 year old's temper tantrum at bedtime.
Subtle kriyas now and then, lots of wandering, dreamy states, forgetting to note out loud, I couldn't really get into the listening/mahamudra practice.
This hour seemed to pass quicker than I'm used to.

30 minutes sit, insight practice (1st gear, listening, narrative/stillness), noting out loud, eyes open

Much alerter and more effortless than my first sit today. Noticeably warm hands and feet, buzzing pleasantly. Contentment. Switching between random noting and listening mahamudra style. The first felt contracted, the latter expanded, light and spacious. Random noting seemed to have a center point near my mouth and throat, listening had a broad central area behind me (where my open window let in the sounds from the outside world). Some planning thought, concern about our daughters who are coughing once again, love, feelings or responsibility, restfulness, well being, contentment, openness, narrative, stillness, contraction, listening, expansion ...

50 minutes sit, insight practice (1st gear, listening, narrative/stillness), noting out loud, eyes open

Attention was average, not the clear spaciousness as 2011-05-03. Didn't feel like listening for far away sounds. A bit tired, some recurring planning thought, binary noting of narrative/stillness required effort. A couple of brief moments of feeling spacious when visualising zooming out from human scale to planet, to galaxy, universe, ... but this was immediately followed by feelings and thoughts that wanted to classify all this as silly fantasizing thought.

1 hour sit, insight practice (1st gear, listening, narrative/stillness), noting out loud, eyes open

Attention was fine at first, but towards the end there was once again the super-fast-wandering, where my eyes would have closed themselves without me noticing it. Very dreamy, but also very short lived. Very weird as I wasn't feeling sleepy.

Binary noting of narrative/stillness makes me feel like my meditation is clearer than before, while at the same time I feel it could be far better. Feeling like I should apply this far more often.

I couldn't really bring myself to proper listening practice. Often, listening for distant sounds makes me unaware of mind chatter creeping in at the background. When I notice this, I switch back to narrative/stillness or random noting. I guess I still have to find the right rhythm there.

50 minutes sit, random noting, out loud, eyes open

Attention was average. Again lots of sudden dreamy states and closed eyes. Again no sleepiness.
mapping thought, frustration about not succeeding in listening practice, impatience, boredom, aches, lots of heat building in chest, throat and head. Wandering if the room was that hot?

15 minutes sit, random noting, out loud, eyes open

Frustration about not having time to meditate today, attention wasn't bad but background thoughts kept creeping in, finally some contentment that I at least did a meditation today, although it was so short.