A beginners Journal

If you aren't in a level that corresponds to a Jhana, you are in an unstable level and therefore it's probably going to feel like that.

You have to get used to the idea of layers and that some are nice and easy to settle in and some are painful and unstable. Moving from a stable layer into an unstable one is often a sign of progress, not regression.

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/20+Major+Strata+of+Mind

Notice the transition from nana 1 (pleasant/stable) to nana 2 (less pleasant / lots of thinking) to nana 3 (unpleasant) to nana 4 (pleasant / stable) to nana 5 (pleasant stable) to nanas 6-10 (all unpleasant/unstable) to nana 11 (pleasant/stable).

Thanks Rob and mu.
The "focus" point is a good one. As to the nanas, I'm not identifying them individually. I'm not sure which ones feel like what, and I'm trying not to speculate where I may be(just causes me problems). I'm basically "somewhere where I don't know where I am" but I'm OK with that. My confidence in the process is growing, and I believe that if I practice sincerely I'll get there one day. Love this sangha!!

80 minutes this am.(1x35, 1x45)
Very distracted and sleepy sits, oh well. Started to doze so I tried some second gear "Who am I?" It seems to just cut right through all the crap. One simple question reveals that there is no "I", at least not the way I've always perceived it.
Instantly puts me into (what might be) witness, which is a very illuminating experience for me right now.
I don't know if I should be doing second gear, or not, at this point. I'm just playing it by ear and following where the practice seems to be leading. So far, So very good.

Stream Entry or Bust.

45m this am
Pretty standard experience with one change. Felt pressure on my right side, still do. I'm used to pressure in the head, this is on the entire right side of my body. From my head to me foot, I feel like I've been cut in half vertically and pressure is being applied to my right side, stronger on the top of my head and face. Gross tingling accompanying the pressure, no noticeable temperature change. It's beginning to dissolve starting from the foot and moving up, got up about 15.minutes ago. The pressure in my head effected my eye/visual input, just a blank gray screen from the right eye while sitting. A new experience every day!!
Stream Entry or bust.

Busy again, no time to post. Still sitting 30-45 min/day and trying to maintain awareness at all times. I've been experiencing dizzy spells and headaches the last few days, so practice has been difficult. Still doing my best at not trying to force anything and just observing whatever happens. I've tried observing the pain, but it's usually been too extreme to really manage it, just lose focus.
I've been experiencing the same energy and lights that I described earlier on this page but they seem to be occuring earlier in a 45 min sit. In some of my shorter meditations(30 min) I don't experience it at all. Feel great overall, even with headaches and dizziness, etc. etc.
Stream Entry or Bust!

Hi Rev,

Sound like you are into the dukkha nanas. Be sure to note the aversion and dullness. Sometimes it doesn't go the way you would like it to go. How do you feel about that in realtime? Note that.

"I've tried observing the pain, but it's usually been too extreme to really manage it, just lose focus."-RevElev

It sounds as though you are saying you have found something that cannot be noted. Not so! Note "unfocus," or "distraction," or "uncertainty." Do you wish the experience were something else? No problem; note "aversion." You are doing fine. Just keep up the momentum and you will get through this phase just as you have gotten through all the others.

Thanks Kenneth, will try to take your advice. The problem with the pain seems to be that my mind just seems to wander off and I completely stop noting anything. It seems to be happening more and more. It used to feel like I was mindful/aware enough to note about 80% of my day, now it feels more like 20-30% of the time I'm able to note, the rest of the time my mind just spins off into the ditch of pointless thoughts popping up from nowhere. Whatever this is my resolve is up to the task and I'm going to keep practicing to the best of my ability every second of the day.

Can headaches and dizziness be a part of the dukkha nanas?

"Can headaches and dizziness be a part of the dukkha nanas?"-RevElev

Yes! Both are commonly reported during this phase.

Life stuff is getting ugly, and not just because of where I am on the maps. Uuuhhhhh...
The headaches and dizziness are subsiding, I've had a couple of intense but short blasts of dizziness but no headaches.
I'm noticing that emotional and physical sensations come in waves, and these waves are made up of smaller waves, and smaller waves, etc. People here use the word vibration but to me, now, it seems like waves. I picture it as waves crashing onto a beach, but within each of these waves are smaller waves crashing onto a smaller beach...indefinitely. These waves don't always "crash" either, sometimes they just slowly wash up. Looking at physical pain it seems very clearly to come and go in waves, upon waves and they just get smaller and more subtle. Sometimes it almost seems to be in slow motion. I'm noticing this very clearly in my daily life.
I'm also noticing emotions seem more intense and change more quickly. I'll experience a wave each of anger, sadness, joy all Very intense and within 5 seconds. Then they just seem to disappear and I'm very calm again, like they were never there. It's a bit disorienting, but really cool to be able to see them without attaching to them in any way.
Sitting I'm having trouble staying focused, thoughts keep popping up, but I'm sticking with it. This morning the 45 min on the cushion went by very quickly, it felt like half that.
Stream Entry or bust!

Don't worry about those thoughts- the waves just prove that the work is paying off! If I am not mistaken, I believe that the feeling of losing concentration is also a documented feature of the dukkha nanas.

I figure that it's not so much that concentration gets weaker, but rather that the blunt, clumsy control strategies we impose on our thought-stream just don't function any more. As Dharma-Master Martha Stewart says, "That's A Good Thing". When you get to equanimity, you'll find that the thoughts, and the waves, are all still there, AND ALSO, it's OK. It's your new life now- it's the feeling of life living itself.

"As Dharma-Master Martha Stewart says, "That's A Good Thing"" LOL. I've always thought she looked a little like Yoda, maybe they're related.
Thanks for the feedback, laugh, and perspective.

Sitting 45 min /day lately.
My new experiences seem to be happening off the cushion the last couple days. Yesterday walking to work I tried to just let my awareness be, instead of trying to focus it like I used to. This resulted in a perceived expansion in my awareness, that lasted for several minutes. I stuck with this and began to notice that my awareness began to feel impersonal and non-localized. Impersonal in the sense that it didn't feel like it was "my" awareness, it was just awareness. I've experienced the same thing with pain, it seemed to just pop up but wasn't me or mine. Non-localized: Usually my awareness seems to be in my head, but it didn't seem to be centred in the body at all, kind of free floating, but still attached to the body somehow.
Today sad, crying and frustrated. Flying from one extreme to another, very emotionally unstable. Really feeling like I'm losing ground. Assuming this is part of the dark night, if so I'm OK with it, I just hope it is.
My sits seem to be progressing through the nanas, I'm only recognizing the 4th. The bright lights, tingling, energy surge, and straightening of my posture. Not sure where I'm getting to after that, but it feels like more of the same.

50 min this pm.
Very difficult sit, thoughts popping up almost constantly. Experienced a lot of pain in both legs, it usually subsides, especially at 4th nana, today it felt like it intensified after 4. I also noticed more pressure in my forehead, similar to the weeks prior to A&P. After A&P, today, I went through a couple minutes in which my focus moved to the third eye area, actually maybe 1-2 inches outside of my head. Overall a real struggle to stay on the cushion until the timer went off.
The last few months meditation, and off cushion practice has been a highlight of each day. Lately my motivation to practice is really weak, probably because it's not nearly as pleasant. Tried today to keep in mind the three characteristics. I was feeling great, and now I feel worse then before I started meditating months ago. Reading some other yogis descriptions of being in the dark night for years...holy crap, I'd go nuts. Feel like someone crapped in my skull, then beat me with a hose...and not in a good way!

thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2010/12/...s-of-dark-night.html

* "After the first A&P experience I had during formal meditation (with journaling on KFD) I remember waking up with really bad anxiety. This was after a couple of really good days where I felt on top of the world. I was expecting it to pass, but I ended up just feeling miserable the whole day. There was a nausea that kept coming up, terrible sadness, aches and pains. I remember writing that it was the worst day of my life. I felt crushed. At some point I noticed that there seemed to be a pattern to it, and "Ah-ha" perhaps this is the dark night. I sat with it in meditation after consulting the maps and saw a pattern that seemed to correspond with the dukkha nanas. I figured I must have been reobservation as the nanas seemed to be repeating over and over. There would be a period of anxiety, then a period of aches and pains/sadness, then tension and nausea and then a sense of being overwhelmed and it would repeat. I stayed with it for a good number of cycles and it eventually got lighter and lifted. I was very glad to have the maps at that point. Up until I had the ah-ha moment I was deeply embedded and taking it all very personal."
- I wrote that one.

I suggest you have a look at that article.

P.S.
I am darknighting it right now as well.

"Feel like someone crapped in my skull, then beat me with a hose...and not in a good way!" -RevElev

Nice image, Rev. Sounds like the dark night, aka the dukkha nanas, aka insight knowledges 6-10. You have probably read this, but for the convenience of our readers, I've written about the dukkha nanas here:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/The+...sight+%28Part+Two%29

At this point, the most important thing is simply that you keep sitting. Your momentum will carry you through this often difficult stage.

Also read my parable, The Boy Who Found the Great Ocean, here, with special attention to the part where the boy is about to cross the 3rd river:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/The+...ound+the+Great+Ocean

The dark night isn't always pleasant, to be sure, but it is just one phase on the way to a kind of peace and happiness that can only come through this process of development that we call enlightenment. Keep on keepin' on! It's all worth the trouble in the end.

Kenneth

Thanks, it's just so much more unsettling to be living through it, compared with reading the accounts of others. I think I'm most concerned that this is reality and I was kidding myself before about making progress, or I've slipped somehow. I know everyone experiences it and I'll keep at it, sometimes just have the need to feel sorry for myself in public.

Rev,

It can get pretty rough, and I've done my share of feeling sorry for myself on the forum. Here are some examples (LOL):

"doubt
sadness
worthlessness
stupidity
bad meditator
weeping
tension/pressure in face, head, neck
crappy journal
bad writer
want to go to bed / be unconscious
"

"thanks owen, I feel like a helpless little child. It feels like every time I've ever felt different from everyone else (not in a good way). You know, like how could anyone ever like this guy, he's such a piece of ****. Like all the girls who I've never approached because they wouldn't like me anyway (though they probably would have). I was the King of the Prom but still didn't believe anyone could actually like me. As if everyone's life would be better without me influencing it. Like I'm some sort of shadow or plague that just brings others down.

MEH!"

ALL THINGS MUST PASS. You'll be ok!

Much love,
Jayson

Ouch!
Thanks for all the support! Knowing I'm not alone helps a Lot.
I Love this Sangha.

90 minutes today.
Experienced some screamin' leg pain today. Noticed that the pain created flashing in the visual field and waves of tension in the forehead. Felt reasonably stable, noticed my eye focus changing a lot and pressure in my head moved around with it.
Very tired today, mostly zombie like, which was a nice change from miserable.

Very frustrating practice today. Every moment is a moment to practice, and I missed almost every single one today. I'd start noting and ten seconds later my mind would just drift off like a helium balloon. I'd completely forget that I was noting and become embedded in whatever I was doing at work. I tried staying with the breath, same results. Uugghhhh.
45 minute sit, felt like the ones I had before A&P. My eyes changing focus, crossing, uncrossing, moving up and down. Pressure in the forehead has also returned. Feels Very much like my pre A&P sits.
Several hours later, my attention seems improved, still have pressure on my forehead. My awareness feels much lighter then it has, more diffuse and genlte. A lot of doubt, "am I wasting my time with all this meditation stuff", "this isn't working, I should try something else".

50 min this am.
Settled quickly. What I think was A&P was much less intense then usual, still had the energy surge and lights, just not as powerful. About 5 min before, what may have been, A&P I noticed waves of tension in my jaw muscles. After A&P(?) I had a Lot of light in the visual field, and discomfort. The pressure in my head became unpleasant and moved from the top of my head 2-3 inches into my head. This only lasted 30-60 seconds, then it returned to the usual pressure on the surface of my skull.
The pain in my left knee disappeared and moved to my lower back.(My left knee usually hurts when sitting, my lower back almost never does). It then began to move around in waves. My thighs and lower back experienced waves of pain moving around, it felt like a liquid sloshing around inside a bottle. The pain was fairly intense, but it remained impersonal and not overpowering.
I also had self doubt, about my abilities, and doubt, about the practice itself. But, I had a wave of faith, I suddenly had a complete faith that I would obtain enlightenment in this lifetime if I could only relax and continue my practice as I have been doing. This feeling was Very powerful, but short lived.
SEoB

Now THAT sounds like progress. SEoB indeed!

*I'd completely forget that I was noting and become embedded in whatever I was doing at work.*

Maybe others here would disagree with me, but I think you really can forgive yourself if you "become embedded" while at work. In fact, while yes, you do want to maintain a gentle pressure of mindfulness all the time, you can't and shouldn't keep up the same pace of noting when you're expected to have your attention on other tasks.

The speed of your attention is probably now faster than you can CONSCIOUSLY perceive- the fact that you've advanced past A&P and into DN territory is irrefutable proof of this. You never get to feel like a Bionic Noting Hero, because all this work and re-jigging is going on in pre-conscious layers of your brain. In other words, you don't actually *know* just how good you've become. So you might as well relax.

Save the heavy lifting for the formal sitting time, keep a regular rhythm of sittings, and do whatever you need to to find some peace and relaxation in the Dark Night.

"Now THAT sounds like progress. SEoB indeed! "

...Glad it does. From here it just feels like a big ball of confusion. Though my life has often felt like a big ball of confusion, so what the hell, onwards and upwards. Thanks for the vote of confidence!

Rob: Thanks again for the encouragement! You pick up on a weakness of mine, relaxing. Once I set my mind to something I have a hard time letting go. Which can be very good, and bad.

50 min this am.
I'm not making any claims, but I think something new happened.
I woke up in a really good mood, unusual lately. Sat and found that the nanas seemed very subtle, no abrupt changes between them. I became very calm and stable. My awareness seemed to shift strongly to my eyes, not so much the visual field. It felt like I was really seeing visual images, in a way I've never experienced before, the images were incredibly vibrant, almost more realistic then reality. Then suddenly I saw a Very white spot in my visual field, it was off to the right and slightly above the mid line. It startled me and a surge of gross energy went through me, it was centered in my stomach and chest but went through my entire body. It lasted about 3-5 seconds, the energy surge, then was gone without a trace. It was similar to the feeling of nervousness, butterflies in my stomach. After this, I found that my thoughts and visual images seemed much cleaner somehow. They left no residue. They came, and left cleanly. This feels like an awkward description but I don't know how to explain it better. The white spot was different in that it was very distinct, my visual field is usually full of muted lights and patterns. This was clear as day, but only lasted a moment.
I was in this "state" for about 15 minutes, then came back to what I have experienced as meditation in the past. When I first noticed coming out of this I felt tension in my neck and jaw, but only for about 10 seconds. After coming out of it I realized that a Lot of energy had been running through me, very subtle but a lot of it. It felt hugely significant at the time this was happening. Now, I feel almost silly mentioning it, like I'm over reacting. Oh well, there it is, whatever it is.
SEoB.