Antero's practise journal 3

Lying on the sofa paying attention,
lone proto-thoughts looking for a cover
Feet vibrating,
central channel flowing like a hose
Five times in a row
Trembling, shuddering, smiling
Mind clean, just taken out of a washing machine

"Lying on the sofa paying attention,
lone proto-thoughts looking for a cover
Feet vibrating,
central channel flowing like a hose
Five times in a row
Trembling, shuddering, smiling
Mind clean, just taken out of a washing machine

"

Poetry, in every possible way.

Thanks Rev, I hope you are not stretching the definition of poetry too much


30 min sit after asana practise

Watching the thoughts

No motivation for striving this morning. Maybe I could drop the effort for a moment?

Feeling of relief

The attention expanded somewhat from the corners of my eyes towards the ears. I felt a continuous flux of sensations coming at me through all the sense doors and the mind door. The flow of sensations seemed to be going out of my head by my ears and turning back to my body. This created a feeling of constant grounding in the body. The stream just carried with it everything the mind created and dumped it into the body, so it was not possible for the mind to start dwelling on any of it's creations.

I experimented with this mind state a bit and threw some stones into the stream. Thinking about future obligations at work: gone. Fantasizing about future: gone. No stickiness in this state of no-thought.

After sitting I could re-create that state by using a visual image of a flowing stream of sensations. The sense of time was gone. When I was brushing my teeth, there was no "me" doing the brushing. The brushing just happened. Time and agent emerged again when planning thoughts and self referencing thoughts were back in operation.

I was doing the exercise mentioned in the previous post as I was walking home from work. There was presence in the body with minimum amount of mental commentary happening in the background.

I felt the effort dropping away and the mind state changed. My sense of being was gone and the body was walking on its own like a robot. There was no recognizable mind state happening, all affective feelings seemed to be missing. It felt almost like some part of me was switched off. I have previously done some experiments with PCEs and I recognized this mind state from those experiences.

This and some other recent experiences have confirmed my suspicion that AF and the state of no-thought that I am cultivating are not far apart. There is one major difference though: in the state of no-thought affective feelings are still present.

Hi Antero,

I am assuming that since you are cultivating a state of no-thought or narrative, that those are causes for stress / dukkha, am I correct?

Antero,
I'm curious to hear if all affective feelings are available? Or, are the "negative" emotions eliminated? Very exciting to hear what is possible with this practice. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

"I am assuming that since you are cultivating a state of no-thought or narrative, that those are causes for stress / dukkha, am I correct?
- Yadid"

Hi Yadid,

Narrative thinking has proved to be unsatisfactory. Still I wouldn't exactly say that it causes me suffering as there is no one to suffer and the mind states stay positive. To give you an example: a couple of days ago I was riding a bus and felt sick in my stomach. Yet the mind was not reacting to those unpleasant sensations with aversion but rather I was feeling bliss, joy and contentment. Weird but nice It is almost like having a choice between two radio stations. Was I suffering? Certainly not.

Narrative thinking seems to maintain a subtle sense of 'me' despite the fact that the illusion is seen through and the sense of self is gone. This causes negative sensations in the body as the mind is reacting to some phenomena with thoughts of irritations or worry.

Without discursive thinking pulling the attention, it is much easier to be awake in the moment in 'when seeing there is just the seen' kind of way. It is too early for me say much more about the topic as I am still working on it, so stay tuned

Antero

Interesting. Thanks for sharing Antero.

By the way, this is kinda odd but I had this dream where you had a video clip on YouTube and it was some hip-hop song but you were singing it about the mind.
Probably because I read your thread before I went to bed..

hehehe

Yadid, please don't post the link on the forum.


)

"I'm curious to hear if all affective feelings are available? Or, are the "negative" emotions eliminated? Very exciting to hear what is possible with this practice.
-RevElev"

Hi Rev,
Even though my daily experience is just Brahma Viharas, (that is loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity and their variants); it would seem that the negative sensations are still available under certain circumstances. This has happened when dreaming (a couple of times) and when doing ping-pong noting with a fellow yogi. When we were noting, I noticed that I had suddenly started to cycle through the nanas again and some negative mind states like frustration, aversion and doubt started arising.

So it would seem that nothing is permanently eliminated.

"Yadid, please don't post the link on the forum.


)


"

Yadid, please post this tantalizing link.

I lost the link, but I am pretty sure it is somewhere in the neurons here.

So far my search for a state of no-thought has been measured by my effort to stay mindful. These days it seems to have more and more to do with dropping of the effort.

Today I was sitting in the garden, when these words came to my mind:

There is no-one hearing the silence,
neither world nor emptiness distracting.
No life and no death,
just a fluff hovering in the breeze,
or an ant biting my toe.

If Yadid's unlikely prophecy comes true, in future I might be performing along these lines to the sound of hip-hop.

Thanks for the response, Antero.
So...do you have a stage name yet?
May I humbly suggest "4th path Gangsta!"

"Da phat cat arahat"
I'd pay to see your rhymin'

Eat dirt Rumi!

"Eat dirt Rumi! "

That's hilarious!!!

90 minutes of asana practise followed by Shikantaza type of open awareness

I think that I am seeing a new and interesting development happening. At times the mental state of no-thought becomes my default mode of experience for a while before the narrative mode kicks in again. The subtle non-localized tension drops away and it is replaced by deep inner silence. There is a feeling of joy and metta. I have never experienced this level of clarity and peace. Everything just is and that is all there is to it. It is so simple that I feel like laughing aloud (and probably did too).

You make my day, dear dharma friends!

Who am I?

Asking this question sends a shock of vibration through the spine. The mind is wiped clean as if some kind of a reboot took place. Then for a while there is a feeling of peace, wellbeing and stickiness. Just sitting and observing the world without the need to make any interpretations.

Antero, I'm finding your journal more and more useful these days.

I hope I have as much success with this stuff as you

Antero - can we just agree to call you 4th path gangsta?

You keep inspiring me!

In da buddhahood!

Thanks guys and may the force be with all of you!

Game of Perspectives

Lately my morning practise has consisted of doing open awareness with eyes open, experiencing the world as it happens to be. Ashtanga Vinyasa practise before sitting prepares the mindfulness nicely.

Recently it has felt like I am oscillating between two different ways of experiencing silence. At times I am feeling openness, joy and metta with some warm buzzing vibration. At times the vibration disappears completely and I am experiencing pure and clear silence with no noticeable mind states at all.

Then I realized how these ways of experiencing are connected with the movement of attention in my body. When the attention gravitated to the base of the spine, the energy was drained away and there was silence with no vibrations. When it returned to the chest area, feelings of metta were flowing again.

I started to experiment with these two states using mental images. No emotional response would show up as long as I remained at the base of the spine. Then after moving the attention to the chest I am suddenly moved to tears by the emotion.

When I talked with Kenneth, he put things into context by leading me through various positions of attention that are considered to be the final destinations in various contemplative practises. All the target areas produced very different but all the same interesting ways of experiencing the stillness and it quickly became clear to me that it would be totally arbitrary to say that one is better than the other.

Short Summary:

Head area as a whole
Exhilaration, enthusiasm, energetic, a lot of vibrations and rising energy currents, rigidness in social situations, feeling of tension, feeling of presence

(Cont.)