recording and learning

That's pretty cool. Smells like progress.

55 min noting, started with some intense wispy sensations up in the top of the head, lots of thoughts and associated conctractions and tensions/vibrations due to a work issue, fading after about 10 minutes, then lazy resistance, tiredness, daydreams, then this faded and went mostly calm, very very still, awareness very wide, having more moments where more of the selfing stuff and other mental processes were seen 'over there', sometimes including this grasping that I noticed where a body sensation arises and the mind tries to 'own it' and pulls it over to the 'me' side of the fence. A few times the grasping and the near side of the fence were all included within the container of 'over there'...

Have noticed the last few weeks I seem to always feel like I need a nap after sitting for some reason.

25 min concentration 10 noting, pretty strong, got interrupted noting,...

then 55 min noting, session almost identical to the one earlier today except the mind seemed a bit more sluggish, noting a bit lazy.

45 min samatha to start the day, mind uncollected as usual after sleep, took a while to get settled and somewhat stable.

3x30 min noting at the zendo, about 1.5 hours of walking and sitting combined at the beach, maybe another half hour noting on the cushion and 10 min online pair noting.
too much to remember.. although I started to do some mahasi and it feels like it immediately brings on harsh sensations. Curious.

30 more min pair noting - noticing lots of self doubt, worry about being good enough in the presence of another person. Tensions, lots of harsh energetic vibrations and tensions/contractions, some rushing and release near the end, with calmness following.

That was a good session. It took me awhile to get comfortable but I was noting a lot of pulsing, subltle vibration, and calmness towards the end. I think I will try to do pairs noting as often as I can.

yes I will have to get in the google+ and see if the lag is better. I noticed that the half hour went by very quickly also.

30 min mahasi style early in the morning - dont remember much, tiredness, pain, complaining, thoughts floating out there and random tensions...
Had done noting all day as I remembered, and on a hike I did - didnt *feel* very concentrated and mind kept inserting thoughts of inadequacy which were noticed, kept coming back to breathing and steps

65 min noting, started with a fewminutes mahasi switched to choiceless, a few times tried ships in harbor over the course of the session, dropped the noting more and more for noticing as the sit went along. Lots of tension in the neck/head at first, then some rushing energy releases and tingles rushing through the head twice as self images seen as thoughts 'out there', then had many many more moments of all thinking and mind constructing self images seen objectively, a few times something happened I haven't had before, a strong sense of the insight that *everything* is the way, some sort of metta/awareness burst from the center of the head illuminating everything at once, everything in the mind, some whiff of perfection felt, once also for a few seconds felt like I was absorbed lightly in a wide open awareness of everything, then thinking starting again.

another note - for me for some reason I have noticed that there seems to be a connection between the awareness in the abdomen area above the navel below the breastbone and disembedding with the thought process. I wonder if this is why Mahasi is structured the way it is, or if its just an artifact of personal wiring or...?

55 min noting, basically calm and still, plain the whole time, although after a while I noticed the mind kept spinning failure images and thoughts, every time I noticed I looked at them and memories came up, this happened many times, like it was bringing up every possible memory I can recall where I felt 'not good enough' somehow - I wasn't 100% equaniminous with it, but not very stuck either, did have a moment near the end where I looked at the thinking clearly and had some kind of energy release in the head somewhere, shivers all over. Felt fairly relaxed.

55 min @ lunch, started with about ~10 min of anapana, switched to 4F all out loud, two epsisodes of rushing and tingling, lots of random pains from sitting, looking into the knee and leg pain, dissolving into vibrations, switching to something in the head, then pain coming back, going back to it, vibrations and heat, back and forth - some drifting near the end, had a drop out that felt like the mind entering sleep mode for a split second, coming back, feel like I need a nap after the sit.

55 min this morning, ~5-10 on anapana to start, basically very plain, some tensions in the body, calmness, wide attention, mind producing lots of thoughts about recent career stuff, thoughts of not being succsessful enough, wanting to measure up to some standard, on and on, noting the thoughts and the sensations in the gut, chest, and head, some release near the end, seeing the thought a bit more clearly and the sensation, rushing tingles through the head, and body, shivers all over, release - seeing this habit of self judgement a bit more clearly, desire to get rid of it noted.

55 min noting at lunch, started out loud for the first half, a bit slow as I have noticed lately that the moving of note to note has been faster than my ability to actually switch objects and hit the object, like the mind takes a second to focus and see it more clearly... Random tensions and vibrations, seemed fairly calm and normal then about halfway had super intense rushing tingles throughout the head a few times, preceded by a second of clear 'no self' seen in the whole sense field and body, noted 'annata' out loud then hit with intense energy rushing, had a second, weaker rush then after a while noticed that I was in deeper calm, what felt like a light, open absorption, noting 'separation thoughts' would cause the sense of duality to lessen each time, had some really intense and painful contractions in a few places in the face and head that only lasted a second, more calm later and some spacing out and daydreams near the end, feeling relaxed like I could just sit there longer, ran out of time.

see how it wants to be stubborn
see how it questions everyone
see how it wants to be right
see how it takes no advice
see how it likes the drama
noise
quiet...
see how it has remorseful mindstate

getting some good use out of the bystander, also doing some binary noting.

50 min anapana followed by 35 noting...
concentration pretty good, very pleasant, seeing how thoughts are used to increase the concentration, first time I can remember being able to do that with the breath, had seen it with a kasina but not the breath clearly before. Noting slow, tired but doable, mind splitting off at first, then some failure thoughts, thoughts of not wanting to succeed at this stuff, then strong tensions, a moment of seeing the body sensations, esp in the head as not me, release and strong rush of tingling energy and space/ lessening of duality for a second, calm, lazyness, and drifting into the end.

Lately there has been a sense of losing something, as I start to lose my hold on some of my habitual thought patterns a bit - its funny when I read about this happening to other people somehow it seems romantic, opening into wonder - instead what I find this morning is more sensory experience, a bit less of certain kinds of thoughts and a funny sense of loss, almost upset at the slight tearing away of the security blanket of the habitual personality. Not romantic at all! Thoughts of not wanting this plain old moment, wanting more drama, that constant thought pattern of striving, struggling to achieve, in balance with the sense of not being good enough. Its true that when that lessens there is more peace but the thought arises 'hey I dont want peace I want the struggle!'

55 min noting on cushion, first half out loud, then silent for ~15 or so then just noticing.
Started at bubbling/pulsing pleasant sensations in the head, a few odd tensions here and there, thinking noted (not very specific) had a buzzing vibration on the back of the neck, to the left for a bit, then some full body shivers and rushing tingles filling the head space, sense of space, some unity then calmness, lazyness, drifted through this a bit then hit another smaller rush of energy, a tension rising up the front of the face (the one that when strong used to twist the mouth up), more calm, then moments of seeing more of the mind doing its thing, images and judgements, notcing the odd thing the mind seems to be doing where something is taken as part of the identity and this trick is done where it becomes less seen - its like unawareness and lack of clarity is a smokescreen that allows the self construct to 'work'. Seeing some sort of grabbing and hiding of elements of the mental process that makes it seem there is a self and an other...

55 min out loud noting - starting with random tensions, some shivering, tingling, thinking, slowly sensations rising up into the head, slowly, just continously noting vibrations and tingling, vedana and some thoughts, eventually tingling and pressure/pushing rising all the way to the very very top, bit of swirling, movement of energy, vast sensations of space noted inside the body somehow, stillness, calm, then some harsher stuff, but mild, drumbeat vibrations in areas of the body, eventually a tension rising up the front of the face, then more calm, Bell. Also had some moments earlier in the sit noting thoughts and a sense of being ok with all this stuff, not me, thinking and sensations just objects in the environment. Not super clear and strong, but there.

I cannot say enough about how powerful out loud noting is..

35 min noting at lunch, low energy, hard to sustain the effort, stopped at some point mired in daydreams and desiring samatha pratice, noted but very sticky. Going out of town for 4-5 days, will try to keep up the same sitting schedule, probably wont be able to report on it, may not have internet at all.

Been having this strong desire lately, this feeling like I am supposed to do more concentration, but not sure why it keeps coming up - will have to discuss that with Kenneth when I get back.

Friday was a loss cushion wise, no sleep, travelling, did manage to stay on some noting autopilot and played around with mahamudra which I found was available even when my mind was very tired. I think wonderful is an understatement of how it feels when mahamudra actually kicks in, and I noticed that it seems to have some sort of vipassana built into it, where there is the openness and sense of joy/expansion/peace/perfection but also a high level of resolution. I can tell it triggers something chemical in the brain - its a definite shift, like taking a puff of pure presence or something ;p

back - didnt do much on vacation, lost some momentum. perhaps 3 hours total noting, tried to keep some during the day momentum going but lost that after a day or so.

53 min noting this AM, started out loud, went silent after a while, threw in a few ships in the harbor a few times, not very clear or continuous, did get two episodes of strong rushing energy and space/less duality/seeing sensations as not me and release of energy, all this closer to the end than not, sort of calm and drifting a bit toward the end.

I can relate--vacations are so difficult for practice. You're extremely dedicated, so I'm sure you'll regain your momentum.

Thanks - just have to climb back on the horse!

55 min noting at lunch, started with intent to concentrate first but some harsh tensions/vibrations in the head so I switched to out loud noting, 1/sec avg, after a bit the tensions and sensations changed to neutral, then pleasant, pooling in the head area, had some contractions and tensions with pleasant vedana, about half way or so had some rushing, tingles filling the head, meditation taking over for a few seconds. Had a few episodes of this and then the last ~15 minutes were calm but lazy mindtstates, tiredness, a few daydreams, went silent last ten minutes. A few times I noticed a clarity arising in the senses that I'm not used to.

55 min this AM, 10 min on the breath, felt solid for a few minutes then started to wander a bit and switched to silent noting, felt pretty plain, tensions, vibrations, nothing really out of the ordinary, observer thoughts, seeing, hearing, rising, falling, normal stuff, nothing harsh or intensely pleasant - near the end though had a few moments of non-duality with wild intense tingling energy filling up the whole body, feeling thousands of tiny pinpricks turning on and off rapidly from head to toe, throughout the entire inside of the body, the last few minutes just calm...

55 min @ lunch, got some solidity on anapana first for ~10 min then noting out loud, went silent about halfway through, very plain, didnt notice shifts or anything special. Did feel the difference from the concentration, seeing a bit more detail and clarity than this morning, just tensions and vibrations, thoughts, contractions in the head, small pains. Last half of the sit seemed like more tiredness and a few daydreams caught.