Andy's practice journal

Oops, never mind. I think I just gave advice over my pay grade.

I'm feeling better day by day. Yesterday, I had a rare chance to do a lot of practice, since I've been spending time in bed resting. All in all, I think I ended up with almost 7 hours of noting and concentration. Not all of it was very good, but for me, there seems to be value in getting a lot of practice done in a day.

I think I had the closest thing yet to validating which path I'm on. On the last sit of the day, I spent about 20 minutes getting concentrated on my breath. Suddenly, without my trying, I jumped into first jhana, then second, and then the cycle took off by itself and I kept rising up. The shifts were clear and unambiguous.

After sixth, things got hazy, but there were way more than two shifts after that. In one state, energy seemed to rising up through my head. In another, my upper body felt bathed in light. Yet another seemed to produce a great deal of appreciation and gratefulness. The trip down seemed more intense than the way up.

I repeated this 4 or 5 times, before calling it quits for the night. All in all, I sat for 75 minutes in that last session.

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There's a place you have not yet plumbed. You're still assuming, even if subliminally, that there is a special thing that remains hidden from your view. Is it there, really? What is it? What do some folks here see that you don't?



"

You're just full of good stuff, Chris!

I'm assuming, and not so subliminally it seems, judging by how much practice I'm putting in to try to get my clarity better, sharper. What if there is nothing to find? No amount of clarity will help me find something that's not there.

The direct-pointing folks ask, "How do you know there is no Batman in the room? Well, just look!" Sometimes when I sit, (and sometimes when I don't) I can't find a self, but only sensations, thoughts in the moment, experience just happening by itself. Yet, there are still sensations of a center point to experience. How can I prove to myself the the non-existence of something?

What AM I missing? What place have I not yet plumbed? The possibility raises a fair amount of excitement in me!

Oct. 22

I'm feeling better, and the antibiotics have had a chance to work, and I've got lots of extra energy today. And so, I had some more interesting experiences , this time at my regular lunchtime sit. Started with breath-counting 3x10. Felt my eyes move into first jhana focus by themselves, so I shifted up up into fourth jhana and started a gentle investigation.

I relaxed and let things develop by themselves, let whatever was happening just come up. At one point there was this deep, gentle background bliss rising. Several time things got dreamy, then I suddenly noticed eyelid lights, but the transition wasn't sharp or sudden or surprising.

It wasn't long after that when I began noticing something interesting about hearing - there were moments where hearing was happening by itself. As soon as I tried to place attention squarely on this, this sense would go away, but I could sort-of, kind-of look at it askance, sort-of sideways (hard to explain), and then I could notice it again. I also was able to notice that seeing was happening by itself. My visual field was simple, since I had my eyes closed. There were some patterns, some colored lights, but again, my body was seeing by itself, with no effort on my part.

Thinking was harder to look at this way. I was able to do it several times, but kept getting lost in the thoughts most of the time.

Later, driving home from work, I started to note, but ended up just letting go and let things be. In short order, the act of driving started to become fascinating. The scenery and colors became interesting, and this kept deepening the longer I drove.

The whole day, in fact, was very 'up', energetic, highly focused, creative. I got to bed later than usual, and still woke up early, with lots of energy. In general, it feels a lot like strong A&P off-cushion.

"What AM I missing? What place have I not yet plumbed? The possibility raises a fair amount of excitement in me!


"

Me too! This up and down flow to practice makes it both frustrating and adventurous at the same time. You never know when something will hit you like a bolt of lightening or a ton of bricks. Just when you hit a fog of doubt/confusion...wham you find the key to the next door.

The only thing I can really hold on to for sure is this: Just keep grocking it out (to use a Marti term). As long as you keep at it and somehow find a way to hold on and keep investigating/ or simply surrendering; things will unfold.

Thanks for your practice notes Andy, it is inspiring to read other yogi's adventures.

"Thinking was harder to look at this way. I was able to do it several times, but kept getting lost in the thoughts most of the time." -andymr

Andy, try a binary note for awhile with "thinking" and "not thinking" as the only possibilities. This yields some interesting mind states, to say the least, and lets you get clear on the difference between a parallel thinking mode (labelled "not-thinking" for convenience) and a sequential thinking mode (which we are noting here as "thinking." Let us know what you discover.

Tuesday, 10/23

Over the last few days, I've had a very noticeable increase in energy. Likely, a part of it is from getting over the sinus infection, but I don't think all of it comes from that. LOTS of extra energy on Monday, tapering down to a sort of nervousness at times.

There seems to have been a bit of a shift in my day-to-day experience that seems to have started last Saturday. I had put in 7 hours of practice, culminating in the 75 minutes sit where I cycled up through pureland jhanas a number or times. Before the sit, I was lethargic, not feeling very good physically, tired. After, I was in a great mood, laughing, joking. The sinus infection was still there, but I wasn't so embedded in my reactions to it.

The next day, I had a HUGE amount of energy to get stuff done, and it really felt like I was looking at the world with fresh eyes. Textures, colors, physical sensations seemed somehow stronger, more interesting, fresher. I still seem to be more aware of space around me if I direct attention to it.

I also still have more energy than usual, and don't seem to be requiring as much sleep. In fact, I've been waking up spontaneously about a half-hour before the alarm and meditating in bed.

On Tuesday on the drive in, sensations seemed to arise in this vast spaciousness. Visually, I noticed a wide panoramic view, and my attention seemed more focused on the periphery than on the center. There seemed to be this background stillness (I'm not sure how to describe it). Sensations were more prominent than thoughts, and a noticeable sense of joy was present most of the time.

I've been here before, and while this is fairly exciting, it tends to pass within a week or so.

Background stillness: a few weeks before my 4th path transition I started having visions of very still things next to very energetic things. I would wake up with these visions. A pebble tossed in a pond and falling quietly to the bottom, resting there. Sitting very quietly in a room with a brisk wind blowing through open curtains. Stuff like that. These are hints. Pay heed!

What are you not yet seeing, Andy?

Great stuff Andy! Sounds like you are cooking!

Great advice Chris.

Thanks for the advice, tips, and encouragement!

@Kenneth Ah, I think I get it. I had previously thought that binary noting was thinking/not-thinking where not-thinking was literally when there was no thought. This makes so much more sense. And, it's much easier to achieve.

@Chris Thanks for the push. I've been trying to keep this in mind.

@Russell Thanks!

" I've been trying to keep this in mind." -- Andy

When get to a place from which this is impossible NOT to do please let us know

Did a couple of sessions yesterday evening. The first, a 50 minute concentration session, gradually deepened until I was barely able to focus on my breath. Things got very hazy, but not dreamy. There didn't seem to be much thinking going on, and sleepiness didn't seem to be an issue.

An hour later, I started the second session with 5x10 breaths, but then switched to noting. Within a short time, my sense of my body got vague, diffuse. The house was quiet, and I spent the next 40 minutes watching my attention switch between the hum of the air-conditioner, the rush of air through the registers, and my tinnitus. Occasionally there was a popping noise from somewhere, but I didn't have a whole lot of curiosity about it. I was perfectly content to listen to those four things come and go. I didn't seem to need to add anything, or to want to take anything away from my experience, and the sit felt like it could have gone on for hours. I ended up sitting 20 minutes past the chime, and eventually stopped to go to bed.

When I finally did get to bed, I slept poorly, woke for two hours at 2:30 am, and still woke up 10 minutes before the alarm. I did feel very tired and out of it today

"I was perfectly content to listen to those four things come and go. I didn't seem to need to add anything, or to want to take anything away from my experience, and the sit felt like it could have gone on for hours. I ended up sitting 20 minutes past the chime..." -andymr

Wonderful. Your are not expecting anything or manipulating your experience. Just letting it be. Nice job.

Thanks, Kenneth!

Now that I've got a clear "handle" on this, I'm realizing that I've been here before many, many times!

Friday, Oct 26

A very interesting morning... So, I sat for the first time doing binary noting (as described by Kenneth in my post #630) before driving in, and it was trivially easy to return to the 'silence' state whenever I noticed I was lost in 'noise'. The vast majority of the sit, my ½ hour commute, and a good part of the entire morning was spent in 'silence'. Simply noticing noise was enough to get me back to silence.

There seems to be, however, another state besides noise and silence. When I was engaged in a deep technical discussion at work, I noticed that there were long periods where I was actually thinking, but it was very strictly constrained to the subject of the discussion. There were analyzing thoughts, creative thoughts, remembering thoughts, all of which pertained to the discussion. There were very, very few thoughts I'd label as noise. I was very much in the groove of the discussion.

After lunch, it felt like I cycled out of the silence and into what felt like dark night for a few hours. Headache, slight nausea, body aches, frustration, wanting to go home. This seemed to pass a bit by the end of the day, and some of the the stillness and silence came back for the ride home. It was fairly weak, though. Nothing like the morning.

Saturday, Oct 28. Managed to get in 4:35 of noting, binary noting, and concentration practices.

No clarity or silence for me today...

I don't know if this is related to practice, to cycling, or to simply still being sick, but as the day went on, I completely lost motivation, felt nausea, had a headache, sinus pressure, low energy. My mood got sad, lonely, discouraged. I basically spent the entire rest of the day in bed resting. It finally peaked around dinner time, and I started feeling better a bit. Went to bed early and got 9 hours of fitful sleep.

Felt a whole lot better when I woke up, but other than the morning sit in bed right after waking up, I don't plan to do any more sitting.

These ups and downs are really something to behold!

All practice and no fun can make Andy a dull boy

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These ups and downs are really something to behold!

"

Amen brotha!

@cmarti: Thanks! I definitely needed that reminder.

@aquanin: I'm ready. I am SO ready.

After the rough ride last Saturday, I've backed off of practice to let things settle down for a while, and so I've been sitting only once a day. The A&P-like effects that started coming up on Oct 22nd seem to have subsided, and things are much calmer.

Monday, Oct 29
30 minutes. Started 4x10 breathcounting, then just noted for the rest of the sit. It felt like I got to a state where I could sit for as long as I liked. Hung out, noted, went back to work.

Tuesday, Oct 30
40 minutes in the evening. Started with breath-counting, and it was obvious early on that I wouldn't be able to keep from drifting into thinking. Moved to noting, and the same thing happened. I started yawning every few minutes, and sometimes I'd also get this full-body chill, as if all the hair was standing up on my body. Lots of thinking, some frustration, all of it hard to note. I finally called it quits and saw that I had only 2 minutes left on the timer.

Wednesday, Oct 31
30 minute lunch sit. Noted, got drifty, sleepy, had eyelid lights, noted again, got sleepy again, got eyelid lights again, rinse, repeat.

Friday, Nov 2
Continuing to sit less. I've cut out about 5 hours of off-cushion practice by not doing breath-counting or noting while driving to and from work. The biggest thing I notice is that my concentration is weaker. More often, I suddenly realize I'm lost in thought, and it take me longer to get concentrated when I do sit.

Oh, but I am catching up on a serious backlog of Buddhist Geek podcasts on these commutes.

I have been trying to get high-quality sits in every day, where I can devote my full attention to whatever is happening. In these sits, I've been trying to notice what it is that I've been missing. So far, I'm finding a vague sense of separation between what I'm noticing and what's doing the noticing. I don't even know quite how to describe it. The best I can do is to say that I get a sense of something here that notices sensations there.

Saturday, Nov 3

Started with just sitting, paying attention to all the sounds around me, and letting things develop. In a short time, I felt a bit spacey, dreamy. This went on for quite a while before I noticed a quick transition to clarity and eyelid lights, then back to dreaminess. After a while, the transitions got stronger, and eventually several were distinguishable as fruitions. The transitions eventually stopped, the dreaminess faded away, and I stopped the sit a bit after the chime went off.

Sunday, Nov. 4

Could not get into any of the familiar states. It seemed like nothing was happening. Concentration didn't take me anywhere, and neither did noting. Felt very similar to being a beginner, or to the initial few sits when starting on a brand-new path.

Off cushion, there was a large lack of motivation, a desire to snack.

Mon, Nov 5

I didn't feel particularly sleepy today, and in fact, had gotten enough sleep the night before. However, when I sat, I got sleepy very quickly. The rest of the sit was spent drifting in and out of dreaminess.

Tried to note on the ride home, and was able to do so in a flow state for about five minutes near the start. Later, it was more difficult, and felt forced.

In the evening, I didn't feel particularly nervous or anxious, but found myself comforting myself with food, chocolate. Went to be early, and slept fairly well, much to my surprise.

Tuesday, Nov 6

Woke before the alarm, and tried to meditate. I drifted between sleep and some light jhana states for quite a while. Later in the morning, I felt a lot of nervousness, and occasionally some fear came up. It definitely feels like I'm on a roller coaster with one or more full cycles a week.

At lunch, I just sat and paid gentle attention to sounds and sensations and my sit gradually deepened. Still found myself drifting in thought a bunch of times even though it seems like I moved through the cycle. Eventually found myself drifting in and out of dreaminess, which kept getting deeper and deeper.