Andy's practice journal

It's now almost 10 hours after that last fruition, and not only has the bliss not receded, but has increased in intensity at times. It was quite the weird feeling indeed to feel that full body bliss and have impatience and frustration sitting on top of it for a short while.

and I'm going to take this opportunity to record for posterity an experience from Saturday, middle of the night. I fell asleep meditation, noting, actually. I came awake suddenly late, late in the night with my face in the pillow and light exploding in my eyeballs. The bliss wave that followed was deeply, almost overpoweringly intense.

I didn't make that much of it at the time, since I was doing a mini home retreat, but in the light of this recent 10-hour (and counting) bliss, perhaps I should take another look at it...

7/7

Still had bliss, excitement, and energy yesterday evening. In fact, I ended up going to bed late, and woke up an hour early with bliss and vibrations. Tried to meditate, but fell in and out of sleep, with neither sleep nor meditation getting good attention.

Had bliss, excitement, et. al. all morning. Meditate at lunch for 40 minutes, and tried to work on samatha, but ended up falling asleep several time. Once, I felt myself cycling. All in all, not a very productive session. Good quality sleep is the best meditation enhancer I know.

For what it's worth, I'm still feeling bliss, vibrations, excitement, energy. It seems to be available to me whenever I want, and kinda feels like being in A&P all the time. It reminds me of what I was feeling in the days after SE. I'm not claiming anything at this point, though.

Just to be on the safe side, I'm setting intentions and resolutions, and will be devoting more time to concentration practice, and in general, making more effort to be mindful more often of whatever is presenting itself.

7/8

Still feeling a lot of bliss and excitement and energy, but did manage to get a reasonable night's sleep in last night. I did notice that while I was trying to let go and drift off to sleep, eyelid lights started coming up for me without me trying to note. I opened my eyes and moved around, since I've found that if I go to sleep while meditating, I tend not to get good sleep.

7/8, 20 minutes

In the car after work. Started with kasina. Immediately felt the lock-on of concentration, and first and second jhana felt pretty clear. Then after a short bit, third, along with coolness on my skin, then fourth with a lessening of body sensations, almost like numbness on my skin. After sitting this way for a minute, I got a number of full-body rushes of bliss, vertigo, dizziness, changes of width of focus.

After ten minutes of this, I gave up on samatha, closed my eyes and watched my breath. Pretty soon, I felt another full-body bliss wave and saw eyelid lights. I started noting and felt spaciness, got lost in thought, and then suddenly had mental clarity, a bliss wave, and my noting ability came back. Cycled this way maybe 4 or five times in ten minutes before
I stopped. Afterward, I felt extremely blessed out for probably a good hour before going back to my regular background bliss.

Noted on the way home using the metronome, and was able to note steadily and consistently for 35 minutes.

7/9

20 minutes in bed on waking
Started with noting. I remember feeling coolness on my skin, the sensations of falling, dream imagery. It didn't take very long to start cycling from Equanimity to A&P. The bliss waves were very smooth, slow, gentle. Eventually, I started yawning, and called it quits.

20 minutes in the car
Started with kasina, but soon switched to noting -- too much activity outside me. Equanimity seemed very obvious to me -- spaciness, vague body outline, a sort of mental tingling. Cycled several times down to A&P before the chime.

25 minutes noting while cycling
Found that I was able to bring up body bliss if I stopped pedaling for a second and concentrated. Noted for 25 minutes with a metronome, 50 notes/minute. Did have some occasions where I found myself lost in thought near the end, but most of the noting was really steady and mindful.

Catching up on journaling now that the Wetpaint fail is over.

7/13, 60 minutes

Started with 20 minutes of walking meditation, trying to keep my focus on the feel of my feet in my shoes. Then, 20 minutes of concentration practice, using kasina and the breath. Finally, switched to noting to do vipassana.

A while after starting, I got into a state where there was nothing but sensations happening inside and outside the body, with no sense of any observer whatsoever. Touch, sight, sound, thoughts, feelings, etc'¦ all were just sensations going on in this continuous flow. At one point, I had a sense of this vast awareness encompassing all the sensations, and the sensations were happening in this field of awareness. When I tried to focus on the awareness, it felt like it shrank to a vanishingly small point, and got lost in the continuous flow of sensations.

The sense of awareness eventually went away, and it felt like meditation dropped back to the standard everyday thing, but the taste of that continuous flow has definitely stayed with me. Very cool. This feels like progress in a lot of ways.

I felt very blissful after the session.

7/14, 60 minutes

Same as the day before: started with 20 minutes of walking meditation, then 20 minutes of concentration practice.

Similar sit to yesterday, with a twist: Again, I had a sense of sensations just happening, in a continuous flow with no sense whatsoever of any observer. Again, I had the sense of a field or space in which all the sensations were happening, but (here's the twist), the sensation of the field of awareness itself was felt to be a sensation like all the others, and it was seen to be just passing through like all the other sensations.

After a short while, I found myself having bliss, seeing eyelid lights, and having tingles, and even thought I tried a number of times, I could not get back to that continuous flow.

The rest of the day, I had a lot of bliss, and in the evening, I found that I was really noticing my senses. Visual objects seemed clear and defined, sounds were distinct, music sounded amazing when I could close my eyes and just focus on it. I had a lot of bliss, and it almost felt overwhelming at times, like I needed to go lie down for a while. Eventually, I calmed down from the excited state, but falling asleep took longer than usual.

7/15

I'm not exactly sure what's going on for me, but something has definitely changed. For over a week, I've continued to have bliss on command whenever I want, no matter where I am or what I'm doing. I just focus, and within a second, I feel bliss, excitement, joy welling up. All this "bliss on command" stuff started on Jul 6 (post #199).

I suspect I've triggered something. I had a bunch of time to myself over the July 4 weekend, so I drastically upped my practice time. On July 2 and July 3, I did a mini-retreat at home, with over 9 hours of practice over two days, and on July 4 and July 5, I did a total of 5 hours of rapid-fire noting practice, trying to sustain fast noting for as long as possible.

The very next day, I had an unusually clear formal meditation session where I experienced an interesting cessation. The entrance felt like I slid sideways and had a feeling of loss of control. This was immediately followed by a very strong bliss wave and tingles. The sensations of bliss, pleasure, joy, excitement grew in intensity over a period of hours, and I had a hard time falling asleep that night.

The bliss was there the next day, and the next, and the next, and in fact, is still here nine days later.

Since the 6th, I've continued to sit, and have also added 20 minutes of kasina/samatha practice to each day's formal session. This seem to give me better clarity and helps alleviate the sleepy/dreamy/spacy feeling I get in Equanimity, so I can more easily notice the constant flow of sensations. I'm also doing walking meditation, concentrating on the sensations in my feet, and I can feel the difference in concentration after only a few minutes.

Anyway, I'm curious about what' s going on, since in a lot of ways it feels pretty similar to what the days after Stream Entry felt like, only stronger.

7/16, 3 hours

Had my regular Saturday drive today, and I had intended to practice noting. I did some of that, but I found that noting seemed to heavy and coarse. I would note for a while, then just pause the noting and let the experience just come to me. It felt right, and even being lost in thought didn't seem to have it's usual negative kick when I noticed I was lost. A nice, mindful drive, it was.

On the way back, the mindfulness was very strong, and the senses were very heightened. I had this broad, joyful, wide-open sense of awareness. The noticing seemed to just flow, and I had this incredible, effortless sense of presence in the world around me. I stopped all efforts to note/notice things, and just enjoyed watched them pass though.

To make an audio mixing analogy, it was as if the five volume sliders for the five senses got turned up, and the slider for thoughts was turned down by more than half. The whole experience was very sense-oriented, but there was this effortlessness to it. It was so obvious when it was going on, and when it wasn't, and if it wasn't, bringing it back was trivial.

Once I got off the freeway, and back into town, I found myself in thoughts more often, but the sense of joy remained, and still remains now, several hours later.

I'm going to go for a bike ride now.

"The noticing seemed to just flow, and I had this incredible, effortless sense of presence in the world around me."

Just great when that happens!

Yeah, that's definitely a pretty cool state to be in, and I really enjoyed it. It's sometimes hard for me to let that feeling go, though. I can see where it could be easy to be a state junkie, whether it's jhana, or PCE or whatever.

7/16 30 minutes

Tried to do walking meditation and stretch my legs after a intensive bike ride. My mind kept drifting off the feel of my feet, and watching my breath didn't really help. I switched to noting, but I still kept getting distracted by various aches and pains.

Finally realized that my body was trying to tell me to just go home and rest. So I did that.

7/17

55 minutes
In bed right after waking. Set timer for 40 minutes. Focused on breath until settled, then played with jhanas. Able to switch rupa jhanas, and when I tried the arupa jhanas, I got a sense of something different for jhanas 5 and 6. Neither was clear, but yet, it felt like there was something there for me.

Eventually, near the 20 minute mark, I started getting eyelid lights, so I switched to noting. Found myself cycling down from dreaminess to slow, subtle, gentle, bliss wave over and over again. I tried counting breaths to see how long it was taking me and I'd get to about 5 or 6 breaths before I'd lose count, then suddenly get a bliss wave. I hung out in this state for 15 minutes past the timer.

23 minutes
Samatha practice with kasina. Started losing focus and getting sleepy near the end.

7/18

40 minutes of samatha practice at lunch with a kasina and watching my breathing. My attention seemed to wander quite a bit at first, and I found that I needed to continuously keep it on the kasina. When I closed my eyes to watch my breath, I found myself starting to drift. By the end of the 40 minutes, I felt both sleepy, but also paradoxically like I'd done good work on my attention.

The drive home after work was another cool experience. I'm finding recently that I'm really getting into the act of driving, of guiding the car exactly where I want it to go, getting into planning positioning my car so that I flow with the traffic easily and smoothly. I'm arriving at my destination energized and relaxed, and with a lot of enjoyment from the experiences of driving.

7/19

40 minutes of samatha practice again during lunch. The timer was set to chime every 10 minutes. Still having sleepiness and drifting, and having a hard time staying focused on either kasina or breath. After 20 minutes, I shifted to vipassana, and got some initial concentration building, but shortly thereafter, I experienced a wave of sleepiness. I was surprised to hear the timer ring the 30 minute mark, so that means I must have fallen asleep. Spent the rest of the time on kasina with my eyes open.

7/20 40 minutes mixed practice

I'm finding it very hard to stay awake and it's also very hard to focus and stay with any objects during either kasina or noting practice. It's very easy to drift into thought.

10 minutes of kasina - easily distracted, can't get concentrated for very long, headache and pressure behind the eyes, lots of yawning and sleepiness.

10 minutes noting - much sleepiness, then sudden wakefulness, noting would pick back up on it's own. Then, very shortly, sleepiness again.

10 minutes kasina - got lost in thought a lot and feeling very sleepy.

10 minutes noting with eyes open - Noting flowed a bit better. Had some episodes of sleepiness and then sudden wakefulness with prickly tingling, but mostly sleepiness. Got less focused near the end.

Update on what's been happening since the 'Big Event' on July 6, post #199

On July 6, I had a big fruition, and the bliss wave from that not only didn't diminish, but increased in intensity over about two days.

About 5 days later, I started getting this incredible sense of presence, of watchfulness, of being able to stay aware in the present moment -- it was as if I had my head sticking up out of the water, rather than being under it, that's how dramatic the difference was.

I also wondered if I was cycling: I had periods of nausea, vague physical discomfort, and headaches both right behind my eyes and along the back of my head. I did quit all caffeine 3 days ago, but I started getting the headaches before that. These discomforts would come and go, but it was hard to tell if they were periodic.

By two weeks after the Big Event, most of the 'superpowers' had faded down.
- For the most part, bliss still comes up for me if I concentrate on it, although it doesn't seem to come up as much or as strongly on its own.
- For a while, it was trivially easy to stay present in the moment, and when I was present, I had this sense of intent watchfulness. Visually, the world seemed more three-dimensional in some way. This has mostly faded.
- The fantastic concentration faded as well. Now, it's real work to try to concentrate.
- For a while really good music sounded incredible, to the point that it was completely distracting from whatever I was doing. This has faded too, but good music still grabs me and involves more than it used to.
- There were a few day where I found myself MUCH more involved in the act of driving, and was enjoying it immensely. This too has faded.
- Disney Channel seems much more horribly contrived than ever before. Unfortunately, this has also faded somewhat, so that it only seems marginally contrived.

cont...

Right now, sitting seems difficult, and I get sleepy very, very quickly. Kasina practice is also down the tubes for now -- I feel the physical sensations of various jhanas, but it's not clear where I am, and I'm not able to stay with them much at all. Noting while driving doesn't really flow very well, and I seem to have a headache most of the time.

Could be the cold turkey caffeine withdrawl, but honestly, I don't have much of a clue about what's going on.

Still, you practice when it's good, and you practice when it's bad.

7/21

20 minutes
5 minutes of kasina, then switched to noting. Initially, it didn't feel like much was happening, then suddenly I got a state shift. Kept noting, and more state shifts came. Realized at one point that I was seeing eyelid lights. Things got a little fuzzy after this, and it was hard to tell where I was. I remember suddenly feeling a sharp pain in my abdomen, then nausea. The transition to A&P was not clear, but I did get very mild bliss, noting picked up. This gentle cycling went on for the rest of the sit.

In general, it feels like I was definitely more concentrated today, and had no sleepiness whatsoever, despite the fact that I've had two hard bike rides in the last two days in 95F heat, and have been physically tired.

7/22, 40 minutes

Started with watching my breath, but I couldn't stay with it and kept drifting into sleepiness. Switched to noting after 10 minutes. Went a bit better at first. Nothing happened for a while, then had a sudden moments of clarity with full-body tingles and a lot f brightness in my visual field(eyes closed) This happened several times then sleepiness took over again. Tried noting with my eyes open, an it only helped for a short time before more sleepiness set in. The chime woke me and I had prickly tingles all over my body and a mental dullness that lasted for almost an hour.

7/23

55 minutes
Noting and driving. Got a good flow going midway through the session, but lost focus and eventually decided to listen to Buddhist Geeks

75 minutes
Closed-eye meditation. Originally set the chime for 40 minutes. Had not sleepiness at all. Was able to quickly get up to Equanimity without much effort, and cycled back down to A&P. The trip back down was pretty gentle, and the trip back up was pretty quick. I cycled this way for a while, before I started exploring Equanimity more, trying to see if I could actually trigger a fruition. I got to where I could recognize when a fruition was close, and eventually, either my timing was astonishingly coincidental, or I actually did manage to trigger one several times. I play this way for quite a long time after the chime rang, and ended up sitting 25 minutes past the timer.

100 minutes
Noting and driving. Experimented with higher speed noting. I had brought a metronome with me, and started at around 60, and would work my way up as high as I could. Eventually, I'd find that I wasn't really able to track/notice phenomena well, so I'd turn it down and started again. Midway through my trip, I stopped in a rest stop and noted with my eyes for a while, and then restarted. At one point, I was able to note continuously at around 174 notes/minute, which turns out to be almost 3 notes a second. I'm finding that as my noting speed increases, there sometimes comes a point where I can just "let go" of the identification and labeling process, and just let noticing happen without any labeling at all. The subjective feeling of flow feels like it really increases at that point.

I still have to try that metronome thing out - sounds interesting.

7/24

Partially woke up fairly early with a warm, wonderful body bliss and "glow." It was very peaceful and very restful, and when I focused on it, it slowly increase in intensity. I found myself waking with this, falling asleep, waking, then falling asleep again over and over. This went on for maybe an hour or so.

35 minutes.
In bed right after waking up. Started with breath-counting, and much to my surprise, I was able to get concentrated. For the last week or so, concentration practice has not gotten me concentrated, but today it felt fairly easy to lock onto my breath. The same body "glow" from an hour before came back and stayed with me. I didn't cycle, even when I switched to noting, but abided in this calm, pleasant, joyful and blissful state.

7/25

Spent 10 minutes noting in the car before driving in, and had a very mindful drive into work. Thinking was way down in the mix, and physical sensations were more prominent. Lots of joy, some bliss, lots of energy. This lasted into the morning, and faded away before lunch.

35 minutes at lunch
The sleepiness came back. Tried to do some kasina practice, and found my eyes closing on their own before 10 minutes were up. Moved to noting, watched as attention moved from object to object, and then again, sleepiness. I think I may have had bliss at one point, but I'm definitely sure I had sleep at a lot of points. Gave up before the 40 minute timer was done.


Still finding it hard to concentrate when doing samatha practices either sitting or walking. For a while there, it felt like concentration was starting to develop. I'm curious to see if this is Dark Night, following the big experience I had a few weeks ago. Either way, the way forward is through accurate investigation of what presents itself.

Last night, I had a really hard time falling asleep. Tried to pay attention to my breathing, but kept having a lot of restlessness, almost like a whole-body restless leg syndrome. Took a really, really long time to fall asleep, and I got substantially less sleep than I needed.


7/26
55 minutes
Walked for 15 minutes to build up concentration (only partially successful), then drove to my meditation spot, set the timer for 40 minutes, and started noting immediately.

Tried something different: specifically watched for the sensations of the self. Tried to notice any sensations arising when I thought of my, myself, I, mine, and also asked "Who am I?" over and over again.

Found myself drifting into dreamlike thinking, and immediately my clarity would return, noting would pick back up, and I'd get a tiny bit of bliss and tingles. Rinse, repeat, over and over.

This seemed to work okay for around 20 minutes or so, after which I started getting off-track, drifting into thought, and drifting in and out of sleep. The last half of the sit felt like a lot of sleepiness mixed with some of the above cycling.

After, I felt buzzed, out of it, and had a bit of a headache.