Omni's practice log

I sat for an hour, whispering labels, eyes closed.

+ pleasant
- unpleasant
/ neutral

I noted a lot of: tingling/, pulsing/, throbbing-, simmering/, fluttering/, warmth rising and some occasional involuntary movements of arms and eyes. In between those and mainly towards the end there was impatience, questioning thought, anger, frustration, agitation.
Some of the spreading flutters in the chest seemed emotional, but I usually didn't get to think what it "meant", the somatic part was so much on the foreground. There were a couple of times where I seemed to have lost track and stopped speaking the notes.
Today I couldn't sit still the full hour, just four minutes before the timer went off I grew VERY restless and glanced at the time and practiced lying down for those last minutes.

"Today I couldn't sit still the full hour, just four minutes before the timer went off I grew VERY restless and glanced at the time and practiced lying down for those last minutes."-omnipleasant

Moving is no problem as long as you are noting carefully the whole time. But look at what an interesting situation this is. You were so "VERY restless" that you could not sit there for four more minutes. What could possibly be so unbearable? There must have been some sensations or thoughts that you were unwilling to be with. Those are precisely the sensations and/or thoughts that carry the richest reward once you turn toward instead of away from them. Next time that happens, get really interested in this puzzle. "What exactly is going on here?" Don't miss the aversion, agitation, futility, or whatever mind states arise. Be a scientist or a detective and see if you can unravel this mystery through careful observation.

Hi Kenneth,
Yes that is spot on. There was an underlying quality in the meditation I couldn't really describe. Something brooding and uninvestigated that probably caused the impulsive behaviour at the end.

Today I practiced noting out loud for about 45 minutes while mowing the lawn. For some time I dedicated each grass lane to a different foundation of mindfulness, making pairs, then letting my attention run freely through the four foundations.

After that I vacuumed the house for half an hour, observing what came up in my thoughts, especially noticing questions I wanted to ask about practice.

Then I had a one hour Skype session with Kenneth Folk that really opened my eyes (and closed them and made them flicker )

Finally I Skyped with Vincent Horn who led me through a core transformation session.

Right now I'm noting: "happiness, gratitude, apprehension, warmth, excitenment, tension, pulsing, worrying thought, imaging thought, remembering thought, planning thought, itch, investigating ...),

+ pleasant
- unpleasant
/ neutral


For about half an hour I cleaned the kitchen and put the groceries away while noting out loud: "heaviness/, tension-, coldness/, lightness+, itch, planning thought, imaging thought, remembering thought, evaluating thought, gratitude, apprehension, softness+, pressure/ ..."

Then I sat for an hour, noting out loud or whispered, eyes open but letting them close when they did so on their own. I paid attention to what Kenneth told me about yesterday on Skype: "the wheel". And indeed I noticed how the mind naturally went from noting different things (itch-, pressure-, amusement, remembering thought, imaging thought, pulsing ...) to settling down more on a pulse or an itch. To my surprise my eyes closed themselves at some point (not due to sleepiness) and started to flicker, which I could concentrate on without effort. After a while (ten minutes?) the eyes opened again and even looked around on their own, while the mind got back to noticing "seeing, hearing, pressure-, imaging thought". This repeated itself all the time. Besides flickering, half of the time the eyes did different involuntary things though: moving left and right from slow to very fast or "pointing" at different parts of the visual field without really looking for something there. The latter was very rhytmic and staccatto. These things keep amazing me, so I noticed: "moving, light, dark, soft focus, amazement, interest"
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Towards the end of the sit (last 15 minutes?) there was lots of unpleasant pressure where my sitting bones touched the cushion. Although I know it's okay to move, I was more interested in seeing what would happen when I just sat it out. Like Kenneth wrote here yesterday: like a detective or scientist. The unpleasant pressure didn't change all that much, the changes happened ever so slowly. It was hardly trackable. But what did change noticably was how my attention cycled from A. "pressure-, impatience, planning thought (wanting to move, wanting to sit it out), fantasizing thought, itch-, fluttering and warmth rising in chest, curiosity (wanting to look at the clock), interest (the underlying feeling of wanting to sit it out) to B. "flickering (eyes), moving (eyes), strobing ..." and back to A.

When the timer went off there was a lot of "contentment, gratitude, amusement, relief". I lied down for another 5 minutes to observe how the tensions and aches went away.

I guess the thing that made me get up the last time I tried to "sit it out" (see 20100914) was a mixture of aversion to the pain + impatience + unconscious repeating of things I read about people mocking meditators.

I sat for an hour, noting out loud, paying attention to the wheel of concentration.

Almost immediately the familiar hand sensations "warmth, tingling, throbbing" came to the foreground again. I noted occasional "affection, smiling, amusement" because of seeing the wide-awake baby lying there kicking her legs and waving her hands non-stop. Concentration started to cycle clearly after a short while. There was some eye-flickering but also R.E.M.-like open-eye-movements again, so I noted: "seeing, moving, shaking (visual field)". Also quite some involuntary arm movements and subtle circular head movements as if it was a smooth ball barely balancing on my neck: "moving, amazement". There was a lot of sleepiness and hypnagogery too.

During daily life there was quite some worrying thought and an annoying aversion to doing noting practice, as if the worrying part of me wanted to keep on worrying and saw the noting practice as some kind of intrusion, so I noted: "worrying thought, aversion, dullness, annoyance" a lot.

I sat for an hour, noting out loud, eyes closed.

The quality of attention was different than usual. Even when random hypnagogic images started to appear, there was no sleepiness or spacing out. There was a kind of ease and directness/honesty concerning mind states. There were lots of unvoluntary jerking head movements (like nodding 'yes' or shaking 'no'), one of those was really hefty. The familiar hand sensations (warmth/, tingling/) cycled in and out of awareness. For some minutes there were two seperate itches that seemed to pulse rhytmically on turn. When one itch went "on" the other went "off" and vice versa. Although they were quite intense, those itches were noted as neutral. There was some presure and stinging on the forehead and on the left top side of the head. The discomforts that usually accompany a one hour sit were hardly there. The last minutes there was some impatience as if I knew time was up. No flickring of the eyes today and no clear awareness of "the wheel".

Practice nowadays: 1 hour sits, 1st gear noting practice, usually out loud or whispered.
As soon as I start to meditate the warm tingling hand sensations get switched on instantly. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now. The involuntary movements seem to increase with each sit. Usually it's the head that shakes for a second, the left arm, the left hand, the eyes that have a mind of their own. New today: 1. head tilts diagonally to the left and stays there, 2. at one point when I closed my eyes a red textured orb appeared for a couple of minutes. I feel like it's easier to just sit the past days: much less impatience, the normal aches are still there, but don't seem to bother me much.

+ pleasant
- unpleasant
/ neutral

The things I note are usually: "itch-, tension-, coolness+, warmth+, pressure-, longing, planning thought, imaging thought, remembering thought, fantasizing thought, comparing thought, worried, frustration, contentment, restfulness, hope, anticipation, doubt, uncertainty"

Still doing 1 hour sits per day, 1st gear noting style out loud. Attention varies depending on how much sleep I'm allowed by the little ones.

Today I noticed "the wheel" quite clearly. I just let it happen: attention is drawn to gross sensations, then settles more on an itch or a pulse, the eyes often close by themselves and start to flicker or not. I just notice without intervening. When attention is drawn to the flickering eyelids, the sensations of the outside world seem to be further away, almost unnoticable.

What was nice about today's meditation was a period of 5 or 10 minutes where the eyes were closed and the attention was very "easy-going" and clear. During the noting out loud the noticed sensation was detected quite detailed without much interference of other things that went on at the same time, so really taking a couple of seconds to clearly notice "warmth, itch, pulsing ..." before going to the next "pressure, imaging thought, whatever ..."

The past week I also notice how I'm noting less and less "after the facts". I know more other sensations went on at a given moment, but see that they are memories by the time I get to noting them all. I just keep a steady pace of noting and I'm able to stick more to what is actually happening here and now in stead of trying to note every single thing. This is probably in contrast to what Daniel Ingram describes at a certain point in his book where he tries to notice every single thing. My sweet spot of balanced concentration/investigation seems to be on the slower side.

"Still doing 1 hour sits per day, 1st gear noting style out loud. Attention varies depending on how much sleep I'm allowed by the little ones.

Today I noticed "the wheel" quite clearly. I just let it happen: attention is drawn to gross sensations, then settles more on an itch or a pulse, the eyes often close by themselves and start to flicker or not. I just notice without intervening. When attention is drawn to the flickering eyelids, the sensations of the outside world seem to be further away, almost unnoticable.

"

Nice. Very much like my practice right now (except for the little ones).

"Today I noticed "the wheel" quite clearly. I just let it happen: attention is drawn to gross sensations, then settles more on an itch or a pulse, the eyes often close by themselves and start to flicker or not. I just notice without intervening. When attention is drawn to the flickering eyelids, the sensations of the outside world seem to be further away, almost unnoticeable."-Omnipleasant

Nice description of the wheel, Omni. You've got this. Now ride the wheel all the way home!

Looking forward to your next report.

Kenneth

"Nice description of the wheel, Omni. You've got this. Now ride the wheel all the way home!

Looking forward to your next report.

Kenneth"

Thanks Kenneth!

"Nice. Very much like my practice right now (except for the little ones)."

They are little zen masters.

I'm no longer reporting daily because of time limits and the fact that I often have nothing new to report. I do sit daily for an hour. Today however I have something I'd like to share.

I sat for the usual hour, noting out loud the four foundations phenomena first gear style.
I had just read an e-mail of a friend that kept lingering in my mind during the meditation. A part of me really wanted to think about a good reply. The noting however seemed to stop those thoughts whenever they came up. So after approximately half an hour I decided to stop noting and see what happened when I did nothing deliberately.
(For a couple of times the noting automatically went on mentally.)

There was this clear cycle: thoughts and associations about the e-mail reply came up, awareness spotted them (without me doing anything deliberately) and I noticed several times that *I* really needed to feed the thoughts if I wanted them to go anywhere logically. But I didn't feed them, so they vanished on their own or led to associations that were either logical or absurd. Without my deliberate engagement the thoughts led to no useful result, although there were some spontaneous insightful associations. The lingering feeling of wanting to find a good reply didn't go away so quickly, although eventually it vanished (until now that I'm reminded of it).

Also interesting was how the thought streams glided into unconsciousness (subconsciousness?), causing me to space out for half a minute or so, until awareness spotted this trend, pulled the thought stream back to where I could "see" it and kind of gave me the choice: "are you going to do something with this or not"?

I guess this is the wheel (of concentration/awareness/investigation) revealing itself in a different form?

Still doing daily 1 hour sits, noting out loud.

Lately during daily life and in my dreams there has been a lot of despair, worrying, doubt, self-doubt, regret, confusion, frustration ...
During practice there are some newcomers to the group of involuntary movements. Next to the head jerking and arm shaking there is subtle wobbling of the entire body, sometimes from left to right, sometimes from back to front.

Today's sit was full of sadness, crying, tension, melancholy, pressure, agitation, restlessness, concern, imaging thought, remembering thought, fantasizing thought ... but also a lot of gratitude.
It was once again striking how a long lost memory (20 years ago!) suddenly popped into my head causing all kinds of mayhem although the memory itself was rather harmless.

Good stuff omni!

Must really be making some progress then!

Re: post 90.
I'm doing a lot of the same thing in watching my thoughts and just let them be without getting tangled up in them. It's fascinating to watch them pop up then disappear, and realize that in daily life I would grasp on to them so strongly. It puts perspective into my daily life, these thoughts are not me and just pop into existence and leave. I can just allow them to do this without giving them more importance then they deserve, thoughts just become something to observe, like clouds or someone walking down the street. They are real, but barely scratch the surface. But that's just me. See Clearly.

Same old same old, I just haven't been logging it here: 1 hour sits, noting out loud or whispered, lots of different sensations in all 4 foundations. Almost always: tingling hands, head jerking. Very little eye flickering lately.

@RevElev
What I think about thoughts (!) lately: there's a time and place for everything, use the tools for what they're supposed (Charlotte Joko Beck would call this 'functional thinking' I guess).
Thinking has its merits, but it's the unconscious auto-pilot version that gives it a bad reputation. Sorry for being a bit cryptic perhaps, gotta dash, have an appointment with my wife.

Daily 1 hour sits, 1st gear noting.

I had a couple of days of unexplainable restlessness. No idea if it had anything to do with practice. I was very intolerent in general towards everything and anything, but tried not to let it show too much. Luckily this passed. Since a couple of days I've been noticing more clearly how subtle self-talk can be. The dialogue/monologue that urges me to do something in a certain way seems to be much more silent than for instance a tune that's stuck on repeat in my head. Usually I remember the self-talk (or images) when I detect the emotional reaction in my body, or I don't and I simply act out what I was silently rehearsing in my head a minute or so ago.

These subtle thoughts that seem to whisper how I should act are something I'm going to try to detect better.

Still daily 1 hour sits, 1st gear noting (Trying to report here more often again ...)

The usual itches, tingling of the hands, head twitches, again some eye flickering, recurring tensions and tingling at the top of the head.
Less and less spacing out lately, even though I'm not getting enough sleep BY FAR. I do notice there's still a strong undercurrent of subtle interpretation going on while meditating, even though I'm getting less involved in the contents of thoughts. Also noteworthy is how the sensations of stable sitting (Birmese posture) are causing lots of contentment / joy the past weeks.
Lots of irritability in daily life, but that might just be the chronic sleep deprivation acting up.

sounding good!

Keep chewing...

I think I'll try going back to the good ol' burmese posture. I've had some of my best sits in that posture. Lately I've been using a reclining chair, but if I'm lacking in the sleep department, it's a bit too comfortable.

Yeah "too comfortable" is not good for my sits at all.

Not skipping a day since I started: 1 hour sits, 1st gear noting.

Today a lot of pain at the sitting bones (buckwheat hurts!), coolness, warmth, pulsing, tingling, sleepiness, itch, imaging thought, ... and some weird things with sight. I meditate with my eyes open, but sometimes the image before me disappears for a split second or it's as if someone is playing with a fader so that the light gets brighter or darker in cycles, there were some faint coloured blobs (green, blue, purple) ...