turtle log

Wed a.m. candle kasina 30 mins. Family moving and talking
around me, but I enjoyed trying to concentrate thru it.
It started to feel kind of physically nourishing.

wed pm 90 mins candle kasina, which for me also includes
gazing at after image with closed eyes, alternating
with open eyes on flame. Just plugging away and dealing
with drowsiness during 1st hour.

Started to become pretty aware of my posture overall and
able to let tensions relax and body find balance at least
briefly. Last 20 to 30 mins got a bit quiet and absorbed.

Thurs p.m. 40 mins candle kasina. Felt drained and fatigued,
and looking for some concentration refresh. 1st 2/3 of the sit,
back and forth between drifting off to sleep for a few seconds,
concentrating for a few, drifting off again. Just seemed kind
of matter of fact, not real frustrating.

Allowed a passing sexual thought to stick around long enough to
wake me up, and that gimmick gave me a 2nd wind. Felt kind
of like I was cheating, but the last 3rd of the the sit
was fairly alert. After a week of mostly focusing on
concentration, starting to seem noticably easier to concentrate.

Friday: more candle kasina, can't remember the details.
Sat: mid-day sit, started with out-loud noting for
15 mins and fell asleep.

Don't know if this counts as meditating, but sat in
1/2 lotus (so it looked sort of like meditating),put on
loud rock music and tried to concentrate on just the
base drum beat. Stayed awake and had fair concentration
for an hour.

(One time recently I tried candle kasina late at night
for at least 60 mins with the same rock music trick and
got relatively very concentrated on the flame. I could feel
the concentration for a day afterwards. Felt like breaking
the rules, so I didn't mention it as a sitting in this log.)

Last p.m. tried 1/2 hour of straight candle kasina and
mainly struggled with drowsiness.

The last couple of days I've been verging into overt
a__hole-ness much more than usual. While walking and driving
yesterday took the chance to note a fair amount of
"beligerance, irritation" and urges to take a --
"I'm sick and tired of this " or that -- stance.

Sun a.m. 85 mins: tried an hour of straight candle
kasina, no tricks. Some drowsiness. Difficulty
focusing or keeping any continuity. Background
irritation and anger, and a lot of posture pain.

After nearly an hour decided to switch to
concentrating on the pain, but it proved
elusive, retreating to a diffuse form outside
my focus. So, switched to noting for 15
mins and felt like I couldn't get a handle
on it. Would like to have kept
trying things, but had to give the body
a break. Maybe a chance later.

Hi, Kacchapa!
Whose rules?
Sorry to hear it's tough...
Hang in there!

Thanks Meekan! Well, I guess it would be not rejecting/manipulating experience. Just wanted to acquire a little concentration, ya know?
Tried another 70+ mins of aloud noting thru drowsiness. Lots of dreaming and fading off or nonsense talk. Just gutting it out, like Joel describes. Towards the end starting getting a little bit more conscious. Thanks again ( I guess it's tough, but it's not that bad. )

It's definitely encouraging to read your log most every day and see the evident progress you're making. Really helps keep me going.

Glad to hear you still learn something from my log!

I am basically doing the same noting aloud thing all the time (not mixing in so much of kasinas, ships in harbors, etc) hoping that I don't lose out on stuff for it, but simple seems good to me...

I think I see some miniscule changes in the way I experience my formal sitting (or maybe I'm just rationalizing it all .

So keep it up, and I guess much of the learning happens with experiences that are not so nice, so just keep going (which I know you will, of course, but just for some pep talk !

Yes, reading the other logs here everyday is invaluable to my practice. Kicks me in the butt everytime And thanks for the direct encouragement! Nothing I've tried seems to result in almost measurably less suffering in daily life than fairly strong noting practice. So, I'm completely with you on that. It's hard to ease off on that while focusing on concentration building. Last time I worked on concentration for awhile, though, when I returned to noting my practice seemed unusually strong for awhile. Could be a coincidence, but it's tempting to try that out again.

Sunday pm: getting late. Did 45 mins of exercise, then sat with
candle kasina. Got drowsy shortly and felt like I was mostly
falling asleep. So, formal sitting maybe only 20 mins.

Followed by an additional hour of either meditative music
listening, or candle kasina with music background, depending
on how one looks at it. Actually, not listening, but trying
to concentrate soley on the candle.

Usual approach is using cognitive overload techniques, like
counting in and out breaths as high as I can go, and not
losing count, while not losing focus on the flame, and starting
over when I do. Also things like resolving to get to 20, and then
with each in breath resolving to get to the next even number,
while trying to keep either the flame or the closed-eyes after-image
as unwaveringly in view as possible.

With rock music with a beat going on in the background, even
though trying not to particularly listen to it, this somehow
seems to replace the need for cognitive overload, and seems
to work even better for me lately. I can just focus quietly
and directly on the flame. And usually get unusually concentrated
while staying alert. Usually I get very settled and don't want
to stop, easily going for an hour or 90 mins, even late at night.

Just experimenting. Hard for me to believe this could be a
viable technique long term. I'm guessing there's some kind
of flaw to it, like maybe indulging my attachment to being
alert, energetic and continuous. But I'd like to see how
it actually plays out for awhile.

Mon pm: 15 mins candle kasina. Started right off unusually concentrated.
Followed 30 breaths pretty easily a couple of tmes while doing kasina.
But then started falling asleep.

Switched to kasina with background music. Stayed awake and fairly
concentrated. Kept this up for 75 more mins in half lotus. Felt
confortable and increasingly chilled out. Didn't want to stop, but
have to get to bed for work.

During last 1/2 hour or so, became aware of entire posture while
maintaining focus on the candle. Maintained this for some time.
Eventually, for a few mins at a time, could see/feel the posture,
take in some body sensations, mental images and some of the music,
while retaining focus on the candle.

It sure is fun.

Tues p.m. 95 mins. pretty much the same as other nights recently, candle kasina. Except a lot of pain in my head and neck. Didn't bother me much while concentrating, though.

Just wanted to clarify my earlier post.
I'm NOT insinuating that one shouldn't do the other practices, but that for my simple brain exercise hopping seems to be confusing.
Hopefully there'll be time to try them out later on.

Metta to ya'll!

Your practice is admirable, imho, meekan. thanks for sharing.

Wed p.m. 65 mins candle kasina. After a particularly unmindful day,
once on the mat concentration seemed relatively exceptionally good.
Got to 75 breaths before fumbling the count, early on.

After awhile the body in general became visible while keeping
the flame, and the mind became quiter and more still than
usual. As a result, seemed possible to see a lot of what
was going on, even though it was a concentration time.

Thurs p.m. After nearly a 2 hour nap, able to sit late without drowsiness. 60 mins candle kasina + 10 mins noting. Applied fairly continuous effort to the concentration. And I think I didn't go off on extended thought trains, but concentration never felt strong. My posture felt stiff and mildly dissatisfied with it the whole time. Noting also felt weak. Seems like my capacity for noting has slipped fairly steadily over the past month. Doesn't seem like this concentration detour has helped. Feels like it's time to just get back to noting.

Friday a.m. 1 hour of noting. 1st 10 mins lost in thought,
then settled down. Sensations seemed kind of soft and
vibratory with pulsing. Didn't feel like barging in on
them with a strong agenda or noting out loud this time.

Remembering jgroove quoting Kenneth recently about noting
spaciousness, noticed a sense of space intersecting with
heart area and noted that as well as any other sense of space
I could find.

Tended to watch the body in general and listen to a.m.
traffic sounds. Then tried for 1st time a version of the
Mahamudra practice, listening to the sun rise. It did
seem to quickly bring on nice feelings and openness. Tried
keeping that going while generally watching the body.

I noticed that my mind wanted to picture the sun rise
while trying to listen for it, and decided not to make
an issue out of it.

Sat pm 50 mins candle kasina. Earlier today, 2/3 day retreat at a
country retreat center an hour south of town. During one sitting
it was clear that images, thoughts, moods, ambiances, coming up were
just things coming up. It felt like there was a quiet, still,
watching me for sure, but not that stuff coming up.

It wasn't quite as clearly objectified as that the rest of the
time. But there was little resistance to states. They were
just interesting to watch, even drowsiness.

Later started to have kind of bitter thoughts about how all my
friends get to go to retreats and I almost never do, but before
they got out of control, remembered to note them. Also reflected
on how several enlightened people at KFD don't go to them.

Sunday a.m. 95 mins. Thoughts and feeling of discouragement. Noticed this
was mostly in my head and hadn't yet disturbed my body, except some
tenderness in the heart. Tried 4 foundations and felt the body receptive.
Felt relief to get below the disatisfied thought level and into the
interesting energies and sensations of the body.

Found sadness in the heart and hung with that for awhile. The body felt
very quiet. Just wanted to sink into it. Felt like there could be a
different place between getting hypnogogically silent and (my) grasping,
barging noting. Instead of noting tensions, quietly noted tight sensations
as "releasings" and got into the relaxing side of things.

It felt like the body could take care of what was left of the sadness in
the heart so I released it. Gave some attention to the balance of the
posture without doing much about it. Allowed chronic left hip blockage
to relax so energy was open between the hip and pelvic floor. Let the
body line up on its own and then tried to watch how thoughts would
throw it off again.

Eventually noticed that the releasing could apply to the self image in
my head and then I felt much more directly in the body. Very quiet and
pleasant. It had been a long time and I didn't want to hurt my knees,
figured they needed a break getting a little achey. But decided to
investigate that and crossed legs seemed very relaxed. With attention
the achieness released.

A couple of times I tried some Mahamudra listening but the body was a
happy magnet today. Could get worse, better or stay the same.

I'm trying out some of the Mahamudra practice pointers I've
been able to pick up. It's also interesting to me how a
meditation hall where people have been doing retreats for
decades can take on a powerful vibe of the practice there.
Where I was sitting yesterday they do a choiceless, questioning
awareness kind of practice, and I often feel influenced by
that when I sit there.

Sounds like great practice. I've recently been amazed at how subtle and interconnected the body/mind sensations are. It just seems like the deeper I dig the more I find and the best way to approach what I find is to just release it all. Release, relax, re-smile.

Thanks Rev. This is new to me and a bit against the grain. Wasn't sure if I'd be able to stumble on a space like that again.
But just tried 15 mins kasina followed by 45 of friendly, relaxed noting aloud with a smile, and it doesn't seem to be esoteric.
Just a way you can choose to practice. Seems like a good direction for me to try out at this point. "Release, relax, re-smile"

Ever tried "building" that sort of atmosphere yourself? I figure that if you've experienced that sort of vibe before then you can mentally rebuild it and inspect the sensations involved, see what it is that makes it "feel" that way and how arbitrary the sensations involved are. I may be completely wrong, but it makes me think of when Shinzen Young talks about tri-modalities.

Tues thru Fri: only found time to sit later at night last week.
Did about an hour of candle kasina each time, it's easier to
stay awake with that, and I'm finding it habit forming.

Learned Mahamudra techniques with Kenneth on Monday. Haven't
had a chance to use them much. But during the work week
used Rev's "release, relax, re-smile" and added ",listen
to the sound of the sky". (I grew up in the desert and have
a bit of an aversion to oceans, so this works better for me
than the harbor.) This kept me from getting worked up about
not having enough down time for focused practice. That was
interesting.

On Saturday tried to do Mahamudra sitting a couple of times
but had trouble staying awake. Was able to do an hour of kasina
though.

On Sunday had an aversion attack. Felt a strong need to do
some noting but an unusual amount of aversion to sitting.
Started with developing positive mind states, then eased into
noting. Felt great but restless. Had to make a resolve to sit 60 mins,
then added 5 more.

Tommy, not sure I understood what you meant by "building".
Woud the "release, relax, re-smile, listen" practice be
like that? Thanks, Mark

Glad you found it useful, but to give credit where it is due I got it from the Venerable U Vimalaramsi's book "The Anapanasati Sutta : A Practical Guide to Mindfulness of Breathing and Tranquil Wisdom Meditation" which is a free pdf at www.dhammasukha.org/Study/books.htm . I highly recommend this book.
The full version is:
"The '6R's' are steps which evolve into one fluid motion becoming a new wholesome habitual tendency that relieves any dis-ease in mind and body. This cycle begins when MINDFULNESS recollects the '6R's' which are:
RECOGNIZE
RELEASE
RELAX
RE-SMILE
RETURN
REPEAT"
It's only 136 pages, so a pretty quick read and I found it very useful in staying relaxed about my practice. I tend to get uptight about results, this helped me relax and become more happy now., instead of waiting for magical results in the future.

Thanks, Rev. Interested to hear more about that practice.

Mon pm, 90 mins candle kasina. Some sleepiness during 1st hour.
During last 1/2 hour woke up completely and started becoming
aware of predominant sensations, like self image, cold hands,
releasing tension, sound etc, while still pretty much
concentrating on the flame or afterimage (alternating). So
figured, if I can see it anyway might as well notice and even
note it while mostly concentrating on the flame. I'm feeling
kind of addicted to candle gazing. Feels a little bit like a
guilty pleasure.

Tues pm 80 mins candle & after image gazing. Started with
unusual energy and clarity, and high expectations. Found
that it was hard to settle in and concentrate. Just kept
returning for awhile, kind of cheerfully. Started to get
some concentration, and drowsiness for awhile. That passed
and started getting in and out of some grooves.

Cultivated the fun technique of adding in concentration
points, candle, then hands, then hara, then sound, trying
to keep them all together. Got into groove where effort
and resistance were diminished and effortless, choiceless
presence were more predominant. That groove wouldn't last
long. But I was visited by a magic trick: if I started
getting in a snit because the practice wasn't going right,
I surrendered to the whole thing as is and then it was
right. Back to some emphasis on effortless, choiceless
presence. That worked 1/2 dozen times.

Noticed that I was having a really good time and some
exhuberantly pleasant feelings and was a little leary
of getting giddy or unbalanced but surrendered to that.
By the end I was still coming back to the candle and
trying to keep that, but also aware of the body and
watching the self-image like one of the meditation
points. That last bit made it feel more like meditation
rather than just recreation.

Wed pm 70 mins candle kasina. Alternated gazing, dozing off and returning
the whole time.