Anthony's Practice Notes 2

Hey thanks for the input betawave.

Yesterday. Had a few good 20min noting sessions.

A few days ago I re-read some articles about 3rd gear and the thread called 'Discussion: Comments about 3rd Gear, The Direct Path, Eckhart Tolle, and the PCE' The first time I read about 3rd gear I didn't understand its importance. I couldn't really wrap my head around it for some reason. Now that I have revisited it, it makes a lot more sense.
So I have been practicing it for a few days. At first my mind tends to wander and I have to readjust, stop, and surrender again. Often I will feel course emotions and pains arise and I will then ground them with the lightning rod technique. For a few scattered moments, though, I feel that I was able to fully surrender. Remember when HD tv's came out and we marveled at the new clarity and realness of the picture? My experience was similar to this. I thought, 'wow, reality seems more real for some reason even though it's the same exact reality I was seeing before and with the same eyes' if that makes any sense. Also I would find myself staring at objects that I would have never paid any attention to before. I was walking into my bedroom and I randomly stopped to gaze at my door knob. If you had asked me to describe my own door knob 5 minutes before this I couldn't have even told you what color it was. And this is an object that I use every day! I just stared at it for a minute and for some reason it seemed interesting to look at. My mind ruined the movement though and started asking questions. I think I will devote more time to exploring 3rd gear from now on. Things seem to be shifting.
cont...

One more thing that I found peculiar: I finished my last noting session last night and laid down to go to sleep. I decided to relax and let any jhana that wanted to arise to come. I let my eyes shift downwards and soon after I felt very pleasant, and free floating. I then discovered this pinpoint spot in front of my vision below my left eye and Woosh! It was like a super powered vortex that sucked me into it and almost made me go unconscious. I gave a knee jerk reflex and was able to barely pull out of it. I don't really understand what happened other than I was going unconscious and very, very quickly- I am certain that I was a split-millisecond away. I have read about NS being similar but it is usually described as a slow power down of the mind. This experience was more like a person having a relaxing stroll down the street and then abruptly falling down a man hole and being consumed by darkness before he knew what happened. Strange yet interesting.
Any ideas?

Regards,
Anthony

45min sit morning.
Some concentration then noting. Mostly gross sensations then some subtle vibrations. I felt stable and consistent with my noting. It began to feel bland after sometime, like I was stuck.

45min evening sit.
I started with concentration then noting out loud. Gross sensations like aching, heat, strain, tension. I started to become more stable and gross sensations died down a bit and all I could note was a few things like hearing and pressure. I could sense pulsing in my forehead and switched to silently noticing the fluttering at my eye lids. I was able to stay very focused with this pulsing and had several flows of energy open up. I could see bright energy in my upper forehead and it seemed to ebb and flow with a glow. My body was surprisingly quiet during this phase, but not overly pleasant or vibratory-I just didn't notice it. The pulsing quieted down a bit and I returned to noting out loud for the last 5 minutes. I feel calm afterwards but I still feel like my noting is very sluggish in progress. I think this feeling is more of an agitation than it is an actually problem.
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45 min. 15 concentration/30 noting.
Noted many gross sensations at first. Itching, strains, pains in back, pressure, coolness, heat. My back was in pain today so I moved to a chair. Body releaxed and eventually noted less flood of gross sensations. Iching poping up here and there. Some vibrations and pulsing around the body. Felt open and stable towards the end with silent noting of calm, openess, stability, ease.
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Yesterday:
Been feeling chaotic and unhappy with life last week and the beginning of this week but this morning I woke up feeling unusually positive about life and care free.

45min last night.
As soon as I closed my eyes there was fast pulsing and fluttering behind my eyelids. I decided to go with it and follow it as closely as I could. I felt chilled out and calmed by it. There was floating sensations and pleasant vibrations. The pulsing slowed down after about 10min and I started noting ouloud. By this time my mind was very settled down and pliable. I didn not note very many gross sensations and I could sense a slight vibratory buzz all around. I mostly noted this buzz as closely as I could for the rest of the sit.
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50min sit just now. Some concentration then noting. Noted gross sensations for a few minutes and started to feel calm and stable. Noted some vibration at certain spots and pulsing in the fore head. I followed the pulsing whenever it was present and went back to noting gross sensations when it died down. Gross sensations became more and more quiet and I noted calmness, spaciousness, concentration, relaxation, tension-free. Eventually I began to note more and more subtle vibration. I stopped noting and took a broad awareness view of my body instead. Calmness, vibration, tingling, floating, pulsing. I felt very much at ease and present with my field of awareness. There was anticipation of something new coming at first but then I became more relaxed and open to whatever comes. I began to notice some aches and pains again, then some itching. I remembered that the arc flows both ways and patiently began noting again.

After some time of noting things became subtle again and I felt even more vibratory. My hands were a pile of tingling vibrations in my lap and my mind seemed to stretch out for miles. The pulsing in my forehead was more alive now like there is a worm inside my brain trying to dig its way out. This is a plesant feeling and I try to notice it as closely as possible when it arises. My 45 min timer went off and I sat for 5 more minutes.
cont...

So I am certain that have made it back to the early stages of equanimity again. I have failed in the past at this stage and I must have a new strategy. Usually I get to this stage and feel such a relief from not being in DN territory I get tricked into a sense of safety and permanence. I make the HUGE mistake of letting go of the seriousness of my practice. Eventually I lose momentum and slip back into the DN and get side-swiped by it-usually resulting in several weeks of bad practice and losing meditation conditioning. Not this time damn it! My goal is to stay serious and focused and keep consistent. Progress is very important to me and I have gained so much respect for having and keeping momentum. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Happy practicing,
Anthony

45min
Had a session very similar to post #56. There was a little more pleasant floating energies at the end with some zooming/popping in my vision.

My daily awareness is becoming more focused on objectifying my experience. I am more aware of my body sensations, where my tensions are, and coarse emotions as soon as they pop up. I seem to be defaulting to more of a witness perspective to these sensations rather than reacting to them immediately.
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"I remembered that the arc flows both ways and patiently began noting again.
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Maybe others will comment, but your practice seems good.

It's great that you remembered the "arc flows both ways" because that seems to become more and more clear as your practice becomes more refined. Once you are aware of all the general territory of the path, the arcs seem to become about filling in all the missing spaces and getting used to all the different energies/feelings of the nanas. You might find yourself slipping through the arc, pausing in places, shooting through places... Don't worry about it, the arc knows where it needs to go. And don't worry about forcing anything or finding anything, just keep staying interested in what happens.

Ironically, I found EQ a hard nana, just because it is such a gentle touch. I clinged to it or wanted to rush to it. I also wanted Path really bad. EQ has a way of making you let go of all of that by having you look at the futility of all of that. Hope this helps.

Thanks betawave. I appriciate your advice. I definatly have to watch out for rushing the process.

3pm: 45min practice

Started with 15min walking concentration to get warmed up. Sat and started noting out loud.
Noted a good amount of tension, random itching, tightness in chest, anxiety, heat waves, and uncomfort today. Noted frustration and impatience. After some time of continuous noting calm settled in and I felt more at ease and had less aversion to these unpleasant sensations. Felt pulsing at my third eye and rested my attention there. I was able to settle into its slow drumlike beat. Very pleasant and relaxing. Floating, vibration, expansion of head with loss of awareness of body sensations. I felt a dark depth in my mind cover me like a heavy blanket. Sleepiness, loss of mental sharpness ebbed in and out. Felt really neutral afterwards with some mental sluggishness.
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8:20pm 30min pairs noting on voxli.
This was my first time to do pairs noting online (other than Kenneth). I liked the voxli site but there was a delay that made noting a bit slow. I think I will start pairs noting more often; it can definitely help you to increase your noting vocabulary.

9:50pm. 20min Mahamudra Noting

I read Kenneth's recent Buddhist Geeks post about the Mahamudra Noting technique and decided to give it a test drive. I am still pretty green at doing the Ships in the Harbor technique so most of my sit was noting 'Listening' and 'Openness'. When they arose I noted positive mind states such as 'joy' and 'calm'. When negative mind states arose such as impatience and frustration I transformed them by noting 'acceptance'. If the negative mind state disappeared I would note 'release'. I found it rather difficult to keep up the level of listening required to stay open at the same time as noting and transforming mind states. One thing that I can say for sure about this technique is that I maxed out my minds processing power so there was little room for wandering thoughts!

One question that I have, though, is what to do about body sensations. Should you skip noting them and only focus on mind states, note them regular style, or transform them into a positive version just like you would for negative mind states?

I'm gonna need a ton more practice on this one.
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4:40 pm 60min sit.
15 concentration first. Started noting out loud. After about 15min my mind became significantly calm and clear. I observed more subtle vibrations and pulsing. Gross sensations arose but I felt less attachment or aversion to them. I actually felt the movement up the arc as my mind and body became more and more subtle. I stopped noting and observed my field of awareness as a whole. I could feel my equanimity start to deepen. I started to experience more strobing, zooming, and popping in my vision. At around 45min in I could feel the decent of the arc as a few aches, itches, and tension began to arise. I am not used to sitting for this long yet and there was a good bit of pain in my legs and lower back. For the last 10 min I focused on noting this pain. Also, I asked myself 'Who is averse to this pain?'

I noticed that after yesterday's long sit and after today's I felt pretty calm afterwards but then I became agitated soon after. I wasn't this agitated before my sits so why does it arise afterwards? My guess is that my mind was free and relaxed in my meditative state and is now agitated with having to operate under normal conditions again.

Has anyone else experienced this?

2:30pm 60min sit

15 min concentration then started noting. Noted unpleasant gross sensations and the aversion to get up. I felt frustration and anger. I continued to note this and it worked itself out at around the 30min mark. I still noted pains and tension but I wasn't feeling aversion to sitting anymore. I felt calm and stable and this continued to deepen. I stopped noting and switched to a full body awareness. My mind was focused and I had no trouble concentrating on the whole body at the same time without distraction. There were vibrations, tingling, pulsing and sometimes pleasant rushes of energy. I experienced more zooming and skipping in my vision today. This startles me sometimes and leaves me a bit confused about my spacial orientation (similar to vertigo, but without any nausea) for a split second. This is usually exciting and I feel some anticipation afterwards. At times I felt like something was going to happen. At one point I felt a 'bump' in the road and I felt as if I was lighter and brighter in my mind afterwards.

After today's sit I do not feel like I am experiencing a resulting agitation like I have for the past few days. I am still pretty calm and unattached a few hours later.
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I have been spending a lot of time lately investigating concepts in dharma and trying to fully understand all the different techniques available and how they relate to different aspects of awakening.

This is good to do from time to time but as a consequence my practice has slowed down and I have not gone very deep into any single practice method. I hope that I can finally settle with a practice that I can take all the way. I remember when I was in a Goenka Vipassana retreat and he mentioned something about trying to ride two horses at the same time. It may work for a small distance but eventually one horse may go one way and the other horse may go another and you will eventually fall off of both of them.

For now I am going to strengthen my concentration. I would like to develop and stabilize access to jhanas and attain the ability to jump from one to the next in any order and know which one is which.

7:45pm 45min concentration.
I started with kasina practice and also focused on my breath at the nose. Many thoughts bubbling up today and I would find my mind wandering every few minutes. Whenever I would feel jhana like territory I would focus on steeping in it. I became stable in concentration after about 25min. I felt pleasant and calm. My mind was focused but it had a narrow feel to it. After some time my body was tingly and light. My mind seemed more open and aware. I was very content with just sitting and concentrating. I don't know if this was jhana or just access concentration.
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4:40pm 45min sit

My goal was to do kasina practice the whole time. Took a few minutes to get concentrated. My concentration was consistent and focused but it seemed to hit a ceiling. My back was giving me trouble today and I think it kept me from relaxing. There were some times when I felt pleasant and absorbed but it was short. I am not sure how to progress during concentration practice when you have strong pains in the body. Its an easy task with noting because you just note it.

Not knowing what to do about it I switched to good ol' noting at about 30min in and focused on noting the pain in my back. It disolved, of course, and I ended up in a nice clear equanimous state at the end.

Would anyone care to share some advice about handling distracting body pains during concentration practice? Should I just try to ignore it and focus on my kasina object as a method of strengthening practice in the face of difficulty? Or is it better to switch gears?

Much appreciation.

-Anthony
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Still trying to improve my jhana access today.

Had a solid 30min concentration session then I took a nap. I awoke after a nap and lay in bed ready to practice some concentration. I started and stopped a few times not being 100% serious with it. Then I had the desire to be able to just incline the mind and access any jhana. I remembered being able to attain what I think is the 1st arupa jhana several times before. I closed my eyes and focused on my breath and inclined my mind first towards pleasant tingling, bliss and equanimity. It started to happen. I continued the gentle inclining and found myself in more of an equanimous state. Then I started to feel a rising of my body, sort of like an out of body experience. There was excitement and rapturous sensation and then the form of my physical body shifted and expanded and I started to lose perception of where my body was located. I felt like I was standing up or upside down. It almost felt like my mind was rolling backwards into itself like a bowling ball rolling down the lane.

I focused on deepening the jhana and I felt more boundless expansion of my body. There was only slight feeling left to my parameters. If I focused on it specifically I could locate any piece of my physical body but without any attention placed on it I became more and more formless and 'inside' my head so to speak.

After about 10minutes I decided to open my eyes to see what would happen. I did so and I was almost shocked to see that I wasn't actually floating in deep space. When I closed my eyes again the jhana was significantly diminished so I experimented with jumping back down to the first jhana. I became more aware of my body again but I still haven't gotten the hang of discerning the first jhana from the second or the third. This experience gives me more motivation to continue to practice mastering the jhanas.

Does this sound like the 5th jhana to anyone?
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7:30pm 30min sit

Decided to do more concentration practice. Sat down and counted to 10 three times. Then I inclined my mind to access 1st jhana. I felt a rush of full body pleasantness and solidness in my posture. Shortly after the pleasantness faded and I was left in a very calm and stable foucus. My attention was more diffuse and concentration improved. I followed the breath as closely as I could. I imagined infinite space expanding from my mind and it started to feel like I was entering into my mind and out of my body, as if mind was my entire existence. It was strong and expansive and my concentration felt powerful. This felt a lot more stable that my experience with 5th jhana earlier today (at least my theory is that it is 5th jhana). I started to cycle back to the 4th jhana and I decided to fully stabilize there. I could feel the full of my body again and I felt like a stable pyramid of focus. My body sensations were unusually silent and all I could feel was gentle vibration and some pulsing.

I counted to 100 twice and I was able to stay fully present with each and every count of the outbreath. There were a few thoughts, however, mosty about how I would write all this down for my practice notes. I didn't feel distracted by the thoughts and I was able to keep my full focus on counting the breaths.

cont...
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For the last 5 minutes I decicided to start noting to see what would happen. My body woke right up and I noted gross sensations like iching, pressure, pulsing, vibration all over. My hightened focus prompted me to note as quickly as I could. I did so silently and soon found a strong strobing at my third eye. I focused on this strobing while I silently noted as many sensations as I could. I felt anticipation, excitement, and pleasant shifts in my awareness. The pulsing in my forehead was strong and also relaxing with its pleasant, heavy vibration. My timer went off and I would have continued but I have to meet my girlfriend for dinner. Feeling pretty excited about my practice today.

Peace
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Long day today. (one day of work left and I am on vacation-going to focus much more on practice during this time)

Despite the busy day I was in a very relaxed and positive mood. Anytime any suffering came about I was easily able to ground it in the body. Still had a good bit of excitment left over from yesterday so I grounded that too.

30min sit. Noting outloud. Noted gross sensations at first. Some itching, pressure, tension in the body. Reached equaniminty fairly quick. Calmness and spaciousness in my mind arose. Noted subtle vibrations in the body. Felt very neutral. Just quietly noted sensations as they arose. Nothing seemed very pleasant or unpleasant today. Noticed light strobing and pulsing at the forehead. Started to note some boredom, tiredness, and then desire to go to sleep. I objectified these sensations for a bit and then decided to end the meditation early to get some sleep. Will have more time to practice tomorrow.

Goodnight.

2:20pm 30min sit.

Started with exploration of concentration. I stared at a kasina disc and let whatever jhana arise while just observing it. I felt a range of jhana handles like pleasant sensations, joy, happiness to be sitting, stability, and calm. As I was staring I actually saw my vision open up to a more panoramic view and I settled into a solid, stable concentration.

I switched to noting, which woke my body sensations up a bit. Noted itching, pressure, aching, vibration, ect'¦ After some time I started to note more and more subtle vibrations. I couldn't feel the outline of some parts of my body, especially my hands in my lap. I stopped noting and focused on the light strobing at my third eye. Following this seemed to take me deeper into a trance. I felt lightweight and floaty. My head was surrounded by vibrations and I began to bob forwards/backwards a little. Thoughts came up from time to time and then floated away. I just relaxed and followed the different waves of strobing. Sometimes it was fast, sometimes slow, and sometimes with a very pleasant throbbing at my forehead.

I noticed an abrupt Off/On of my brain. Like when a light switch is turned off and then back on quickly. It startled me a bit and there was a vertical line that showed up and disappeared in my vision just right of center. I wondered if it was a cessation and continued to observe the strobing. I felt more pulsing/and strong throbbing in my forehead and felt less concentrated and a little discombobulated.
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It's great that you're maintaining momentum over vacation. Seems like the easy route is to gently keep making headway and get used to the subtle sensations (and the sleepiness and daydreaminess) that comes up whenever there is a calm meditation.

Those vibrations can be endlessly interesting and wonderful sublte objects to note/notice. Dropouts, time gaps, visions, percpetion distortions can all show up. You'll probably start wondering about progress like all of us do. When things get subtle just keep noting/noticing the drop outs, time gaps, distortions, progress thoughts, anticipating thoughts, noting sensations of sleepiness even as you nod off, noting sensations of daydreaming whenever you realize you're daydreaming, noting the sensations of the breath, and noting how the subtle vibrations change moment from moment. Noted, noted, noted...

Just has a session with Kenneth where he explained Mahamudra noting. I am really excited about this practice. Kenneth liked my comment about the technique, 'It covers all the bases and doesn't leave a corner for suffering to slip around.'

During the practice I really connected to the aspect of surrendering to this life and its suffering. I felt ok with it and open for almost anything. If an unpleasant sensation arose I opened myself to it with acceptance. I was able to somehow make room for it instead of trying to expel it. For me this practice will be very helpful in my sitting meditations and my daily life.

Thanks Kenneth!

After re-listening to my recorded session with Kenneth yesterday, re-reading the Buddhist Geeks Mahamudra noting article, and contemplating my confusion about this practice as it relates to everything I thought I understand so far of maps, paths, gears, perspectives, types of enlightenment, ect- I decided to let go and just start practicing it. I want to give this practice a whole-hearted try. I have this deep seeded intuition that there may be great genius to this approach. I just need to practice diligently and openly to fully discover this.

45min Mahamudra Noting.

I began by listening for the ships in the harbor. Listening, listening, openness, openness. Then I would just allow whatever comes up to come up with a return to listening when needed. When I would observe negative sensations or mind states I would observe them as tension in the body and then release into it saying 'release'.

To me, when saying 'release' I had the sense of opening my door and saying, 'Welcome!' to this tension, 'come on in and stay as long as you would like. Tell me your story'. It took me some time to get used to it but I allowed this tension to be as it is without agenda from me. I noted acceptance, allowing, surrender. Sometimes the tension would go quickly and I would notice and note 'gratitude'. Sometimes the tension would stay for a while and I would just stay with it in return saying release, allowing, surrender, just letting it do its thing.

If I were to personify this exchange it would be as if an angry person came into my house to yell at me, complain, expel unpleasant energies, and then start to cry and let it all out. Then he would look up at me with gratitude for the opportunity and quietly leave. For some reason I feel joy from this exchange. I can't explain why but there was just joy sometimes from letting this happen. It would bubble up and I couldn't help but smile.

cont...
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