turtle log

Don't want to hide anything from anyone actually interested in the experiences of people working on developmental enlightenment, but I'm renaming my practice log and user name after hearing about employers searching for and monitoring online activities of current or prospective employees. Also I try to appy myself to a fresh start each New Year and see if I can keep it going at least thru my birthday in February, as a present to myself, and to honor how quickly the years go by, and how little I've attained. Reflecting on this past year I did make some genuine efforts in my practice and am a little more experienced for it. I resolve to go deeper somehow this year. Previously I logged as kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...P%27s+Noting+Journal

Your practice has been steady all year long, Kacchapa. And the turtle always wins the race. Looking forward to hearing more in the new year.

Kenneth

Thank you for not losing faith in my potential for awakening, Kenneth. I've only barely hung on to that lately, but it's a new year and a fresh start.

Wed thru Friday were busy with family, work and social involvements. Got some candle-gazing in each day, but can't remember the details, well. Decided to settle back on questioning "what knows this?" going into the New Year, unless Kenneth advises against it when we meet next week. 2+ hours of candle samatha today, & 30 mins of meditating with my wife to bring in the new year.

It came to feel like a sense of slightly painful letting go to stay with the object to that extent but with a payoff. Pleasantness and energy that overwhelmed drowsiness. With eyes closed could continually re-evoke a mental version of the after image after the retinal one had waned by relaxing into the expectation of it as a locked-into object. Then I could even examine it. It had a variety of, occasionally changing, pleasing colors, mostly shades of purple and violet. At one point a face started to appear in the circle and threatened to start speaking to me. In a flash, before I could cognize this my mind shut it down in self defense. This evoked a stream of analysis, memories and speculation but for only a couple of minutes. Then I decided that I get to talk to Kenneth soon and KFD is there, so I resumed and said "do your worst, the Dharma will protect me." Just some more pleasant colors with some sense of fear in the background. I wondered if it could be dukkha nana stuff, or stuff coming up repressed ever since the 2 years of horrible time (after my big drug induced A&P as a teenager) when I thought I was falling apart and in danger of being invaded by outside forces. But seemed clear there is no answer to speculation, but to keep practicing.

Wow, had my first samatha milestone this evening, meaning I had any concentration state at all. This will be kid stuff for most here, but for a long time I've been concentration challenged and usually don't even attempt samatha. Have had a hunch I might get somewhere with candle gazing, even though it's just been a drill before today. This morning 1.5 hours of gazing, struggled with drowsiness and thoughts. In final 1/2 hour it got better and felt like in the background it could be 3rd nana verging on, then transitioning to 4th. At end tried noting for 10 mins and sensations had a notably concentrated granular quality.

Tonight another 1.5 hours of candle gazing and figured out my game plan. With each trunk pulse, count "1" on the body's rock to the right, "2" on the return to the left, and try to make it to 100, which felt plausible tonight. With each count get a hit on the flame or start over. Was getting into the 30's, 50's, 70's, once to 100. Toward the end got to 500, and finally let it go and used the flames movement rather than my own as grounding point.

Criteria for a hit evolved. At 1st just aware that I was looking at the flame and not losing count. After awhile the switch from a focus on the sensations of trying to concentrate to a sense of the object as the primary sensation became sustainable for stretches. Maybe this is "getting a lock".

This is fantastic stuff, Kacchapa! Once you get your first taste of jhana, it is much easier to find it in the future; you just remember how it was the first time. As for the face in the candle, this sort of thing is normal, is not dangerous, and is just a function of a concentrated mind. If you feel afraid next time it happens, remember this story:

One time a group of monks complained to the Buddha that some devas were annoying them by making sounds, producing foul smells, and startling them while they were trying to meditate. The Buddha instructed the monks to repeat the metta phrases, "May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from danger, may you live in peace." He explained that while you are radiating metta you don't have to fear because poison cannot harm you and arrows will not penetrate you. The part about arrows and poison is metaphorical, of course, but metta is indeed a bulletproof shield against mischievous devas and flights of fancy.

Thanks, Kenneth! That's very helpful.

Yesterday a.m. Only had 30 mins for candle gazing. Resolved to get a hit with every body pulse count up to 10, once reaching 10 then "now let's get to 20" and so on as far as I could get. This goal orientation and keeping track of climbing counts really seems to help me with basic concentration. I did seem to be able to use the approach I got a feel for the day before, when I got a taste of jhana, to stay concentrated thru the 30 mins.

Later had an hour with a local sitting group and continued with samatha using the same climbing counting strategy with the breath. I've found breath samatha usually pretty tough but this strategy made it seem workable. This group alternates fast and slow walking periods. During fast I tried a little bit more expansive samatha, with primary focus on foot fall. During slow walking I went with vipassana style and the ability to stay with the noting seemed more continuous and focused.

Last night, to give my eyes a break, pulled out a Japanese meditation bell I've had for decades and recorded ringing it for several mins. Put the recording in a loop and used the sound for another concentration exercise. I'd forgotten that when I was first learning to sit still for zazen years ago, concentrating on sounds was effective for me. Glad to have this added to the concentration toolkit.

a.m. today: 15 mins of noting, 30 mins of candle gazing, 45 mins of listening to a bell. pm : 30 mins candle gazing. I'm really digging the concentration practice. Seems like this is opening a new practice door.

On Skype today Kenneth gave a lot of tips on approaching concentration and guided me in being with the body. I hate to venture opinions here, since it's like a high school student on an advanced physics forum. But it's hard for me not to mention what I think is a quality of genius in the depth, breadth, versatility and accessibility of Kenneth's teaching. I'm leary of idealizing, and Kenneth has pointed out that an upswelling of gratitude is on the level of see saw emotions. When I hit an impasse in my practice recently and thought I just don't have what it takes to rise to the level of this place, I thought about going somewhere else. I've done some practice a number of places over the years. But realized I'm spoiled. Nothing I've experienced has open practice resources anything like this.

For the past week I've mostly been doing candle concentration. For me, this is the most direct way to get quickly concentrated and have pretty good continuity that I've found. It's handy for hectic weeks like this when I often only had 1/2 hour (or a couple times less) to sit. It's great not to waste time but to spend almost the entire sitting concentrating. If I get a solid 1/2 hour the fun of it lifts my energy and mood. When I'm too busy to fit even that in, I get pretty cranky or depressed.

Kenneth's being present in the body with out a gaining agenda, even for moments at a time, has helped let go of frustration. Kenneth said people won't believe it's that simple, and in fact I feel like the body is wonderful - but I also want to develop to 1st path, so I still see it as a special tool in the kit.

Another neat thing about candle concentraion is that perhaps a combination of the bright light from the flame with good concentraion makes it possible to have better sittings late in the evening when I'd usually be mostly sleeping while sitting.

am sitting yesterday 40 mins, candle gazing. Also concentrating on the closed eyes after image which, since I've been using those little round utility candles, is almost always a faint circle with a bright inner circle about 1/2 to 2/3 the size of a pea. I concentrate on the small inner circle, which almost always has a bold bright border and a lighter, brightly luminous fill. At first, several days ago, this would start to fade in a few minutes but then I was pretty sure concentrating on it was refreshing it and keeping it going well beyond it's retinal after glow phase. The inner fill usually has some tiny active geometric shapes. A trick that seems to really extend the life of the visualization is to concentrate on the geometric activity rather than the circle container. It's almost like focusing on the contents assumes the container and keeps it going. It's surprising how tiny the detail is that it's possible to see in the mind's eye. At times I can find wee inner circles and then concentrate on the shapes inside those. I think this is just a way to stay absorbed in concentrating on the object. I've never done visualization before. When a visualized circle gets toward the end of how long I can sustain it, it often starts to drift off and up to the right. This time I tried fixing it firmly in place and found that the spot I ended up with corresponded to the tip of my nose.

pm sittings 45 mins: more of the same, except I experimented with getting a visualization from scratch without starting with a candle image. Just picked a spot with eyes closed and concentrated on whatever was happening in it. If a shape or color appeared, concentrated on and tried to sustain it. Feels like a skill that could be developed. I assume the point is just to develop concentration. Googling I found mention that there have been visualization meditations in Theravada but aside from kasina didn't find any details.

"

pm sittings 45 mins: more of the same, except I experimented with getting a visualization from scratch without starting with a candle image. Just picked a spot with eyes closed and concentrated on whatever was happening in it. If a shape or color appeared, concentrated on and tried to sustain it. Feels like a skill that could be developed. I assume the point is just to develop concentration. Googling I found mention that there have been visualization meditations in Theravada but aside from kasina didn't find any details."

Hi Kachapa,

I used to do this too and it worked well. I used to just look at the point you mentioned in the mind's eye and catch any shape or moevment and just watch that spot, regardless of what was there. If it was a moving shape I would watch it with the intent to see the very moment it dissapeared. Then did that again for whatever replaced it. It got me highly concentrated. Nice progress!


Nick

Thanks for the interesting pointers on how to do the visualizing, Nick! I'll try that.

a.m. sitting: 1.5 hours. I've been looking forward for days to getting a long morning sitting when I'm fresh and awake to really dive into the candle concentration and visualizing. But had more trouble concentrating this morning than I'd experienced with candle up to now, and unusual drowsiness for an a.m. sitting. At about 15 mins, had itches, uncomfortable posture, irritable tone, figured maybe 3rd nana. At around 30 mins had some pleasant waves thru the mid section and expected a positive shift! Instead, continued having trouble focusing, though drowsiness and irritability lessened some. Felt like my intense focus concentration strategy was not meeting the needs of the moment, but wasn't sure what to do but press patiently on with a little less focus. Oh well, it's all good.

am sitting 35 mins: candle gazing. Still some initial resistance to concentrating. Just pushing thru it seemed to work OK. Kept a visualization of the after image going for 10 mins or so, then visualized as Nick suggested looking for endings. Seemed possible to do but felt very unfamiliar and realized I have a prejudice against seeing anything that way. With sitting almost over, took another peek at the candle and on closing my eyes for the 1st time there was an after image of the actual flame and then a photo-like image of the actual candle appeared for less than a minute. Thinking about what to write here (in the Awareness log), the cat meowed at me and I went to feed him and realized I'd just fed him. Shifted from fun thoughts to body sensations.

Thur thru Sat more concentration via candle gazing and visualizing. Thur of Fri I noticed that the top of the candle was round like a kasina and started concentrating on the entire circle and the flame. Then tried intently focused concentration for several minutes and felt like I was in a groove, counting with each in and out breath while trying to lock into the candle flame each time, seeing how high I could go, could I get to 100. Eventually I did and was on a roll to do it again but seemed to lose the ability to focus. Oddly though I noticed I wasn't losing count and I still had some awareness of the object, which at this point was a visualized circle. Thoughts weren't in abeyance at all, just streaming right along, but then I noticed I wasn't actually distracted by them and body sensations were included. I felt pretty insecure about whether I was actually meditating but I was noticing things and there was an unfamiliar concentrated quality. At one point I had pleasure waves that reminded me somewhat of 4th nana and attention went to the forehead and my eyes started fluttering for a minute. This made me wonder if I might be getting my first taste of 2nd jhana.

On Sundays I've been sitting with a local Chan Buddhist group, and continuing with samatha there by using the same counting technique I've been using with candle gazing and visualizing: counting in and out breaths, resolving to make 10. Once there, resolving to make 20 and so on up to 100. Sometimes I have to just resolve to make the next 2, but goal orientation with milestones gives me feedback that's proving very useful.

With the sitting group, instead of using the breath counting to stay with a flame etc, I've been focusing on abdomen in & out. I've never done well with that in previous attempts over the years, but getting the hang of it with the flame seems to have transferred. Getting into a groove with concentration seems good right now. A few weeks ago I was feeling at an impasse with vipassana but now that my practice has momentum again, I'm feeling the siren song of noting and disembedding again. Trying noting while sitting recently it seemed more grounded in concentration and I think I'm seeing the value of attempting a more lubricated vipassana. For now I want to keep mainly focusing on concentration.

My strategy for years was to get up early and sit from 1 to 1.5 hours before family members got up (we have a small house with no extra sitting room). A few months ago, though, the family schedule changed and now everyone gets up much earlier. Around the same time my neurologist started urging me to stop going without sleep, drinking coffee and having chronic insomnia to get more sitting time, since that was also aggravating serial migraines. So, I quit coffee and started sleeping at least 6.5 hours per night, and have been feeling a lot better physically. But it's been a drag to miss out on all the extra sitting.

Monday morning I was fired up to continue the momentum from the weekend so got up early and sat for more than an hour. But without coffee I felt kind of weak and tired, and had trouble concentrating. So, it was just one of those manual labor kind of sittings that you know must be worthwhile in the big picture.

Yesterday morning, 35 mins. 5 to 10 mins working to stay with the candle, then started getting into a mild concentration groove. During the last 15 mns concentrated on sustained after glow circular image. Often when the circle image or concentration start to wane, the circle will start to drift off and up to the right and usually I bring it back down by the tip of my nose if I can.

Sometimes toward the end of a 1/2 hour sitting the attention will get pulled up sharply to a stronger focus in the middle of the forehead about a finger's width above the eyebrows. My recollection is not vivid now, but when that happened yesterday I remember reflecting that the focus of the concentration seemed broader and I think body sensations came into it for example. Then something unusual, the image moved up and around to the left and back toward my temple. At that point maybe 3 or 4 pleasurable waves came down from the left side of my head thru the trunk into my abdomen. Then my short sitting was up and it felt like not a bad start on the day for only 35 minutes.

This morning, 40 mins. Toward the end of 1/2 an hour of candle gazing followed by visualizing/gazing, I noticed that my left eye and right eye were alternating, at a rate of about 1/2 a second each in gazing at the visualized circle out from the tip of my nose. That seemed pretty cool, so I tried to encourage it and keep it going for a few minutes, interested in the feeling of my brain alternating like that. Can't remember much else about the sitting except that when my time was up it felt like I was settling nicley into the image and really didn't feel like pulling away from it.

At night my sittings have mainly involved struggling with drowsiness recently.

Thurs a.m. 75 mins. No one needed my help with homework or errands Wed p.m. so got to bed early enough to get enough sleep and still get up early for a luxuriously long sitting. Worked on trying to relax from clinching, effortful concentration while maintaining focus of attention on the candle flame. It was always tempting to assert forceful straining concentration, since I've learned to make that "work", but the body has been pointing out all the stress lately, and Kenneth advised that this controlling approach to concentration has a blowback downside. I'm just going thru the moves of learning a new skill. Last 20 mins switched to noting, can't remember the details except that it felt like a big relief to be noting again. Thursday p.m. 40 mins. more of the same with the candle flame but sleepier.

Duplicate post deleted.

Friday a.m. 65 mins. Managed early to bed and earlier than everyone else to rise again. Today relaxing the body while maintaining continuity of presence with the flame came easier and seemed more confident. Plugged away at that for 40 mins, gradually becoming more aware of tension and relaxing more of the body. Then switched to noting or being present for sensations. Going from 40 mins of concentration to noting, felt like I entered the noting at a higher nana like maybe 4th or 5th, with a lot of calm, quiet pleasure (almost like a soup of mild pleasure) and a sense of a tentative field of awareness throughtout the body. I'm tempted to speculate that it took less time to get to that kind of point by concentrating then switching to noting than it would previously take by noting alone. Also the soupy pleasure felt unfamiliar. I'm really dying to get ramped up for another attempt at the noting ascent. Feels so good to be doing that again.

am sitting 65 mins, 40 mins candle gazing. More relaxed sense of concentration is there but noticable background irritability and resistance feelings about anticipated interruptions. Difficulty maintaining concentration, but not getting lost for long before bringing it back again. Then switched to noting. Despite the presumed bad concentration, the start of noting seemed enlivened by it. Noted distinctions between head sensations, hearing, visual seeing, imagery seeing, sense of knowing, self image and thoughts. Found it interesting to note mental events as "feeling", or "feeling that". Felt like they were palpably less identified with for that moment. Wish I could sit all weekend. I hope to be able to note through all the busyness.

Ended up neglecting my long to-do list and did extra sitting today instead. 3 months ago I was walking less than 1/2 block from my house, glanced at an old store front on the corner with a new sign that said "Chan Buddhist Temple". Couldn't resist the Open sign, knocked on the door and a Chinese monk invited me in for tea. A few weeks before he had moved here from Canada to help establish Chan Buddhism in America, ten doors down from my house. ShiFu rarely talks about himself (might be a Vinaya restriction) but Googling I found out that he had been deputy abbot of a huge temple serving Chinese immigrant community in Toronto. As a monk he trained in China under a famous Chan master who had been a disciple of Hsu Yun.

Since then I've been going to the Sunday sittings and helping the monk make lunch for the meditators. In what I guess you could say is somewhat mushroom-esque Chan style, there's almost no talk about meditation maps or attainments or enlightenment. But there is a lot of hands-on group practice in close proximity with someone who I'm increasingly suspecting is in the adept range of Chan practitioners. Occassionally ShiFu will issue a context-sensitive one liner that manages to gently present an effective mirror for me to see something about, say, the fragility of my meditation practice while cooking. So, this is providing some interpersonal physicality to compliment my online-oriented practice. Remarkably fortuitous. Also I have the pleasure of one of my daughters joining me, and I'm learning some Chinese cooking secrets.