PEJN climbing that second mountain

No logging in over a week, but I have been practising every day - I promise!

First I kept mostly to shamata/6R to calm down the DN effects and to enjoy my practice more.
Now I feel like coming into more equanimity, both in practice and in everyday life.
So I have switched my evening sits to pure noting.

So I note, get up to equanimity after ~20 mins. Then I sit there and then sensations start to bubble/flicker. Then either I get some energy rushes or I fade away the noting and get into 4:th jhana as a result.

Goodnight /Pejn

Yesterday Friday was back in DN, both in practice and daily life.
During the day irritation and feelings of meaninglessness.
The evening sit was filled with flickering, restlessness and irritation (after getting up to and past A&P).
In bed after the sit I had bubbling nasty visions and more restlessness.

Today Saturday was better.
The 30-40 mins shamata session in the morning was enjoyable and the daytime life less irritable.

Evening sit: 80 mins
1-30mins: Went up through A&P, dissolution and then DN stuff, but less intensive than Friday.
@30 was fed up and switched to jhanas. Skipped as fast as I could up to 6:th arupa and beyond that. (restless...)
Played a bit with the witness on the way up.
Then I just hanged around without bothering about the state or stage, mostly very still and bright. Mixed in some noting.
Got one pressure/energy rush out of that. I think that kicked me back to A&P, because after the rush I drifted into DN messiness again.
Never got beyond that and quit @80 mins.

Goodnight /Pejn

Sunday and Monday evening sits followed the same pattern:
First noting with eyes open ~30 mins.
Then closed eyes, following breath, relaxing tensions, find the joy and back to breath.
A bit noting mixed in to relieve tensions and deepen/calm down.

Total sit times ~80 mins

No nynas I can recognize have appeared these sits, and the transition to shamata came naturally.
I have played with the thought that this was a new cycle completed "within" 2:nd path. Kenneth told me that one can go through many cycles before getting 3:rd. It would make sense.

This evenings 75 minutes of "just sitting" resulted in a complete cycle (= up through all nyanas and then a sharp kick back to A&P after some drifting away in equanimity)
It behaved exactly like in my last review phase.
If it is a new one (like I speculated in yesterdays post) or a visit back to the last I do not know.
Never mind...

Goodnight /Pejn

Friday evening's "just sitting" with a shamata twist resulted in 3-4 A&P-like events. Bodily "tension rushes" ending with brightness in the eyes. The last one gave really bright vision. They happened from a base of 4:th jhana so I do not know what nyanas I had went through before.
Totally 40 minutes sit.
---

Today's similar session gave slightly different results.
Totally 1&1/2 hours.
It felt quite special with very fine granularity of the senses..
From a base of what I think was equanimity (not sure) the mind started to bubble. There came multiple build-ups of energy in the head that wanted to release, and in at least one case I think there were a discontinuity of conciousness. No brightness today.
Reminds me a lot of the time just before 1:st path.
But there were grimaces coming just after the sit was over. This never happens otherwise.

Goodnight /Pejn

Sunday

Morning sit 30 mins with low concentration.

During the day some mix of irritation an apathy.

Evening sit 60 mins and was a copy of Friday's sit so I'll just cut &paste from above

"Evening's "just sitting" with a shamata twist resulted in 3-4 A&P-like events. Bodily "tension rushes" ending with brightness in the eyes. The last one gave really bright vision. They happened from a base of 4:th jhana so I do not know what nyanas I had went through before."

Goodnight /PEJN

Monday woke early and had high energy during all day.

Today Tuesday irritation and nervousness without any real reason. Smells like DN to me.

Hanged out with the Weekly Virtual Sangha 8pm. Really nice and interesting.

Evening sit, decided for jhana practice to smooth out things.
Totally 1h.
Instead of first sitting and get deep concentration I took a few breaths, got immediately focus and then jumped to 2:nd jhana. From there jumped up all the way to 7:th in less than 2 minutes! Maybe it went so fast because I started directly and in Body & Mind?

Went down to 2:nd again and started a bit slower.
Hanged around for 40 mins in real still and bright states. Mixed in some Mahamudra training.
@ 40 mins got more aware of my body and thoughts again, changed to a chair and sat 25 mins more. This time the nyanas became more appearent amd overshadowed the concentration states. They came and went very fast. Maybe just a minute from A&P -> DN -> EQ the last time around.

Goodnight Pejn

Haven't I posted in a week? Why? What happened? :-/

Could be that there ares so many interesting high-end journals around now so this one seems uninteresting even to me.

Anyway, the irritation and nervousness and some sadness from last week gave way for blaha-ness. This resulted in skipped practice all weekend. I have no excuse for that really.
Villum pointed out yesterday at the virtual sangha that it could be equanimity. And that also made sense in yesterdays meditation that reminded me of previous EQ.
The A&P-kickback (still can't "see" the fruition itself) I got after 60 mins was sharper and clearer than any previous I have had so far. Felt different in some way.
Today I'm even more blasé with everything...

Today 60 min sit very much like yesterday, but the A&P-kick was softer.
Funnily enough both days it came at almost exactly 60 minutes.

Good seeing you on Tuesday (if only briefly)

If I try to summarize the last months I have undoubtedly completed at least one cycle of insight after second path.
And I really believe there were two cycles and that I now am in either the third or even the fourth. Hard to tell.

Now:
Dark Night is dark'¦
Irritation, restlessness, dullness and even a touch of paranoia.
I touched equanimity some weeks ago but that was a short period.
Sometimes I finish my sits with fruition-like phenomena, sometimes not. (Not the latest week.)

But also 'IRL' I can enjoy bliss from grounding in the body and by heightening my overall awareness level/depth more than before.

How to describe it when I am really DN-irritated, blissfully body-aware and equanimity-observing the DN all in the same moment?

I am playing with the thought of joining a city zen-group that have regular 1,5 hour sits and daylong retreats. For the company and sitting discipline.
I could need the boost.
We'll see.

Hey, good to see you posting again.

I'm curious if you notice any changes in your every-day life off-cushion, other than the bliss and more overall awareness?

Hi Andy,
I have a reader!


If we talk post stream entry there are many positive changes, summarized in my first log post #93.
They are integrated now and feels like the new "normal".

Post 2:nd path is mostly some bodily effects.
I have not have headaches in months. My sea-sickness is almost gone. I'm not so tired in the mornings. I can now stand warm climate without problem.
Pretty neat when I summarize like this.
This makes sense since there were a lot of energy movement in the body around 2:nd.

What the effects are now after the latest months, and what are earlier effects is hard to tell.

For a couple of days angry work-related thoughts have been running around in my head (with my permission I have to confess...)
There is a strange satisfaction in this (condemning people) even while it causes quite a suffering.
Like keep eating to much cake while the stomach is aching.
And it has disturbed my meditation.
Yesterday sit I was finally fed up with this. I told myself to shut up and stop bugging me.
Voilá!
It stopped and the meditation went smoothless.
It ended with a few A&P-rushes.
Today I am in good mode again. Irritation gone.
(The irritating post-weight-training sourness I have had for two weeks is still present but does not irritate.)
((I have resumed my ever-failing weight training three times a week and I believed this to be a cause.))

Tonight two sessions. One "informal" waiting in a chair for the bathroom to be free. It ended in a unexpected fruition.
Later a 1h more formal Jhana-attempting session.
after 40 mins I changed to the chair and to more awareness style meditation.
This ended in a fruition with a strong A&P-rush with continuing rising energy and some lightshow when I opened my eyes.
Felt very similar to the boost I got after SE.

I am beginning to feel like the months after 2:nd path has been one big rolling around never ending review-period.
Goodnight /Pejn

Still climbing...

I keep a daily practice. 40-60 mins per day without fail.
But I really see no daily life progress or "insights" so I guess I'll just have to keep on...

Sep 11th event (last log) could have been the end of a cycle again.
After that day I had calm deep concentration without much nyanas "happening"
Then a few days later A&P flashing/rushing, but not after an "equanimity dreaminess".
Yesterday was obvious DN and today disorientation and swirlings in the head.

/Pejn

Short update.
I have been practicing as usual two more weeks without anything to write about happening.( Or I am just used to what is happening)
No cycling i can recognize for 2-3 weeks now.
So, just keep on...
/PEJN

Some notes, since I have not logged much lately:

IRL: Nervousness and restlessness and a sense of everything breaking apart has been replaced by a calmer state the last days.
Still there is a feeling of everything breaking apart/coming to an end/chapters closing/some sadness. Also doubt about my own progress - no fireworks..
In reality most things are not much different from other periods in my life.

Practice: In everyday life I try to integrate mindfulness/body awareness more and more.
Both by observing sensations an by grounding negative thoughts and emotions in the body. (Isn't it the same?)

A technical curiosity is that to get a really integrated mindfulness I have to be still for a while and focus and kind of go through jhana 1 ->2->3 to 4 and try to maintain that. This is much mure soccessfull after a short morning sit. It is very subtle shifts but the similarities to the "real" meditation jhanas is strong. But it breaks easily and I have to go through them again to get a really including awareness. Again, not easy to maintain through the day.

OTAH in the sits I get no clear picture of the jhanas anymore, just more or less calmness and I feel like I dont know what I am doing jhana-wise.

There is a chance I can attend a 2-day retreat soon. Have not decided anything yet.

/PEJN

In a group sitting last week I was dragged down in such hard concentration (with body rushes and pressure) after only 5-10 minutes I panicked and stopped meditating trying to stay conscious.
Someday maybe I will follow it all the way to see if I survive.
The good thing is that I have felt great for a week after that, even though I had some painful health issues. The sadness/nervousness went away.
Now I am a bit uncomfortable (body buzzing) again but good mood.

The 24/7-body-awareness-project stalled a bit by that but will continue.
/Pejn
I have followed the compassion/feeling discussion with interest.
I have found that when I feel others pain less I help them easier and better. Because I don't have to fear or avoid the pain, just understand that it is there, caused by something, an then without fuzz just act helpful and kindly. (In one of my better EQ days of course...).

Good stuff PEJN. I really missed seeing you at the meetup this tuesday. Do you think you'll be attending any in the near future?

Hi Mu!

Yepp, I will.
Last week I wanted to crawl under a stone and hide from the world.
This week just bad timing.
Still want to discuss "mindfulness of body" with "grounding emotions" and similar techniques. Perfect for a G+ hangout.

Plenty of massive meditation sessions this week.

This have highlighted a phenomena I have experienced for the last few months: the soda bottle rush!
Description: After ~40-60 mins while in EQ, I drift away in a little automatically running daydream. Then I "wake up" from it. There is a rush in the body that feels like I'm a soda bottle that has been shaked and opened. The the carbonate rushes up through the body and up in the head. There is also a sense of high pressure in the body.

Earlier it happened only at Equanimity and I have associated it with a post-fruition A&P event.
Nowadays this is happening much earlier in meditation, and multiple times, sometimes in a row.
It comes around the time it is time for A&P. A&P have formerly been quite soft rising energy and lights for me. This is mush more forceful.
It always comes after dreaming away or dozing off a little. This have made me associate it with the jerks that sometimes comes while falling asleep.
The more tired I am the more I get them.
Once it was triggered by me moving my neck a tiny bit. Experiencing the myriad of sensations in the twist made this happen.

It also comes when I lay down to rest after work. Probably it is not a normal rest because I still keep my attention at the breath out of habit.
Now I remember: this is what I called Lazynating before!
Happens almost ever day.


All this is probably not important but I have to write something, no?
See you tonight!

Everyday practice have levelled out and stabilized the rest of the month and into November.
Not much to write home about.

But now I have had two sessions together with Villum who has helped with formless jhanas.
It has pretty much confirmed, and deepened, my own practice up to 8:th jhana, even if I have trouble recognizing the 6:th.
So now I do first jhana practice, the follow up with a vipassana session directly in my formal evening sits.

Tonight Villum guided me up to another level after 8:th jhana.
First attempt failed.

But then by together chanting "Namo Amithaba" (!) a brand new state appeared:
Warm calm visual brightness that went upwards in the head together with the attention.
The body straightened.
Pain in the body disappeared. Light body.
Warm joy/happiness.

Villum called it Pure Land one and it sure was good.

Was a pleasure working with you, and it helps me too
I just realized, i think what you call brightness, i call coolness. Strange.