turtle log

Did 35 mins of candle concentration followed by 30 of noting this morning. Focusing on noting visual seeing, head sensations, mental images, thoughts and volitions, as well as physical sensations. This felt disembedding. While pre-cooking lunch at the Chan temple felt pretty "heady" and top heavy. So focused more on counting breaths at the abdomen and then noting body sensations during 1st couple of sittings, and body sensations during fast and slow walking sessions. During long formal talk I maitained meditation posture Zen style and tried to maintain awareness of the body and posture overall, eventually using pain as an anchor and not changing posture. By the end I felt pretty present with the body. Somewhat present during eating meditation but a little distracted by timing issues. Some chanting practice afterwards then the monk asked if I wanted to stay and sit with him for another hour. Twist my arm. Started this sitting with noting but soon felt a gravitational pull to the body that proved reliable and didn't space out. Felt like stepping apart from objects to note them was an extra step. This was more like letting go into some not knowing and pulling more into the body I guess each time the thought of knowing something came up. I've experienced something like this before, but this time felt more settled without as much fascination about it.

Your candle concentration stuff is amazing!

Great progress!!!!

Remember there's no reason you can't use that and then switch over to noting and instantly be in the corresponding nana.

Sleepiness, which you seemed to run into, really comes on strong some times for me in early 4th jhana (maybe starting in 3rd). Maintaining some sort of anchor going in, such as awareness of the breath, as well as sitting upright tends to help me ride the sleepy period out.

Very cool new meditation log thus far. I'm really jealous of some of the visual stuff you've got going on.

I think I've read somewhere before, that in the suttas they will go all the way up to fourth jhana before switching into vipassana.

Thanks mumuwu!! Really appreciate the pointers and encouragement. I've been wondering if I'm sometimes groping around a transition from light 1st jhana to 2nd. Not sure how to tell when concentration becomes 1st jhana, or how to approach changing from 1st to 2nd. Seems like it will be useful to gain a practical understanding of this. I don't have any notion of 3rd jhana yet. So far it's seeming like a good new statregy to sit down and try to get concentrated right off and eventually switch to noting. When it goes well, it seems effective. Can you describe a thumbnail of practical differences to look for between the 1st 3 jhanas? Thanks again.

Mon & Tues a.m. sat for an hour with a persistent migraine both times. (My neurologist says I get a form of migraine called cortical spreading depression, "the spreading of a self-propagating wave of cellular depolarization in the cerebral cortex", that in my case results in only moderate pain, but has a range of unpleasant states, especially if it gets a serial migraine going for 2 or 3 days, like the current one.) The last couple of days migraine made it difficult but still possible to concentrate. Yesterday after 30+ mins of candle gazing I felt a shift, like the energy going up, that I suspected was a nana transition. Switched to noting and got the energy coming up that swings the head around, loosening and opening the neck and head. I think of this as 4th nana. After extra strong sitting yesterday and pretty good start this morning, I wanted to note well during the day, but I had an especially strong attraction of focus to the head, and self image in particular. Vague feeling-image suggestive of my face and presumed emotion seemed to dominate experience and wasn't sure how to work with that via noting. Trying to work with migraine is taxing and mental energy felt scattered. Ended up trying to remember to just question "what is this?" about the whole thing.

This morning, 60 mins. I tried staying present with the flame as if concentrating on it but with little or no physical flexing from effort to concentrate. For several moments at a time this seemed possible for awhile. I think the noting ended up being a little diffuse and uncertain as my brain feels somewhat scrambled. There have been so many times when I get some momentum in sitting and then run into a migraine attack that seems to pull the rug out. I've been wondering if this is a coincidence. My migraine frequency is pretty high. I'm wondering if there is something to learn from this, some way to navigate this situation, and stay on some kind of track?

Wed am sitting 70 mins. started with candle concentration. Felt scattered
from after-effects of a multi-day migraine, so applied forceful
concentration for a few minutes. At one point thought I could tell I was
in 3rd nana then shifted right into what seemed like 4th but then seemed
to abruptly go beyond 4th and I noticed I felt fearful and even thought I
saw something menacing out of the corner of my eye and remembered that one
of the nanas is called knowledge of fear. Looked it up, it's 6th. All in
just a few minutes. Thought I might be scripting, so I think I resumed
candle concentration for awhile.

Later I felt a shift where concentration
was fairly easy and included much of body sensations. Switched to noting
and caught tail end of 3rd nana (uncomfortable posture with urge to adust
and loud itches) going in to 4th, which involved a shaking out and
loosening from head and neck and arms, down to pelvis and knees.

Sometime after that it felt clear and still and there was an unusual
immediacy to the sensations, it felt tangible that the process was just to
be present since it was all there. I didn't feel like noting verbally, it
didn't seem necessary to narrow down on trying to see something.
I remember something about there being a lot of black space that extended
beneath me and at one point it felt possible to mostly relax from the dim
little light of my brain into the black space. I didn't want to get up and
sat longer than I had time for. I remember feeling that my usual
emotional/mental states are so shallow and frivolous and tried to avoid
being pulled back into them getting ready for work. But once I started
running around hectically because I was late and relating to family
members I lost it and didn't remember what the sitting was really like
until now.

Are you sure it was third nana? It might have been misery...

Now
it's starting to seem like a possibility. I know how easy it is to lose momentum when the mind allows itself to get pulled into the restless shallows by busyness and distraction. Can I find a different way than
that? Later: fortunately a sensitivity and relaxed settledness in the body has stayed with me getting
ready for and arrive at work. Off to give a presentation. It will be interesting to see if I can recollect
the body during that.

Thurs am 75 mins. Couldn't sleep anymore after a short night and felt that
I was ready to sit anyway. Effortful candle concentration until the
posture, sensations and sounds could be included in the concentration on
the flame, up to 30 mins. Then switched to awareness. It felt too
meddlesome and unnecessarily focussing to note, so just tried to remain
with the field of awareness, especially the body. Didn't feel right to
exclude the brain, but seeing if I could avoid giving it magnetic power.

Looking for a way to continue the continuity of the candle concentration settled on
feelings of fatigue which were unpleasant but vivid and poignant and vibrating throughout
the body. Continued trying to not get caught up in brain activity staying with the body. At one
point my body started doing the arm and trunk stretches it does sometimes at the end of
a sitting and I thought 'that's premature'. Checked the clock and couldn't believe it hand been
74 mins since I sat down. I was sure I had been present for the whole thing but it felt like a short sitting.
I reflected that I had a couple times felt a little disappointed that nothing much had
happened, except a good continuous, grounded awareness. Then I realized this could be an equanimity. And I got some feedback from Mumuwu and Nick yesterday that it was possible that I was getting into some equanimity lately. Found that amazing and inspiring but not really believable.

Hey always great to see such dedicated work. Based on your descriptions it seems like you could be in either an A&P or Equanimity phase. I can't really tell at this point. Keep the descriptions as rooted in sensation as much as possible. And keep 'em coming.

Metta

"Are you sure it was third nana? It might have been misery..."

mumuwu, just read up on Misery, 7th nana. That seems possible. I'll try to keep up momentum so that time will tell. Thanks for the question!

" you could be in either an A&P or Equanimity phase. I can't really tell at this point. Keep the descriptions as rooted in sensation as much as possible.
"

Yeah, I know there are a lot of facets to A&P, presents different ways at different times. OK, I'll try to keep the descriptions more focused on sensations. Thanks, Clayton!

Yeah, Clayton's suggestion to try and do some sits with an eye specifically to sensations and try and do some reporting on that level may bring a greater sense of clarity regarding where you're at.

The more you can sit and journal during this period, the more resolution you'll build and the clearer this will get.

During the 2nd 1/2 of my a.m. sitting Thursday, it felt like I'd penetrated the conceptual gloss to some extent and was experiencing the body more like vibrational fields. At work today I was frequently drawn to that feeling level of the body, or it was easily available when I remembered it. That stayed with me through much of the busy day.

Thurs PM My daughter invited me to her kriya meditation which means a 1.5 hour sitting for me, since I just sit in the dark in the back and do vipassana. Figured I'd be nodding off after long day on short night's sleep, so tried doing some breath concentration. But the attractive pull of feeling the wholesome vibrational body kept me somewhat grounded and awake for 30 to 45 mins, before some drowsiness set it. I was getting bright pain in my foot so decided to concentrate intently on the pain. The pain had tingly pulsing waves so concentrated on discerning the details of those, trying to fully give myself to the pain. (I've had some experience with that techinique from zen and vipassana retreats.) Using concentration to cut down on scattered drifting during vipassana seems to be opening a new door for my practice right now. The hour & 1/2 went by fast and sorry to see it end.

Friday a.m. Woke early gnashing about work. Tried to concentrate in bed on early traffic sound, but found examining various body sensations more grounding. Started sitting feeling kind of restless. Felt militantly determined and applied myself forcefully to intently focused candle concentration for 30 mins before I noticed I was ready to bring the posture and body sensations into the concentration. My wife got up early and was in the mood to wip around the house cleaning and straightening even though everyone else was sleeping or meditating. Switched to visualizing the after image for several minutes as a bridge to vipassana, focussing intently on the rapidly changing geometric shapes inside the neon circle I get after candle gazing. Energy suddenly concentrated in my forehead and pleasant feelings pervaded briefly. Energy lifted my body into an effortless erect posture and those spontaneous shake out moves loosened the kinks. My head turned to the right. Pleasant tingling feelings and pulses. Standard 4th nana repertoire. Awareness took in the body overall, noticing and relaxing holding areas, felt very calm. Figured this might be 5th. Then an energy pulled my head down some and a sober, kind of existential feeling set in and it became hard to, or there was a repulsion from, focusing on anything in particular. This is a familiar state by now, it's been happening for at least a year, then it hit me that it seemed like a good bet this could be dissolution nana.

Finally did my homework on jhanas and nanas past A&P tonight. I had thought Dissolution was 6th. Reading that it is 5th and that the description corresponds with what I experienced this morning immediately after 4th seems strong. Also the description of 3rd jhana is right on. I never understood the description of "seeing only the endings of things" but now I realize that this corresponds with my "negating" experience where my mind can't or is repelled from focusing on or holding on to anything. My advanced scouts have been setting up camp here for at least a year, but recently this seems to be becoming the new edge of my practice and the troops are starting to move in I think, since I've been here at least 3 or 4 times this week.

This is truly amazing and empowering to me to see that I can get this jhana, nana and progression of insight stuff. It starts to give me confidence in the map as an actually useful tool. Getting to 4th nana / 2nd jhana in any sitting between 40 mins to an hour is pretty much a sure thing. Now I want to see if I can start to be as confident about 5th nana. Also I'm starting to get jhana jumping from 2nd to 4th nana, which is a kick that it works just as advertised! And even though somehow I get from 4th to 5th nana, don't know how yet to do that kind of letting go between 2nd and 3rd jhana.

Another interesting thing is that there definitely is a big range of intensity for hitting these strata. Sometimes it can be intensely absorbing and compelling, and other times, like this morning, I can actually be kind of restless and just notice these transitions in a shallow way. Likewise my mind was restless all day at work and hard to settle it in the body.

Edit: next morning, a lot of self-diagnostics last night!

"Yeah, Clayton's suggestion to try and do some sits with an eye specifically to sensations and try and do some reporting on that level may bring a greater sense of clarity regarding where you're at.

The more you can sit and journal during this period, the more resolution you'll build and the clearer this will get."

mumuwu, wanted to say how much I appreciate your suggestions and encouragement! Wetpaint was not taking replies for awhile on Thursday.

Sat a.m. 1hr 25 mins. Woke up early, restless, wanted to sit. Felt kind of scattered but optimistic. Candle gazing, instead of usual intense focus, tried starting with the more inclusive approach including body sensations (2nd jhana?). Felt uncertain about how concentrated I actually was, had stray thoughts, but felt pleasant so didn't go for intense focus. Everyone started getting up and moving around, talking. I sit in the living room since there's not an extra room in our small house. It was interesting, though, to watch the registering of sounds and my reactions as objects of attention. So, kind of playful kept sitting in the hubbub. The feeling of the body as a tingling energy field became pronounced again. Energy rising up and loosening the neck and head. Had a thought train and bright itches and stiff knee appeared. Settled back into attentive presence and pleasant waves of sensation came back. Tingles in the limbs and trunk. At 75 mins thought "well that was good", but then thought, just try 5 more mins. Shortly there was a shift to tangibly more stillness and quiet, with soft tingling pusles, a somewhat familiar state, but interesting to see the shift to it from 4th nana, and that it seemed I could kind of incline the mind toward it. A few minutes later there was a feeling of black spaciousness opening up beneath me, which happened a couple of other times recently and seems pleasantly spacious to me, but interested to notice a contrasting tightening in my sternum area like anxiety. Mumuwu suggested recently to notice any subtle fear states that might indicate 6th nana. I thought this could be scripting, but the unprovoked physical tightening of anxiety was there. So, who knows?

This is good, the transition from 5th to 6th is often gradual.You sort of get the positive side of anxious before it becomes more negative.

At one point I felt strong fear, no doubt about it. Took an effort to stay still with it. No more than 5 mins later the fear passed and I felt uncomfortable, densely packed, tingly itches over the arms and legs, stiff and some pain and restless. I started worrying about pain in my knee, which rarely bothers me after only an hour. Tried to stay with it longer. I had been looking forward to getting something to eat, but felt like I lost my appetite. I checked that out for a couple of minutes, does it really feel like I've lost my appetite? It seemed like it did. I thought that the fear and the itchy discomfort seemed pretty undeniable, but wasn't sure if I was buying the disgust part, after having just read about these things today. It occurred to me though, I wouldn't have given any thought to these transient states if I wasn't on the lookout for them. I could have had stuff like this lots of times without knowing it. I was much more impressed by the body samadhi.

"This is good, the transition from 5th to 6th is often gradual.You sort of get the positive side of anxious before it becomes more negative."

Something to look forward to

Saturday. During meetings with a couple of friends, and while running errands I felt like I was just in a normal state but then noticed I was relaxed and cheerful in social settings (rare), and easily found presence with my body during activity (also rare).

Sat pm 1hr. Started with candle flame, feeling unusually effortless, with the tactile feeling of the attention coming as much from the perception of the flame as from any sense of effort. The attention had a pleasantly smooth feel and felt easily inclusive. Before long started getting a little drowsy, eyes closed and I watched the little after image circle that had beautiful neon fireworks in it. Didn't watch it directly, but took it in as part of the overall view behind closed eyes. Got more drowsy but instead of exerting an energy eruption of resistance, it felt like attention just collapsed effortlessly into the body, which had a soft presence like something quiet and still in the dark, easily missed, but this time I was catching its subtle sensation. It felt like I was having kind of a samadhi of drowsy union with the body. Kind of arduous to stay with it, but compelling and touching.

Sat a.m. 2hrs 45 mins. Seemed easy to get into the flame without physical effort at 1st but then noticed I was drifting. Felt too relaxed to get hyper about it and just kept returning to it. Decided to stay with the contration a lot longer today. 2nd jhana came a little late today, instead of jumping over to A&P vipassana, stayed with concentrating, trying to be experimentally non-controlling and allowing. At one point my eyes closed and I noticed I was in a still and quiet state that I've been suspecting is 5th jhana lately. Went back to concentraing. At around 75 mins, something obviously changed and I felt like I was floating in a soup of pleasantness. It was very noticable but mild, no where near orgasmic intensity or anything.

Intended to switch to vipassana, but not sure exactly what I did for the next hour and 1/2. More like a slow, progressive relaxing from image-intensions involving the body into presence of the body and actual detailed sensations. Then noticing that an idea like "I've got to stay with the body and stop sticking to ideas" had stuck to me and gently relaxing back into openness to the body, either that or just being the body. Eventually I was struck by how all my intentions, efforts, distractions, holdings, sensations were just all right there, at once in plain site. Even if I only saw that momentarily, it was like a "doh!", where else would they be. The more I sat, the more I wanted to sit, but there will be hell to pay to the schedule. Maybe also pay some attention. Edit: Almost forgot, at the very end there was an extremely sweet quietness that seemed to briefly escape self consciousness for a few moments, just a stronger kind of concentration state, that I think I've had at retreat before but it becomes quickly hard to remember the taste of it if it doesn't happen again.

Mon am 60 mins. Concentration & noting. Didn't feel cutting edge, just a pretty good sitting. Had little idea of possible nanas involved, and didn't worry about it.

Tues. Woke up during the night and found that body and mind seemed suspended in visible space. Particularly striking was the ubiquitous self-image which seemed to have no identification feeling tone. It did not feel like me. Got up to go to the john, and started to identify with self-image a bit, but the memory was still palpable and easily dis-embedded by noting. Later in the day, it wasn't hard to note self-image and feel some space around it, but the palpable sense of not having a feeling attachment to it had faded. a.m. 35 mins. Concentration was very difficult this morning. It would seem good for 2 breaths at a time and kept feeling like I didn't need to use forceful effort, but then I'd space out for 2 or 3 breaths. Tried ramping it up and got to 10 a couple of times. Finally with time almost up, got more for forceful and made it to 25.

For awhile now I've been able to spot at least parts of 3rd & 4th nanas, both of which are pretty obvious and usually have some noticable duration. Recently, for the first time I've been frequently catching what I believe is 2nd nana. It often is a thought train about the consequences of my intentions in relationships. It's usually in the 1st 5 mins or so of sitting when I think I'm still settling in and precedes 3rd nana.

I've been a little puzzled that I don't catch Mind & Body since I used to see that a lot, and sometimes found it quite striking to note. (30 years ago I went to a 3 month retreat at IMS, early in my practice, and that was my main nana discovery, sad to say. I was very impressed to discover what I now know as 1st nana and contemplated it at length. I didn't understand vipassana theory though and most of the retreat I just played around with trying to expand concentration to include more and more sensory points at once.)

I have a theory for why I don't notice 1st nana when sitting. I think it is my default mindfulness state when I'm trying to be aware in daily life. It just seems 2nd nature to see mind and body when I'm moving around if I'm not lost in thought. (A big if.)

Wed: got up early to dig out of snow. Insomnia this week. PM sitting, asleep.

Thurs: 2.5 hrs insomnia last night. Might have been DK content, or just my disposition. Felt like I would never again feel that life is "normal" or satisfactory, since it has obviously begun falling apart. I was able to settle in to following the breath and body sensations for a couple of hours, so that it ended up feeling like a fairly nice time.

am sitting: 75 mins. After a few days of insomnia and 2 days with only short sleepy sittings, today it felt like doing the manual labor of noting and re-awakening the body. 35 mins of candle gazing. Lately I've had trouble starting with nose-pinching focus, but rather find myself going right into including the body in the concentration, but with difficulty feeling the concentration is as steady that way. (Does this sound like light 2nd jhana?)

Switched to noting. Noted restlessness, stiffness and some muscle pains, short duration itches, desire to adjust the posture -- just noted without moving. (3rd nana?) None of this bothered me, it felt good to be noting and in touch with the body.

At times some energy would come up and straighten my body some and make my side-to-side rocking more noticable. Later there were a couple of pleasurable energy rushes drawing my attention kind of forcefully to the usual spot between and about 2 fingers above my eyes. On one of these my eyelids fluttered briefly. Experientially, it felt like I was starting to penetrate sensations more, getting somewhat past the conceptual short hand to the tingling details. (4th nana?) This transition wavered back and forth and wasn't as pronounced as usual. Afterwards I had that kind of silly optimism and careless cheerfulness that's easy to get swept up in if I don't keep paying attention. (naive A&P optimism?)

I read Nick's advice today to avoid not only claiming paths, but even nanas and jhanas unless confirmed. I practiced here for nearly a year before thinking the map even applied to me, but lately it's been striking me as potentially a practical and useful tool. So, I'm very open to being set straight on what I imagine is a fledgling understanding of some of the connections between my practice and the PoI map.

Right now for example, this is striking me as kind of obviously 3rd & 4th nana. But I'm open to correction!