Meekan's meek journal

"I think Kenneth reads them all and only posts when he has something to point out. That's the impression I got from him while talking to him.

I read every post that goes up here. I often don't want to distract people or have nothing else to add."

Yeah that makes sense. Myself I can't manage to read everything that gets posted, but I try to keep up with some threads.

25 minutes noting aloud
4fs in succession, restricting to each category
Bystander for a short while
Mixed noting
Pressure, unpleasant, itching, unpleasant, urge, rising, imaging thought, interpreting thought, nausea, unpleasant, sadness, itching, so on.
Noting these things aloud, sensations were fairly stable for the duration of their presence.

Thanks, mu and omni.
Had a lot of turbulence in my life added to confusion regarding how to practice...
So I decided to go to a lower altitude and lower my speed.
Gave me some distance.
I think I was too preoccupied with form before function, like what category of the four fs did this particular sensation/expression belong to.
I saw that people here interpret the instructions pretty differently.
And noone corrected either one or the other, when sometimes they do contradicting interpretations.
So my intellectual understanding is that form isn't that important.
I think that is helpful.

Therefore, he's back, the man behind the mask...

Awesome!

Glad to have you back. I'm somewhere in the lower nanas right now too. Let's do this!

30 minutes sit noting aloud
Realized I previously noted at approx .25 Hz, so I increased the noting speed.
To get to around 1 Hz I note twice on the outbreath and once on the inbreath.
Not trying to control this, and sometimes it changes, but over time seems to land there.
Noting was perhaps 90% 1st F and all the others represented.
Noting mainly unpleasant, but at times feeling an expansion and uplifted.
Sensations fairly solid, but sometimes dissipating.

40 minutes aloud noting - new, faster and improved stylee
4fs in succession followed by bystander, then mixed.
Drawing blanks at what to say sometimes. Sometimes just saying sitting in those places.
Much pain in back, fairly solid for long times, but going away for periods.
Itching coming and going, fairly solid during stay.
Mind wandering off totally at times, noting thinking, type of thinking or just "wandering"
Frustration, calm noted a lot.
Watched the timer a couple of times followed by judging thoughts.

Keep it up!

Thanks for the encouragement man!

15 minutes aloud
Mixed noting at ~1Hz
"pain" in the beginning maybe 30-40 times in a row
Occasional "unpleasant", "imaging thought", "tired", "expansion"
After a while "itching" 20-30 times in a row.
Sensations fairly solid.
Sometimes noticing that noting was just babbling without any connection to sensation.
And sometimes when mind was wondering automatic noting of "pain" but not connected to a specific pain.

20 minutes aloud
4 fs
Mixed
Pressurr neutral, touch, pleasant, aversion, urge, anxious, pain, unpleasant, judging thought
Much noting of tiredness, anxiety
Not much happened, except for sensations coming and going
Much aversion to sitting and anxiety noted

This is the way my sits look right now - reflection

"20 minutes aloud
4 fs
Mixed
Pressurr neutral, touch, pleasant, aversion, urge, anxious, pain, unpleasant, judging thought
Much noting of tiredness, anxiety
Not much happened, except for sensations coming and going
Much aversion to sitting and anxiety noted

This is the way my sits look right now - reflection
-Meekan"

Perfect. Keep doing this. Think of it as learning to play an instrument. You are getting better with time and practice even though the progress may not be noticeable from one day to the next. The important thing is to practice each day; you will eventually master the skill of noting. Mastery of the skill of noting leads to the end of suffering. When your mind and body are transparent to you in realtime, there is no place for suffering to hide.

Thanks, Kenneth!

25 minutes.
4fs in succession
Still feel fake about the feeling tone noting when I do it separately.

Mixed noting.
Doing it aloud new speed ~1 Hz.
Sometimes just babbling, saying for instance "pain" but there is none. My mind just wandered.
Sometimes catch it and just note wandering or the type of thinking.
It goes fast, itches come and go, pain likewise.
Thoughtz, confusion, tired, wishing thought, planning thought, etc...
Frustration and urge noted,
25 minutes feeling like an eternity resulting in "anxiety, frustration, urge" and the like.
Totally different from before when I could sit for an hour...

Meekan,

Remember the nanas and how progress results in different phenomenon. Certain stages are less pleasant and the mind is more scattered during them.

If you are doing the technique this is what's important. You are catching your tendency to space out and things like that so you are doing it right. Keep doing it and progress will continue.

Kenneth has been stressing the importance of a technique based practice vs. a speculative/state oriented one. I have been coming to appreciate this more as time goes on.

Thanks, mu!
I am really aspiring to just staying with technique, but I try to catch any "progress" or so from the inside. Easy to trip over oneself

Edit: changed a word to a more appropriate one

me too

20 minutes
Just to mix it up sat noting silently
Same aversion, frustration and anxiety wanting me to quit sitting as when noting aloud.
Wandering possibly more, but on the other hand less of mantra noting,i.e. Noting without any relation to what is going on.
Try to find a way to play owen's noting games throughout the days. But spend very little time actually doing it still.

Perhaps need to get some time to sit longer to spend some longer time noting these aversive feelings Ive been having for some time now
but where to take it, ah, where?

30 minute sit noting aloud
4fs, mixed, and a little bystander in the middle
didn't have that hard a time with the aversion
noticed that much of the time this sit, the light I perceived through my eyelids was pulsating in a frequency of maybe 5-10 Hz.
After this, first I noted some hoping and wishing thoughts, but then just noted seeing or vibrating light dispassionately
lots of tension, pain, planning thought, imaging thought, tired, confused
maybe noted 2-3 pleasant
realized at times I said "uncomfortable" when I was "supposed" to say "unpleasant"

20 minutes aloud
Tried 4fs as singles, duobles ans triplets.
Still emotional tone doesn't always ring "true" to me. Like I have to decide, "oh, that was unpleasant, I think"
Tried restricting 3rd to greed, dullness and aversion, but much od it fell outside of those three.
Did the 4th alone.
My mind was acting like the inside of a blend-a-tec.
Mixed noting, sometimes noting without connection tp what was going on, and mind all over the place.

20 minutes aloud
Singles, doubles and triplets.
Then mixed.
In the beginning I noticed the "strobing" quality from before.
Quite subtle.
Then as I continued noting after a while, every bodily sensation, itch, pain, pressure, whatever, disappeared within 2-3 notes, then another one Appeared in another place.
As this was going on I felt quite calm, and my noting speed decreased.
This went on for what I guess would've been 10-15 minutes, and for the last 2 minutes (approx) sensations went back to normal and stayed for alonger while.

15 minutes aloud
Singles, doubles and tripulets.
Then 4th f, over to mixed.
Subtle strobing sensation of light from beginning, coming and going.
At one time, where I often get pressure between eyes on forehead, today I got a pulsating "cutting"pain. Came in pulses for a while, then went away.
Felt like much of the negativity noted was encompassed by a space of quiet joy.
Ended on spacious and joyous note.

30 minutes noting aloud
3*10 follow breath
Singles to triples
Mixed
A little light strobing during beginning
Other than that, itching noted a lot
One monster itch, solid except for increasing, noting tension in muscles and urges to scratch.
Expansion feeling im head
Hearing high pitch beep

-42

You are getting up a little too soon, Meekan. You may be on the verge of something. If you don't want to sit for a long time, no problem; you can get up and walk, but continue to note aloud. A thirty minute sit is just long enough to get frustrated, but not long enough to move into the next phase. Try for 60 minutes of continuous noting.

"You are getting up a little too soon, Meekan. You may be on the verge of something. If you don't want to sit for a long time, no problem; you can get up and walk, but continue to note aloud. A thirty minute sit is just long enough to get frustrated, but not long enough to move into the next phase. Try for 60 minutes of continuous noting."

Yep, you're right!
Have been under time pressure lately.
I have this idea to at least to note during the day, especially now that I haven't had time to sit longer.
But most of the day goes by un-noted, unfortunately...

Thanks for giving me feedback, Kenneth!

Can one crawl right up to A&P territory and fall back several times over the years?
I recognize this from many times before...

20 minutes aloud
1s 2s and 3s, and
F4 alone.
mixed.
some strobing, pretty light, and the light behind my eyelids was playing around like lava before my eyes.
feelings of expansion in head, hearing of beeping
a little strobing
itching, pressures, and one helluva itch on my stomach.
I had shivers and urges and aversion from that itch.
Eventually it went away.
Bliss...

"Can one crawl right up to A&P territory and fall back several times over the years?"-Meekan

Yes. It happens all the time. That's the "chronic yogi." The trick is to get good enough at the technique and apply it consistently enough that you are getting up to the A&P (4th nana) and beyond in each sitting even in daily life (as opposed to just once in a while on retreat). Once you have that level of proficiency, your practice can really take off.

Constancy, not heroics. Just keep up the gentle pressure of mindfulness all day long and keep up the formal sitting and walking as much as possible each day. I recommend a bare minimum of 45 minutes formal noting practice a day. For most people, that won't be enough. Shoot for two 45 minute sessions each day and build up from there. This practice works, but it's no free lunch, and results are commensurate with the amount of time logged.

Keep up the good work, Meekan. You are starting to get the hang of this.

60 minutes aloud sit
4fs + mixed
First part, normal itching, calm, frustration, pressure, unpleasant, neutral
Questioning and wishing thoughts about missing strobe
In the middle the subtle strobe came paired with a sensation of something expanding and sort of lightly thumping the inside of my skull with the same rhythm as the pulsating light. This went away, and I spent quite some time in some interplay between anxiety and calm. Regular bodily sensations.
In the end I sort of gathered speed and maybe the last 10 minutes I haf this feeling like I was more intense and focused in my noting (hard to describe, but like, Ok, let's work hard and do it fast, and not in an unpleasant way)

I will probably be stuck here for a while, since I don't really have time for consistent long sits right now, but I'll do them when I can! Thanks for the encouraging words, K!