Antero's practise journal 3

My current practise is helping me to see different kinds of background chatter that are supporting my long held mental fixations. This is what I found:

Self congratulation thought
'What others think of me' thought
Pride thought
Commenting thought
Remembering thought
Nostalgic thought
Want to attract others' attention
Future planning thought
Anticipation
Wanting to appear competent
Arrogant thought
Self confidence thought
Wants to show off
Want others' acceptance
Wants to be funny
Self conscious thought
Wants to be respected
Fantasizing thought
Self criticizing thought
Fear of death (in a dream)
Wanting others' approval
Feeling foolish
Regretting thought
Feeling of superiority
Free association thoughts
Pretending to be skilful
Wanting to give good impression
Judging thought
Wanting to be the centre of the attention (and being afraid of it at the same time)
Wanting to be admired by others
Feeling inadequate

Edited to add:
Indignation thought
Righteousness thought

Lying on the hotel bed doing binary noting
'I don't have to go on creating myself all the time again and again. I can drop it.'

Rising current
Connecting both ends of the sushumna
Restful silence
Sensations flowing steadily
Unstuck mind

Antero,

Your list in #125 is a very comprehensive list of what the mind does when not actively engaged with anything else.

Eric

"Antero,

Your list in #125 is a very comprehensive list of what the mind does when not actively engaged with anything else.

Eric"

Hi Eric

I have recently been investigating a lot this very activity of the mind when it is not occupied. Practising though the paths, sometimes the sense of self disappeared for a moment. Then at 4th path it was seen through and everything changed forever. The subsequent stages removed the self completely, so that it could no longer be felt even if I wanted. Mysteriously something still remained.

Now it has become completely clear to me by direct experience that it is this seemingly harmless and automatic narrative activity of the mind that is creating the phantom self over and over again. By this I mean a sense self that cannot be seen of felt in any way, yet it must exist judging from my automatic reactions to certain sensations. This has been a mystery to me.

My recent experiences have shown me that it is possible to stop the noise and happily exist in silence.

At least this moment.

And this.

The baseline of my practise has moved to a new level thanks to binary noting Silence/Noise. I have learned to see in real time how thoughts are forming even when the conditions are not ideal. Noting the thought as 'Noise' instantly returns the mind to silence and being present.

I was doing binary noting in the train. There was unpleasant pressure in the face and throat, like some nasty burrowing animal was moving underneath the skin. It felt like my head was slowly transforming into something ugly and weird. I had a feeling that my face was being pulled into a hideous grimace and I hoped that it was just my imagination.

I could no longer take it. My whole body felt sick and I was on the verge of vomiting. I surrendered to whatever was happening. It felt like the very bedrock of my being was shaking, strange raptures that I have never felt before shook my body.

Then it passed and I had a chance of watching interesting phenomenon for a couple of minutes: every time the mind was being pulled into something interesting that it saw, a proto thought formed and then disappeared immediately. Then again just body sensations and direct perception. I was walking through the crowd at the train station. Continuous stream of body sensations and some mental images flickered by without sticking or creating the usual tidal wave of comments and stories.

Great updates Antero!
Kenneth introduced me to binary noting of Narrative/Silence (Silence/Noise) a couple of weeks ago and I'm really hooked on it as well.

Thanks Omni. I simply love this technique!

Silence is always present.

It is not still but vibrating continuously.

At any given moment a wave may break the surface and a proto thought is formed. If in that instant it is recognized for what it is:

Noise

The surface is calmed again.

Some waves have more momentum than others and may develop into fully grown thoughts. When recognized they shrink back to mere ripples on the surface.


For the first time I am directly experiencing what Patanjali wrote in his classic sutra:

yogaś-citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ

Yoga is the restraint of fluctuations of the mind.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_Sutras_of_Patanjali

I have not felt like this since I stopped cycling through the nanas and stopped having Dark Nights last winter:

Physical discomfort
Restlessness
Anxiety
Irritation
Lack of purpose
Emptiness

I do not feel motivated to do anything. I still remember that there used to be meaning and purpose in my life. Now everything seems empty and vain.

My mind states have not been affected by this phase, except in dreams. After waking up I remember experiencing sadness, fear or hate that made me startle even in the dream.

There are many things I could do with my mind to entertain myself or to make everything feel better, but what would be the use of that? I don't think I have ever been so present, so aware of everything before.

Accepting whatever

Hi Antero,

I appreciate the honesty and openness in your writing. I do notice confusion coming up for me as I read this entry. I find myself unable to clearly tell whether you find your current situation and your response to it to be a positive or a negative. Could you say more?

Andy

Antero,
I'd also be interested in how your experience of being alive has changed since 4th path? Is this change a result of getting 4th or has your post 4th practice resulted in further progress? I'm mostly interested in post 4th practice. No worries if you don't feel like answering. Thanks for the time you take to share your experiences.

"Hi Antero,

I appreciate the honesty and openness in your writing. I do notice confusion coming up for me as I read this entry. I find myself unable to clearly tell whether you find your current situation and your response to it to be a positive or a negative. Could you say more?

Andy"

Thank you Andy for taking the time to read my journal, I try to be clearer about this.

To be honest, I am pretty excited about the latest development, even though it is physically mostly unpleasant. I usually get strong tension in the throat and head area as soon as I start noting. The tension builds up until at some point there is a feeling of release and a violent surge of vibration goes up my spine to the head. Some of these surges feel very weird indeed and there is a part of me that seems to be a bit uneasy about it. Sometimes it may feel like some part that I took to be solid is cracking and crumbling under me.

I have a complete trust in the process with Kenneth guiding me and the physical symptoms are not a problem, since aversion is not arising for me at this point. I am not even sure if this could be called suffering, since who would be suffering anyway . So come whatever may, in theory I am accepting it all.

Still the uneasiness that I am experiencing shows me that somewhere in this pile of habitual tendencies there must be a part that is scared about emptiness and the possibility that everything turns out to meaningless.

Antero.

"I'd also be interested in how your experience of being alive has changed since 4th path? Is this change a result of getting 4th or has your post 4th practice resulted in further progress?
-RevElev"

Hi Rev,

I am not sure I know what you mean by 'experience of being alive' so feel free to ask follow-up questions if I am rambling beside the point

The shift from 3rd to 4th path was not a huge thing at all for me. The most notable feature was that before that there were time periods when I saw through the illusion of self, seeing myself from the outside from time to time. After 4th path this became a permanent feature of my experience. The sense of self did not disappear though, but it became almost like a shadow. Like watching a movie you may be so immersed in the story that you may forget it is just a show, in the same way it was possible to continue to get caught up by the phantom when the mindfulness was low. If I paid any attention to it, it was obvious to me that there was nothing solid to it.

There were still negative mind states arising, but not so much as before. What made the difference was that whatever negativity arose, it was not stacking and disembedding from it was fast and easy. Still episodes of dark nights and cycling bugged me from time to time.

(Cont.)

(Cont.)

Direct mode practise fixed all this and when it became a permanent feature (sixth stage in Kenneth's map as he counts A&P as the first stage and 4th path as fifth stage) and it made a huge difference to me. (see posts from # 25 onwards) At this point everything became a lot easier: no cycling, no dukkha nanas and most importantly: no more negative mind states. The feelings of compassion and metta started to flow spontaneously and without effort. If I thought that I was being mistreated, I might still get a negative reaction in the body, but no resentment or aversion was happening. Irritation or worry was still felt in the body from time to time, but their power was decreased considerably.

At the next major shift in my practise, the sense of self was lost completely (seventh stage in Kenneth's map). (see posts from #45 onwards) Explaining this stage is a bit difficult for me, because it soon became clear to me that there were a lot of situations in which I continued to react like the self still was present, even though direct investigation revealed to me that there nobody home. Old habits die hard, I guess

Anyway this development brought a new quality of clarity to my experience, so that I started to see how the silence is present in every moment. This state of peace was easily accessible at any moment if I just inclined my mind towards it. Only at this point I started to get what being present really is, even though I could still not do it continuously. It is kind of interesting that it took so long for me to recognize it, but even pre-path we are having these moments of clarity all the time. They are just surrounded by so much noise and our unrealistic expectations about enlightenment make it hard to see something so obvious and simple.

(Cont.)

(Cont.)

Recently I have some short but continuous experiences of being alive in this body with (seemingly) nothing between the experience and the one experiencing phenomena. Or maybe more accurately things are just happening without even the need to know if there is someone experiencing it. There is a huge relief as all unnecessary mental activity drops away. (see post #129) This is the cutting edge of my practise at the moment and I have no idea where it leads'¦

To summarize I would say that 4th path is a good start for some real discoveries ahead. I am not saying this to belittle the attainment of 4th path, just that it is not the end of path by no means, but really the new beginning.

Anyway don't take my word for it, see it for yourself

Antero.

[Edited to add: if you are unfamiliar with Kenneth's seven stage model, see links in post #93]

Antero,
Thanks for that explanation, that was more then I expected and really appreciate it. I was curious becuase it seems like when people get 4th they don't seem to post as much, which I can understand, I'm posting less since my change in March(SE?). Everyone seems to agree that 4th isn't the end, but there's not much in the way of practice notes after that point. I've also been looking into AF and it seems like some people get 4th then switch, I have no interest in that, why switch when this is working so well for me?, but I was curious. Also, some seem to be unsatisfied with the results of 4th, and give up, which again seems very strange to me.
Really appreciate you taking the time to explain your practice and further inspire me to keep at it. And I'm definitely going to see for myself, as soon as possible.
Thanks.

Thanks for the updates Antero! It's Nice to learn more this way.

Thanks Omni and Rev! Your interest in my journal is inspiring me to continue posting in future.

Keep it up Antero. It's a great resource especially for practices relating to the last few stages in the 7 stage model.

Watching a floor tile

How does watching a tile on the floor feel like? Actually pretty good. Light is hitting the retina and there is a feeling of seeing something, a sense of watching. I cannot detect anyone doing the watching, nor is it possible to say that there is a separate object that is being watched. Being awake in the moment is an action.

I used this sense of watching as a template as I sat and watched the floor tile moment by moment. I compared all other phenomena to this feeling of watching and everything else that I detected was labelled as noise. During the past two weeks the mental activity has become increasingly subtle and harder to detect. If I am not very careful, I will not be able to see proto thoughts appearing, just seeing them disappear or turn into fully grown thoughts.

At first glance there was no thought activity present at all, but as the mindfulness deepened I started to see some proto thoughts trying to run for cover. When I was more in sync with the rate the mind was fluctuating, I was getting emerging proto thoughts in real time. The noting started to be cumbersome at this speed, so I switched to noticing instead, keeping in mind how just watching the tile feels like.

"Keep it up Antero. It's a great resource especially for practices relating to the last few stages in the 7 stage model."

Thanks Jayson! It makes me happy to hear that you have found it useful.

Antero.

Experimenting with eye focus

Heaviness and unpleasant sensations in the body seem to have passed for now. I am also seeing more often spontaneous reactions of letting go of emerging thoughts. When this happens, the thought is objectified automatically and dropped as awareness prefers to return back to observing body sensations. I still sometimes get lost in thoughts, but not that often.

This morning when doing asana practise I paid special attention to the gazing points or drsthis (see www.befityoga.com/yfocus_may05.shtml ) of each asana. There was a huge difference between just pointing the eyes to an expended arm or tip of the nose and really looking at those points. Doing the latter would just stop dead all the mind activity. The appearance of emerging thoughts caused the eye focus soften at the same time. If I paid attention to this and did not let the attention widen, thoughts failed to emerge.

I experimented with this handle throughout the day and my initial discovery was confirmed. Every time a thought is about to be born, the attention gets somewhat wider and eyes start to relax. It is as if the external and internal vision cannot function at the same time and they cancel each other. Using this knowledge I could be aware of the mind activity just by monitoring closely the area around my eyeballs and the quality of the attention.

[Edited to add a link on drsthis]

Really interesting investigations, Antero. I've been watching how the mind begins to expand and wrap itself around the object, but also how, as you say, it's possible to stop the attention widening and prevent a thought from developing. Excellent thread and lots of food for thought. Or not thought, as the case may be. Ha!

Thanks Tommy!

"If one thought clings,
then successive thoughts cling; this is known as being
fettered."

"If in all things successive
thoughts do not cling, then you are unfettered."

'If one instant of thought is cut off, the Dharma
body separates from the physical body, and in the
midst of successive thoughts there will be no place
for attachment to anything.'

The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch

see: Jan Yun-Hua: A Comparative study of 'no-thought' (wu-nien) in some Indian and Chinese Buddhist texts

ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-JOCP/jan2.htm