recording and learning

70 min this AM, 15 min concentration, went OK but not too solid (mornings are tough anyway), then out loud noting until the last 5 min which was silent/fast - had some energy releases, tingling rushing type stuff after seeing some thoughts clearly, but for the most part seemed to be hanging out in sankharaville this morning, lots of inadequacy thoughts, aversion to inadequacy, fear of failure, canting, associated tensions and contractions, striving to succeed, etc - I did notice that the fast (2//sec) silent noting seemed to be more effective when I switched to it. Next sit I may try that again and see what happens. Funny how each sit can be so different - only thing that really seems to change over time is how much I see with dispassion.

havent had any DN back cycling in a while, seems to only happen once a week or so now after a sit, is milder than it used to be, and isnt that big a deal. Had a couple of things happen a month ago that seemed to stick, one of them being the intensity of bodily sensations somehow went down a notch or three, much less harsh, less intense and more interesting. Not sure what/why - of course this may change, so who knows?

lol - had to say something, spent an hour with angry judgemental thoughts and now fear, vibrating in the body.. Meh.

hmm.

Tried 70 min Mahamudra noting, Very high level of sensations, much more than normal for some reason, like old times... Started with immediately what felt like wild tingling/energetic territory, stayed there for some time and then hit calm, peace, openness, then harsh unpleasant stuff, despair/fear/aversion, noting acceptance, surrender, trying to go back to listening. Had moments of clarity and surrender/equanimity with all the sensations in the body which definitely were turned up a notch by this practice, many more moments of unpleasantness. Not sure if I was doing it right, seems like there is some kind of widening and furthening of awareness and its reach. Interesting that there was so much more sensation than usual. Makes me wonder if I was dulling it somehow before? ...

55 min mahamudra noting - Extremely difficult. STarted out with bubbling tensions, lots of resistance, unpleasant sensations, at some point a rush of tingling into the head then immediate strong fear, some other unpleasant stuff. Kept at it - mind extremely resistive to the idea of letting in that much pure sensory experience. Will keep at it as my assumption is the harder something is to do, the more I need to do it - although I could be wrong.

55 min noting, mostly mahamudra. Its tough to keep on task with it, and I notice the mind sometimes tries to conceive of the process and throws up confusion.. Different this time, started out with some difficult tensions in the head/bubbling tingling but they died down and then things got very calm. After a while all of the tingling energy was up in my head and it was very unpleasant - there is this funny thing happening here with the mahamudra where there is this sense of being on the door of opening up into selflessness somehow, but the tensions in the head are the stuck spot, noting them surrender, release, - it seems like if I could somehow 100% surrender to the sensations in the head the opening would go all the way, but there is something holding back, holding on. Interesting. Had a few episodes of rushing/tingling energy filling up the head near the end. Also tried finding the purity around the edges of the tension in the head but was unable to make anything of it.

I will post this here instead of in a private email to Kenneth as I think it may do someone else some good someday:

First of all - thanks to everyone for being here and recording what they do and what the results are. Without this kind of work we would all be blind.

Also thanks to Kenneth for keeping the site up, for the teachings, and for trying to keep this place on track so we dont all end up running off willy-nilly chasing after things we arent ready for.

and lastly:


I have decided to toss my permanent skepticism, doubt, stubbornness and desire to figure it all out for myself -

I have come to the difficult (for arrogant speculative me) conclusion that Kenneth really does know more than I do about practice and how to proceed, so I intend to get on and off-cushion practice instructions from him and follow them to the letter, checking in every two weeks for as long as needed.

This may sound silly but I dont think I have ever *really* once been able to listen to a teacher and do exactly what they say, then give them feedback later for adjustment.

Lets just say it took me years to be able to color within the lines as a child...

heh.

Thanks for posting this, W. It takes a lot of courage to be so candid. And I agree with you that the practice journals on this site are a priceless treasure chest for anyone who cares to read them. Furthermore, I feel confident that you will achieve your goal of awakening, given your openness and commitment.

Metta and mudita,

Kenneth

Thanks.

55 min Mahamudra noting - listening, listening, surrender/acceptance/release. Still rumbling with unpleasant tingling/vibrations all over the body, especially in the head - found that I could open up more to experience then the mind would contract around the sensations and I would surrender. Had a few glimpses of partial surrender but for the most part stayed in dukkhaville. Very vibratory I noticed which has been absent for some time. Did feel more present than I have in a long while, in a wide open way.
edit - forgot to add that multiple times, maybe 10 times or more, a tension/grief arose from the chest/neck and into the head, accompanied by an aversion to being here with all this, then compassion for all beings who suffer in this same way. Noted surrender, acceptance, compassion.

Afterwards I listened to the ships in the harbor talk again and played with some things while sitting on the couch. Saw how a clean simple state of presence could be accessed by looking for awareness itself, or listening itself (the awareness of), did that a bunch of times and then went back to the ships - felt like the practicing of all this improves the access to the state.

Sounds like you and I are going through some of the same things. I'm glad you're working regularly with Kenneth. I haven't had the vibrations, but I've had the grief rising from the chest and into the head, quite a lot of that. Maybe I'll have the courage to join you Tuesday night, if you can put up with a crying female (although I might surprise myself and hit equanimity--wouldn't that be lovely!).

- this is a powerful practice.

55 min Mahamudra noting, started off with unpleasant tensions, opening, listening, more of this and then two episodes of rushing tingles into the head from the whole body, some bliss and joy, then calmness, openness, then some random harsh sensations, also that familiar tension that moves up the front of the neck into the mouth wanting to twist it up, then some wild discombobulated shaking that was unpleasant, surrender to it, surrender and acceptance, then about ~15 minutes of calm, opening, peace, clarity, energy and sensations were moving up into the top of the head and at one point it felt like I was going to be pulled up into something, the energy at the top vibrating a bit and this feeling of being at the verge of something, some sort of release, which never happened. More listening, listening, openness, a few moments of mild joy and bliss tempered by some unpleasant vibrations and tensions underneath.

seems like the practice is very capable of moving one up through the maps. Interesting.

90 min mahamudra, mind started to lose the juice to do the listening after about an hour or so, like it runs out of gas, but kept at it.

started off with tensions, unpleasant in the head/neck/chest, had energy rushing/tingling up the body into the head then a loooong period of calm, well-being, some small amount of joy or bliss a few times, some unpleasant stuff surrendered to, tension moving up the front of the head a few times, more calm, opening, clarity, at one point got very disembedded, thoughts floating by, dream of the self, listening, then after that started to feel more absorbed, at one point some pulsing near the top of the head and it felt like a very absorbed state for a few seconds, then drifting, some more unpleasant stuff while listening, running out of steam, trying to listen to those ships and the mind stalls, retrying, eventually getting opening, clarity, well-being, finding more in the body to surrender to then drifting again and starting the whole thing over, listening...

interesting last night as I was waiting for sleep I turned the mind towards the ships again and started to get some sort of mild bliss going, as well as the normal sensations in the neck that seem to sometimes occur with this practice - the bliss kept going for a long time, with very little effort on my part, maybe returning to the ships every minute or so. Felt to me like I could have just kept doing that all night but after an hour or so I decided to go to sleep.

55 min Mahamudra noting. Tension in the body, head, listening, surrender, acceptance, a light sort of well being, had some rushign energy for a bit but seemed to fall back to tension/resistance. Afterwards I listened to the talk again and realized that I hadn't opened myself to the possibility of actually hearing the ships enough to listen in the right way without the mind tensing up - this seemed to work better on the drive in. That sort of clean wonder, sensations in the neck and subtle joy of being, clearly just *here*...

55 min Mahamudra noting, brain slow and tired, hard to keep on task. Was able to keep coming back to the listening, surrender and acceptance of tensions, although the entire sit felt like a harsh 3rd nana to me, similar to the morning sit. Lots of tension in the neck and head the entire time, got some mild well-being and wonder going for a bit though the tension never released. Did try the other method into mahamudra by looking for the cleanliness and purity around the tension - this seemed to work momentarily once and then I was unable to repeat the experiment so I went back to the ships.

Seemed like ships were more accessible off the cushion earlier, while working.

going to note a few things: Since I have started this practice I have noticed a number of occasions where I have gotten wildly sleepy, much more so than normal, and the libido seems to be much higher than normal. Could be unrelated but just writing it down...

55 min mahamudra - available but not very strong, kept surrendering to the tension present in the head and neck, listening, many moments of more openness, mild well being, underneath a strong resistance to being here in this very moment, accepting the sensations over and over or resistance and returning to listening. Did have a rushing wave of tingling energy about half way through the sit as surrender deepened a bit.
Had noticed last night that I had become fairly concentrated by the early evening.

edit - definitely felt like cycling some DN after this mornings sit...

55 min mahamudra - some rushing energy near the beginning, long period of calm, some unpleasantness and a few episodes of tension rising up the front of the face, a period of disembeddedness from thoughts and then what felt like a wide open absorption, then more calm.. Listening OK but felt more forced this time, felt more like concentration and less like opening.

lots of strong mindfulness this afternoon cultivating Mah over and over in a gentle way, simplicity, crispness, noticing many things at once, vivid quality like someone turned up the knob or something.

~20 minutes this AM, extremely distracted. Plagued by thoughts and beliefs that I am not heading in the right direction, feeling an extremely strong pull towards samatha again.

Not sure what to make of this - it keeps coming back.

45 min mahamudra at lunch - extreme amount of tension and resistance to doing the practice. Some sort of feeling of violating myself somehow for doing it. No idea why/what is going on. Tension became a painful sensation in the middle of the head and then released and it felt like things got smoothed out for a while, but then got worse again later in the sit. Could be DN stuff? Did my best to listen/surrender/accept/relax but the mind was screaming the whole time. Even when I was doing 4F noting at spinning thru DN it wasn't like that, so no idea at all on this one...

thanks for the report

I have been feeling a resurgence myself in general negativity and self-doubt lately. I feel that it will pass over once it has done it thing.

mudita...

Thanks -

Experimental success! Added 10 min anapana to the beginning, then 45 min mahamudra noting...
tension in the head at first, then started to bubble/froth in the forehead/inside head and vedana shifted to pleasant but intense, then seemed to fade and out of nowhere rushing energy tingling/passing through, then calm, expansiveness, peace, more openess, listening over and over, some accepting, surrender, then tension passing up the front of the face, wanting to twist the mouth up, more calm, then opening, listening, seemed to flip back and forth between being somewhat to very disembedded to almost absorbed in wide open awareness - the sense of peace and mild well-being was palpable. A number of times feeling almost 100% OK with all sensations in the body, almost. ~25 min or so like this, then the bell and did some loving kindness for myself and everybody just because...

Feels to me like I can use samatha to build up the juice to do the mahamudra..

I'm so glad! It's awful when one's practice becomes a miserable exercise in self-immolation.

It does that sometimes! Its great to know it will keep changing at least...

55 min mahamudra, sat down thinking to start with anapana but didnt feel like the right thing to do so went right to listening, got tensions in the head and mouth right away, changed to bubbling, intense stuff in the head and scalp, then a rush of energy, some calm, a quick fearful few moments, lots of time spent with random unpleasant tensions, embracing, accepting - instead of forcing acceptance the realization that im not 100% averse to anything, so the intent is more like trying to find the acceptance that is already there and singling it out. At some point the tensions got sort of vibratory in a very non-synronous way, sort of jumbly. There was a mild undercurrent of calm the whole sit even with the stuff, and near the end a number of times while listening I looked at the whole of sensations in the body and it was clear that they were just sensations, and I could see the thoughts of identification, and there was some centerlessness and more rushing energy, more calm and open awareness, many moments of clear hearing including much of other sense fields.

edit - forgot to add, the moments where I saw body sensations as *just* sensations were amazingly freeing, wonderful and simple beyond words. Less of the unreal self apparently really does amount to less suffering!

55 min @ lunch, 10 min anapana for chargeup, concentration fairly decent for a few minutes in the middle, started to drift and began mahamudra... Immediately got into burning sensations and itching/burning/tensions, very strong, then things got milder, sudden energy rush/tingling everywhere and then what seemed like a long period of just plain ole nothing going on, listening, listening, surrender, acceptance, no changes - eventually got the rising up the front of the face tension, then some odd jumbly shaking unpleasantness in the head, observer shaking stuff and more calm - didnt feel very clear this time, kept coming back to listening, mind kind of dull though. No real insights although its funny there is a point where it feels like the listening is going to get big enough to swallow everything up and I wasn't able to allow that to happen this time...