Omni's practice log

30 minutes random noting while swimming before noon
Refreshing!

60 minutes random noting out loud in the evening
Nice and clear attention, almost crystal. Easier and less effort as the sit progressed. Nanas not very distinct though. Spontaneous laughter at repulsive mental images, spontaneous laughter at proto thoughts. Enjoying sounds a lot. Appreciating the ability to see thoughts come and go without strolling along with them. Crazy eyes here and there. Contentment mixed with a tad of despair here and there.
Some periods with distinct pressure on forehead, temples, scalp ... almost buzzing.

During the day mildly excited about work, content, lots of patience with the kids, lots of loving feelings, calm and joyful most of the time. Some clinging to all of this.

Listened to www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/08/bg-229-enl...-for-the-rest-of-us/
and experienced a renewed appreciation of simply experiencing the environment around me, switching to experiential attention whenever narrative mode took over. Lots of gratitude for the practice, fellow yogis, great teachers ... Corny enough for you?

Lots of sitting and pingponging on Skype.
Really getting in the hang of "Getting Things Done" lately, especially after seeing David Allen at a local seminar recently. Meditation + GTD = Win
=)

During daily life it feels like the body sensations are intensified. Lots of tingly tensions moving in the chest and throat. I could label those as "restlessness" or "impatience" but it doesn't seem to go further than these bodily sensations. It's not causing me to get lost in scenario thoughts or act restless or impatient. On the contrary, feeling this stuff so intensely seems to make sure my mind doesn't hop on thought trains that cause feelings of self-righteousness that cause unskillful acting out. Weird, interesting, kinda nice... although at the same time it feels like chronic irritation. (Not sure if I'm conveying this clearly enough.)

Yesterday I was alone in the car for a big part of the day, noting out loud, enjoying not having to get anything else done. Just focussing on traffic, my body, the practice... In the evening I sat formally for my daily hour and experienced a lot of clarity. It felt like I was going very deep, but at the same time I was not losing contact with the environment, the sounds, my body. Suddenly there was this sharp pain in my loins. One clear spot of intense pain. At the same time there was a lot of tingling and pressure going on at the head (forehead, scalp, temples). And spontaneously I saw a visualisation of it in my mind. It was like my attention was pulled there: the pain and the mental image of that point. An alarm ringed in my mind reminding me of a story of a friend who once told me of kundalini causing blisters on his body. I strongly felt like I should take my attention away from the visualisations or I would seriously hurt myself. I tried doing this by noting the sudden overwhelming fear, the talk thoughts, the sounds in the room ... (cont.)

(cont.) This helped, the pain diminished.

Today's meditation was less clear, again some dreaminess I haven't experienced the past week. Some sudden laughing or being startled at protothoughts. When the dreaminess lessened, I just let the mind do whatever it wanted. I stopped noting for a while and noticed I stayed aware. Something I'm noticing more and more in daily life as well. I tend to have the body in awareness most of the time, so the noting seems less important to stay with what's actually going on.

After the increased intensity of feelings and decreased reactivity of my actions as of late, dreaminess has crept back into formal meditation this week. The first days it was rather mild, with alternating periods of clarity and dreaminess.

Now most mediations start out with 10 to 15 minutes of clarity, where the outside world is included. After that an inevitable dreaminess takes over, the outside world disappears, sometimes the out loud noting stops for a couple of minutes and when it doesn't, it's as if it has very little to do with me. Just a distant almost inaudible voice noting away... I've tried a couple of times to stay with the meaning of the words and the sensations they point to, but this never works for long. There's a dark 'warm' soothing stream of vague short-lived inner images, sounds, music, memories, fantasies... with an unresistable pull.
Even when I meditate while standing up. Been there, done that, and here it is again.

Sometimes I still doubt whether I'm just dozing off, but it's just not the same. Yes there is yawning, yes the eyes tend to close themselves, yes there are hypnagogery, and yes it feels as if there is no concentration, but when I get up the body doesn't feel as it does after a nap, no feelings of wooziness or mild disorientation. Very much awake.

Oh, this has been going on for quite a while (months?), but I never mentioned it here: almost everytime I lay in my bed in the evening with my eyes closed, ready for sleep, there's violent random flashing of light behind the eyelids.

Formal meditation is relatively uneventful. The pull of the dream-episodes has lessened a great deal. Pressure on the forehead usually manifests at the beginning of meditation and is less strong than it used to be. After that it disappears or doesn't take center stage anymore. I'm paying more attention to what Shinzen calls 'soaking':

"A period of intently focusing on what you noticed. This typically lasts for several
seconds, during which you intentionally soak into it and open up to it." - bit.ly/ojbWwq

... this is only possible again now the dreaminess is less inevitable. Sometimes thoughts seem to diminish as the meditation progresses. Or they just jump in and out of awareness.

And ... back to full blown dreaminess today. From the first to the last minute of the 1 hour meditation.
Utterly impossible to pay attention. The out loud noting stops all the time and it often takes me a minute or longer to notice that this happened. Then I utter a label or two only to find myself back in hypnagogic images, sounds, vagueness, sinking feelings ...

About 40 minutes pingpong noting on Skype.
The pull of the dreaminess was there most of the time, a bit like a soothing warm blanket.
But again and again the voice of my meditation partner kept me from getting sucked into it entirely. So, constantly swinging back and forth between surrendering to it on one hand and distrusting it on the other.
I'm just so conditioned to out loud noting that 'failing' at it cause all kinds of frustrating thoughts.

For the past week both formal meditation and daily life brought clearer attention to detail in my experiences. More ease and trust. Lots of pleasant positive feelings. Here and there a shorter period ( a couple of hours) of dullness, difficulty to stay mindful in daily situations and full-blown dreaminess during formal meditation. But for the most part clear, content and thoughts seeming less numerous, less compelling. I have come to realise that anxiety about certain issues has diminished strongly the past months. Almost inexistant even.

Lots of meditation today. An hour here, an hour there, sitting on the cushion, riding my bicycle, Skyping with Nadav, trying out jhanas, seemingly succeeding at accessing far more than I had thought was possible for me. Now of course doubting the whole thing again.

Tomorrow I'm attending a Pragmatic Dharma Virtual Workshop with Kenneth and Vince on Mahamudra noting:
www.pragmaticdharma.com/workshop/
Looking forward!

"If we were to put our minds to one powerful wisdom method and work with it directly, there is a real possibility we would become enlightened.
Our minds, however, are riddled with confusion and doubt. I sometimes think that doubt is an even greater block to human evolution than is desire or attachment. Our society promotes cleverness instead of wisdom, and celebrates the most superficial, harsh, and least useful aspects of our intelligence. We have become so falsely 'sophisticated' and neurotic that we take doubt itself for truth, and the doubt that is nothing more than ego's desperate attempt to defend itself from wisdom is deified as the goal and fruit of true knowledge.
This form of mean-spirited doubt is the shabby emperor of samsara, served by a flock of 'experts' who teach us not the open-souled and generous doubt that Buddha assured us was necessary for testing and proving the worth of the teachings, but a destructive form of doubt that leaves us nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for, and nothing to live by."

"Doubts demand from us a real skillfulness in dealing with them, and I notice how few people have any idea how to pursue doubts or to use them. It seems ironic that in a civilization that so worships the power of deflation and doubt, hardly anyone has the courage to deflate the claims of doubt itself-to do as one Hindu master said: 'turn the dogs of doubt on doubt itself, to unmask cynicism, and to uncover what fear, despair, hopelessness, and tired conditioning it springs from'. Then doubt would no longer be an obstacle, but a door to realization, and whenever doubt appeared in the mind, a seeker would welcome it as a means of going deeper into the truth."
Sogyal Rinpoche from Glimpse of the Day.

Thanks Mu!
Yes I notice it's about not planting the flag too soon & trusting experience for what it is.

The past week it's like the contrast between sharpness and dullness of attention has been increased. But it seems totally random. I usually meditate in the afternoon or evening, according to the day's schedule, whether the kids are home or not ...The dreamy dullness is very unpredictable. Sometimes I go to the cushion in the evening, thinking I'm too tired and I'll have a crystal clear meditation, sometimes it's the middle of the day and I can't seem to concentrate at all.

The 'sharp' sits bring an almost immediate crystal clearness of attention, a constant effortless noticing of sensations, too many to label, things are buzzing, the visual outside world often seems to vibrate incredibly fast. When it's like this, it feels better to stop noting out loud. Sometimes I keep pressing my fingertips alternatingly together with each mental note to have a feedback mechanism going, but often I can even stop the noting altogether and just sit there with crisp awareness.

Last friday was the most awake and vivid meditation ever. My body reacted automatically to any form of sneaky dullness by rekindling itself with energy as soon as the tiniest bit of dullness reared its head. There was a tendency to stick with phenomena for longer than usual, like the white noise of silence, a tingling sensation, a pressure ... Attention effortlessly stayed there for a minute or so, in stead of jumping around every second. It was intruiging.

Today I was struck by dullness again, very noticable in daily life. There was a tendency for negative thoughts and emotions, but with a new openness to it, some kind of trust that it must not be resisted or manipulated ... the only way out is through. To my surprise formal meditation wasn't dull at all. Not crystal clear, but very awake. Afterwards it was as if my batteries were charged again.

Enjoyed an hour long variation on meditation on sound, trying to achieve nothing and not even that. Attention cycling, alert, dreamy, sharp, dull, warmth of the sun, pleasure of breathing, aches of sitting still, drones of the instrumental music, sudden thoughts and amusement, urges to do stuff, urges to worry about things, basking in the luxury not having to give in to any of it ... Meditation kinda rules.

Oh bummer, dukkha shizzle hit my fan big time.
Total negativity, lack of purpose, listlessness, dissatisfied, confused, bored, aversion to practice ... what a contrast to recent times where everything seemed to make more and more sense. Falling down the equanimity cloud? Rolling down the A&P peak? Midlife crisis? Old patterns rearing their heads? Bleeurgh!

Spent the largest part of yesterday at a family party. Had fun with all the kids that were running around there. Felt better much better afterwards. Woke up today and found that the overwhelming sensations of futility and listlessness had gone.

Sat for an hour, soon noticed a feeling of intense restlessness: tingly tension in chest, throat, impatience ... this lasted for a long time. Towards the end of the sit, these sensations finally disappeared and I felt calm again. Feelings of hands and face buzzing, the visual outside world subtly buzzing as well.

1 hour noting out loud

At first there was the familiar swinging back and forth between clarity and dreaminess. When this stopped (after 20 minutes?) I saw clear light fluctuations with closed eyes. More clear than I'm used to lately. Suddenly I experienced everything as if I was dying. Concerns that bug me lately seemed so unimportant, small things seemed so valuable, tears were pouring down my cheeks. It was as if a veil was removed, a numbness disappeared.

I blame Villum for planting the 'preparing to die' seed in my mind last tuesday at the G+ hangout ( is.gd/S3AlV9 ). ;) I didn't intend to do anything with it, but it decided all by itself to take over my meditation today.

Every eye movement reveals a brand new world.

It's been a while since I logged.
The main development in my practice seems to be threefold:
1. an increased sense of trust in how I go through life (an appreciation of not-knowing)
2. more mildness towards myself and others
3. disembedding seems easier (mind states and thoughts are seen as much less important than they used to)

This is in general. There are days that doubt, distraction, negativity and reactivity is very much there, but this usually doesn't last too long.

Formal practice still consists mainly of a daily hour noting out loud, quadruplets now and then, going for a swim twice a week while noting mentally. And lots of informal practice during the day. Thinking about giving 2nd gear and jhana practice more attention.

I feel lots of appreciation for the Skype sessions with KFD yogis and the weekly Virtual Sangha Hangout(s) on Google+.

Last night meditation happened spontaneously during a dream. I was in a hostile environment, walking unprotected through a corridor. I could feel fear start to overwhelm me. Although they were fast and intens, its components (thoughts, physical sensations) got disembedded while they arose. The dreambody felt taller and slimmer than my normal body. The disembedding allowed me to keep walking down that corridor in stead of freezing.

1 hour sit

I started with some Witness practice ( bit.ly/vx87zZ ) where I asked myself mentally "To whom does this (tension, thought, sound ...) arise?". After a while it felt more right to ask "To what does this ... arise?". After a short while I closed my eyes and noticed subtle light fluctuations.

I didn't stick to this practice for long, took on another sitting posture and started noting out loud. Immediately there was a very physical experience of what could be labeled as panic: mainly the inside of the chest felt very uncomfortable, irritable and as if a big fist was squeezing it firmly. I could not find thoughts causing this panic/fear/intense discomfort. It lasted for some minutes before it diminished. After that it lingered for about another 5 minutes in the background while other sensations took center stage: light fluctuations, dreaminess ...

Dreaminess now started coming in short but powerful waves: about a minute of what almost felt like losing consciousness followed by normal awareness followed by another strong dreamwave, followed by another "normal" wave, ... and so on. A couple of times I was mildly startled out of a dreamwave into normal awareness, as if a subconsious thought had suprised me. In those cases I could feel a faint memory but was unable to recall the contents. Eventually the dreamwaves became shorter and shorter and could be detected before they really took over.

There was a short period of boredom. Then the dreaminess seemed to come back for a while, then there was normal awareness again.

1 hour sit noting out loud, sometimes single notes, pairs, quads, whatever felt right

I had a minor conflict when my oldest daughter left for school. I reacted unskillfully and afterwards I was home alone with my feelings of regret, frustration, despair, disappointment with myself, unpleasant sensations in head, chest, throat ...

When meditating I could notice all this stuff coming and going repeatedly very clearly without extra pushing or pulling towards what was happening. There was a lot of acceptance towards my own despair, frustration, desire to act more skillfully ... After a while the theme of the thoughts that came up changed from "being a lousy parent" to "anger about my physical ailments" which is usually a number-one-hit when negativity kicks in. When this theme popped in and out of my mind there was a background of boredom with all of it. Less like despair, more like giving up the illusion of control. As the meditation progressed the negativity dissipated largely and came up less and less. The body started to feel ever more relaxed and I was watching the light in the room change as the clouds were passing by the sun outside.

Throughout the sit attention was exceptionally sharp. Some subtle dreaminess now and then, but nothing compared to yesterday. And somehow I even remained mindful within the dreaminess. This hour was a sweet and sour experience. Negativity on the one hand and mild acceptance on the other.

Feeling very "against the grain" yesterday and today. Annoyed with myself and the world. Unpleasant tingly tensions in chest and throat, subtle tensing in the face and scalp. Everything seems to require far too much effort. Nothing seems to be worth the energy.

* 30 minutes of walking meditation (silent quads) from station to home
Unpleasant physical sensations in chest and throat were very clear. Contracting tense tingly stuff moving around there. About halfway I turned the quads around. Instead of going through the foundations 1 to 4, I reversed it 4 to 1.
Where I would usually note something like "tension, unpleasant, investigation, imaging thought" I would go "imaging thought, investigation, unpleasant, tension".

This was not easy at all. I really had to try my best to stick to the proper foundation all the time, being so used to the familiar 1-2-3-4 order. But to my surprise my body started to feel neutral and even pleasant. The contracting tensions disappeared quite quickly. Thoughts were almost absent.

* 60 minutes of noting out loud
At home I had a conversation and went upstairs for an hour of formal sitting. By the time I sat, the unpleasant sensations were back with a vengeance. I tried the Witness but couldn't be bothered, too much work! I noted randomly, tried quads and even though I had just experienced relief during walking meditation I couldn't bring myself to reverse the quads this time.

When I reread post #393 from last monday I realize once again how fleeting everything is. I've been in this strong negativity for three days now. Irritable, reactive, impatient, unskillful and filled with doubt and despair. Strong desire for relief.

Time for a change.

I can't say I haven't tried, but the progress of insight, the nanas, jhanas and some techniques like the witness haven't made as much sense to me as I would have liked them to. Maybe I misinterpret things or maybe they're not my cup of tea or I'm just silly ... on a good day I don't even care.

Shinzen's rap about increasing clarity, concentration and equanimity always kept making sense to me, and I have definitely seen progress in my daily life, just not in the order the nana's seem to suggest. In general I'm a much happier bunny than a couple of years ago. But am I first, second or (nearly) third path? Honestly, I don't know! I do feel there's still a lot of stuff that needs to be let go of.

I'm glad to have experienced things like A&P, equanimity, strong feelings of liberation (path?) and to have something to blame days like today on. (misery nana?) But I give up on frustrating myself with trying to map things. It's just too doubtful for me.

Time to go back to a more playful approach. For my daily hour of formal practice I'm thinking of trying a different technique for each day of the week for a while, a bit like I did with Shinzen's 5 Ways just before discovering this place. I used to practice "Focus in" on mondays, "Focus out" on tuesdays, "Focus on rest" on wednesdays, "Focus on flow" on thursdays, "Focus on positive" on fridays and whatever on weekends. (Hey, where did my yogi toolbox go?)

Not sure yet what exactly it'll be like now, maybe it'll involve throwing dices.
Mumuwu reminded me of "Do nothing" which I used to enjoy a lot, so I'm starting there today. Nik suggested to actually do what the Anapanasati Sutta says, in the order it's written there. Makes a lot of sense too.

I'll keep you posted.