Omni's practice log

Some short notes on noting / thinking / listening / talking, the 4 main "techniques" I practice during daily life

1. noting = mentally during daily life or out loud when needed/possible
2. thinking = when the mind has to do other stuff (noting is impossible) then: pay attention to the body/breath whenever possible
3. listening = fully focus on what the other person is conveying, while feeling your reactions in your body and mind
4. talking (thinking out loud) = let myself be surprised with the stuff that comes out of my mouth and the gestures i make & the eye movements i make.

Since a couple of days I'm including paying attention to the boundless (spaciousness) and potent (lucidity) nature of the mind during stillness and thinking, maybe more about that later on. Now time for "Lunch with family - Listening".

Last night was filled with spontaneous lucid dreams. I guess reading Antero's journal yesterday had something to do with this. Also, before going to bed I sat for an hour doing noting practice, feeling sleepy, hovering between dreaming and wakefulness all the time, followed by 15 minutes of samyama practice where I was dozing off all the time after going through all the body labels.

The lucidity started halfway through a normal dream. I was gliding backwards over the ground, touching it only with the palms of my hands. This isn't something I do regularly, so I guess that made me question what was going on.

The visuals turned very vague the moment I realized I was dreaming (unfortunately this happens often for me), however the sensations of my hands touching the ground, the friction, the unevenness of the ground, the sounds of the movements were undistinguishable from reality. The details amazed me. Then I felt I was waking up, I experienced my body laying in bed, opened my eyes briefly and compared these sensations to those of the dream, I could find no convincing differences. Then I must have slipped right back into another dream.

Now I was in some sort of hotel or spa. I got up from a table/bed and started to investigate the environment. The visuals didn't turn vague, but the lucidity was less stable. I seemed to forget I was in a dream one moment to rediscover it the next. This continued throughout a couple of dreams.

Formal practice still consists of at least 1 hour of noting (out loud usually), followed by samyama. I'm also dabbling with inquiry now and then, but nothing steady (yet). Same thing with yoga/mindfulness combo.

Lately I often experience effortlessness during sits, sometimes shortlived, sometimes longer, sometimes it comes and goes in waves. On good days this seeps into daily activities. Remaining mindful during conversations seems to be possible more than it used to, but not all the time.

I often get the feeling of not being in control. Sometimes this gets quite strong. Then it diminishes again for a day or longer, to return all of a sudden. I find myself semi-asking myself things like: Who's doing this (typing)? Who is doing this listening? Who decided to have this thought?

I have a cold (again), and just did my daily hour of meditation. Being this dozy and not feeling like talking all day, I decided not to sit still and note out loud but to observe breath, mindbody, doership ... while going through some simple yoga movements. It was quite interesting: Where do these movements come from? Where do these thoughts come from? Where does all this snot come from?

+1

.

Yesterday I attended a workshop with Wim Hof (aka The Iceman) where I surprised myself by taking an ice bath. To keep up with what I learned, I've added a new shower routine to my daily practice:

1. turn on shower and step in immediately and feel the water warming up
2. the instance I'm totally wet, turn the shower to minimum temperature and stay in there for 10 to 20 seconds (I count breaths)
3. turn off the water, wash myself with soap
4. turn on the water, feeling it warm up again
5. the instance all the soap is washed off, repeat step 2.
6. get out of the shower

Great stuff for your mood and immunity!

@andymr

"Yesterday I attended a workshop with Wim Hof (aka The Iceman) where I surprised myself by taking an ice bath. To keep up with what I learned, I've added a new shower routine to my daily practice:

1. turn on shower and step in immediately and feel the water warming up
2. the instance I'm totally wet, turn the shower to minimum temperature and stay in there for 10 to 20 seconds (I count breaths)
3. turn off the water, wash myself with soap
4. turn on the water, feeling it warm up again
5. the instance all the soap is washed off, repeat step 2.
6. get out of the shower

Great stuff for your mood and immunity! "

Hi Omni,
I have been doing something similar the last few weeks (after reading a thread on DhO).
I am surprised that I can stand it and actually enjoy it!
Makes going to sleep a bit easier.

Hey PEJN, Yeah it grows on you, right?

The night of wednesday April 4th / thursday April 5th was filled with the clearest, most stable lucid dreams I've ever had. I'm sure discussing lucid dreaming with Mumuwu and Villum just a couple of days ago sparked all this.

I won't go into all the contents, but at a given moment I got out of my dreambed (fully aware I was in a dreamworld) turned around to study my wife's face, marveling at the details and how strikingly real this fabrication of my mind looked. I studied the room, found a piano and played it, all keys produced the same tone. I walked over to a window sill with white sculptures on them and started to sketch them on a pad while noting out loud: "contentment, joy, amazement ..."

The dream scenery and topics changed several times and I probably woke up once, to doze off into a new lucid dream, all the time remaining aware of what was going on. There was flying, zombies, streets filled with cars and people, writings, conversations, a river, people making a fire ... and I was investigating it all very interested, amazed at what my mind was producing while "I was in it".

This experience seems to have changed something in how I experience daily life now. I'll try to describe it later on.

The thing that makes me marvel at it is that I can understand how the brain is taking information from the senses and in a very analogue way is producing images and sounds and the like from the data. The data is contained in the world itself, not in my brain. For example looking at a brick wall, I can see texture, slight imperfections, etc. That's all contained there in the physical world.

Somehow, without any input, my brain - which seemingly has a rough time recalling the exact patterns of spots on the last dog I had, can create an ocean with perfect wave physics, and rocks that reflect the sun in a proper way in relation to the position of the sun in the sky, etc. It can recreate my home town at night from a particular location half way up one of the hills before the church, allowing me a view of the beach and coastline in perfect detail with each street-light and house in it's proper place (not to mention the proper stars in the sky). It also can create a crow with shiny black feathers that flies in a perfectly realistic way (instead of something cartoony - which it would be likely to produce if asked to draw a crow).

I don't get it at all

For example, if my brain is creating a simulation that is merely based of the sense data, I would presume that there would be imperfections in the periphery where vision isn't clear. Turning my eye to those areas what becomes clear is consistent with what isn't clear initially. I see a misshapen white blob, turn the eyes and see a blanket which is in the same shape. This make sense in an analogue setup, but not in a simulation type setup - at least how I picture it.

In the dream world, I would also have to turn my dream head or dream eyes in order to see something out at the periphery. I would then need to move my dream legs in order to walk over closer to it and get a closer look.

Again - no conclusions being made here, simply marvelling at it.

Yes, simply amazing!

This is fascinating without a doubt! I have a suspicion that the dream and awake worlds really aren't all that different from the perspective of just the mind's activity. While awake the mind's activity is based on sense contact with the "stuff" the universe is constructed from. (Keeping very much in mind that I have no idea what that "stuff" really looks like or feels like, tastes or smells like other than the version of those things mind is building). While asleep mind is doing exactly the same thing - painting a universe. It's just that this time it's being done from memory and conjecture, without any or maybe very little bits of sense contact. I think the process being employed is the same, though. At least that's my version

Agreed Chris - and this leads me to the conclusion that the conscious mind (the thinker) is far less intelligent than what lies beneath the surface.

Absolutely - and whatever not is has more common sense, too!

After speaking with Antero this week I changed my informal practice from mainly noting to bystander/witness. It feels like a subtle but clear shift. Lately I was experiencing my thoughts, moods and actions as pretty much happening on their own. Arising and passing without much of my control. Quite detached from worrying patterns when they occured ... Intentionally focussing on the observer seems to intensify this, although I feel I still need to get the hang of it.

Formal practice is usually noting out loud, followed by samyama and when there's time left some mindful movements (not really yoga nor tai chi, just what feels right at the moment) which usually brings along a feeling of slight amazement at all this just happening.

Yesterday Mumuwu reminded me of Shinzen's "do nothing" . In the evening when I sat down, this felt like the right thing "to do". However, it was a while since I tried it, so I practiced it wrongly: whenever I noticed the mind focussing on something, I dropped focussing on that sensation instead of dropping the intention to control attention. I reread the instructions afterwards and Shinzen seems to have changed his emphasis from the description in bit.ly/InK5C7 compared to the newer instructions in bit.ly/InK6G4 .

However, it felt quite different from noting practice. There were short intense kriyas throughout the sit (I hardly ever get these anymore otherwise): sudden gasping for air, sudden intense physical sensations that usually are part of an emotion but now appeared by themselves, sudden laughing for no obvious reason, the body shaking all over for a couple of seconds ... I saw less of what was trriggering all this than I probably would have when noting it all, but the body reacted far more. I had little feeling of time passing and when the timer rang I could hardly believe an hour had gone by.

Oh yeah, there were lucid dreams again last night. Not that many as in post 426. but with the same clarity.
I found myself in a strange place again: a building where all the tiles were removed from the floor and walls. Realising this was a dream I touched the walls and felt the friction with the uneven surfaces. I did not much more than look around, watch the lines in the palms of my hands, touch stuff and occasionally note out loud.

I just sat for about an hour while listening to gimu.bandcamp.com/album/beams (thanks Tim!), changing techniques with each track. This went from Shinzen's Do Nothing bit.ly/InK6G4 over Kenneth Folk's noting style to self-inquiry inspired by Gary Weber. I stayed with the latter for longer.

I worked with place/space/distance/locality trying to localize what was observing everything else. There were thoughts like: the music is over there, I can see my feet there, my legs, ...

Then the head proved interesting: why is that called a forehead? Why is that the front? The front of what? And the back of the head? The left and right ears? What are they left and right from? The same with the top of the head, on top of what?

Feeling the (subtle) pressures and tensions of the head I experienced an "empty space" where my brain is supposed to be and heard the sounds of my thoughts come and go there with silence in between them. Thoughts like "What is this sound (thought)? Who/what is hearing this thought? What is left there when the thought has stopped?" repeated themselves.

There was a spontaneous but vague visualisation of a dark space there where thoughtsounds live for a short while (vaguely visualized as coloured puffs of evaporating smoke).

Meditation log:
1 hour divided in 4 quarters

1. Counting breaths from 1 to 21 to 1 etcetera ... (Following the free Aro meditation email course. www.aromeditation.org/ ) The last 5 minutes I started losing track now and then

2. Noting out loud Kenneth Folk style ( bit.ly/Js2cdd ). Quite alert, the visual field seemed to vibrate and flicker now and then. Some of those glitches were more pronounced than others.

3. Self-inquiry on in-breaths with the question "Where am I?" + just being aware on out-breaths. Investigating the feeling of observing the world from somewhere in my head, at/behind the eyes. (2nd gear/witness according to Kenneth). Somewhere halfway the idea popped up that the question "What am I?" on in-breaths and the affirmation "I am that" on out-breaths would be nice to try. According to non-dualism, everything is one thing, so I am all the sensations that I observe, right? Neti-neti in reverse ( bit.ly/Js2hgX ).

4. Viniyasa 2 according to Gary Weber's book ( bit.ly/Js2mBa ). Going through the simple movements continuing the self-inquiry started in quarter 3. : "Where am I?" on in-breaths + "I am that" on out-breaths. During out-breaths the affirmation was repeated several times, pointing to every noticed sensations (in stead of That which usually points to awareness). The attention here felt quite familiar to noting practice (as in quarter 2.) It was interesting to notice how the affirmation felt right for some sensations and wrong for others.

After doing noting practice daily the past 2 years, it feels right to use different tools from my yogi toolbox like today. ( bit.ly/Js2zUZ + bit.ly/Js2ErM ) Especially moving during formal meditation is a nice change.

"I just sat for about an hour while listening to
gimu.bandcamp.com/album/beams
(thanks Tim!),

"

Thanks, that's really nice. You might like this:
www.last.fm/listen/artist/Ishq/similarartists

Hey Eric,
That link is not working here. Any other place I can find it?
You might also like Stars of the lid. I especially like the album "And their refinement of the decline".

Nothing much to report. Still doing an hour of formal sitting a day (sometimes on the bicycle) and as much informal mindfulness as humanly possible. New stuff: mental noting has become much easier + it happens often that I experience life as just happening all by itself, including my body, mind, behavior, speaking ... it just happens, no one is doing it. This spontaneous witnesslike awareness comes and goes in cycles.

Oh, and I seem to have become quite lazy. Not much drive left for things that I once was very ambitious about.

"Thanks, that's really nice. You might like this:
www.last.fm/listen/artist/Ishq/similarartists

That link is not working here. Any other place I can find it?"

The link works for me, maybe you have to register or something. When I just tried it, it did fail and gave a message to retry after about 20 seconds, and then it worked. It does take a few seconds to load. At any rate, Ishq and Ishvara (pseudonyms of Matt Hillier) are worth seeking out IMO. Here's one:



Stars of the Lid is pretty atmospheric, thanks.

@Eric Nice, thanks!