Andy's practice thread

6.30 am. 60 minute sit comprised of:
- 10 mins of shamatha. Distracted, but trying to pay attention to the end of each breath and the beginning of the next.

- 25 minutes of noting mindstates outloud. Not bad, but just as with freeform noting I have a tendency to go onto autopilot and just say "aversion, interest, anxiety" over and over again without necessarily paying attention. Some moments of focus but didn't cross the A&P.

- 25 minutes of just resting the attention on blockages and lumps of tension in the back, as recommended by Mumuwu. I noted "trying" wherever I noticed effort or resistance, desire to control or manipulate. The A&P came quite nicely during this part of the sit - expansion, coolness, energy - but no really noticeable nyanas beyond that. Tension in the neck and shoulders contains an huge well of panic, anxiety, dread, anger, claustrophobia, neurosis, sadness and other such lovely things. When I am able to rest with it, I feel this surge of negative emotion - either deep sadness, or a tight aversion and anger at the prospect of feeling such things, My chest becomes tight and there's a desire to scream or roar, whether for release or deluded self-defence against negativity I don't know.

But this feels like the real frontline of my practice. Facing whatever is there without resistance, manipulation or bluster.

9.40pm. 60 minute sit comprised of:
- 10 minutes of shamatha. Distracted. Some attention to the beginning and end of breaths.

- 25 minutes noting mindstates. Floundered a bit because of a feeling of calm, rather than the usual pack of negative mindstates. Noted: "calm, peace, openness, okayness". With a few bits of anxiety and aversion, naturally. No recognisable nyanas.

- 25 minutes of freeform noting. Some moments of distraction, but able to come back quickly and strongly each time. Noting especially all the random mental images, and my aversion towards most of them. Noting desire to control what my attention rests on, noting my desire to prevent it from going to images or thoughts that I dub "unmeditative" or "unspiritual". Trying to allow those things to arise anyway. Trying to get close to sensations, to slow down with the noting and really get what's there. No recognisable nyanas or A&P, but content this time not to map too much.

Current chain of 2 hours a day is at day 5.

Today's sits:

6.40am - 20 minutes shamatha, followed by 40 minutes of out-loud noting, mostly mindstates. Pretty lousy due to lack of sleep the night before.

5.30pm - Resolved to do the best damn practice I've ever done.
20 minutes of mediocre shamatha, including one long daydream. Not off to a great start!
40 minutes of out-loud freeform noting better, pretty consistent, minimal daydreaming and no looking at the clock. Really tried to get in deep with all the sensations I most dislike, and had some odd reactions: noting would slur off into grunts or "urrrrgh" noises, vibrations/shaking, and then a horrible feeling of nausea like I was genuinely about to throw up. It felt like the beginning of my own personal exorcism. Two A&Pish events, one about 15 minutes in and another at 30. Cool rush of energy, vibrations, mild ecstasy. Second one was bigger.

Sudden worry that maybe I'm not past A&P at all, and that the reason I get these repeating A&Pish energy rushes is because that's the striding edge of my meditation. Certainly the tension in my back correlates with descriptions of 3Cs and never seems to shift - rhomboid, trapezius (as MCTB says) and also sternocleidomastoids.

Today's sits:

7am - 20 minutes shamatha. 40 minutes of out-loud noting, freeform. A&P early on, but nothing else to report.

5.30pm - 20 minutes of pretty decent shamatha. Not much in the way of samadhi but some clarity about the breath, close attention to sensations and a keen interest. 20 minutes of out-loud noting - some anxiety about not being able to "catch" all the sensations. 10 minutes of silent noting, just to see if I could get quicker this way - spaced out a bit. 10 minutes of listening to the ships. All quite enjoyable, just hanging with sensations.

Hit me up on Skype. We'll go though the A&P/DN/Equanimity together.

Thanks man. That'd be helpful. I'll send you a message.

Did today's 2 hours pretty much straight through, with a couple of minutes in the middle just to stretch my legs.

Shamatha getting better - less force, more genuine interest. Clearer picture of sensations that make up the breath, some moments close to samadhi.

Out-loud noting - clear A&P after 10 minutes: opening, energy rushes, bliss, pleasure. Then Fear came hot on its heels after that: cool energy, "the willies", uncanniness, rapture and mild terror in the same bite. Then I hit Misery - these days I almost quite like it! There's something fresh and cool about that sadness that comes up, something like tears. It feels quite self-indulgent too. Disgust was less clear. I caught myself almost looking for nausea to say that I was there. Certainly some mild grossness, but less extreme than it has been. This all happened in the space of maybe five minutes, and from then on I drifted a bit, some daydreaming and distraction.

I then took a break, went back to the cushion and did 20 minutes of shamatha. It was pretty lousy - I really felt like I wanted to keep watching sensations. Next went back to out-loud noting: found myself in a fairly quiet, peaceful state - with almost all the tension in my back - rhomboids, trapezius and sternocleidomastoids - completely gone. Or at least, it eased off for a while. (It's back now, as I type this). I noted: "stillness, softness, gratitude, metta, peace, softness, okayness, ease, softness". Behind the eyelids I experienced a light, off-white glow, very soft and gentle - like being under a bed sheet on a sunny day. Nicely chilled out.

8am:
10 minutes of shamatha. Good - didn't really want to stop!
40 minutes of out-loud noting: very clear jhanic arc today. A&P came very quickly, then extremely noticeable Fear, Misery and Disgust all in quick succession. The reason they were noticeable was - ironically - that they were actually quite mild. I could hold them at a distance, observe the differences between each nyana, and even enjoy them, without getting bogged down in negative emotions/pain etc.

Each nyana has some element of rapture to it for me, and it's the subtle differences in the quality of these raptures that helps me identify them. So Fear is very cold - literally chilling - tingly, fast up the spine, leaving a kind of plummeting void in the chest area. Misery is cool like rain, welling up in the chest, slower and yet also bursting open like a bust water main. Disgust has less rapture, but it's buzzy, fidgety, irritable in its nature, and is obviously accompanied by nausea either in the throat or stomach.

I'm pretty pleased to be finally noticing all this clearly!

I then hit something that could've been Reobservation, as the qualities of each nyana came back - the sadness, the grossness, the dread. Loads of energetic stuff going on. Once this died down, I started wondering whether I'd hit Equanimity, and there was a bit of that softness, gentleness, and quietness that I associate with it. But I then became very distracted: Equanimity makes me note slower, and look/listen more, but this allows for daydreaming. I went off into thoughts and when I came back I wasn't in a particularly equanimous place. It was okay, but tension had reappeared - perhaps I'd bailed out completely and was back at the bottom of the arc. Anyway I noted haphazardly for a while - probably looking too hard for the qualities of Equanimity.

For the final 10 minutes I switched to Mahamudra, resting/listening until the bell rang

6.30pm
10 minutes shamatha
25 minutes noting out loud
25 minutes Mahamudra

All pretty lacklustre, probably caused by a rather rushed resolution/intention at the start. Poor concentration led to lousy shamatha, followed by a vipassana session stuck in bodily tension. I imagine I didn't get past the 3Cs this time. Just aversion and pain. The tension got so bad I decided to lie down in the Alexander Technique position for the final part of the sit, which basically had the effect of sending me into a doze.

All a bit ridiculous after the killer sit I had this morning. Must do better!

Don't be too quick to blame yourself. You are dealing with multiple levels of cycles. Sometimes when you sit nothing happens or it feels like you can't concentrate. This is often because of where you are at in the bigger picture. See what happens next time and eventually you'll start seeing the bigger cycle with the clarity you are starting to see in your sits.

Remember... this is not personal as there is no you. Don't be hard on yourself

Thanks mu. You're right of course. I just had a very enjoyable sit with Kenneth on Skype, where we did Mahamudra noting. Whenever negative emotions arose, I noted them as "compassion" - that deluded compassion that Daniel talks about in MCTB, whereby all our aversion, anger, resistance, fear and anxiety is really just variations on the desire to be happy and safe. Wherever tension arose in the body, I tried using metta to accept and welcome it as best I could. And it works!

Will do some more metta this evening. Leigh Brasington and Ayya Kema have some wonderful guided ones.

Back again! I've been away from computers, phones and, well, electricity really for the last two weeks. Kept at the meditation, practicing everyday for an average of two hours.

Some interesting things to note:

1. The jhanic arc of the nyanas keeps getting clearer, at least up until Desire for Deliverance. I suspect that I am occassionally breaking through to Equanimity, because everything does quieten down for a while, but I seem to lose track of the specifics from the end of Disgust onwards. But the A&P, Fear, Misery and Disgust are wonderfully clear.

2. I generally quite enjoy the Dark Night. Perhaps that sounds weird. But as things have gone on, I have learnt to see the various manifestations of the DN as not as scary as they perhaps first appeared. It's all just one big ride, with not much substance to any of it. The A&P is fun like a rollercoaster. Fear is fun like a horror movie. Misery is fun like a big self-pitying weep, or a watching a very sad film and crying your eyes out. Disgust is gross, and less fun, but once you disembed from the yuckiness it can be kinda interesting in a schoolboyish gross-out way.

3. I do NOT like the 3Cs. Generally because this nyana causes me a great deal of physical pain and tension that stays with me through the rest of the sit. Psychologically dukkha is okay it seems, but the physical stuff I can definitely do without.

4. I can, sometimes, will the nyanas into being. As if I am both riding a wave and generating the momentum for the next one. I can feel the surge of energy in the spine and it becomes Fear, Misery or Disgust. The first two work particularly well.

5. I can, sometimes, make rapid progress up the arc by surrendering. Last night I tried this and flashed through a load of kundalini stuff - possibly the nyanas although I wasn't really counting - just by imagining myself opening up. I surrendered, I imagined doorways in my body opening, falling into the arms of God, trusting the universe through the fear and nerves, willing my paranoid "what's-behind-me" thoughts away. All corny, but it kinda worked.

6. I might possibly have access to the second jhana now. Not sure about this one as it literally only just happened, in the sit I just did, but I hit first jhana for sure and then briefly experienced a moment of happy absorbtion without any sort of physical ecstasy, i.e. sukkha without the piti, the second jhana. Maybe.

7. I just got my butt kicked by the longest, creepiest encounter with Fear ever. So I said above that I've been moving through nyanas quickly and that they don't seem to cause me too much grief. Well, after playing with some jhanas for 10 minutes or so, I got distracted and then found myself at the brink of A&P, so I just switched to noting and let it rip. Big cool rush, lovely, bliss, expansion, etc etc. Then I moved quickly onto Fear as per usual, scary, creepy chills up the spine. Woooooo. But it didn't pass. I looked for the sweet sadness of Misery, but it never came. Instead my spine just went crazy with creepy uncanny tingles (they are still happening as I type this), my mind became full of B-movie images of creepy things - monsters, ghosts, all sorts of nondistinct childhood fears - my hair stood on end, and I became pretty paranoid about various sounds around the house. In fact, I even had to get up at one stage and check I was really alone.

This has all happened before, in less extreme doses, but as I grew accustomed to Fear and other nyanas, I found it fading in intensity. What happened just now was unprecedented.

Perhaps, this is a nyana on a new path (2nd? 3rd?) but despite Kenneth's probing, I still feel that I am pre-stream entry, if only because each time I sit, I hit the A&P with pretty reliable frequency. I am willing to change my mind however, and recent events definitely make me think that things have shifted slightly...

Back to regular daily reports from now on.

I didn't meditate once over the last few days because I was at a music festival. I brought my (inflatable!) travel zafu and some very noble intentions, but somehow it didn't quite happen.

I sat just now, for the first time since Thursday morning, and wasn't expecting much. But, I managed to generate some samadhi - not sure which jhana, if any - in the shamatha part, and then had a very intense session of out-loud noting, with clear progress up the jhanic arc.

Inspired by jgroove, I made a note whenever I found myself attempting to manipulate my experience, anticipate what was "supposed" to happen or try to push the meditation in one or other direction. I quickly hit A&P doing this, with an unusual intensity. Fear and Misery were also very noticeable and fresh. These all came hard on each other's heels, and I soon found myself reaching for Disgust, almost trying to generate the feeling of disgust, so I came back to noting "trying" or "desire for control".

After doing this for a while, I lost track of the map. There was lots of kundalini stuff, energy, more fear and more misery, more aversion, and more desire. I noticed how the desire for control and the trying was connected to the tension in my back. I noticed how the aversion towards the tension and a desire for release was accompanied by a clinging, and a craving to stay in control of everything, which manifested itself in the tension. I could see that "I" wasn't prepared to accept release if it meant losing control. I got a very strong sense of wanted "me" to be there when release/liberation/awakening happened, which of course I know is impossible. For the first time I felt I could see the object of the Fear and Misery nyanas - namely the sheer terror and sadness at losing grip of the self. As I type this I can feel tingles of Fear going over me, my arms are covered in goosepimples!

[cont...]

[...cont]

I'm not sure where I ended up at the end of the sit. But I was relieved that it was over. Definitely going to keep playing with this technique for a while - but not "trying" to do it!

Almost a month of no posting, and on-and-off meditation. Still averaging around 1hr30 a day, with some missed days and several days of 2 hours a day.

Recently I've been honing in on some serious dukkha where my shoulders cross my spine: nasty, painful tension at the bottom of the neck at the collarbone, between the shoulderblades. Tense like a closed fist. It is all tangled together with aversion, fear, hatred, anger, self-pity, anxiety and lots of other muck. Sometimes I find it fascinating, even to the point of obsession, and at other times I want to run away from it, and distract myself with books, films, friends, walks in the park and video games. I think about and try out all sorts of other non-meditative solutions to the pain: massage, Qigong, Pilates, stretching, improving posture, swimming, getting new shoes, Alexander Technique etc etc. My sits are distracted, restless and aversive when bad.

I just had a lesson with Kenneth which I probably wasn't in the right frame of mind for. He basically said that I need to up my game, and focus on this dukkha all day every day. I have had good motivation in the past, but right now, it's pretty poor, even to the point where I'm not even that interested in meditation/the contemplative path. I can feel this ball of dukkha more than ever and I have a better understanding of how it manifests through desire and aversion, but I still just want to get away from it and enjoy life.

Anyway, I have been begrudgingly reminded of my resolve to practice, and so I am going to experiment with trying to feel this ball of pain and dukkha as much as I can for the next two weeks, before I see Kenneth again. I will also try to keep updating this journal as a way of staying on track.

Best of luck with this, Andy. It sounds like something that needs your attention. Your resolve to face this stuff is inspiring.
-Joel

Thanks Joel. We'll see about the resolve. At the moment it's just words on a screen

This morning I gave up my usual meditation habits - ditching all sorts of structured practice in favour of Direct Mode, focusing on that ball of dukkha between my shoulders. Inevitably, I was pleased when I found it, when I could feel it strongly. This meant that I wasn't averse to it, and therefore it quickly weakened in intensity. If I became anxious about it weakening it would get stronger, and then the process would repeat. Similarly, if I became distracted by a thought and then came back to the tension, aversion would arise and it would feel painful. But then I would remember what I was supposed to be doing, the pain would weaken and I would be able to observe it.

In other words, you always want what you don't have, and don't want what you do have!

Feeling slightly more upbeat this morning, even with the dukkha. Hopefully a cheerful resolve will see me through.

End of Day 1 of trying to stay with my physical dukkha - the ball of tension in my chest/back/shoulders area. I won't pretend I noticed it all the time, but I managed to keep one eye on it, so to speak, at various points throughout the day. Interesting to see how doing this made me less aversive to other forms of physical discomfort - such as difficult stretches in an exercise class - and how it made me really notice all the physical sensations that accompany mindstates.

I find myself feeling bored or angry or aversive or anxious and I ask "How do I know that I feel this way? What is there in the body that corresponds to these feelings?" And I am getting better at pinpointing them.

Still feeling slightly bummed out that I have to take this direction of practice. But hey, if that's what's necessary.

This week, Kenneth had advised me to drop all other practices and just do Direct Mode, focusing on the pain and suffering in the body. I have now done several sits of nothing but this, and find it very difficult. I know that ultimately the aim is to condition the mind not to go into the maze of suffering, as Kenneth puts it, but in the short term it is condititioning me to avoid meditation or to avoid facing the present moment when I do sit.

So this morning I tried scaffolding up to Direct Mode practice through some more familiar practices, with an emphasis on bodily discomfort throughout the entire sit. I started with 10 minutes of open, out-loud noting, which helped me find the suffering in the body and recognise its existence, along with all negative mindstates that go with it.

Then I did 25 minutes of Mahamudra Noting (inspired by Kenneth and Vince's great workshop yesterday). This helped me to see the difference between being-in-pain and experiencing-unpleasant-sensations. It becomes clear that pain is born of aversion, and that if aversion gets released then there are only unpleasant sensations left, without that anxiety and worry that makes suffering. Using the noting word "release" whenever I felt aversive, and "acceptance" or "surrender" whenever I hit a wall of pain really helped me to sit with it. I found moments of calm, of happiness, of joy, even as the unpleasantness was clearly felt.

I also experienced a strange blip in the continuity of my experience when doing this practice: as if a film reel had briefly snagged inside the projector or missed a few frames. If the rest of experience seemed continuous, even as sensations were observed arising and passing, this was a rift, a genuine blip in the middle of it all. I immediately thought "What was that?" and experienced some waves of bliss.

[continued...]

[...continued]

Finally, I did 25 minutes of Direct Mode, just feeling the pain and suffering as it was happening. Nothing to report from that really. Mild distraction, but generally capable of staying with it.

Hello yogis!

Seems I have neglected this journal yet again. So time to fire it up.

Since Kenneth is phasing out Skype teaching, I'm now working with Beth. She read the whole journal before our first lesson and asked me what had happened since the "strange blip" of post 94, which she said might have been a cessation. And the truth is I have no idea. I know that I have been much less motivated to practice in the last few weeks, that meditation seems either boring or painful to me as an activity, that I can barely concentrate and barely sit through an hour. I've also recently left my job to go back to university for a PhD, and while this should in theory give me tonnes more time, I actually spend more time travelling (across town to the library, or to another city where my university is) than I did to my job ten minutes round the corner, so my practice has suffered a bit. I've been doing about an hour a day, sometimes more, sometimes none at all if I leave the house early and get back late.

The tension in my back is really unbearable at the moment, even when lying down. It flares up at lots of points during the day, but especially during meditation - whether standing, sitting or lying down. I've had an X-ray and am waiting for the results, but I suspect that there is something samsara related about all this.

Anyway, I'm now back to 2 hours a day - but it is a struggle to even stay there. Rather than give up, or force myself to sit through pain, I'll either switch positions - lie down, stand or walk - or do Qigong when it's really nasty. It's not ideal practice, but it's better than nothing.

Sensations appear fuzzy to me, mindstates especially so. They seem to have lost the clarity and distinctness that they had for me earlier in the year. Thoughts arise and it takes me a long time to recognise that they are part of the same flow of sensations.

Dogged practice last week - I managed two hours a day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then failed utterly on Friday through sheer tiredness. Barely any over the weekend.

Did an hour just now - better than expected. Noting "trying" whenever I'm straining to hard, attempting to "not be involved" in what's going on, particularly the breath, also to release and surrender more. It seemed to work: I encountered a big pleasant energy rush with flashing behind the eyelids (most liklely A&P) and then another one which was very pleasant although with the creepy undertone of Fear.

Surrendering seems to be important for me at the moment. It's better than struggling any way.

Finally, a decent session this morning! 30 mins of shamatha - no samadhi, but at least some precision of attention. Then 30 minutes of "four foundations" practice, switching foundation every 3 minutes - senses, vedana, thoughts, mind states. I found this got me very focused and engaged - for once I didn't actually stop to look at the clock, and the pain in my back seemed less distracting/disruptive than it has been. Various kundalini sensations - some moments of very pleasant energy - and some nice coloured lights. This is going to be my default practice for when I really don't want to practice. Works a treat.

Did two hours of four foundations style practice yesterday, and another two today.

Attention is much clearer. Sensations are distinct, particularly thoughts. Very easy to see stuff, and the tension in my back isn't causing too much of a problem. In fact, it's easing off. Distraction and wandering mind is mild, soon noted and dealt with in a non-aggressive way. Unpleasant sensations are tolerated. I seem to have reached a point of (what I have previously called) equanimity. I associate this with a softness in the eyes, and the body, a sense of spaciousness in the visual field even when the eyes are closed, a sense of spaciousness in the mind, and a general contentment, even amid unpleasantness. When experiencing pain I was able to switch to feeling the wide open space of awareness that the pain was in. This was really refreshing and welcome. Some kundalini stuff still going on - mostly pleasant and/or fun.