recording and learning

60 minutes of just residing in the body, looking for the tension and relaxing into the experience of it. Not easy - I like the aftereffects of this though, feel more alive, whole somehow.

Going over the difference in the two experiences, the insights. Sitting purely in the body like that was very different. For one, a number of times I slipped into a non-dual state. Instead of the insight being 'i am not my thoughts or I am not my body' the insight was 'I am not other than this' thinking was seen as more ephemeral, not real, and didnt occur as much either. There is much tension subtly carried in my body, and I can see clearly now how most of my thinking is simply just a 'cover' over this tension, and doesnt even arise if the tension is either fully accepted as an experience or isnt there at all. Less separation seems to equate to less tension. I will have to explore this more deeply, although strangely I didnt feel like recoding this after sitting that way.

60 min of body again.... Very different. Got very relaxed, but the process I went through was something like:
wordlessly experiencing the whole body and breath, energy, stuff everywhere. Noticing where I can't directly feel or where there is stress, querying what is the cause? Looking...seeing connection between body/mind and qualities of awareness
insights: Any attempt to change reality or grasp for a future state causes suffering. Seeing awareness/self as being separate from the object (in this case the whole body) causes suffering.

have noticed after doing this kind of sitting I feel very raw, very sensitive. Sense of something inside me holding on to something, not wanting to let go. That holding causing suffering.

delayed reaction- about 45 minutes after the sit I suddenly felt like I was losing control of awareness somehow, something pushing its way up from my chest into my head, neutral but strong, and a feeling of losing control of something... I let it do its thing - now everything is more vivid and clear, I feel kind of bouyant walking around... Some sort of ease setting in that has no obvious cause.

60 min purely in the body again - close to J1, finding that point behind the eyes associated with the belief that there is 'someone' looking out, someone being aware, seeing how that belief just causes tension at that point. Very immersed in the body, very calm, sense of 'being'

had the usual post minddfulness of the body 'bad vibes', a common occurence for me after being strongly in the body, where it may be clear on the cushion but I get off and a while later some sort of agony starts to arise, some suffering. This time instead of just riding it I did the same thing to it I would do in sitting - 'what is the cause of this suffering?' - I could see how my separation from it and the aversion *was* the real problem. After a bit I stopped, closed my eyes and took the whole body as object, and for the first time in a long time, I was able to *really* feel the unpleasantness with NO suffering. Directly. It felt very healing on a deep, deep level and something inside of me knows that was what I was supposed to do, that was very important in some way.

50 min in the body this AM... Nothing unusual, just being here.

Are you noting?

Nope - perhaps in a small way non-verbally. I'm comparing the two practices - trying to see which direction I want to go in for a while. I'm glad for all the information and sharing on this site and elsewhere, for without it I would be making a decision blindly, without knowing where different practices may lead further down the road. In some way I have come full circle in a sense since this is kind of what I was doing before I discovered this site *but* I have alot more knowledge and my toolbox is bigger and more refined than before. I also have more clarity on what/how to do each practice better and the confidence to give it a more solid effort than before.

I'll be the explorer for a bit, and see where this practice leads me. 3 day retreat next week so I will have a chance to see that more clearly.

Yeah, as much as I like not noting, I never trusted my own judgement, especially during the first couple of paths. Noting gets the job done, even though not-noting was always more pleasant. So a timer and the noting technique always seemed to be the quickest and most sure way of making progress.

Good luck with your exploration.

thanks - I will keep logging what happens.

55 minutes in the body at lunch - Funny thing, being completely mindful of the body requires letting go of something, images of a self that create a gap in awareness. Its almost like the self has to be let go of in order to completely feel the area above the neck.

funny - was getting very very calm, sensations getting more subtle, then all the sudden got hit with a cramp, center of chest, that was very painful and started to work its way up to the head... Just kept feeling it,letting it do its thing.

OK - Yesterday was a doozy.
First I tried an experiment - what can make the mind let go of things and become simpler?
3x30 min sittings. At first this seemed to work, a sort of 'can i let go of this' or 'can i give up thinking about this' type attitude. At some point it didnt work so well although it did at first, bringing me to a place where awareness was simpler, things just are. Once the technique stopped working I shifted to looking at something odd I noticed a bit after doing the practice... When things simplify a bit, there is this 'stillness' - it cannot be seen directly somehow, but felt, like it was a something, but cannot be grasped by the mind somehow - I used this stillness, tried to incline towards it. Felt kind of sloppy but felt like I entered an access 'concentration' or light J1 with a wide open awareness this way, while in no way trying to do so. After the third period of sitting some harsh energy started rising in the body, from the neck up, and it felt like a painful pushing, tingling, in the nerves of my face and head... Eventually the energy went to the crown and was intense for a while.

O after the sitting something wonderful happened - The sitting produced some tension in the head and neck, some sort of anxiety that the mind was continually reacting to. I was playing around with this and thought - hey what if I try a belief substitution? So I convinced myself the pain was really pleasure, that it was something great to feel.... Unbelievably this worked. The pain was still there, but the aversion to it was gone - I did this bit by bit and eventually the loop of suffering ceased! For almost an hour I was normal, but without suffering. Everything was clear and easy like the way I remember experiencing life as a child. There were almost no thoughts of past or future, Everything was interesting to look at and provided its own answer. The energy in the body was clear and balanced - no aversion anywhere. Tears came easily as I thought about how everyone in the world is carrying around this tension, fighting a war that cannot be won. The insight -

If I wish to be free from suffering I will always remain a slave to it.

After an hour or so the suffering started to come back on line - the habits reforming.

Sat one 90 this Sunday (reusing this post from Saturday) - in the body , anchored on breath. Its interesting how strong the belief is that I am the body - sensations in the area of the head are followed by images of a self, back and forth. I can see that it will take a more stable mind to rest in those identified senstions without the images arising - its funny I can see them arise and its clear they are thoughts but breaking the mental habit will take a stronger mind.

55 minutes at lunch - the mind was into it earlier but it seems like the experience from Saturday finally wore off and there is this frantic belief stuck in the brain that 'it doesnt want suffering' 'it doesnt want anxiety' - I was simply following the breathing in the whole body today. Its kind of cool though to allow myself to look at this broken record of aversion, and see what keeps it afloat, to try to discover what the most skillful way to deal with it is.. I will do an hour tonight as well and see if I can play with it a bit,see what noting it does, if the belief is attached to a spot in the body that needs to be felt or if some other method works to lessen its hold on the brain.

-playing with this a bit later I see that somehow rooting more deeply in the body stops this loop. For some reason focusing on the breath and then trying to feel the body left me ungrounded, but going the other way didnt? I will have to try that again later. Yes- there seems to be an area of the back of the neck closer to the base of the two neck muscles that go up, where rooting awareness in that area seems to kill the aversion loop for some reason. Weird.

intuition telling me time to switch back to noting. Retreat in 2 days. Hopefully the retreat will help keep me grounded, as the noting seems to destabilize me to all heck. Not sure how to keep it from getting wild otherwise, probably will take more time.

Noting is like a lightsaber to the sense of self - just thinking about doing it brought up alot of fear...
60 min noting with the zen crew - mostly fear in the body, mindstates frantic, What I am finding is that you can sneak in some shamatha into the noting by doing 10-20 breaths while noting them and then blow that concentration power on noting some other stuff... back and forth. I get so unstable trying to note when in fear mode that I need to stabilize on something and then dive back into it again and again.... At least now I can see how to develop concentration within the noting practice, in one way a sword sharpener and in another way a temporary shelter against a frantic mind. I'm all for noting 'frantic mind' but there's a point where its just too much.


So all these musings and explorations into practice realms have led me to the conclusion that even though other ways to SE might be better in theory, If I want to give myself a real chance of entering stream on 2 hours of sitting a day and 6 3-day retreats a year I better note my butt off. It seems to have the highest probability - I know people who have been doing other practice styles an hour a day for 20 years and they dont seem to have much insight after all that time. I would like to develop the Jhanas but looking at my time limitations noting may very well be the fastest way to develop them...
back into the fire.

this morning at work...Aversion looping - 'what does this state feel like?' 'what are the thoughts?' 'what are the sensations' - trying to bring an attitude of curiousity to this state.. Noting tension, creeping contraction in the head, neck, breaking into vibrations, pinpricks, thoughts of pushing away, mindstate of franticly trying to fix/solve the problem of being in this mindstate (whew - is that desire for deliverance?)
-shifting, some opening, reacting less to this state. Fear opening up into vibrations in the body, quivering, tingling.

60 min noting at lunch,
lazy mind, rising and falling of the breath, some tension in stomach, chest, neck, pinpricks and pressure in head, stayed mostly on 1st F for a while until things got more vibratory then did a bit of 2nd F and then back and forth between body and mind, Discovered that slowing the noting down or speeding it up has a huge impact on things - there's an equilibrium I need to stay on here, too slow noting and feeling something and I seem to get almost too calm, too fast initially and I get frantic. Too slow later on and somehow I start to wander, noted daydreaming, self judgement, rising, falling, a few times ;p
I'm still amazed by how quickly states can change from morning to noon.

For fun sometimes I play with a NS type thing that I read about somewhere - it happened halfway for me once a few years back spontaneously, probably an A&P but sometimes I play around with seeing how I could slide my centerpoint of awareness down into my chest like that again, with the mind 'up there' - havent been able to duplicate that again though... I have lots of those 'one off' things. Probably all A&P.

have to love slow days at work when I can just sit there and note.. I used to complain all the time about this job - now I see this as a great opportunity!

60 minutes noting - I had also noted for what must have been hours on and off at work today, and on the bike while exercising - noting every step and breath and some thoughts/sensations at work, on the bike noting the foot strokes and breathing, sometimes seeing, hearing, and some thoughts - I am amazed at how continuous noting in daily life like that can reach a level of clarity where I was able to see certain thoughts as thoughts, ones that had always been trouble.

tonights noting was gone into with all this momentum built up,
rising, falling, rising, falling,
thought of being incomplete, rising, falling, tension in stomach,
tingles, tingles, vibrations, hearing, seeing,
noting more thoughts, back and forth from rising/falling to thoughts, again and again - seeing lots of stuff clearly as just part of a dream, no inherent reality, no real me-ness, just something coming and going, and also detecting some pre-thinking, very subtle intents to think things that then developed into full blown images/thoughts that were then noted - my awareness this time was more like a flashlight, I could note thinking and then turn towards it and it would just fall apart, just images, just dream chunks, and gone again.
There was a deafening silence that was noticed early on in the sit, unusual for me, and after a while a high pitched whine in both ears, which if tuned into seemed to drown out all hearing - I didnt note this at first being drawn in by curiosity, then noted it a bit later. I can still tune into it now.

I am amazed at the power of the noting techinque to bring one to equanimity *and* its power to slice the ego belief to shreds, causing all kinds of dark nightish stuff - I am also amazed at how the continuity can build up - there was a point today eating dinner noting where everything was visually shimmering almost, like an extra brightness on it, seeing every detail with clarity.

30 min walking and noting this morning - walked to the beach, noting step, step, step, rising, falling, step, step, seeing, hearing, thought of being tired, step, step - very clear and felt great at first.
As the morning wore on I kept getting sucked into daydreams, arguments and whatnot in my head, very hard to see it coming and would pull out of them, noting 'daydream' and come back, very hard for some reason.

50 min noting at lunch, seem to be very tired somehow, noting sensations of tiredness, an expanding, hazy, somewhat pleasurable feeling in the head and neck, getting lost in daydreams over and over, 'daydream' coming back, 'rising', 'falling' - Seems like a 2 steps forward 1 step back thing. I had never gone so far as I did yesterday with the noting so I guess the brain was forcing rest? Onlyh answer is to keep noting as much as I can

3 days of retreat starts later today, I will report sometime Saturday night - the plan is to note as much phenomena as possible, as often as possible. Nothing is to be spared the note!

retreat report - first night spent doing 3rd gear, second day doing some 3rd and 2nd..Reason is I got kind of interested in trying to recreate a PCE (which didnt work anyway and I saw later was a waste of time - I should have done noting all day instead)

One interesting thing - I can see the moment of surrender that occurs on its own somehow between what I think is 10 and 11th nana (maybe?), where I have this harsh energy in my chest/neck area and this aversion loop 'I dont want this suffering' - and its all happening on its own, then this moment of turning back inwards towards the suffering and a dissolving of the loop, from there opening up to a space where more sensations and thoughts are OK, coming and going, and the energy being more centered in the head area, in the beginning with a lot of third eye sensations.

Played around with a practice I call a 'thought stripper' - I would stop every few breaths or so and ask intently "what am I adding to the present moment?" - and LOOK and immediately see what thought was being held, and it would dissolve into a belief, an underlying belief, which would then be seen to be attached to a sensation/spot somewhere in the head. It was quite interesting to see that process unfolding with that practice, I would say it was a 3rd gear practice, as things got more and more clear - at some point I got the sudden intent to hear everything at once and immediately awareness became very panoramic, taking in everything at once in a crsytal clear way, like every exeperience in the room happening at once like the fizz of a carbonated drink. It seemed almost overwhelming so I backed off. (aspect of 4th J?)

cont...