Rob's Practice Notes

In this case, I felt an explosion of A&P-like phenomena after being in Equanimity for a while, while still practicing actively, and keeping up the momentum quite diligently (or so I thought). Do any of these seem likely:

1) Is there strong, percolating, vibratory activity such as I mentioned, that can happen while in Equanimity?
2) Is there just gravity that pulls me back down the arc, even while actively practicing?
3) Have I slackened my mindfulness without noticing, and tumbled down the hill?
4) Could I have experienced a first-path fruition unknowingly, and started back up the hill?

The context for this is a gradual evolution over about 2 weeks, where I was pretty confident that I was watching my "top-line" progress day after day up through the nanas, so I assumed Review was over, especially as I was feeling like a "mere mortal" again after the post-SE review excitement. But perhaps I have mistaken what is really "Review Phase B" for the second-path cycle.

Tonight, I'll keep track of the nana symptoms, and not assume that I will simply move upwards in a straight line.

"4) Could I have experienced a first-path fruition unknowingly, and started back up the hill?"

This is a possibility. For me fruitions are sometimes very subtle and I only notice the attention gently floating to the first (or second) jhana position, where the arc starts again.

Antero.

(Edited for clarity)

I had a Skype call with Kenneth over the weekend, to discuss my progress and, for my curiosity's sake, to understand what's going on with the tendency to a lot of shaking and swaying in sitting that preoccupied a lot of my sessions last week. Apparently, this can be a feature of Re-Observation between first and second path- the body pushes itself to "spontaneous yoga"- which made me laugh, because more than just shaking, it is actually like my body wants me to assume some twisted or leaning pose, and if I give into it, it soon gently urges me back to my original sitting position.

If that's Re-Observation, great, 'cause it's a lot more fun that what I usually associate with that stage. OTOH, I think he's bang on, 'cause since Saturday night, a grating, sick, annoyed feeling has settled in my gut. That's more like the RO I know! The shaking has also settled down, and sitting is more fizzy-poppy-flashy-pulsy-buzzy in the eye-field and in the extremities of physical sensation.

For the last month, I've been wavering in a place between equanimity and re-observation, judging by the appearance and disappearence of the grating-in-the-gut annoyance I've come to associate with RO. I was travelling over the holidays, and lost the thread of my formal practice, and was rewarded with a dip back in the dukkha nanas for a few days. When observed, they manifest as twisting sensations in the gut; if unobserved, I can lapse into a kind of competitive and mildly paranoid outlook. Returning to my practice routine is helping a lot.

My awareness of "energy movement", as a part of experience, is broadening across everyday life. Previously I'd been skeptical of "chi", "prana", "chakra" viewpoints, but am now beginning to understand why they are useful.

Last night's sitting:
*Jumped right in with quick noting. There's a quick fluttering at the top of my visual field, which dies down after a minute or so as purple clouds of light begin to criss-cross the visual field. Itches arise.
*about 5 mins in, itches subside, and the visual field brightens overall
*movement in the visual field slows and becomes more like breaking up into dots; overall calming (about 10 or 15 minutes)
*onset of anxiety
*onset of dramatic movements of energy and compulsion to shake or twist or lean (between maybe 20 to 30 minutes in)
*Compulsions settle down, become weaker and more intermittent- things calm down and investigation becomes finer - a soft, ocean-like sound in the ears. Much of the remaining 30 minutes of the session is spent in this space.
*As things get more subtle, there are moments of a strange tension where I feel very "closed-in", everything's just kind of spiralling and twisting into a tight cord, and my eyes cross tightly. I tend to get caught up in a "hey! something is about to happen!" expectation at these times.

Last night, in sitting, I experienced a very prolonged bout of what I described in the last bullet-point above- after feeling that I had crossed Re-Observation and had chilled out in Eq for a while, I came upon a tense, very very inward phase. It's both subtle and unpleasant, so I'm wondering if I am mis-diagnosing Equanimity or not. I don't have an urge to end the sitting- I can keep it up as long as I wish- but I still experience it as unpleasant. And yet, the quality of it seems different from DN. Re-Observation, for me, has a very distinct ARRRrrrrgggggghhh-ppppffffft-rrrrrrrr quality (for lack of a better word!) This doesn't have that.

Can you experience intense unpleasant feelings and still be in Equanimity?

I've also considered the possibility that I'm getting so hung up on the prospect of Path that I am dropping into Re-Observation, but with a different, grasping, attitude that produces different symptoms. However, the tense feeling doesn't linger after sitting. I don't feel the ongoing gut tension I get with RO.

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but I'm keeping up the practice. Lately I've been having an interesting time watching the kind of visual imagery my mind generates. I've noticed a tendency to generate a mental image of myself in moments of low awareness. It's as if, when I'm 'embedded' in activity or thought or emotion, my mind creates a kind of movie of myself from a 3rd-person perspective, as a character undergoing that experience, rather than 'me' actually 'having' that experience. Even the act of noticing that as it is happening brings a sudden wave of tingles and 1st-jhana-ish phenomena.

Now I catch myself 'self-imaging' like that so often, that I feel like I must be spending a heck of a lot of time living in that movie, and not in my own life!

Yesterday, I went back to my local dhamma group's weekly meditation session, after absenting myself for several months to concentrate on the KFD practice. It was very interesting to go back to a place I'd come to associate with so many neurotic thoughts about how good a Buddhist I was and whether I was meditating right, but not feel those obsessions anymore. It gave me a visceral sense of how much my practice has progressed in the last few months. It also reminded me of how much I had actually learned there. Even if I feel like my practice 'took off' once I got involved with Kenneth's teaching, and I felt like I finally got the 'right' teaching, a lot of necessary foundational work was done there.

(part 1 of 2)

It's been several weeks (again) that I haven't journalled about my practice. For the last couple of weeks, I have been orbiting around the feeling that I am not skilled at gauging the mental inclination / attitude that I bring to my experience. I've always copped out of Kenneth's "triplets" noting because I keep butting up against the third "Foundation of mindfulness" (mind states).

My practice baseline has "stalled" for many weeks now in what I think is the frontier between Re-observation and Equanimity, but there has been a sense that, though my practice hasn't gone "deeper", it has gone "wider". I am getting to know this stuck spot very very well.

In the last few days, I've started to have a clear sense of these mental inclinations passing away- but only after they have passed away. Repeatedly, I suddenly realize, "For the past few seconds, I have been bringing a certain attitude to bear on my experience- but that attitude has now passed." (continued...)

(part 2 of 2)

Last night, I spent my hour's sit noting the 3rd foundation exclusively, labelling attitudes as "delusive", "distracted", "wanting", "aversive", "clear"... It suddenly became quite easy to recognize that I slip into a dreamy or daydreamy state in which my thoughts start to take on an aspect of realness- this was clearly "deluisve"; at other moments, I had a sense that twenty different thoughts were pulling me in various ways, and that was "distracted". Over the hour, an increasingly solid sense of clarity and equanimity dawned. I felt that I had finally moved the "baseline" a bit (although that "field" of clarity still required close scrutiny, becuase of the "wanting" that pulled me to try to "delusively" solidify the pleasant feeling in a fixed state).

So, finally feeling like I have a foothold on that third Foundation, I'm going to tackle the triplet-noting at last!!

[Part 1 of 2]

I have some reasons to believe I may have passed second path in the last few days. My only hesitation comes from the fact that it felt more "evolutionary" than "revolutionary". I don't feel a huge dropping away or sense of increased happiness, but I do feel a strong sense that my practice has changed character.

I feel like there is a review going on- I seem to go through a lot of phases in quite short sequence while sitting, which periodically ends in a sort of sudden brightening behind the eyelids and lifting of pressure in the mind that I think might signal fruition followed by A&P. The impression is reinforced by the fact that the brightening has, on two or three occasions, been preceded by a kind of startled jump. That's pretty similar to how I experienced my first path. I kinda expeced that "fruitions" would be instantly more dramatic following second path, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

I took advantage of a long, dull meeting at work to experiment with inclining the mind to the stages of the Progress of Insight each in turn, and this seemed to work quite well.

[continued in next post...]

[Continued from previous... part 2 of 2]

Other changes:

Fewer of the localized headaches that seemed to come along with good concentration- or, more precisely, the headaches are even more localized in a particular spot, and therefore easier to handle; they also last less long (presumably because I am visiting the given stage for a shorter time?)

Occasionally a sense of fear, probably arising during a review of the Insight into Fear, but with a difference: in my post-SE months, I never experienced fear as something that went to the core of me the way it did pre-path, the kind of fear that's accompanied with a thought similar to "OMG, what if this is all wrong and I have just signed up for a whole life of feeling crazy?!?" This is short-lived and faint compared to my pre-first path Fear, but that primal flavour that went away after first path came back.

Any thoughts about what a yogi does now are welcome. I'm not sure if this changes the way I should be using my time. I'm finding that "Ships in the Harbour" is a rich practice. I'm curious about exploring jhanas 5-8, but I can't recognize them at the moment.

Congratulations!!

Nice, Rob. Could indeed be second path, given that when we talked two weeks ago you seemed to be poised at the door and your descriptions now are consistent with 2nd path.

Jhana exploration is powerful and useful at this point, as are 2nd gear (self-enquiry) and 3rd gear practices like Mahamudra and direct mode. And, as always, noting should form the foundation of your practice. To systematically objectify all of the phenomena within the field of experience is to be free. That's because anything that is clearly objectified is obviously not self. "I know that tree is not me because if there is an "I" it must be what is looking, not what is looked at." Similarly, I know this body sensation is not I, these thoughts are not I, and these emotions are not I because "I" am over here looking at "them," over there. Since everything that arises in consciousness can be systematically objectified in this way, eventually the supposed self has nowhere to hide; it simply cannot be found and therefore cannot be said to exist. To see this in any moment is to be free. When this simple, selfless vision becomes your baseline, you are enlightened.

That's an excellent post, Rob, and congratulations on landing 2nd Path!!

Thanks, Rev, Kenneth, and Tommy!

I think I "grokked" Witness for the first time yesterday. I spent about 20 minutes sitting in the park, inquiring "who am I? who's seeing this? where's the hearer of that sound?". Those questions do really kind of stir up a particular place in the head, and so I watched that spot. Afterward, the self-enquiry just sorta continued on its own steam for about the next hour while I walked. Hard to describe how that felt, except to say that, all through that time, some things happened, and then next, some other things happened.

""all through that time, some things happened, and then next, some other things happened.""
Beautifully put!!

"I think I "grokked" Witness for the first time yesterday. "

Yes! this is exactly my experience after 2nd as well - the Witness became natural and real in a way it just hadn't before. It almost feels like whatever was in the way of really getting the Witness falls away at 2nd.

Congrats man!

"I think I "grokked" Witness for the first time yesterday.
Rob"

Congratulations Rob!

Second path is really good time to practise the Witness. It can be excellent concentration practise and prepares the mind nicely for further realizations at the same time. Very powerful practise at this stage.

Antero.

Thanks, guys! It's good to have that validation. After a little more experimentation today, I find that the Witness perspective comes fairly easily. I feel that between that and mahamudra, I can now drive in all the gears of my "three-speed" Whee!

I can almost report it live... lower the eyes a bit... think of where a sound or sensation is being experienced... surroundings go kind of still, and a pressure builds behind the forehead, a bit painful for the first second, but then just kind of swelling into a wide solid "thing"... I will stop now, since I am at work

I've been spending the last few sittings trying to get to know jhanas better. I've gotten fairly familiar with 1-4, and I know new territory has opened up in 4, but I'm still trying to grasp what are the frontiers of various higher jhanas.

I know what 4 is, and I know that attention is panoramic and doesn't choose, even if my choosing mind still often dips in and out.

Last night, I thought I had grasped what distinguishes 5, 6, and 7. When *knowing that attention is panoramic* quietly overtakes *observing experiences panoramically*, that's 4 going to 5- panoramic perception shifts to awareness of the panorama, hence "boundless space".

Then, if I shift into "witness" mode, turning attention to the "watcher" at this point, then awareness of the panorama turns into awareness of the awareness (language gets flaky here!).

I feel that the quality of this awareness of awareness sometimes gels, and sometimes doesn't, and I am guessing that this is the still-precarious "hardness" of the 6th jhana. Occasionally it seems to lock into focus.

I THINK I'm beginning to see what the 7th is about: sometimes I suddenly realize that I don't need to fill this awareness with words. The whole field still bubbles and percolates, but I don't need to keep conceptualizing it. The desire to name everything just falls away for a few moments, and thought goes silent. (It doesn't stop- it's more like the soundtrack drops out while the movie continues). Is this what the "base of nothingness" is-- perception goes on, but "no thing" is being perceived?

I really like your descriptions of Arupa Jhanas! What if even nothingness falled away?

I'm looking forward to finding out

The last couple of days, I've discovered the first DN of what I think is post-2nd path. I say "discovered" because, up until I caught myself admitting to my wife (after a couple of hours of crankies) that I might be having a DN, I wasn't even sure I was done with Review. After that, it became totally clear. Fluttering, stuttering, moments of fear, a great (though somehow sweet) sadness, tingles or a sensation of weight in the forehead... I wonder where this will go, as the last one went on for 4 or 5 months, but never had this intensity.

Formal sitting is a bit shapeless right now, partly because I seem to have so many options. I believe that I recognize jhanas 1-6 and have some notions about 7 and 8. I feel like I'm noting phenomena at the barest level, with the new twist that I can sometimes remember not to "name" and conceptualize every little thing (which I didn't even know I was doing, until very recently!!).

45-min sit last night. Inspired by some of the mental drama of recent days, I thought it was time to re-evaluate my practice a bit, and go back to school with some of my assumptions. I was puttering around in old journals and found a wealth of inspiration in Owen's older entries (thanks for the ace documentation, Owen!). I'd forgotten about the "sweet spot" eye-posture that Kenneth had taught me once, so I tried to "ride the arc" as much as I could using that posture, noting all the way, and trying not to manipulate or measure the experience. I felt like I was quickly rising through a definable cycle of phenomena- focus, excitement, tension, folding in tightly within myself (usually moved strongly to close my eyes, which then rolled upward), then sudden release into a very normal, calm state. A fruition, maybe? This happened about six times in quick sequence. I feel that these were fruitions, although I don't really experience a "bliss wave" (the words I usually see used around here), but more of a nice, very alert, normalness.

I don't know if this description sounds like "riding the arc", or more like a Review. But given that my path-moment was over a month ago, and I experienced a very clear Dark Night for the last couple of days prior, I am pretty sure I am on a cycle, and not in review.

Unless that was a review, after a very short cycle? I understand they can be pretty short after 2nd path...

P.S. Also, I am trying to note and toll-booth like crazy at work today. The toll-booth is very effective on this somewhat hectic day!