recording and learning

55 minutes, first half out loud.

Started with some pains/tensions and some aversion, but much more OK than usual. Opened into calm, noting calm, tingling in head, neck, some vibrations in legs, rising, falling. At some point entire body felt as if it was vibrating really quickly, almost so fast to be solid but not quite, then most sensation was in the head, feeling of body being very very still, mildly hot tingling working its way around the head, in the spine especially from the atlas in the neck up a ways, like a heat/tingling, pleasant tone, just sort of sitting there. As the sit continued out loud noting got to be too much, moved to silent, there were a few minutes there where it felt like aversion to any sensations in the body had 95% ceased, just a calm, still, almost unifying sense of being, noting stopping for a bit, then starting up when some interesting pains and warbling painful tensions appeared in the center of the spine at the base of the neck. Feeling them, directly, then after a while gone again - at some point I noticed some drifting and started up whispering noting again... In the last minute my cell went off - I had forgotten to turn off the ringer and I let it go, feeling the intense vibrating fearful pulse caused by each ring in the whole body as the ringer went off. Noted irritation, then the bell.

55 minutes after work -

Started out with some harsh vibrating tension in the throat and chest, which were OK, noting it out loud and quick, the sensations moved slowly up to the head, then became more and more neutral, went higher, then sat for a bit in the area above the eye plane, vibrating, tingling, creeping around, sometimes feeling like there was a thin filament of it leaking out the top. At some point I felt that overall body vibration again, it sped up, and then the stuff in the head calmed down. At that point I switched to silent - so still. Stillness, calm, very little going on in the body, still some in the head area, Stillness. Some sounds outside, more calm. Vague thoughts, starting to notice how the mind keeps interjecting experience with images of a self. Not able to see it clearly yet. At some point I saw something the whole of experience as if it was one whole, also not me. Not strongly maybe, but something in the center of the head relaxed, and then there was a rush of tingling in the head, with a relaxed spot in the center where before was subtle contraction. Then there was a few minutes of unpleasant stuff working its way up from the gut to the head, feeling it, and it pooled up in the head again, and more stillness, calm. Bell.

70 minutes silent noting with a group..

There was a still, peaceful quality that appeared right away that I am not used to. Forgot to investigate it.

Tiredness, rising, falling, hearing, seeing, some thinking, lots of random tensions and unpleasant contraction, but 99% OK with it being there. Some daydreams, drifting, dharma thoughts, judgements, etc.

One observation here is that out loud noting is *imperative* in the morning - I can't seem to get the engine started very well at all with the silent stuff in the morning.

This sounds like super practice, W. Sounds like you've moved the troops into DK so maybe you're advanced scouts are going beyond. Believe it or not your work inspires me to try to ramp up and get back solidly into DK aqain. Sounds terrible, but isn't there something really alive about it compared to when you're practice cools down?

"One observation here is that out loud noting is *imperative* in the morning - I can't seem to get the engine started very well at all with the silent stuff in the morning." -WSH3

Nice use of the transmission! Downshift to a lower gear when you need more traction. Noting aloud is ultra-compound low gear, so it always works, no matter how distracted or dull the mind feels.

Note to Kachappa: The DK (Dark Knight) is Batman.

I think you mean the DN (Dark Night)!

Metta,

Kenneth

Dilemma -

1. AF practice, at least in the beginning, leads me closer to what is calling out to me. That sensuous, direct enjoyment of life, non dual and without suffering.
2. Im stuck in DN somehow - I haven't sat for a week but seem to have A&P stuff while trying to do AF practice, even in an easy way. Crossing A&P seems to be easier than burping, then I get whatever flavor of DN for a day or two.

I have to be honest, my preference here would be to undo the insight progress and go actualism, but it seems like I have painted myself into a corner here. I also dont seem to have a mind strong enough to get stream with the time I have available. The best I can do is 2 hours a day noting and what happens after months of DN is I can get a *low* EQ on the cushion maybe and nasty DN the rest of the day. I can't afford to do more...

My plan right now is to back off on insight, and work on concentration while on the cushion, and ease into whatever I can do during the day AF-wise. That stuff is sort of random and hard to journal anyway so I will keep a log of my progress on the jhana front here.

If I master whatever jhanas I can and still dont seem to be able to do any AF practice without tripping into DN (which makes such practice almost undoable it seems) then I will use the increased mind strength to get SE.

At any rate having jhana mastery of some sort should give me a place to further determine the direction I want to go. My dark night stuff is so nasty I think I need to purify for a while with samatha before I can reliably do anything.

50 min samatha... Hard at first, took about ~35 or 40 minutes to hit 'window rolling up' of light access. I can almost feel how the solidity and continuity of the object through time if improved upon will spark pleasant feelings... Feels good to be practicing again - I ran out of joriki and had 'mush mind' the last few days. Felt like the 'right' thing to do - I will focus completely on this for now and not anything else. I know how much faster progress can come with all-day on one practice lightly throughout the day and I would rather see some progress on this front than split it up and confuse my circuits..

55 min samatha, sticking to breath in mouth like glue. Windows got somewhat rolled up ~40 min or so. I dont think I have ever gotten 'lock on' with an object before outside of A&P, but I've had some pleasurable sits in the past... "must... stick... like... glue..."

listening to a jhana talk on the jhanasadvice website... They recommend the anapana spot. So I sat there in my chairf at work playing with the breath in the nostrils, the breath in the mouth, throat, and the 'spot'. Oddly when I kept attention at the 'spot' there was an immediate sense of pleasantness. I will try this tonight and compare.

Sounds interesting, which talk was it? I'm on the site and it looks like it's got a lot of useful info. Thanks for the heads up!!

Im listening to the talks on the talk page, second and third one... They jnust mentioned somewhere about using the 'spot' and I remembered I have had more pleasure with that location for some reason and tried it lightly for a minute and sure enough there it was again.. The Strongest A&P was when I began this thread, and I may not have mentioned it but I spent ~two hours before noting on that 'spot' with piti coming and going the whole time. That was a 'unkowing' type A&P - pretty weird.

They teach a full absorbtion jhana, which I would imagine is very difficult to achieve. My goal here is to get 1-4 nailed and do lots of arc running, then make another stab at the maps. I suspect that training the brain to shift from 1-4 lots will make map transitions occur more smoothly/quickly.

-maybe ;p

It should be helpful either way.

"listening to a jhana talk on the jhanasadvice website... They recommend the anapana spot. So I sat there in my chairf at work playing with the breath in the nostrils, the breath in the mouth, throat, and the 'spot'. Oddly when I kept attention at the 'spot' there was an immediate sense of pleasantness. I will try this tonight and compare."

That's the technique I use--I bought Rasmussen and Snyder's book "Practicing the Jhanas," and I'm going to Washington to do a retreat with them in December. I love working with it.

Sounds fun - my favorite part of the anapanasati is doing it throughout the day. For some reason for me doing it 'half-assed' while doing other things brings lots of pleasantness and everything around me looks more beautiful. Its odd, like the mood in the body somehow gets applied to the environment. I would say its my favorite 'during the day' practice - if I can remember it!

55 minutes anapana - not very strong, mind creating images of the breath, like a thick veil in front of the real experience. Broke through after a while. Didnt get much sleep last night due to work issues.

"Sounds fun - my favorite part of the anapanasati is doing it throughout the day. For some reason for me doing it 'half-assed' while doing other things brings lots of pleasantness and everything around me looks more beautiful. Its odd, like the mood in the body somehow gets applied to the environment. I would say its my favorite 'during the day' practice - if I can remember it!"

I'm with you on that mate, I just mentioned that in my own post! Do you find that the half-assed approach, just dropping any desire to get there, makes it easier to get into 1st jhana?

well it makes it easier to get piti and sukha to arise for sure - Not sure I've ever been in first all the way though, except I have a memory or doing it accidentaly maybe when I was 17 starting to sit - getting 'sucked into' a bubble around a candle flame... Could be a mistaken memory though.

55 minutes samatha, did 3-4 hours of it between the last sitting also while doing other things, keeping up continuity somewhat and improving on where I was at after the lunch sit.

Think I will give up trying to figure out where I am in the spectrum and just describe.

Started with lots of tension in the head/neck, eventually shifted a bit to stillness, then some sleepyness/nodding so stepped up the 'placing' on the breath, the holding wasn't very hard, at some point my neck cracked and things got smother for a bit, had a few seconds two or three times where I felt a sense of merging, only slightly perhaps and felt some pleasantness arise, some steadyness not normal but only for a few seconds. Bell.

liking this stuff - its simple and if I am rolling with the breath for a while and suddenly decide to go wide or pay attention to something else everything is direct, more vivid.Had some conversations with people while doing it earlier and I felt very 'effective', easier to just say the right things somehow. hehe - maybe my concentration needs more work than I thought ;p

55 minutes samatha at lunch. had been trying to stay with the breath at the edge of a nostril all day. Having some difficulty at work due to stress/circus atmosphere, learning to turn away from getting too involved in my story about events or anger - as much as I could anyway. Didnt feel like I went too deep at lunch but needed the sit certainly.

did 55 minutes samatha again last night - I remember tension in the beginning, then in the middle seeing how the mind keeps replacing the real experience of the object (anapana) with images, like my creative imagination is covering up the world. Near the end got closer to the object and it started to feel mildly pleasant to be with the object. Noticing that when I started this anapanasati I couldnt seem to really feel sensations of the breath on an object. Starting to be able to do so more and more.

30 minutes wake up anapana this AM. Fuzzy as is the tendency in the morning but what I have found about morning meditation for me is it jump starts the whole day. If I can make myself get up and do it it clears out the cobwebs allowing more ability to do the practice all day long. 1.5 day retreat this weekend...

"then in the middle seeing how the mind keeps replacing the real experience of the object (anapana) with images, like my creative imagination is covering up the world. Near the end got closer to the object and it started to feel mildly pleasant to be with the object.

30 minutes wake up anapana this AM. Fuzzy as is the tendency in the morning but what I have found about morning meditation for me is it jump starts the whole day. If I can make myself get up and do it it clears out the cobwebs allowing more ability to do the practice all day long. 1.5 day retreat this weekend... "

I've noticed this exact thing, especially with my breath. My mind adds a slight visual image to the sensation, as well as a sound(?). When I can relax that and just experience the breath it's incredibly pleasant. The mind is a weird animal alright!!

55 minutes anapana at lunch - having a difficult time with this particular object. I may look around for another

20 minutes at zendo, 45 afterwards at home. Object is now breath passing through opening in mouth (small) - I can't breathe very well through my nose due to genetics anyway.
Very very fruitful this time, in a purifying way. lots of tension, staying with the object but got into body and mind nana stuff, where I was on the breath and some deep seated insecurity or fear would arise, be seen on the sidelines without getting pulled completely off the object and then some release of energy in the head and body. This happened quite a few times - I never really got to access, as it was all about hindrances but it felt needed, like stuff that really needed to come up and be seen in a disembedded way got its time in the sun.

OK - the last two weeks I tried to stuff it back into the bottle. Last night I got opened back up somehow. Lots of pain. I dont care anymore how much it hurts I cannot be closed off. I dont care if I live in the dark night for a thousand years, its still better to be open to it than trying to bottle it up, trying to manage it in some way.

50 minutes noting, starting out loud. Tension, tiredness, seeing and hearing, rising and falling, vedana sweeps around the body as well - much more solidly 'here' doing the noting than trying to concentrate - in the middle things got faster, lots of energy rushing to the head, switched to silent noting. Dont recall any nasty stuff, thoughts seen of striving, wanting to avoid pain or fear, then more settling, more peace, and thoughts of being an observer, a centerpoint seen, more settling. Hearing, seeing. Calm. Lots of low grade tingling and releasing energy in the head the last 10 minutes.

55 min silent noting at lunch...

Started with some tension, self doubt, seeing, hearing, rising, falling, till about ten min in, then noting thoughts of being a centerpoint, an observer, rushing energy in the head, body becoming clearer, more calm, some vibrations, then noticing more stuff sliding off the mind, then shifting into more daydreams, having to apply more work to come back, noting daydream, etc, coming back to seeing, hearing, energy sort of pooled up in the head, bubbling away the whole time, more daydreams, more noting of selfing and some thoughts sliding by, again having to work a bit to keep from daydreaming, stillness.