Omni's practice log

Hearing/seeing Daniel Ingram talk about the different ways A&P can occur, really makes things click for me: vimeo.com/23567498
Just what I needed to counter my doubting spree of lately. Thanks Daniel!

Yay!!!

Go Omni!

Hi Omni,

Be confident about your own experience. No extra points are handed out for modesty. In assessing where people are on the map, we rely entirely upon self-reporting. Because of this, yogis who are reluctant to boldly claim their experience as their own are just as hard to diagnose as those prone to flights of fancy. If you have stream entry and you have been validated by me or by the community here, state your claim clearly! Otherwise, everyone gets confused. Especially me. My memory is not so good that I can keep track of where everyone is, so it really helps when you spell it out for us.

Keep on keepin' on!

Kenneth

Thanks Mumuwu and Kenneth. I don't think it's modesty but rather uncertainty. I tend to be uncertain and doubting about lots of things. So I guess it's no suprise that it's the same with the progress of insight.

Now I'm finally pretty sure about having experienced A&P many times. But I'm still doubting about fruitions preceding some of those A&P's. Mumuwu and Antero seem to think I have stream entry: see my log #222 on kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...et=220&maxResults=20
Maybe? I'd like to believe it.

Life has been changing fast for me the past years, so it's hard for me to tell what is causing what exactly.

Anyway, I'm very motivated to keep investigating.
Thanks for all the help guys!

"Life has been changing fast for me the past years, so it's hard for me to tell what is causing what exactly"


Years ago, I heard a quote about meditation, attributed to Charlotte Joko Beck.

"If your life isn't changing, you're doing it wrong."

Hey Andymr,
Great quote. I read Charlotte's books some years ago. Good stuff!

Omni! Hoping for your certainty!
Or maybe there is no certainty?
(no firm ground to stand on, etc...)

"Hey Andymr..."

Call me Andy.

@Meekan Well, as long as it feels as progress in one way or another it's good, right?
@Andy Okido!

1 hour sit, noting out loud, quadruplets (1 hour sit, noting out loud, quadruplets (body sensation + feeling tone + mind-state + thought)

Attention was fine. Finding mind-states was challenging again. Gradually I noticed that more subtle things are mind-states too: 'aversion' for example, 'investigation' helped as well.

1 hour sit, noting out loud, 45 minutes random + 15 minutes quadruplets

I sat down and was alert of the environment, the light on the white closet in front of me, the room around me, sounds from outside, sounds from downstairs, imaging thoughts, planning thoughts, very short talk thoughts (almost proto thoughts) commenting on everything in between all the time.

After a minute or so, there were itches, head jerks (always to the right), tingling ... alternating each other for about 5 minutes.

Then the environment became less noticable, I didn't really register what I saw and heard so much anymore as darkness and occasional hypnagogic imagery kept taking over the visual field. Body sensations stayed in the background mainly. Sometimes the outside world came back and I saw the closet again, felt my body, heard the birds outside, but this never lasted long and I was back to hardly hearing myself noting out loud, feeling restful in these dreamy states. Now and then some excitement/irritation/mild fear was felt in the body without clear thoughts or mind states around that.

-- My guess about the maps:
These dream states might be'dissolution' during which I have a hard time observing anything clearly. The fact that fear-like feelings arise in the body later on seems to agree with this.
Also a while back I went through a period of sharp alertness, intense kriyas and many light fluctuations during sits, those were probably A&P. This eventually stopped, and now I only get very light kriya's anymore and light fluctuations last for hardly a minute anymore, if I even notice them. This seems to agree with Daniel Ingram's Nana & Jhana table at interactivebuddha.com/mctb.shtml

Sometimes I think I'm on my way to 1st path. Sometimes I think I'm going for 2nd path. The latter because how much easier going I have become the past years.

1 hour sit, noting out loud, 45 minutes quadruplets + 15 minutes random

Very similar to yesterday's sit. Before the dream states there was a very sudden, short vibrating of the visual field (* see below). The vagueness of the dream states seems to have decreased. Today the environment was 'allowed' into the meditation again, the hypnagogic images often seemed to be projected on the visual outside world (in this case: the white closet in front of me).

* "very sudden, short vibrating of the visual field"
I've had this before a lot of times and seeing/hearing Daniel Ingram about "dududuh" in this video: vimeo.com/23567498 around 00:13:27,
I thought: "that's it exactly". After that he describes/shows the shaking of the body I felt for weeks during my sits (post #161 for example).
Before that I've already started having stuff with light(s) happening during meditation, which Kenneth told me was the A&P (post #124). Now I'm still a bit puzzled about what I described in post #222. Was it just a startling A&P or was it preceded by a fruition? Since my practice didn't change all that much afterwards, I don't think it was a path moment, but I'd like to be wrong about that.

-- Daily life:
Lately I find it less difficult to disembed during times where the kids (or other family members) are demanding most of my attention all day long. Usually weekends are the hardest for me to disembed, because I hardly get the time for it. But now I see how I can take a step back in my mind more often and observe what's going on. It's still not easy though when the baby's crying, our toddler wants me to play king and princess for hours and my wife is talking to me in between all that ...

I'm meditating in a dream. I'm sitting at the end of a bed feeling intense vibrations going through my spine and upper legs. This gets so strong that I lay down on the bed. I'm not labeling but I'm really absorbed by what is happening. I'm seeing clear hypnagogic images (in a dream I know ) while the vibrations get more intense and now I can hear the vibrations as well. It's like a drill they use to break up streets.

45 minutes, random mental noting, walking our toddler to school and our baby to daycare and back alone.

They were happy in the stroller together and I could practice with mental labels.
Very easy going with some worrying thought now and then. Alertness was sharp, I could 'catch' a lot of sensations, most of it were about registering the environment, my body and my mental reactions to it all. Lots of contentment and loving feelings towards our girls.

As usual walking meditations like these feel very different than seated sessions. I guess it's got to do with being focussed outward more than inward and being engaged more.

1 hour sit, 15 minutes random + 30 minutes quadruplets + 15 minutes random

Another clone of Omni mediation:
Sharp alertness followed by head jerks (although less) followed by outside world fading to background (although less), vagueness, hypnagogic images projected on top of outside world visuals, "dududuh" vibration of visual field, outside world fading even more. Eventually the outside world comes back and a excitement/apprehension is felt rising from my belly to my throat, spontaneously visualised as a grainy red thread. It almost changes into fear. There are no thoughts causing this, at least not that I'm seeing.

Now and then there were some sudden short insights about what is going on, causing me to laugh with surprise, often hard to remember, a bit like a dream.

15 minutes of breath counting + 60 minutes of noting practice = lots of equanimity

Haven't been reporting the past week. Sits were very similar, lots of wandering thought, fantasies, dream images and sounds. Sticky sticky! Some kriyas now and then. Usually head jerks, rocking back and forth and faster smaller vibrations throughout the spine, starting at the base. Sudden fast and short vibrations of the visual field. The past days the stickiness of the dream episodes has been decreasing finally.

Today it was still there now and then, but it made place for lots of ease, enjoying the meditation and everything that entered awareness, feeling okay with slipping in and out of dreamy states, being okay with the loads of pain in my upper back muscles today (got a shot from the doc for that which helped half a day) ... and more patient than ever during the day (very evident during the temper tantrums of the kids). That smells like equanimity to me. I'm even temped to think I'm working towards second path nowadays.

""

75 minutes sit before lunch, 60 minutes sit after dinner, some breath counting but mainly noting practice, quadruplets and random, out loud

The first sit started with counting breaths with eyes closed. Almost immediately there were flashes of light, kriyas, tingling in the belly, chest, throat ...

During noting practice meditation got very pleasant. Lots of contentment, ease, joy, calm yet lively, glad to be alive, gratitude. Sounds gave lots of fulfillment for some reason, even the white noise of silence. Short and sweet random positive remembering thoughts about why I'm doing all this popped up now and then (stuff I read, heard, saw ...) Visual blips now and then. Light 'crazy eyes' making the outside world look as if someone had dropped something "in the water".

Some short and sudden dream episodes now and then, one of them had the image of a golf ball that fluently rolled into a hole, immediately after this there was a jolt of alertness, my eyes flashed open, the outside world was seen very sharply as if someone had turned up the resolution. The same thing with the mind: lots of semi-thoughts and mental states furiously following each other, too many and too fast to note them all, but they were noticed.
Contentment, relief, joy ...

Second sit was similar but less intense, less kriyas, less light fluctuations ... but with the same easily accessible joy and contentment all the time. Yum!

Several sits throughout the day, sometimes 10 minutes, 30 or 40 ...
Very similar all of them: lots of feelings of wellbeing, contentment, ease, very allowing ... light fluctuations both with eyes open and closed, some kriyas now and then, usually short. Some tingling in chest and throat that feels like excitement now and then.

Today I sat for an hour. Familiar things: vibrating of visual outside world now and then, some blips, contentment less prevalent than the previous days.

In the evening I went on another of my bicycle rides. I was feeling hectic at the start (probably work-related), but soon enough there was a lot of joy, restfulness ... again I noted out loud for two hours when no one was around, which was most of the time. Fun times!

Counting 10x10 breaths, followed by noting out loud for an hour, quadruplets and random depending on what felt right from moment to moment, eyes open or closed

Just as yesterday, I was feeling hectic at the start of the meditation. I sighed myself loudly through the breath counts (inspired by something I once heard from Alan Watts), which brought some relief.

During noting practice, feelings of unrest came by quite often. And something new for me: boredom. There were some short dreamy episodes. I enjoyed listening to the rain outside. With eyes closed light flashed brighter now and then, more clearly than usual. With eyes open the outside world seemed to blip off now and then. One of the blips left me saying "wow" involuntarily. A while later there was this inexplicable feeling of opening towards experiences. A sudden and total acceptance that lasted just a second.

The out loud noting changed to whispering, when suddenly there was a rush or glow moving through the whole body from bottom to top: tingles all over the skin circling towards the top of my head, leaving a trail of goosebumps. I gasped and stopped noting because it was so overwhelming. The light behind the closed eyelids became and remained very bright for quite some time (5 minutes?). The whole body straightened itself upwards, the head tilted back a bit as if it wanted to look up. This all felt quite intense, as if something had gripped my body.

Then the tingles disappeared in reverse order: the glow circled back down from the top of my head towards my legs, somewhat loosening that "grip" it had over my body. The light behind the eyelids began fluctuating again and after a while I could start whispering notes again.

I'm feeling very calm and clear now, but also amazed by what meditation can do.

whoa....

cool beans mr.

For the record: something I forgot to log in the previous post ...
Just before the glow thing happened, there was a short episode of random kriyas (rocking left and right, back and forth, semi-circular ...)