Andy's practice journal

"Trying to get used to that "don't know where I am feeling" and trying to be OK with it."

That phrase is worth a second, look perhaps. What does it mean to "get used" to something? to "be OK" with something? I've had those thoughts too, but what I've found is that if I investigate that wanting to "get used" to something or "be OK" with something, what I really mean, if I look carefully at the origins of that expressed desire, is I want to have some definitions, fixed boundaries, known categories, for something firm to hold on to. In other words, there's a subtle (or sometimes downright powerful) resistance to not knowing. It's worth investigating who wants to know, who wants to hold on, what specific fears arise at the thought of not being able to know, whether those fears have any basis in reality or are just the ego throwing up imagined concepts to try to find an anchor, etc.

"I feel the same way right now. You have a great attitude about this. Me, not as much. Trying to get used to that "don't know where I am feeling" and trying to be OK with it."

Hey, thanks!

To be honest, that "great attitude" is more recent. A couple of weeks ago, I was full of doubts, sitting was a chore, and I was deeply stuck looking for stuff that I'm guessing will no longer come up. My best guess is that it's stage related, and so I'm thinking I'm either starting on A&P, or on Equanimity.

Your statement and the surrender implied in the "trying to get used to that '''don't know where I am feeling''' and trying to be OK with it" seems pretty important. I've had the opposite happen just a few times. Sometimes I'll be having that free-falling, groundless feeling, and so I'll try to relax into it a bit, and get a tiny bit OK with it.

Then, suddenly, I'll get a flash of certainty and sureness of purpose and intent and then I think, what the heck is up with that weird feeling? How can I be so sure and confident? And really it's all the causal bits of ego and self rearing up and yelling, "Look at me, look at me, I know what I'm doing, I'm important, listen to me."

But that's rare that I see it that way. Mostly it's the other way around for now.

"That phrase is worth a second, look perhaps. What does it mean to "get used" to something? to "be OK" with something? I've had those thoughts too, but what I've found is that if I investigate that wanting to "get used" to something or "be OK" with something, what I really mean, if I look carefully at the origins of that expressed desire, is I want to have some definitions, fixed boundaries, known categories, for something firm to hold on to. In other words, there's a subtle (or sometimes downright powerful) resistance to not knowing. It's worth investigating who wants to know, who wants to hold on, what specific fears arise at the thought of not being able to know, whether those fears have any basis in reality or are just the ego throwing up imagined concepts to try to find an anchor, etc. "

Thanks for this!

Here's something new: last Friday, for the first time in a very long time, I had fruitions during a sit. Looking at my logs, the last time this happened was back in April, so over two month have gone by since a noticeably fruition. The sit started off fairly normally, and I soon found myself in a dreamy, foggy state. Suddenly I felt a strong shift, and then a rush of tingles and a bliss wave. I let it continue, and it happened again maybe six times or so. I felt fairly blissed out all afternoon. The next day, it happened again, and then again the next day.

I'm also feeling an increase in concentration, and am having more insights. It seems fairly easy to lock into awareness off-cushion as well. I do notice a desire to want to control the experience, prolong it, whether by watching my breath, or noting. Sometimes I catch myself and then just let go and watch as sensations and thoughts roll by for a while.

Had another interesting experience of watching myself go through my morning routine, watching this body shower and dry off. It felt like I was just watching the show go on, watching this body do what it knew how to do by itself.

I'm curious to see how long this stuff continues this time.

Lately, on my commutes, I've been struggling with maintaining noting or watching my breath. It's felt fairly effortful. So, this morning, I just let my attention go where it wanted, and I shortly became aware that I was alternating between two 'states.' In the first, I was lost in thought, embedded in whatever I was thinking about. In the second, there was clear and effortless mindfulness of sensations (which were prominent), and thoughts were seen as soon as they came up. I felt calm, mildly joyful, patient, and enjoyed the process of driving, the scenery, and actually, anything that was coming up.

I seem to recall some sort of 'binary' noting of some kind that Kenneth taught Antero last year. Does anyone recall this?

Hi Andy,
Reading your last logs, I recognize many things from my own experiences lately: periods of doubt, unshakeable trust, less physical stuff happening (where did all the lights, pressures, kriya's ... go?)

About binary noting: as I recall it, Antero used labels like "stillness" and "thinking" because he noticed that the narrative had lessened a great deal and he was investigating this.

There are indeed two mode of attention: Narrative and Experiental and by the sound of it you have become aware of them.

www.aclab.ca/publications/uploadedPubs/F...7%20scan%20paper.pdf

Why can't we decide which mode is on? There is always something pulling us from the Experiental mode, whether it is feelings (gross distraction) or thoughts (subtle distraction). In my experience, when there are no gross distractions present, the mind is very drawn to narrative thought trains and one very efficient way to return to the present moment is binary noting. Also I found binary noting very efficient way to become more aware of my thoughts.

I used labels 'silence' and 'noise', which promptly returns the attention to the moment efficiently and because of the simplicity of the technique, it can easily be applied during everyday life.

Thanks for the replies, David and Antero. This noise/quiet thing is interesting. It's both a practice and a state at the moment. To get there, I start by being present in the moment. Once there, I can use small nudges to maintain it when I notice the "noise".

I've noticed that it seems easier to do this when I'm in an environment where there is a moderate amount of sensory data -- sitting in meetings, driving, walking. Sitting in a quiet space with my eyes closed seems to move me through nyanas, and I end up drifting and dreamy (or sleepy).

Doing this when I need to interact with people doesn't seem to work very well either. I suspect that if I could let go of trying to control speaking and interacting and instead was able to let those interactions arise naturally by themselves, then the stillness would probably predominate. Just a theory, though, at this point.

"
Doing this when I need to interact with people doesn't seem to work very well either. I suspect that if I could let go of trying to control speaking and interacting and instead was able to let those interactions arise naturally by themselves, then the stillness would probably predominate. Just a theory, though, at this point.
-andymr
"

Your hunch is correct. Speaking spontaneously from 'silence' improves the interaction greatly.

In my experience it improves everything

I rode the Michigan Mountain Mayhem bike ride on Saturday 6/9. On the long drive there on Friday, I got in 4:25 of practice, including two formal sits. Rode on Saturday (5 hrs on the bike, 6000+ ft. of climbing), with some practice during the ride, and did one formal sit later. Had another long drive back on Sunday, with 3:50 of practice, including a couple of formal sessions.

The practice on the drives was a mixture of watching my breath, noting, and binary noting either silence/noise, or present/lost in thought. The sessions varied in length based on where I was on my trip, and how busy/light the traffic was. For the most part, I was able to stay on task pretty well.

The formal sessions were quite focused, with noticeably increased body sensations. (The increase in sensations is typical when I put in a lot of practice time.) I'm not sure I can describe well what happens in the sit, but it feels like I'm cycling through stuff over and over. Every so often, I'll get this long slow pulse of bliss and pleasure accompanied by some vertigo, disorientation, then an increase in clarity which slowly fades. It gets more intense the longer I sit. Clarity/outward focus transitions to dreaminess/inward focus, then back, over and over again.

The binary noting of silence/noise as described by Antero above is an interesting practice. It definitely increases my sensitivity to thoughts. At times, I find that I can drop into it for at least very short periods at will. Other times, I notice a lot of 'noise'.

I have had a few fairly looooong moments of silence, some spontaneous, some with practice. No thoughts were coming up, and nothing but being immersed in body sensations (touch, sight, sound, etc...) Several times the silence was ended by feelings of fear and thoughts of 'OMG, what if this sticks permanently?' Overall, I still find that I want to continue exploring this, but I'd like to better understand it as well.

cont...

...cont

I felt a ton of increased energetic sensations after all the practice over the weekend, but it didn't seem lead to anything new or unexpected. About the only thing that I noticed the first day or two after were marked sleep disturbances and more tiredness during the day. (This could also certainly have been caused by the effort and exertion on the bike ride.) The sleep issues seemed to affect my concentration early in the day, and it was hard to be very mindful on my commute to work.

By yesterday, though, my concentration has made a bit of a comeback. Even five minutes of sasina practice gives strong and vivid visual changes in the object. I also seem to be noticing the three characteristics in sound much more easily, and this quickly leads to clear mindfulness and mental quiet. During the day, I seem to go through periods of almost full and complete embeddedness, but yet there always seems to be a small amount of mindfulness present. This embeddedness is punctuated by long moments of exquisite clarity and stillness and subtle joy.

The increase in concentration and clarity appears to have been a blip, and I seem to be back where I was last week. Even though I was able to get in a bunch of practice over the weekend, my concentration and my ability to stay on task seemed pretty low. The sleep problems continued. I tossed and turned more than usual, and when the alarm went off, I really didn't want to get out of bed. It took a long time to feel 'woken up', and morning practices were not very clear at all. I drifted into thought a lot, and I couldn't stay noting or focused on my breath.

Additionally, I've had lots of muscle pains, itches, general body discomfort, sadness, lack of motivation, doubt. Last night I drifted into meditation as I was falling asleep, and several times got into a state where I couldn't lay still, and absolutely had to move my body to relieve some sort of tension. It felt a lot like a whole-body restless-leg syndrome. In some ways, it feels like Reobservation, but truly it's not clear to me at all where I am.

To throw more confusion on any sort of mapping thoughts I may have had, I've had three days of what feels strongly like review cycling. I'd start in a concentrated state, move quickly into one with mental dreaminess and dream imagery, then suddenly snap into bliss and clarity. It doesn't feel like I've gotten a path, though. No obvious path moment, no sudden supercharged concentration superpowers or any new insights.

Mon
At lunch, I noticed that it was really easy to notice the three characteristics. By the time I parked the car and started noting, I was already concentrated. I felt a few shifts, had some dreaminess and then got a fruition. And another one. And another. This kept happening over and over. The bliss wave got stronger and more pronounced. I started to be able to tell when I was getting close to the cessation, and could sometimes just incline to it and trigger it. I estimate that I had more than 30 fruitions, and ended up sitting 20 minutes past the 40-minute sit. The bliss aftermath lasted way into the evening.

Tue
More of the same fruition cycling as on Monday... The entries/exits were not as clear as yesterday, and the bliss waves weren't as strong. Interestingly, the Dark Night nyanas manifested as sudden, strong, uncomfortable heat on my skin (I was meditating in my car in 90+ temps). Usually, I don't feel them. Definitely had a bliss hangover into the evening, and it was almost a bit naueating in a way.

Wed
Tried just sitting and doing nothing Shinzen style for 15 minutes. Without any explicit effort on my part, I got the same fruition cycling. Much more subdued, but had similar bliss hangover in the afternoon.

Well, the fruition cycling is gone. Over the eight days, my ability to note consistently has mostly gone away, and one-pointed concentration disappeared with it as well. In the beginning of this period, I had lots of sleepiness during sits, and I don't think I completed a formal sit without drifting into sleep. At the end of the sleepy sits, I'd usually have an unpleasant physical buzziness, mental fogginess, grogginess, but no regular heavy vibrations. Then, I went through a period where noting felt strange and somehow disconnected from the actual noticing of phenomena. It just didn't make sense to note for a while. Other practices didn't seem to really do much either.

Currently, I'm tired a lot of the time, and my interest and motivation for formal sitting seems to have gone as well. What's left is some guilt over not wanting to sit, a huge amount of doubt, and a general emotional instability.

To complicate matters, I'm also cycling (bicycling) significantly less, dealing with some deep relationship-type issues, welcoming a new puppy into our family, and wanting to get a motorcycle. Oh, yeah, and I'm not sleeping well.

I have no idea what's what, but I'm sure that by next week, things will have changed again.

Well, things definitely keep changing... Here's the last week for me:

The last week:

Saturday
3.5 hours of practice and then a 100k bike ride.

Sunday
Meditated for an hour in bed right after I woked up. Got up and immediately got into an argument with my teenaged daughter and felt very angry after. The rest of the day, I had a complete and total lack of motivation, much tiredness, some depression, hopelessness, anger, and sadness. It never really went away the entire day and evening. I was also having unpleasant energetic sensations, occasional vertigo, dizziness, and heat sensations. I guess I stirred something up with all the sitting yesterday.

Monday
Sat for 30 minutes in the car. Started with concentration on a kasina and then closed my eyes and started to note. I'm not really sure where I ended up, but I do remember strong energetic pulses early on, some widening of the soundspace, lot of drifting into thoughts. At lunch, got in 20 minutes of concentration work with a kasina, and then tried to note. I remember cycling from dreaminess to clarity after a while, but didn't have any sleepiness (to my complete and utter astonishment). By afternoon, I was having lots of fairly strong bliss and the strength of it kept increasing. However, as soon as I got home I got into a fight again with my 13 year-old. It killed the rest of the evening for me. The anger wouldn't go away, and I couldn't come to terms with it. Took sleep meds, and seemed to sleep okay, but woke up angry as ever.

Tuesday
Didn't practice on the way in. Just didn't damn well feel like it. Felt less angry as the day went on though, maybe because I was able to take some ownership and control of a situation I'm involved in.

[cont ...]

[...cont]


Wednesday
Only sat for 10 minutes, but didn't feel as angry and out-of-control as yesterday. Did a 20 mile ride in the 95F heat, and felt much better for having done it.

Thursday
Didn't feel angry this morning. Also, didn't have a hard time getting up, which was a bit different than the last couple of weeks. The out-of-control feeling wasn't as strong today, but there is still a note of sadness present, some hopelessness. Still don't have much concentration to speak of, and it's a vicious circle. When I don't have much concentration, I tend not to sit as much, which leads to less concentration.

This difficult emotional stuff is damn hard to sit with. When I'm angry, I don't want to sit, and just want to wallow in the anger, and comfort myself with food, alcohol. When I do sit, the anger evaporates, becomes indistinct, hard to see, hard to concentrate on. After the sit I feel less turbulent, and it take off some of the pressure I'm putting on myself to try to face this. In the meantime, it feels like a lot of avoidance and blaming going on. If only I could figure out what I'm trying so hard to avoid.

I remember being in the middle of a big sulk one afternoon, some time after stream entry, and suddenly realizing I was thoroughly enjoying (in a perverse way) being angry. It's weird how we can really actually like being upset. Often just because it's always what we've done when frustrated by circumstances, and we can't really figure out how else to act. There's a strange comfort in familiar things, even when they are unpleasant at the same time. Relationship problems are almost always the hardest to deal with, since they bring up the strongest emotional responses and deepest habits and defenses. Feeling out of control is a hard thing not to fight against. Be well.

In my experience the best teacher in the universe has been my teenage daughter. No one and no thing can pull my chain like that one.

"just want to wallow in the anger" - Andy
"I was thoroughly enjoying (in a perverse way) being angry" - Gira

These thoughts remind me of something Seung Sahn Sunim once said. When asked why there is so much suffering in the world he replied, "It's there because you like it." at the time I remember being confused and somewhat outraged by this response, but the better I get at paying attention the more sense it makes. So, enjoy!

Andy, what path are you working on now? Is it third? Thanks.

Thank you all for your kind words--much appreciated.

Things seem to have stabilized this weekend, and I have been able to watch my reactions with more dispassion. A few interactions with my daughter, that a week ago would have led to a fight, just seemed to pass by, and my tone of voice and what I said to her actually seemed helpful.

This emotional rawness over the last month or so has been weirdly fascinating. On one level, I was certainly deeply embedded in it, to the point that my reactions of anger, fear, loneliness seemed to just automatically come up. I watched these thoughts and feelings happen, and before I knew it, words were coming out of my mouth, words that were not helpful or were hurtful.

On the other hand, at the exact same time that I was feeling and thinking all of the above stuff, I had this weird untouchable curiosity and fascination with it all. (Watch as it automatically reacts to feelings with anger. Feel the vibration in it's jaw as it yells...) It was a lot like driving by a bad car wreck and ambulances and police cars, and yet having a sense of wonder at all the strange details and colors, even though you knew something terrible happened there recently.

I'm not sure how to reconcile these two simultaneous reactions in me. I don't think I understand how I can feel what I felt, think what I thought, acts as I did, and also at the same time watch as it unfolded.

I don't understand it, but yet there it was. So perhaps there's no need to reconcile. Weird and interesting stuff.

"Andy, what path are you working on now? Is it third? Thanks."



Stream entry was May 19, 2011, post 109 kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/45...et=109&maxResults=20
Second path came on Oct 23, 2011, post 336, kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/45...et=336&maxResults=20
My best guess is that I attained third on March 13, 2012, post #508 kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/45...et=508&maxResults=20

That would put me on third path, working towards fourth, if I count cycles, which Daniel explicitly counsels to not do in MCTB.

HOWEVER, this path has not been clear at all to me, and I have had a number of false cycles in previous paths that strongly seemed like path experiences (with Review A, review B, start of new cycles, etc...), but turned out not be so.

If my next path experience turns out not to be fourth path, I would be disappointed, but not terribly surprised.

How many full 'false' cycles do you think you had between 2nd and 3rd?

"How many full 'false' cycles do you think you had between 2nd and 3rd?"


It's hard for me to really tell, but I'm pretty sure I had more than 1 but less than 5 false cycles, but they weren't really "full" cycles.

Part of the difficulty was that when I'd cross the A&P for the first time for a path, I'd often get the typical (for me) "peak experiences" but would sometimes also get what looked Review cycling. So, I'd start in A&P, move eventually to dreaminess, then get a fruition and land back in A&P. Eventually, over a week or so, this would subside, which made it seem very Review-like. These would happen AFTER I thought I started the new path, so it made me question whether I'd actually ever made it out of review in the first place.

I'd also get stuff like this in High Equanimity, which also made me wonder if I'd gotten another path. Eventually, this would shake itself out, and it would become a bit more clear that I'd not gotten a path.

Also, once I hit third (I think I got third..., maybe), a lot of the body sensations (including vertigo, eyelid lights, bliss waves, spatial changes, etc) calmed way down, and then faded away. I'd been using these to gauge where I was on the path, and with them gone, I no longer had my familiar reference points.

To top it off, I lost interest in concentration and jhana practice with the last major shift, so I couldn't use the NS attainment as a gauge of progress. I'm guessing that it would take a fair amount of concentration work to get to that point again, and I'm not so interested in that as I used to be.

So, a complex picture to say the least. In any case, whether I'm second or third path, whether I can get NS, pureland jhanas, the prescription is still the same: careful, curious, precise, moment-by-moment attention to whatever is current arising.

"
So, a complex picture to say the least. In any case, whether I'm second or third path, whether I can get NS, pureland jhanas, the prescription is still the same: careful, curious, precise, moment-by-moment attention to whatever is current arising.

"

Amen! Thanks for the explaination. I was just curious because I feel a little lost since 2nd path, although it feels like I have 'completed' 1 cycle since, but I dont think you can really measure it that way.