Andy's practice journal

A quick note about something mildly interesting that came up both on my drive in and on my drive home yesterday.

I note while I drive, and yesterday morning, I initially noted a lot of sadness, loneliness, fear, anxiety appearing over and over. By the time I got to work, it wasn't coming up much at all.

None of this came up at my sit during lunch, but on the drive home, I got fear, anxiety, wanting to be home, seeking comfort, scared, nervous. When I looked at any given object, there was this sinister feeling undertone -- trucks on the highway, trees on the side of the road, the fields, hills, etc.

All of these feelings were free-floating, none of them seemed associated with anything from daily life. Noting doubles, triples, and quads didn't show any obvious links with any particular event or line of thinking. It was actually kind of interesting to see this stuff appearing and passing on it's own.

It did not reappear on the drive in this morning,

June 21

Walked and noted for 10 minutes to get concentrated, parked, and set the timer for 30 minutes. Skipped samatha and noted from the start. The first shift took me into bliss, tingles, pleasurable sensations, and I continued noting. I tried to count shifts after that, but ended up losing count. The first few were pretty definite, noticeable. At one point, itching arose, at another I became aware of tight breathing. The shift into equanimity brought outside sounds into my awareness. Then several episodes of dream thinking came up, and suddenly clarity arose along with brightening of the visual field, tingles on my arms and legs and some minor bliss.

This cycle repeated several times with each trip through feeling less clear and distinct, until finally I dozed off. The timer woke me up and it took a little while for my thinking to clear up and for me to feel completely awake.

June 21, 35 minute sit

Started trying to do samatha again. Felt the first jhana tingles and then had rushes of bliss. Able to keep count of breaths, but at some point north of 50, I lost my place. Restarted, but never really felt the lock-on of concentration on my breath.

I was definitely feeling bliss, and a energy building up -- I was getting random muscle twitches. At one point, my body sensations dropped away, and I felt like I was floating in space mostly freely above the bed. If pressured to guess, I'd say I passed A&P and was in Dissolution, but I could be way off base. I basically found myself staying in this state and not cycling like in the last few posts. After a while, I tried to relieve the built-up bliss and energy by trying the eye-blink technique. I got some bliss and tingling on my limbs, but no outright fruitions.

I'm confused. At one point, I thought I had possibly started a new Path. Now, it seems like sometimes I get the cycling like in Review, and sometimes I get new path nyanas (I think).

June 21, yet again.

Today on the drive home, out-loud noting felt heavy, and even silent noting felt ponderous. If I tried to put word labels on objects, noticing would slow down. So, I tried to place a very small light touch of attention on things that stood out as stuff flitted by, and I ended up getting this stream of very fast noticing going, mostly stuff in my peripheral vision.This went on by itself for probably 20 minutes until I got off the freeway into busier traffic.

Regular sits have been confusing as all getout, but interesting stuff like this has been happening off the cushion here and there.

June 22

Another interesting event off the cushion (although the term, "on and off the cushion" seems to be far less rigidly defined for me than it used to be....).

On the drive in this morning, I again felt aversion to out-loud and even silent noting. Instead of powering through the aversion, I let go of both the aversion and the noting, and to my surprise, I found that I was instead quite mindful of what was actually happening to me.

Sure, I could go looking for stuff, such as body sensations, stuff whizzing by in my peripheral vision, or objects on the horizon, but this felt heavy compared to the light open mindfulness that was present. In fact, there was a distinct difference to me in the subjective feel of mindfulness compared to embeddedness.

I drove most of the journey in mindfulness, and was able to watch myself being mindful as well as quickly detect when mindfulness went away and returned.

Fascinating!



Edit: This experience seems remarkable similar to what Mumuwu described in his posts 489 and 491: kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/40...et=480&maxResults=20

June 23, 50 minutes

* Disclaimer: This was an unusually strong, blissful, energetic sit, physical sit, and way out of the ordinary for me.

Most of the morning, I enjoyed the mindfulness, visual clarity, and dramatic reduction in thinking that started on the drive in (post #179).

I walked for 10 minutes, and even as I walked, I noticed a large amount of mindfulness. After I started meditating, I chose not to note but simply to observe whatever my attention landed on. My state felt very expansive and wide open like Equanimity, but I had a lot of excitement, twitches, and felt a lot of energy and bliss. For a long time, I had almost constant blinking and twitches in my eyes even though they were closed. I also had light full-body twitches occasionally. There was a lot of brightness in my visual field (and it was a completely overcast day), colored light patterns, speckles, rhythmic collapsing circles unrelated to the frequency of my blinking; all in all, I had a very spectacular and cool light show.

I found that indulging in a memory of a long-ago strongly unpleasant work situation increased the energy, excitement, and twitches quite a bit. Conversely, I found that paying attention to the background, body, and outside sounds quickly decreased the twitching and energy. I played with this a bit and found that a pleasant and exciting daydream also increased the energy, twitches and light show.

The whole time this was happening, my body was buzzing and tingling. A few times, I got rushes of bliss moving through my whole body. This state went on and on, but eventually, I got cooler and more neutral tingling on my arm, and noticed less of the outside sounds in my attention.

(cont...)

June 23, 50 minutes (cont...)

The chime rang, and I kept sitting. By this time, my attentive, mindful state was mostly gone, and I had gotten lost in thinking a number of times. After an episode of dreaminess, I suddenly noticed mental clarity, pleasant tingles all over my arms and legs. I cycled this way three or four times before I ended the sit.



So I'm confused. This sit seemed like it had two halves to it. In the first half, A&P event springs to mind, leading me to think I might have started a new Progress of Insight cycle. However, near the end, it seems like I might have had several Review fruitions, which would mean that I was still in Review.

- Is it possible to make progress during a current Progress of Insight and then also have previous path fruitions?
- Is it possible to cycle like this from A&P to Equanimity to bring up previous path fruitions at any time, and not just only during Review?

Comments would be appreciated.

6/24, 40 minutes

Started with breath counting, but concentration was low. Although I was able to stay with the counting, I kept having thoughts pop up which I would then follow for a breath or three. I was able to get into first, then second jhana despite this.

Eyelid lights and body pleasure kept wanting to come up, but I focused on my breathing and on trying to calm myself. This only worked for so long, and I eventually decided to switch to noting and following phenomena.

The pleasant tingling, bliss, and excitement were much calmer than yesterday, and eventually, the tingling on my skin turned neutral, and then later, prickly. My breathing became more noticeable, and my heartbeat definitely stood out. I could feel the pulsing of my heart in my chest and could also feel my body moving with each beat.

The sensations in general felt a bit unpleasant, almost like a light hangover or like waking up in the wrong part of my sleep cycle. After the chime went off, I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead. My vision was a bit grainy, and I spent time noticing objects moving in the periphery of my vision.

Nothing else really changed much, so after a while I ended the sit. Afterward, I had pressure behind my eyes, a very mild headache, and noticeably less motivation to do much. This passed as the afternoon progressed.

6/25, 3 hr. 40 min. of practice

Another long drive and a chance to do noting practice.


60 minutes of driving/noting. Noting went so-so, and eventually, I started getting sleepy, so I stopped noting and listened to a Buddhist Geeks podcast instead.


40 minutes of closed-eye practice
Started with 10 minutes of breath counting, although at the end of it, I had tingle rushes in my hands and legs, so I switched to noting. Had some eyelid lights, but little physical fireworks. Had some tingling, but mostly, it ended up failing fairly neutral and buzzy. Notices some vague press sensations in my abdomen, and had extremely mild nausea. Had a lot of sleepiness after that, along with inability to stay focused on the noting, even on out-loud noting. Had some moments of wakefulness and clarity, but would soon get sleepy again. After the chime, I yawned and stretched


60 minutes of driving while noting
(Note: this was unusually focused noting that hasn't happened before.)
After my sleep 40 minutes closed-eye session I subsequently found it extremely, extremely easy to sustain noting, even noting silently and to stay very focused on noting. Able to note continuously for 60 minutes through city and highway driving with maybe two or three instances of drifting into thought. There were times where I was able to sustain bursts of 3-4 notes a second for short periods of time, and 2 notes/sec was not too difficult most of the time.

It's hard to overstate how unusually focused and clear this was.

6/25, continued...


30 minutes closed eye meditation
I was doing so well with noting, that I stopped halfway and meditated in order to take advantage of this mindful state. Continued the 1 note/sec thing I had been doing. I had lots of excitement, and flickering in the periphery of my vision. Outside sounds, body sensations, and thoughts all felt "external" and noticeable. This initial state gave way to very subtle anxiety and nervousness. I had a 5-6Hz subtly body vibration come up and would occasionally notice that my hands had tightened up. I noticed heat, a faintly uncomfortable warmth and on one occasion, I noticed that my face had tightened into a grimace, which I was able to relax.

Then, the vibrations smoothed out and I got a sense of body fullness in my skin. I noticed some nonsensical noting, floatyness, and dipped in and out of this for a while. Eventually, I found that my 1 note/sec noting flow was faltering, and I opened my eyes and wrote this up.


30 minutes driving/noting
Not quite as immediately present, but still fairly mindful most of the time. Previously I would have considered this a good session, but compared to the 60 minute session earlier, it was not as focused.

6/26 55 minutes while cycling

Did a 48 mile bike ride, and practiced noting. Early on in the ride, when I was still fresh and not working very hard, I got 30 minute of good noting in. I was able to note silently one note/sec fairly consistently. Later, as I increased my level of effort and as I got more tired, it was harder to note, and much easier to get distracted, and I only managed 15 minutes of good noting. During a break, I got another 10 minutes of closed-eye noting. On the final leg home, my cycling effort was fairly high, and I was not able to sustain noting long enough for it to catch hold.

6/27, 45 minutes

I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm now able to note silently at a much higher than usual rate, and am extremely consistent in noting around 2 notes/sec, sometimes much more in very short bursts. This seems to have started last Saturday for some reason.

Had an AMAZINGLY clear and HIGHLY physical sit today with very clear transitions between states -- buzzing, tingling, with lots of excitement, detailed visuals, bliss rushes, grimaces, muscle tightness, jaw pain, vertigo, spaciness, heat, cold, bliss, you name it, it was there.

I started noting immediately, and immediately felt like I was moving in the cycle. I rose up through the nyanas up to Equanimity and transitioned back to A&P in less than ten minutes the first time, and after that, I lost count of how many times I cycled this way.

By the end of the sit, I was feeling blissed out, and had started yawning quite a bit. Post-sit, three hours later in the afternoon, I'm still feeling like the bliss could take off if I close my eyes and just think about for a minute.

6/28, 40 minutes

Started with noting and felt clear shifts early on, but later, was not able to feel shifts except from Equanimity down to A&P. Physically, this was a much calmer sit than yesterday, but in terms of cycling, very similar -- lots of head and body jerks, then bliss. My noting focus and intensity was less precise and a bit slower.

I had a general sense of languishing about, with an undercurrent of faint sadness, and a definitely neutral feel. It felt like I was just watching, not getting involved, very chilled out.

6/28

To my surprise, I managed to get in 15 minutes of good solid noting while cycling.

6/29, 40 minutes

I'd been feeling a bit of bliss at various times throughout the morning, but when I sat, this didn't continue. I started with breath-counting, but felt a shift, felt sensations and thoughts recede, so I switched to noting.

Initially, it went well, but soon I started getting dropouts and sleepiness. I fought it for a while, but at the 30 minute mark, I opened my eyes and tried noting with eyes open. This seemed to keep me more awake, but there was still a lot of sleepiness, lack of clarity, drifting, etc. I stopped as soon as the chime rang 40 minutes.

6/30

It's interesting that while the formal sits have been pretty similar lately, my informal noting sessions have gotten quite a bit stronger. There's been a change in my noting, starting on 6/25. Speed had definitely picked up. The speed on it's own isn't what's really interesting to me, though.

I've noticed that there seems to be a threshold of noting speed for me. Once I pass somewhere around 2-3 notes a second, noting seems to take on a life of its own, and just sort of flows. After that, it almost seems like I take a step back, of sorts. The notes themselves lose some importance, and it becomes more about keeping the flow of noting going, and not about any particular sensation.

It feels very powerful, and I've been able to get quite concentrated while doing it.

Had a session today, where I sat in my car for 10 minutes and noted after an appointment, and got some speed going. Then, I started the car and drove back to work, and was able to note solidly and quickly all the way back to work. I got 40 minutes of rapid, continuous noting done there.

My drives to and from work have been improving similarly, and are getting to be a solid foundation of my daily practice.

7/1, 2x40 minutes

The first session was a closed-eye sit, and followed the usual pattern: initial shift, soon followed by body bliss, then soon itches, then dream-like thinking and a sudden shift down to body bliss, tingles, etc. This repeats over and over and over fairly quickly. I cycled more than 10 times in this sit

I tried to hit noting pretty hard, but typically lost focus once the dream-like thinking came. Then, once the downshift happened clarity came and along with it ease of noting, which went away, etc...


The second session was 40 minutes of walking meditation. I was able to note quickly and solidly for the vast majority of it. Had some wonderful moments of peace and clarity, and later some very mellow and smooth sadness and nostalgia when I noted memories of walking as a child.

While doing open-eyed noting, I'm definitely noticing times when it's easier to note sensations, and other times when attention seems to dwell more on feelings, thoughts, and images. Today was a good noting session overall, and I definitely had a strong mindfulness and a good body-buzz going when I got home.

7/2, 7 sessions, total 4:43

Have some time to myself this weekend, so I'm taking the opportunity to practice in all sorts of situations.

40 Walking in the park and noting
23 Mindful watering of plants and flowers
50 Samatha practice with kasina and breath
50 Noting while cycling (surprisingly focused)
40 Closed-eye noting, fell asleep, pretty tired after a 2 hr. ride
40 Samatha practice with kasina
40 Walking and noting, with a 10 break to sit and note

Felt pretty focused by the time I went to bed, and it was trivially easy to bring up bliss.

7/3, 5 sessions, 4:33 total

Another day with time to myself. More practice opportunities.

60 Driving and noting
40 Closed-eye noting practice
48 Driving and noting
60 Cycling and noting (experimenting with metronome at 45 beats/min)
40 Samatha practice with kasina and breath
25 Samatha practice with kasina

The other week, I noticed that I could make my noting quite a bit steadier by tapping my finger in a regular tempo, and then noting something, anything every time I tapped my finger. Within a few minutes, I was noting away very steadily. I got more interested when I discovered that I could increase my noting speed if I tapped at a faster tempo.

So, I'm trying an experiment to see if I can speed up my noting speed, and more interestingly, to see if that makes any kind of practical difference in my practice. I'll be using a metronome, and will note something whenever the metronome sounds. I'll slowly turn up the metronome and see how high I can get it before noting starts falls apart. I'll practice this on my commute for the next week or two to (1) see if I can up my noting speed, and (2) to see if it makes any real-world difference.

That sounds interesting - I look forward to seeing how it goes.

So, my basic aim is to get more clarity into what's presenting itself. At times, it feels like there is WAAAAAY more going on than I'm noting, or even noticing. There seems to be so much stuff flitting by, and I'd like to get to the point I'm not only noticing more stuff, but at subtler levels.

Part of my solution to this is working on basic concentration, which for me seems to mean samatha practice with kasinas. The other part is trying to up my noting speed. I'd rather be looking at stuff than looking for stuff. Historically, just trying to note faster has felt like I've been dragging attention around by the nose, rather than letting stuff come to me, if that makes sense.

So, here are a couple of reports from last weekend...

7/4, 2:20 total

20 minutes
Samatha practice with kasina and breath

2 hrs
Had a long drive to do, so I practiced driving and noting with a metronome. Started with the metronome set to 50 beats/min, and bumped it up a notch whenever I found that I was drifting or when I had clear thoughts or sensations faster than the tempo I set. It did't take very long to get it up over 100. At around 140, making a mental note on every beat proved too slow, so I switched to silently saying the word "dit" instead. I seemed to top out somewhere around 160 notes/minute, which is 3 notes a second. I've been able to do 3-4 notes a second in very short bursts, but never for any length of time before. We'll see what happens next time.

7/5, 2:50 total

2:30
Again, a long drive, so I practiced noting with a metronome. I was pretty tired: had gone to bed late and gotten up early, and my concentration was poor. Got the metronome up to 120/min after a while, but found that the noticing was not as crisp and focused as it had been the other day. It felt like I was going through the motions and noting on each beat, but it felt forced and I'm not sure it really was useful at the faster speeds. So, I set it to 60 for the last hour and it seems like I got more out of it.

20 minutes
Noting practice in bed with my eyes closed. Still tired, but was initially able to feel state shifts and a qualitative difference in the "feel" of reality, but got sleepy pretty quickly.

7/6, 55 minutes

Had an unusually clear and sharp lunchtime session today. I felt like I was able to note well and consistently, and was able to stay on top of thing fairly well, even in High Equanimity.

Walked and noted for 10 minutes to establish concentration(which it did). At the end of the walk, I was able to note well and consistently. Drove to my meditation spot and started noting immediately, and immediately I felt the floaty sensations that I associated with first vipassana jhana. I kept noting and I felt a rush of pleasure, and not too long after that, I felt sparkly graininess, slight disorientation, and subtle loss of clarity.

At this point, I concentrated hard on perceiving sensations (mostly sounds) as rapidly as possible. In short order, I felt a body rush of bliss and a smoothing-out of clarity. I immediately focused on the impermanence of sounds so as to experiment with the aftereffects of the fruition. I was able to repeat this cycle once more with a slightly stronger bliss wave.

On the third pass through, I was concentrating on impermanence, and added not-self by focusing on the recognition that anything I heard or felt couldn't possibly be me. As soon as I added this, I felt this sliding sensation, a feeling of losing control, and suddenly I was feeling a noticeably stronger bliss wave rolling over me. The wave took a while to subside.

I tried to reproduce this sliding and loss of control thing, but was unable to get it to re-occur. Soon after that, I started yawning, and it became harder to keep noting. I found myself lost in the contents of my thoughts. The chime rang shortly thereafter.

I can still feel a bit of that bliss right now, four hours later That was a good one!