Dreamrabbit's practice notes

Ok, I've spent the past week or so re-evaluating my direction, and I think I've had some good realizations.

I have been in a stage-chasing mindset for a while, trying to figure out where I am and how I get to the next level. All the while, enlightenment is a sort of endgame. I was reading some of Thanissaro Bhikkhu's writings, and they helped me realize that, yes, there is an enlightenment out there to attain, but it isn't an end so much as a means to an 'end.' What I'm really after is more skillful use of the mind and body in living out my life. Or, I shouldn't be looking for a final state but a way of living in the world.

Another way of saying this, I suppose, is that 2nd and 3rd gear make total sense now, and this is what I want to focus on. Kenneth's latest dharma talk was really helpful crystallizing this. I was previously hung up on the idea that 1st gear was really the best/fastest/truest way, but now I see how the transmission fits together. It's funny how it takes time for things to sink in sometimes. In retrospect, I don't see anything lacking in the clarity of Kenneth's teaching here, but I took a rather circuitous way of getting the point.

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For me, it seems that effecting some sort of bodily/energetic purification is also going to be part of skillful living. I have been reading and absorbing Yogani's writings over at aypsite.org and integrating some of the energetic exercises in my practice.

On good days, my practice is something like this:
10-15 min. yoga asanas
5 min. spinal breathing
15-20 min. mantra meditation ("AYAM")
(occasionally 5-10 minutes vipassana)

this seems to be helping along some sort of bodily purification, and I am also experiencing a growing stability and peace in daily life (i.e. increasing time spent in second gear, grounding sensations in the body). So, things seem to be going well, but I am open to critique.

-John

I like the sound of this a lot, John. You are seeking balance in your life and finding it. This is by far the best approach. In other words, what you are seeking is contentment and as you wrote, "a way of living in the world." Perfect. So, it makes good sense to stay sane and balanced all along the way, which includes practice aimed at progress through the stages of enlightenment AND practices for the body and for mental health. Or, as I like to say, riffing on a Bible quote, "What does it profit a man to gain enlightenment and lose his marbles?"

Keep doing as you are doing, and you can be awake and sane at the same time.

-Kenneth

Things are going very well

When I sit now, I do mantra meditation for about 10 minutes and then start noting. Nothing seems to encourage dispassion as well as noting, so far as I've found. I feel myself slip quickly through various sorts of mental transformations, I'll call them, and absorption gradually deepens. The only state that I really recognize is one where there is a pressure in my upper cheeks and nose, and it's rather unpleasant...but it passes. I try to sit twice a day for twenty to 40 minutes.

Day to day, I am getting more firmly established in the witness, or possibly third gear. Peace and happiness seem to grow every day. As I have heard some say, this stuff really is the bee's knees.

I'm also seeing more and more clearly how complementary so many various teachings are. In the past few weeks, I've seen how Kenneth's teachings line right up with what Yogani is teaching at aypsite and with the teachings of one of Yogananda's disciples over here: www.csa-davis.org/

Spent a few frustrating days trying to recognize 3rd gear and force myself to stay in it. Eventually decided to just be happy in the witness until it dissolves. So I spent the next few days doing Ramana-style self-inquiry and dissolving any sense of 'me'. I heard someone say something to the effect that: "Your nature is releasing", and that really clicked for me.

For the past two days, blocks and me-sensations have been dissolving really well.

A few hours ago, I realized that I wasn't trying to do anything, but was just happy sitting in my chair. So far, that peace is abiding. Am not joyous, just calm, content, safe.

Tuesday's shift was a pretty big one for me. I was radically present and at peace for about a day and a half, and then my mind started to grab a hold of it. I fell almost completely out of it, but after a lot of relaxing and inquiring, I got back there again. I think it's going to take a while before I naturally stay there.

One curious thing. It has happend once or twice the past few days and about four times in the last meditation session. When I get really relaxed and present, it feels like I wink in and out of sleep. Lasts all of a second. I can't tell if I go completely unconscious or if it is falling through unconsciousness, into some brief 'other side' and then back through unconsciousness to my normal consciousness. I'm not sure exactly what is happening, but those are my two best guesses.

-John

Hi John,

Tell us about your experiences on Tuesday and since then in phenomenological terms. Have there been any changes in your actual experience while meditating? For example, you described "wink[ing] in and out of sleep." Give us more of this kind of language. What actually happens to you can give us clues about where you are, whereas the ideas you have about your experiences, however valid, profound, and possibly even accurate, don't really tell us anything. See if you can describe your experience very precisely and simply without any interpretation at all.

Thanks,

Kenneth

Sorry, I'm bad about that. It's so much easier to avoid the detail and just assume everyone knows what I'm talking about : /

Hmm...So, I realized that I was really well-established in the witness a few weeks ago, so I decided to go about trying to dissolve all the senses of 'me' that I found. I would find energetic-sticky points that seemed to have some claim on me, and I would dissolve them with a samyama technique. Basically, I would very vaguely pick up the sensations with my consciousness and then release them into silence. I found that this worked really well, and it seemed to sort of empty my head out.

I got to the point where I couldn't really find any 'I' sensation, but I felt that something should be happening. Then I started to kind of flounder around being sort of frustrated with nothing happening. I had a lie-down to help myself relax, and I started listening to some talk or other, and I think that helped me get to release the frustration.

Along with the release from frustration, I think I also worked through a chakra on the front of my body near my solar plexus. I'm not sure exactly what happened during the lie-down, but I just all of a sudden felt 'whole', content, no need to seek out anything. Thoughts, emotions, pains would just come and go.

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The pranayama I have done over the past few days has been much freer from obstructions and often feels like it circulates up from my base to the crown and all the way back down. (Edit: Crown feels closed most of the time. Flow seems to go from base to third eye and back down. Some feelings of crown opening, but definitely not complete)

There was also the feeling that I was done with meditation. More accurately, meditation was just automatic. No need to follow a mantra or focus. Just sit still and let the mind do its thing.

That lasted for a day and a half or two days until I started to write about it. Then my ego started really kicking in and trying to fit everything into categories and tell me how great I am. Energetic-sticky places started forming in my head. The sense of wholeness started to fade. I think it would be inaccurate to say it faded away completely, but there was a significant ebbing away.

So the past day or so, I've been trying to figure out how to force myself back into it. Eventually I was able to give that up, and I've kind of relaxed back into it. I'm not sure if it is quite as 'whole' as it was last time, but I think there is potential for it to get back there.

In the meditation session earlier today where I had several 'winkings', I was very calm. The energies in my body had stabilized more than they have before. I wasn't trying to do anything except be as still as possible and keep my awareness open instead of allowing things to contract and fixate. When things got really calm, I would blip out, and I would get excited feelings in my gut, and my attention would buck. It seems like I might stay in the blip longer if I can get over that bucking reflex.

Apologies again for not keeping the journal better. I'm working through some ego issues there.

Thanks,
John

Got walloped by a horrible mood shortly after posting yesterday. All throughout the torso and head, a feeling of 'ugh, this is horrible'. Lasted for an hour or so.

The energy flowing around my body feels freer and freer. I seem to be noticing two main channels that criss-cross in my throat when things are flowing well. I tend to play around a lot with draining the energies in my head, pushing them around. I'm beginning to get the sense that that isn't helping things.

The feeling of wholeness seems largely on ebb now. Not sure if it's a natural regression or if it is because I'm trying too hard to hold on to it. Or if there's any difference between those two.

Also, the feeling of being done with meditation is gone, as well as the really automatic meditation.