Meekan's meek journal

Yeah, great reports Meekan. Keep it up!

"Yeah, great reports Meekan. Keep it up!
"

Thanks!

45 minutes of silent noting.
Some of the nastiest itches in face imaginable, but calm, observing, interested.
Watching urges come and go.
Wonder why I'm back here? Something more to be learned from surrendering to these worms crawling in my skin, I s'pose

1hr
Clear pulsing in beginning
Through fairly nice territory to a pretty neutral, pretty dark period.
Then an expanding period with some strange imsge of standing on a great, growing skyscraper. It was growing as I stood on it.
It went from being white to dark, and suddenly I was on the same skyscraper in a dark tim burton-scene.
Some itches, but more of the normal kind.
Some graininess to sensations.
Concentration on breath last 6 minutes, no absorption though.

50 minutes
Calm.
After a while some expansion and motion feeling.
Then had an incredible itch in my ear caused by some water I got during a shower.
I investigated and stayed with it, but after a longer period I gave up and scratched my itch.
Then I had some judging thoughts about giving up and not investigating more, exploring surrender.
Well, can't win 'em all

Wow, lotsatraffic around here now
Went away fora couple of days.
Not much room for sitting. Tried some lying down, but concentration nowhere to be found.
Mindfulness during days hard to maintain at the moment.

Good to see you back!

1hr35 min
45 minutes noting aloud
First some pulsing, then calm throughout with bodily sensations, thoughts and all noted.
Then some swift stretches and movement and switched to sitting on zafu noting silently.
In the beginning thoughts on "how will I stand this?" and preoccupation with posture.
Then I had for much of the time a very pronounced divide between a very calm container and turmoil and chaos inside of this.
Like there was calm surrounding, and sometimes the chaos was just observed, and sometimes I stepped to close and got sucked into thevortex acting on chaos, and aversion. Then stepping out and calmly observing.

"Good to see you back!"

Hi K!
Thanks for the kind welcome!

I came to think of one thing when seeing your avatar.
Kenneth often says that the turtle always wins.
I realized in this context (the practice) I feel like the slug that was robbed by a turtle, and when asked by the police what happened answered :"I dunno, officer, it alll happened so fast!"



Wonder if Zeno had any ideas on slugs and tortoises?

That's hilarious!
Since that was my best laugh today, here's one that cracked me up, in case you didn't see it: www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=747#comic (I think Owen posted this a couple of weeks ago.)

Lol!
Hadn't seen it, thanks!

45 minutes silent on zafu
Watching physical pain from a pretty calm place and sometimes noticing being sucked in by habit responses to pain and trying to control/escape through thinking, etc...
A very common pattern is, notice pain, zoom in on it, look for graininess/pulsing, finding subtle pulse/movement/graininess, observing it for short while, pain (or itch or whatever) disappearing.
A little fear that I am "forcing" the filter of graininess on the pain, i.e. Manipulating it so it becomes grainy instead of finding its inherent graininess.
If someone reads this and has a thought... Is this an issue?

After a certain point in the strata (from a vipassana point of view) more pain,suffering,disorientation,etc. is a sign of progress

The fear of forcing something is unneeded, you should see that fear as just more arising phenomenon. Seeing the impermanence in sensations is the point. Looking at something and seeing it's components is not manipulating. If that were the case, sitting down to meditate would be considered manipulating.

Thanks, Mu.
I think I got that, and I did this previously as well. It is more that after getting useful pointers on looking at a wall in dim light I now look after the same quality in the sensations.
Earlier I saw it as wriggling around, waxing and waning, etc.
My worry is that if someone told me to "look for the redness in things", I would have cognitively superimposed red on everything I see.
But as I asked, maybe this isn't an issue. Maybe it's more of knowing what too look for than trying to makeeverything look a certain way.

Thanks for being so generous with your advice!

Edit.

Mu's been giving me the same advice, and let me tell you, both he and his advice totally rock! Reading these reports is the best testimony I've seen to the fact that we all go through more or less the same things, although details can vary.

Yeah, Laurel.
I constantly try to verbally express my gratitude to Mu that he actually takes the time to offer so much guidance.
It is hard to convey some of what I'm wondering over text like this sometimes though.
In this case I know that Mu wants us to see the true nature of things.
What I am trying to express is that I wonder if I in trying to see this am doing something akin to "scripting" i.e. see something I really don't.
That is, am I trying to fool myself that I am actually perceiving something that Mu gave me a very clear image of.

Meekan in that vein, note your butt off till you get those nasty bright/constant itches and then stay on one as long as you can. Keep noting itch and keep looking at the same one.

You might get some fireworks and nastiness, but at some point the experience will open up into A&P territory in a significant way. I suggest you have a look at some of JLaurelC's recent notes. Again, a timer helps and a commitment to stick with this one technique helps as well.

Thanks!
I always use a timer, and I think basically that's what I've been doing (looking intensely at pains, etc) last sits.
I had an episode in my practice where no 1 prio was surrender. Even though I "knew" about surrender I have more clearly learnt to see the ways in which I try to controll aversive stuff, and how these ways just appear.
Basically it's all the same stuff over and over, but new angles of it.
Curious to see about the A&P...

So, according to the maps if I recollect what has happened...
I spent some time in 3cs last year (monster itches)then a&p, then dark night, and henceforth unknown territory.
And now I seem to be reliving good ole days of sometimes just chillin' and according to observers maybe 3Cs again.

I have learnt to use these "labels" of certain configurations of experiences, but that is mainly a means of communicating about them. Reification of "stages "is not really my thing, I guess.
However there does not seem to be any linearity (which I think Antero pointed out) And I really don't try to fit my experiences on to the maps in retrospect.

I really like this place of mutual support! Thanks to all of you!

45 minutes aloud on the zafu
Pulsing in beginning, then opened up and rest of the time almost itchless, some pain, and some restlessness to investigate.
Sat in a hot room sweating, which made me notice surprise that there was so little itching

45 minutes on da zafu doin the silent notin
I really am reliving sits from 2010 now.
Some pulsing. Not a lot of itching.
Dived into pain and intense light, and senses of flashes before my eyes.
Hmm... Don't have time to go back in the journal, but maybe 6-7 months ago?
Kewl!