TMN Dharma - A Practice Thread

23/02/11 - Day Off
One 30 minute session of vipassana, done outside and standing.

Resolved to attain Fruition. Noting pain, tension, balance, or more accurately being off balance and noting tilting of the body, rocking on the balls of the feet all noted as neutral. Focused on the pain in my right-back, noted the pain vibrate more clearly, sensation changed from "pain" to "pulsing" to "vibration" but noted hearing, interpreting thought, orientation/direction relative to hearing, distance from sound and the process of hearing. Pain dissolved and hearing was noted, alternating between noting "right" and "left" at increasing speed until mental noting was no longer possible, noted a sound as "threatening" and spiraled into a major fear and paranoia trip, noted distraction, noted fear, anxiety, examined the sound causing the reaction and found nothing but sound flickering on and off. Stayed with the body and felt the blockage at my solar plexus free up and a stepping up of this vibrational sensation travelling upwards towards my heart area.

This led to energetic vibrations radiating outwards from the heart, noted coldness to the sensation, pleasant and expanding. Continued noting physical level sensation, noted thoughts appearing but they were observed to pass away with no attachment to the content, noted "distracted" when this occurred. Noted a very pleasant and warm wave of vibration when the wind, which had been previously noted as "cold", became warm, like standing on a beach in the sun for an instant and returned to being "cold" again.

Noted quickly and silently, remained at sensate level noting "stiffness", "pain", "thinking: give up", "movement", noted what was noting the sensation, how it felt, how it noted, and the all of a sudden I noted that awareness was down at my feet....

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....this seemed really, really strange and hilarious at the same time before the thought "Oh f*ck" was noted, like when someone in a cartoon realizes that a piano is about to fall on their head, followed by sensations of falling backwards into non-experience, absolutely no recollection other than the "falling in" and subsequent re-entry. There was a clear sense of "ripping" of reality, very thick vibrations, very unsettling with feelings of "what have I done?!" and, on re-entry a really weird and eerie vibe was noted over everything Iooked at.

At present, all is just ok. There's still a kinda creepiness hanging around after the practice, nothing major but still a notable unease which is easily dealt with when it happens.

24/02/11
1. Ongoing informal vipassana through the day.
2. 45 mins standing vipassana outside.

1. Random notes taken during the day while in work:
- Sadness, kinda like crying but without any tears. Emotions felt very deeply in the body, empathy, compassion, understanding and caring for what was happening to other people.
- Acceptance, balance (bodily calm with a feeling of both "sides" of the body being equal), "fuzzy" (sensation noted around the centre of the face)
- Divine contentment (I scribbled this down as a wave of happiness washed over me from the head downwards)
- Joy, ease of movement
- Pain/pressure at the back of the skull, noted on the bottom right-hand side. Sluggish, complacent.
- Noting "unattractive" faces compared to "attractive" faces.
- A very wide "pulse" felt passing from the chest and up over the shoulders, head and neck. Very broad wave-like sensations noted beyond the bodily sensation.
- Fruition occurred at one point during a conversation, sensations of "slipping sideways" and then realizing that something had been missed from reality for a split second and a very fine blissful wave of sensations "flowing" down the body.
- I wrote this phrase to describe a certain set of sensations I noted at one point, feeling tone fluctuated between neutral and unpleasant, "triangle vibrations".
- Anticipation, waiting and slight kriya activity.

I'm seeing that these notes from during the day need to be more rigorous, I may start recording the whole set of sense door activity at a given moment rather than randomly scribbling. Much as it's useful to look at how the majority of recorded and noted sensations have changed from being very difficult, harsh and irritating to broader, softer and more neutral, the information I'm recording lacks details.

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2. Stood in the garden as usual, noted the breath and began noting dharma thoughts, planning/reporting, interpreting, investigating, speculating thoughts. Noted kriya activity immediately, one short, "sharp" bolt of movement from the coccyx area which shot up towards the skull and appeared to fizzle out causing my head to shake like a spring from side to side, noted unpleasant, noted my feet felt very soft as the ground beneath them seemed to exist only where they made contact. "Speed" was noted due to the sensations implying this "slowing" down drastically before pulling upwards again, like a car changing gear.

Noted pressure in the center of the head, noted fear increasing and sat with the sensations as they appeared; Readiness, to run, assessing thoughts, "working things out" thoughts, readiness to fight, to find out what "it" was that was causing "fear", a push/pull sensation happening inside the body, tension, readiness, "dramatized projection" thoughts (basically storytelling, if content is noted it's usually really outlandish). Kriya activity stepped up here, noted the vibrations beginning in several places ranging from the bottom of the neck, which were noted as movement, small and jagged, to more violent movements at the centre of the head, noted the body twisting of it's own accord and remained with the sensations. Began noting "rupa" and "nama" which began to clear up the movements and allowed for a clearer view of thoughts passing without any attachment to the content, this brought a swelling sensation at the 3rd eye area and a shift to noting more subtle sensations around the edges of each note.

Noted distraction a number of times after this, there was a tendency to get into the content of the thoughts. Sensation noted as being step ahead of the consciousness of it....

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...felt quite deeply "with" the body, noted skepticism, questioning, wondering if I'm scripting myself into these experiences, images and thoughts of self-grandeur, clinging to any sensation just so that the illusion is maintained. Noted sensations of sensations, if that makes any sense, of being that which was noting, and that was was noted at the same time. Noted expectation, yearning for Fruition, excitement like a fat kid with a chocolate cake, just wanting to experience that glimpse of Nibbana......then noting that it was this "I" who was begging, clutching at, identifying with emptiness, this cluster of sensation wanted to BE emptiness but it was noted as sensation in and of itself. Noted that awareness of this playing out was still creating sensations of a background, a space which was noted as being like a perceptual loop running back in on itself.

I recall no Fruition, nothing other than continuing to note these subtle sensations and interference from interpreting thoughts, comprehending, figuring out, logical thought. I tried to note more clearly but felt that I couldn't move on any further and chose to return to noting the hearing, the wind on the skin and gradually opening my eyes feeling generally unsatisfied, but accepting that this is what happens sometimes.

If these reports are getting too speculative or content-heavy then please let me know so that I can find a better way to do this. Having this report thread gives me more encouragement to maintain momentum as there's a clear record of practice over the last wee while and I don't wish to break that. Thanks again for reading.

I had begun a post but am currently experiencing a complete inability to formulate any thoughts about practice, literally my mind has gone blank. At present I'm noting awareness being very wide and clear, mental processes are very foggy and fuzzy, neutral in feeling-tone, with the sense of quite broad vibrations pulsating gently at the back of my head. When I go to try describing practice tonight (45 mins standing vipassana & ongoing noting throughout the day - Notes will follow) I draw a complete blank and feel the vibrations at the back of the head spread out and then contract.

My only recollections which I'm sure about are: Walking into the garden, realizing I'd missed the point from when I got to the gate to the moment I stepped onto the bridge. Noting confusion, labelling, noting noting, the sense of my entire body clenching (unpleasant), and at least three "blinks" in reality, two very clear, one very disorientating.

I've never encountered this sort of blank when trying to write practice notes, but then again I've never kept a record of this sort for this length of time. There's nothing particularly unpleasant about it, just a sort of clear and wide awareness with not much else happening. I'll update this with more notes as I recall it. Notes from during the day will following in the next thread. Very puzzled indeed.

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Notes from daytime noting:
- "wide" pain, broad sense of "tightness" across the lower back. No reaction to this, noted with acceptance.
- pis*ed off, annoyed, impatient - noted in response to someone's tone of voice, realized as it was noted how ridiculous this was.
- Noted it was difficult to read numbers onscreen. Possibly just eyesight but noted anyway.
- Feeling like it was night time, sensation I associate with midnight. Stillness, calm, like being in the middle of a calm sea.
- Contentment alternating with boredom.
- Noting emotions arise separate from the "I" (I had been working with asking "Who am I" and noting where this feeds back to through the day also. Mainly aware of this at the back of the head near the crown.)
- Analyzing thought, noting the idea of "trying to impress" by taking notes. Following distractions.
- Noting clinging, trying to accept.
- Noting space, direction and acceptance.
- Losing concentration.
- "Deep contentment" were the words I used to note a wave of contentment noted flowing downwards through the body to the feet.

I didn't get the job I applied for and found myself unconcerned by this, completely accepting but able to note emotional reactions of disappointment, feeling sorry for myself, and sadness as being like ghosts rising into nothingness. I was aware of them but completely unaffected by them to the point where I could dip my metaphorical toe into them and experience it if I chose to.

At present this fuzzy thought vibe is still hovering around, bodily sensation is pretty fluffy too but, again, it's all very neutral and lovely. I'll report back in the morning as I'm up at 0445 tomorrow.

27/02/11
Vipassana - 30 mins

Didn't practice formally last night, I decided to sit with these sensations going on right now while I did other dharma related activities and tried to help out a few new people on the DhO.

Tonight I stood in the garden and began with noting the sensations of the breath in the head, in the sinuses and nasal cavity. I tried noting verbally but found this felt very clumsy and slow, I know that's more to do with me than the technique itself which I've found very helpful in the past, and so changed to noting internally - I'm finding that bodily sensation is noted and seems to fade out of awareness very quickly, this then means I'm noting mainly thoughts and using external sounds to keep myself grounded in the moment while noting this as "hearing, hearing".

Main sensations noted were confusion, wondering, forgetting, distraction, dharma thoughts, speculation, determination, fighting (well, a pushing forward), and a lot of getting lost in the content of thoughts. There was some emphasis on death for a period during the session, fear and concerns about imminent death based on a fleeting twinge in the chest, for example. Noted this as "fear, fear", but found that there were sensations of space between the sensations themselves and the "observer" if that makes any sense? I noted this and felt a deepening in concentration, sensations of depth and distorted perception (e.g. feeling differences between either side of the body where the right side of my face felt "larger" than the left).

I thought I had gotten a Fruition but I quickly realized that I was still aware of the "blinking out" happening which was noted as occurring between sensation being noted itself, this was noted about two or three times although I can recall no proper Fruition.

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I ended the meditation noting sensations of being unsettled, restless but the general vibe of being ok with that.

I'll fill some space in this posting as I don't have much more worth mentioning about practice 'cause everything just feels pretty much ok right now, even though it was a bit of a disappointing session. Outside of formal practice I've started working with Kenneth's direct perception technique which has led to a new understanding of the whole PCE/AF and the methods of entering this mode of perception. I've also been working with the "Riding The Jhanic Arc" technique as discussed by the lads over at The Hamilton Project and have found that, as Nick suggested on a thread at the DhO, it does indeed lead to cessations which appear to fit with the description of Nirodha Samapatti. I'm not claiming that this is what I've attained, just that the complete stoppage of all experience and awareness for these undefined periods of time, with the accompanying "powering down" entrance and "restarting" entry to normal awareness commonly identified with this, have happened consistently each time I work with this technique. This is all speculation of course, I'm only indulging in it at this point to flesh out an unimpressive posting and I do not do this during practice.

Anyway, back to practice.

28/02/11
Vipassana - 45 Mins

Standing, as usual, in the garden and started with the breath. Immediately noted physical shaking which, through noting it in other sessions, appears to have four locations where it begins, each one produced a slightly different sort of vibration which, in turn, produce different types of "tingling" moving in various directions. I'll avoid explaining this until a more appropriate time but I felt it useful to mention that I've examined the sensations quite intensively.

EDIT: I've removed the second half of this post as it was speculative and not properly representative of current practice. I'm finding noting difficult during practice at present and have moved to balancing this with more concentration. I speculated that I was in 11th ñana but I understand that self-diagnosis is often incorrect and so would rather just stick to recording practice notes. I adopted a "back to basics" approach before I had started posting on here and realized that I'm falling back into old habits so I'll be minimizing the speculation and recording as accurate notes as possible.

My practice continues as always, 45-120 mins per day formal vipassana, with ongoing noting and samatha practice through the day. My intention is to start recording an audio version of my notes immediately after practice, on my phone and while still standing in the garden, I find that leaving a gap between practice and then writing my notes allows for too much speculation and inaccuracy. I may, depending on how this goes, upload these sessions if it would be of any use to anyone, practice-wise, or diagnostically, but I feel that my incomprehensible, growling Scottish accent may be unintelligible to most listeners! Ha!

Cheers.

01/03/11
Vipassana - 30 mins.

Right, here's an experimental approach to recording noting.....I verbally recorded notes immediately after practice, in a rather spacey, contented state, and then transcribed them with minimal editing. Here's goes, let me know if you think this is any more accurate or similar to your own experience. If it's shi*e just say so : D

Standing, feeling breath rising, falling, seeing colour, standing thinking feeling cold, tension in the shoulders, noted various feelings of dissociation, or separation from the body, noted the body as a whole object, consciousness separate from it, not consciousness, consciousness fills in the gaps

Difficult to fully put into words...stood began noting that sensation couldn't be kept up with accurately if I noted it verbally....moving too quickly...moved to the bare sensate level, concentration upped, certainly accessed 1st jhana possibly moved up into 2nd noted a widening of awareness, a sense of three dimensional...view...attention in front of me, noted that noting didn't seem to be doing very much so shifted to a more open concentration. Focused on the breath and brought the attention to the centre of the head, stayed with the air at the nostrils and followed the breath, counted three continuous cycles of 10, established solid jhana, noted details of the jhana, firmness, solidity being implied but passing when examined, a sense of lines and definition implied by a certain sort of thickness of sensation, like a wall or something like that.

After that, noted a sense of expansion at the top of the body heading upwards. Area above the ears, awareness seemed to expanded into a hugely panoramic space, hearing sound in all directions, identifying sound as it occurred without any interpretation happening, remained at an absolute sensate level, not labelling whatsoever, return to breath, pure sensation of the rising/falling......

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.....as it happens with no thinking going on, noted how there was no thought, no self, thought noted circling in the background still happening but not playing the same part it usually did. Noted sounds of cars coming and going, slight shifts in awareness again outwards, expansion, space implied and distinctive side-ways shift and another massive expansion (Possibly slipped into jhana here though, I remain sceptical) again, didn't feel like it, still observing 3C's on each sensation. (To clarify this, not noting them, just being aware of each characteristic in that moment)

Able to follow sensation with acceptance, remained there with the sensation, observed unattached. (Anatta just appeared as I was writing this in a spelling mistake! Ha!) Activity at the head, broad vibrations around the top of the head, crown area down the back of the skull, all attention above the shoulders completely, little bodily sensation unless observed. Paid attention to what was experiencing this, noted a shift to feeling like standing behind the body, the form, noted sensations clearly perceived the outline of the whole body as empty, devoid of meaning and content, vibration, accepted, noted 'as is, accepted, ok' the same seen in any sensation.

Noticed a peculiar swirling effect around my feet at one point, spinning clockwise for a moment. A quick vortex of energy, noted particles circling.

Possible fruition, one moment of nothing at all followed by awareness, the sound of the river returning in hearing, mental activity/thinking. Noted a sense of being split down the middle, like occupying both sides of the split, an sense of being the awareness 'behind' the body too which reduced over the following 20-25 minutes.

Re: Posts 87-88

Noticed already that this report is thin on the mental sensation noted. On re-reading this it feels true to the experience itself subjectively, but I don't think it's particularly comprehensive or objective so I'll explore additional ideas for accurate recording so as to avoid presenting too much content and speculation. I'm concerned that my reporting is giving the impression that I'm speculating during practice which is something I note as it occurs and dis-embed from it. Once I get myself sorted with a webcam and headset (oddly enough given my current audio setup these are strangely absent) I'm going to speak to Kenneth and ask if he'll accept me as a student as I really feel that this will make all the difference.

Sounds like a good plan!
Hope you get your gear in gear!

Vipassana - 02/03/11
Verbal Noting Transcript

Noting bending, arm tension, sitting, contact, breathing, in/out, hearing, movement, hearing, thinking, hearing, exhale, falling, sitting, contact, hearing, analyszingf, wondering, self-conscious......listening, sitting, touching, touch, soft, sitting, heating, sitting, feeling, direction, movement, distance, space, discomfort, pain, feeling desire to move backwards, correct posture, sitting, contact, exhale, rising, falling falling falling, pausing rising rising, falling falling...Intent to put phone in lap, movement, discomfort, seeing hearing, cold neutral, sitting ,planning, labeling, sitting, guessing, judging, hearing, anticipating, thinking, seeing....

[At this point I found it too awkward to audibly note and so switched off my phone, which I use for recording notes after practice, and returned to silent noting. Notes from this will follow.]

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Transcript of notes after practice:

Ran through verbal noting, found it too distracting to continue. Main point, anticipation, excitement, expansion, "state shift" sort of feeling, up and out, movement, fear, thinking, interpreting, wondering, analyzing, temperature noted at first as cold/neutral but the air itself was sensed as being space, heard a plane overhead and noted a flickering. It seemed like the plane lights illuminated my visual field in three flashes, but noting this as it happened brought a "blink out"....(at this point I became quite disorientated)...I've lost the thread........erm....saw three flickers which I thought were to do with the light of the plane going overhead, but I think it was flickers in reality and Fruition. I've completely forgotten what's happening other than I just missed something there....

I can note the thought drifting away in the background....anyway...the planes overhead and the trains I hear imply distance, the sound of the river implied movement, could pick up different aspects of the sounds from different points spatially across the whole area of awareness, a fuzzy soft focus on the periphery of the perceptual field. Noted points where there was no bodily sensation, just a pure unification of the sensory inputs, so to speak, I could hear, feel, touch etc all at once, I can't be sure if that's the most accurate way to describe it but it fits what was being observed.

Again, the icy cold was never an issue, nothing major, nothing specific. Noted a lot of confusion at one point, this has been noted before in practice. A lot of very minor kriya movements, a lot of dharma thought, planning, flashing up images of irrelevant points in the day, a sense of no attachment. Strong fear noted again, made up from interpretation of sounds which I imagined were someone coming into the garden 'cause I was in there alone in the dark.

03/03/11

I've been noting through the day with a few informal sits for 5-10 minutes, but I won't be posting my regular report as I've got a design project to work on for someone which needs to be finished for tonight. Tried doing some verbal noting in the garden earlier but I find this very difficult and prefer silent noting....now I think about it, I should really persevere with that. Anyhow, gotta dash.....

04/03/11
Live From The Office Desk.....

For the last few days I've been following Kenneth's advice for getting into 2nd Gear using the "Who Am I?" questioning, and have found that I can access the "no dog" without much effort. What this has allowed me to do is to experience non-dual awareness in real-time, perceiving that emptiness, but in a much clearer way than before and by choice, not just randomly dropping into it.

Last night I worked on samatha practice from about midnight for an hour or so and, based on the descriptions I've read on here and elsewhere regarding the PL jhanas, I believe I'm accessing PL1 & 2. I could be very wrong here but the overwhelming sense of gratitude, restfulness and the gorgeousness of each breath was unlike anything I've encountered before, although I remain skeptical until I've explored this further.

I'll be practicing later on anyway and posting my report as normal so I'll see if there's been any changes in practice. Again, I remain skeptical until I've repeated this over and over without fail. Just felt that I would add this note to the journal so that I can refer back to it when I realize I was talking out of my ass......Ha!

07/03/11
Vipassana - 20 mins o/s standing & 30 mins seated inside.

First session: Noted verbally for a few minutes at first, I find that I over-complicate this for myself when I verbalize it and end up trying to note more than just the bare sensation or create an all encompassing label for each object noted. Still working on this as I want to explore it more though, particularly for doing practice with others on Socialeyes. Returned focus to the breath at the abdomen, entered 1st jhana and began from there.

Noted clearly how sensation is followed by the thought form, which then passes but the continuity is maintained by consciousness of it and the whole mental process involved e.g. I heard a dog bark, the sound itself without a label enters the ear but noted a split-split second before the labels "bark", "dog" and the mental images thereof. Noted a sort of "on-off" fluctuation, or flickering of consciousness as the process faded off while the next object came to the fore.

The same shaking (kriya stuff) was noted but very subtly at first until one big almighty jolt which threw my focus entirely. Noted surprise, shock, funny how this body just threw itself into some weird spasm without any effort from "me", I gradually became aware after this of a stillness in my body and that my ability to note had deteriorated so returned to noting hearing, cold, death thoughts (triggered by noting my feet and shins feeling like wood, examined the apparent solidity of this and felt like I was dead as there was no sensation to be noted in the area), acceptance, tension when noting self-referencing thought, in a very slow and patient manner.

Noted how noting awareness of noting always leads to the same shift like stepping back and away from my "self", not solidly, like shifting into jhana, but more like a transition.

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That transition is the point I now associate with moving to concentration over noting, I still noted thoughts as I felt very "with" the body which could be noted as a whole object by itself. Noted imagining, recalling, fantasizing, and other memory/fantasy thoughts pass and observed that emotions experienced within the thoughts "feels" the same as in real-life , noted how I was wishing and clutching for this idea of "enlightenment", thinking how I could write these things down, planning and structuring. I became aware of this all playing out in front of this "observer", noted removal from these sensation but not like aversion or detachment, and that "I" could just relax into awareness and watch it happen without being involved in any way. I felt a smile creep across my face as I surrendered to not having to be this "I", released the "trying" and opened my eyes, thanked the 3 Jewels and went inside.

Session 2: Sat down Burmese style and immediately heard two of my cats going mental in the hall, one of them started scratching to get into the room and pushed in....noted the point where I either get annoyed and lose focus, or note it, accept it and move on. I opt for the noting and note hearing, irritation, urge to move, images of closing the door tightly or losing my temper, volition, desire for silence, acceptance, noting hearing, breath rise/fall, inhale/exhale. Noted pain in my knees from the moment I sat down but remain with the sensations, noted them expand, pulsating gently and becoming lighter, contract and fade out, or occasionally loop in a similar fashion before vanishing.

Felt similarly "with" the body as a whole, but that there was a sort of "space" between the sensations of it and what's observing. Noted the observing sensations as being without any center to it....

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...shifted to the sensations of breath, focused on concentration but noted positive sensations and the desire to just relax into jhana rather than note. Resisted this and noted expansion in the chest/heart area, a dense and short-wavelength energetic vibration moved quickly from the chest to the 3rd eye area and was noted to expand again only this time it moved across and beyond the width of the forehead.

After this I don't think I can really describe it without a lot of speculation and unnecessary hyperbole, the long and short of it is that "I" just kinda "stopped" for a period of time (no idea how long, probably around 5 mins) and awareness continued. The sound of my daughter coming down the hall brought me back to the world and I slowly opened my eyes, stayed with the breath and enjoyed the peacefulness of my body and mind for a few minutes.

Some daily life updates and some explanation for my absence for the last few days will follow in the next thread.

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I decided to try something I haven't tried in a while....not practicing! I had found that my meditation was becoming very "samey" recently, even noting the sameness did little to uncover anything or make progress so, after reading about how Kenneth advised someone to stop for practice a few days when they were getting similar problems, I decided to do the same. Experienced quite a bit of Dark Night sort of emotional fluctuation and reactivity, which wasn't much fun, but I accepted that it was par for the course and did a bit of samatha to soften the blow a bit. Last night I was sitting reading Jack Kornfield's "A Path With Heart" and felt really lovely, compassionate and caring but sad, almost teary, at the same time when I felt a very clear and obvious "blip" in experience which was very similar to what I experienced on, what I believe to have been, stream entry.

I could speculate that this was Path but I can't be certain until I've done further practice and reality-testing. After that moment, and through the day, I've noted that my body is being experienced differently to before in that there's more of a sense of being "in" awareness than "in" the body. I need to explore this more and see what, if anything, remains a permanent shift in perception so I make no claims to anything whatsoever for now. Practice continues but any advice would be appreciated.

I also got my copy of the Vishuddimagga today!!

I've got no advise I'm afraid. Let us know how you like the Vishuddimagga. I tend to prefer contemporary texts, but a lot of people seem to dig these oldies.

09/03/11

60 min sit tonight, noting a lot of correlation between kriyas and "breaking through" sensations at the chakra areas, particularly at the solar plexus and heart. I've also found that I can call up each ñana at will, examine it and see the 3C's which led to a difference approach tonight. Rather than just cycling through from 4th to fruition and back 'round, I spent some time sitting in each one at first then moved up to 11th ñana and resolved to attain fruition. This was successful and I repeated it twice clearly although I didn't manage to stay with it on re-entry and floundered in the sense of comfort and contentment.

Something else I've found happening is that I can place the attention wherever I want to and feel a sense of it resting on the object. I can't say I've noticed this quite so clearly before but it's very useful for breaking down the apparent solidity of any object instantly, internal or otherwise. I also used this when noting pain and found it simple to just move the attention to another sensation while seeing the pain fade out into jaggedness,like a quick and sharp vibration, then into a more warm sensation moving like spiders legs stretching across the area, before seeming to exhaust it's ability to maintain itself and vanish.

Practice right now is focused on just watching closely as sensations arise and pass, seeing it accurately and precisely since I've found myself fantasizing, obsessing about Paths and attainments but realized how fruitless such thinking is when the bare sensations themselves show so much more. I'll update as I go, the recent purchase of the Vishuddimagga is so that I can really get into the complexities of practice, the earliest versions of these techniques and learn the background and terminology so that I'll be able to help others as so many have already done for me.

Anyhow, keepin' it brief.

14/03/11

More of an update than a report here, I've deliberately avoided posting on here or over at the DhO and just stuck with daily practice and study of the Dhamma. Since the "blip" mentioned in post #98, practice has taken on a different feel, there's now a feeling of being back at the start again and re-treading old ground, so to speak, only I feel like I know the way this time whereas before I stumbled on a lot of potholes and lost my way a few times.

Practice itself has been mainly vipassana with "nama/rupa" or "neutral, positive, negative" rather than specific labelling although this has changed in the last two days as I'm noting a lot more subtle sensation (e.g. noting what's implying movement and the passage of time) and seeing things in more detail. I also find that flickering of phenomena can be observed easily just by paying attention to the object, particularly visual and auditory and the 3C's are clear as a bell.

Mood-wise, everything's felt very Dark Night at times with a lot of disgust with the world, aimless anger and baseless fear happening, but there's also been periods of equanimity (in the fullest sense of the word) which appear seconds after noting tension and frustration. This actually reminds me of another observation, I appear to be moving through entire cycles of insight over the course of a few hours, but then from out of nowhere I'll start feeling characteristic signs of certain stages appearing in a totally random order with these weird incomplete cycles. It's hugely annoying but interesting as well and something I'm keeping an eye on to see what's happening.

Anyhow, another speculative and quick posting for your viewing pleasure. Or displeasure. Or whatever. Ha!

Metta