Laurel's practice

I'm really new to this practice. Last December I stumbled on Buddhist Geeks through Twitter, read Daniel's MCTB, spent some time on DhO and was casting about fror an approach to practice. I tried a number of techniques, and finally decided to settle on anapanasati practice, after reading Stephen Snyder and Tina Rasmussen's Practicing the Jhanas.

So: I worked on this concentration practice on a daily basis, without anything interesting happening until I got to a daylong retreat a couple of weeks ago at a meditation center nearby, and found myself experiencing a sudden clarity and ease with watching the breath that I hadn't had before. Then this past weekend I went on a 3-day residential retreat, and had further experience with a state that was more relaxed than what I'd had earlier. I would be watching the breath, fighting off restlessness and torpor, and then find myself relaxing into a state where I felt as if I was experiencing the world through a wide-angle lens. I was sitting in a meditation hall with the windows open on all sides, hearing birds and other wildlife, and it was like surround-sound. There was a very light grey, almost white light that seemed to envelope my head. My breath became almost imperceptible, and I felt deeply relaxed. At the same time, I also felt restlessness nudging at me, as if I didn't quite know what to do with myself. It's as if working at watching the breath is somehow easier for me than this state of just letting go.

What's been hard is getting back home. I find my emotional volatility is higher than it was--with one emotion in particular, and that is a tendency to be very easily embarrassed. It's like a fear of being so exposed, I guess. I don't know if it's normal to feel that way but that's what it's like for me. I tend to be an anxious person to begin with. Anyway, I'd appreciate whatever feedback anyone can give.

Welcome Laurel!
Sounds like you're off to a great start.
I've also noticed that at times my volatility seem somewhat 'heightened', much to the dismay of those around me. It's always been short term, and over the long term(relative, I'm pretty new too) I'm much better off for meditating. I'll leave advice to those with much more experience.

Thanks for the encouragement. I've continued to feel anxious, but I think it has to do with changes in the season. I'm an academic, and I always feel this way when classes are over for the year and my structure is taken away. At DhO there's an interesting discussion on Clinical Mindfulness, including the dangers of meditation, especially practicing the concentration techniques that are focused on the nostrils. If you spend too much time in your head, you need a physical practice for the sake of grounding yourself. I've developed a new appreciation for walking meditation as a result.

The concentration practice continues to unfold. I was thrown off my routine for awhile, and couldn't achieve any kind of concentration at home, but at a daylong yesterday found myself sinking back into the deeper level of relaxation I had three weeks ago. Sure wish I could manage it at home. I feel the pressure of my family waking up upstairs, the question of getting the day started. Carving out psychic space as well as 40 minutes is essential.

Welcome! Good to have you here, Laurel. I remember your initial post on DHO.

Sounds like you started pretty much the same way I did (Buddhist Geeks, MCTB, DHO), except for that retreat part, and then that having the initial success part. Things have picked up for me since.

I agree that everyday life is the toughest part of any practice. There are so many demands on our attention that it can be hard to even catch your breath sometimes.

Consider starting an ongoing journal here. I resisted for a long time (embarrassment, among other things). I've found that it helps.

Andy

"What's been hard is getting back home. I find my emotional volatility is higher than it was--with one emotion in particular, and that is a tendency to be very easily embarrassed. It's like a fear of being so exposed, I guess. I don't know if it's normal to feel that way but that's what it's like for me.
- Laurel"

Welcome Laurel!

I can relate to your story, because being self-concious has always been a problem for me. Whenever I am hitting the Dark Night phase I get a lump in my throat and an acute feeling of insecurity. During these periods it is very hard for me to speak in public as I am constantly monitoring my self, feeling uncertain and thinking what other think of me. Actually the way I am handling situations like these has become a yard stick of progress for me.

Looking forward to your practise notes,
Antero.

How do you tell the difference between Dark Night phenomena and garden-variety anxiety and depression? I had what I think may have been an A & P experience when I was 19, have had depression and anxiety ever since, but then again I had them before that as well, so it's hard to distinguish. But what happened after the retreat was on a whole greater scale of magnitude--I was telling the group that I had seen a flock of loons on the lake, and it turns out they weren't loons but pelicans LOL (never heard of pelicans inland, but so what), and my embarrassment and shame were extreme; I wanted to bury myself somewhere. As if anyone even would remember!!! Usually I can handle making simple mistakes and talking in public (I'm a teacher). Anyway--I don't think this was DN but rather a feeling of exposure. I'd been doing samatha practice, not noting. Bujt a part of me was thinking WTF, I started this practice to overcome all this suffering, and here I am feeling even worse. However, I am beginning to understand that greater concentration/insight means getting closer to the suffering.

@Andy: I also fear exposing myself on this forum; among other things I can't imagine anyone would possibly be interested in my day to day practice. But I see other people doing it, and I realize that this is what this place is for, so I will brace myself and get to work on it.

Great notes, Laurel, and your honesty with yourself, and the rest of us, is commendable.

I don't know how we can really differentiate between depression and DN, I tried to figure this out myself but it's just too risky an area to make any final judgement on without considerable research, although the work that's being done at Brown University and by people like Ron Crouch will hopefully prove more fruitful. My experience of comparing the two suggests that depression manifests in a more mental way, wheras Dark Night has quite a bit of physical stuff going on, although earlier insight stages such as 3rd ñana (Three Characteristics) also have quite a lot of physical discomfort too so it's difficult to make a clear distinction.

Your jhana experience, based on what you've said, sounds like you've gotten to at least 2nd jhana when that sense of effort dropped away, and possibly into 3rd. Either way you've clearly got the ability to make this happen!

One of the most encouraging things about this site is that the majority of us are householders with similar problems to yourself so, hopefully, you'll be able to get some more practical advice and get to where you want to be. It'll be good to see how things work out for you and how your practice develops, so just be sure to ask loads of questions and don't ever be afraid to be upfront and open about this stuff 'cause we're all in this together. : )

Thanks, Tommy, for your wonderful and affirming note. This matter of physical symptoms is confusing to me because I have fibromyalgia, which is a weird and indefinable chronic pain condition that seems to have several sources, some of them in the mind. Sometimes I'm fine and sometimes I have flareups. Right now is flareup time, but one of the things that seems to be a precursor (or co-morbid factor) is a persistent problem sleeping. I have always been an insomniac.

But I digress. Or maybe not; this practice makes sense to me because I feel, basically, I can better handle my various sources of dissatisfaction with myself and/or the world by getting some distance on them. In any case, did a brief sit yesterday, and found it relaxing, but not particularly productive. I am coming to realize that the times when one seems not to be making real progress are not wasted; that's why we call it practice. I am also starting to get past the mental block of believing that conditions have to be perfect in order to practice. Tommy speaks in his notes of standing in rain, or grabbing a few minutes here and there at work. I also think I will start mixing in noting practice with concentration techniques. More later, and thank you everyone for this place of safety and support.

"I am coming to realize that the times when one seems not to be making real progress are not wasted; that's why we call it practice. I am also starting to get past the mental block of believing that conditions have to be perfect in order to practice. "

Nice!

30 minutes of concentration practice last night, focusing on the breath at the point of entry in the nostrils. Had my usual mental chatter at first, reviewing the day, thinking, thinking, thinking. Then eventually flickers of dreamlike images began to emerge, followed by a sense of settling into the focus on the breath. Lots of clarity there, and then a feeling of sinking deeper, with a calm blissful feeling and the widening of awareness, emergence of a subtle perception of light. Lately I've enjoyed a few light shows, disks of changing colors that flash before my eyes like jellyfish opening and closing, but last night was more subdued.

Went to sleep after the sit and slept reasonably well (for me!), but woke up with a severe headache. Did 45 minutes of yoga and bodywork this morning, and the headache subsided.

Hi Laurel,

Speaking as someone who did several years of breath-following meditation before stumbling onto this site, I really recommend taking up some out-loud noting. You don't even have to be good at it. It sounds like you have very highly-developed concentration skills, and need only redress the balance on the "insight" side to make fast progress.

From the sound of it, aspects of your "insight" skills are already in place. You may have been through the "A&P". If that's so, then some of your life is lived in the Dark Night, whether you ever get to know it or not.

Noting practice does bring it on fast, though. If you're no stranger to chronic pain and anxiety, I don't think the specific DN feelings will seem like anything new to you, although there may be flashes of an intensity that will be unsettling. I found this true of surges of "Fear" and the twisty, hard-to-concentrate brain-noise of "Re-observation", but I'm sure everyone has their own Greatest Hits.

At times like that, the thing to keep in mind is that the spells don't last long. It's also best to not look too hard for causes. DN stuff arises for reasons that are too complex and deep-rooted for us to trace, and it's best to just think of it like a spell of weather.

Also, dare to think of yourself as looking for stream-entry, for awakening! I think it helps to be totally shameless about doing this because you want to make things better. That intention alone WILL carry you forward.

Wow--Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'm kind of speechless (a good thing, on the whole, for me!). I will begin the noting, but also keep up some jhana practice at the same time--for awhile, anyway. But I think if there's even a chance that I'm rattling around in DN I should do everything I can to push through it. Fear, misery, and disgust--all terribly familiar! Interestingly enough, I can think and talk about these things without self-pity now, just record them as facts. That's one benefit of the reading and practice I've done. The other thing I can say is that I've been through a lot of talk-therapy, so I don't feel the slightest temptation to return to my content and go around in more circles with it. That could change, I suppose, but frankly my "stuff" started to bore me a long time ago.

Followed Rob Mtl's advice and began noting practice this morning. Just as an aside: my A&P arose quite by accident with no meditation on my part, as a result of wiping out on the Massachusetts Turnpike many years ago. But I think now I'm going to do noting in the morning sit, concentration in the evening.

This morning: 25 minutes or so of generalized noting of everything: sounds, thoughts, sensations in the body. Most dominant was fear, located in the solar plexus. The knot was there every time I returned to it. Also pain in hip, neck, foot. The practice itself was relaxing to me. A sense of my body being a set of electric impulses running up and down. Refrigerator running in the background, feelings of annoyance and then let that go. Birds, clock ticking. Some drifting thoughts bordering on dreamlike images, returned to awareness. No rumination, however. That's about as precise as I can get. Didn't verbalize much, only occasionally. I'm not sure whether I'll continue this particular approach or take a more focused approach. Still trying to decide.

Began noting practice, with about half an hour riding (not driving) in a car at around midnight on the Southeast Expressway between Boston and Cape Cod. I found it surprisingly easy to note sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they rose and passed away. Lots and lots of itching, on the face, wrist, ankle, and wherever--but felt no compulsion to do anything about it. Mild feelings of nausea that I had no idea were there, rising up almost into my throat. Thoughts that I did not feel a compulsion to explore, or even to suppress--it's amazing how liberating it is just to note them, and find them going nowhere.

I have some perplexity about my samatha jhana practice, not sure where I am on the map. Read a thread over on DhO on that very topic, and realize that as I gain experience and stability I will feel this almost instinctively. I also think I have been mixing a bit of noting into the jhana practice b/c I've silently called out names of hindrances as they've arisen--torpor, restlessness, etc.

From your description - it sounds like you are getting to the 3 characteristics phase of the progress of insight. Good work. I found it very helpful at that point to contemplate one of the itches you mention and really try and see how rather than a solid point, it has a certain graininess to it. The more I would tune into this the more of a vibratory quality within the itch was seen. Also, points of tension / aching were observed and seen to be moving, amorphous fields rather than solid patches. In doing this I began to penetrate the apparently solid objects which is what getting to the A&P is all about.

"I have some perplexity about my samatha jhana practice, not sure where I am on the map. Read a thread over on DhO on that very topic, and realize that as I gain experience and stability I will feel this almost instinctively. I also think I have been mixing a bit of noting into the jhana practice b/c I've silently called out names of hindrances as they've arisen--torpor, restlessness, etc. "

I think you're right on about this- I find a lot of the written descriptions of jhanas (and nanas, too) only make sense in retrospect- by the time you start to recognize the outlines of them within yourself, you've probably already been through them several times!

I've had good experiences with noting hindrances as a concentration practice. I especially found it helpful with "torpor", because I used to really beat myself up over getting sleepy while sitting. Eventually I realized that a "hindrance" wasn't something to "beat" or to be "overcome", just to be recognized- persistently recognizning it *was* the antidote for the hindrance. even if it took many tries and much noting for the antidote to kick in

I don't know about anyone else's experience, but I have never managed to keep either "samatha" or "vipassana" practice pure and isolated, one from the other. Noting builds concentration, and counting breaths brings on insights. Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth ?

Thanks, mumuwu. I tried that in this morning's sit, with pain in the hip. It would move and abate a bit, but then it would be back. I noticed that I still had a sense of it as being solid when it would return. The itches would fade a bit, but I wasn't yet able to pick up on graininess, let alone vibrating. So that is my next step. What I'd like to figure out is how to negotiate all these things. I probably was focusing on too many things at once, including thoughts and sounds, and am not ready for that, because even if I focus on physical sensations there's so much going on!

Rob, your description of your experience with torpor is spot on. I was ashamed and peeved with myself when I thought I was falling asleep, until I realized that this is a specific hindrance with a specific effect. I am also letting go of the need to keep everything tidy with the maps--as you said, it'll have to make sense in retrospect.

For the past couple of days I've been on vacation at Cape Cod with my husband, 10-year-old son, and 91-year-old mother. Today my autistic older brother will arrive. As you can imagine, it's chaos. I've managed to practice some, however, and being by the ocean is always good for giving a person a feeling of how vast the universe is in comparison to one's own ego-drama. One piece of my drama is that I forgot my meds, of all things--gabopentin (Neurontin), without which I can't get to sleep. So the first night I was up until 5:00 with anxiety symptoms churning in my stomach, and feeling a queasy brand of the shakes. I absolutely could not get enough resolution together to note any of this; I just lay there feeling angry with myself for forgetting the one thing I can't easily do without. But the next day (Monday) we got in touch with pharmacists from home and here, and got the pills. My aim when I get back home is to taper this medication and get off of it, but not now, and not cold turkey!

I've been able to do some noting meditation. Yesterday went to the dock on the bay (sounds like a song . . .) and sat for 30 mins. I forgot to put on sunscreen, could feel the sun practically cooking my legs, but just noted it. I figured I'm not going to die from 30 minutes out in the sun at 11:00 daylight savings time. I tried noting sounds and thoughts, mostly. I always think of this particular place as peaceful, but was amazed to see (or hear) how noisy it all is. There is always construction going on around here, and yard maintenance; it's a very wealthy neighborhood and all the residents are relentlessly pursuing The Good Life on steroids. But then there are the birds, the rustling of the small crabs, and myriad other noises. Thoughts didn't pester me too much, but when they did I noted them.

(cont.)

I later downloaded copies of Mahasi Sayadaw's works on Vipassana (found free books at www.yellowrobe.com/books/mahasi-sayadaw/...-mahasi-sayadaw.html ) and realized I haven't been as precise in noting as I need to be. In the meantime, tried some concentration practice last night and got nowhere. Felt annoyed with myself, kept falling asleep, and gave up five minutes before the timer went off, which I hate to do as it sets a precedent that could become a real habit. I'm thinking of having a consult with Kenneth after we get home. I need to make some decisions about what practice to focus on at the moment. I have a 9-day retreat at IMS coming up in July, and I'm wondering whether I should keep working on my concentration skills in preparation, then switch to noting practice just before the retreat.

That's the morning report. Now it's off to the beach and then the mall with my son, whose interests run to legos, Star Wars, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

A little rant about precision in noting:

Everything I've read on noting technique has contributed to making me neurotic about either vocabulary, precision, or speed, and I've never become skilled and precise to my own obsessive-compulsive satisfaction.

I flip-flop techniques regularly- Kenneth-style, Shinzen Young-style, Mahasi-style, noting the 5 hindrances, noting the 6 sense-doors, or just coming up with whatever word seems right. It seems to work anyways . The noting keeps your attention on the stream of perceived phenomena, and that's the beginning and end of its usefulness. Whether you ever get fast or accurate or not doesn't really matter.

Eventually, you'll even start to find that noting is sometimes too coarse, because your sensitivity to the stream of phenomena gets too fast. Nobody can tell you when you get to that point- you have only your gut sense to go on. Once you're there, though, it's good not to let an obsession with finding names block your way.

Then, when your gut sense tells you that you're drifting, you can go back to the noting.

I do think, though, that Kenneth is right to emphasize noting from all 4 "foundations of mindfulness"- that's always a good way to pinpoint where you're stuck. I'm really weak on finding notes for the 3rd foundation (mental states / moods / emotions).

Thanks, Rob! It's very easy for me to get hung up on trying to do everything "correctly." Sometimes I also think I read way too much, should spend more of that time practicing. I'm just as hung up with practicing the jhanas as with the noting. Time should take care of a lot of this stuff for me. Thanks again.

<fretting>I should rename this thread "Laurel's No Practice." Ever since my brother arrived the house has been a three-ring circus, with no privacy, no time to myself, and a lot of challenges to my patience. I steal away to read everyone else's practice threads and feel practice-envy. Can't wait to get back home, which will happen by around midnight tomorrow. In the meantime, I tell myself I'm doing sila training. </fretting>.

Try not to fret, but if you do, notice it. I find it very difficult to practice when I'm interacting with people. It works when my concentration is good, otherwise not really. But since this is supposed to help us in daily life try to do what you can in daily life too. Notice fretting, frustration, impatience, forgetting to notice, whatever it is. If you do this 30 seconds out of an hour it's better then nothing! And some days you will have the time to practice more. Beating myself up just made me resent the practice, that's why I've quit in the past, so I'm really trying to lighten up about it. Easier said then done, I know. But try to look at as pushing a snow ball, it adds up, some times slowly sometimes quickly, but it all helps.

Don't under estimate that frustration, because that shows how keen you are to practice, and thats half the battle.
I know i might be stating the obvious here, but sometimes thats just what we need. Remember 99.9% of folks never even get on the ride!

Thanks, Rev and Stephen! I got in 45 minutes this morning before the family was awake--got in some yoga first. The yoga is best when I first wake up because it centers me, makes it easier to practice. Did silent noting, sounds in neighborhood, someone's garden equipment, kind of rotating whining sound, birds, wind; also noted fear and anxiety just below the solar plexus, watched it move up in my chest, then torpor set in, some dream images which I noted, some of them seeming to be lucid dreams. I've been reading Steinbeck and I noted Steinbeck characters and/or verbiage emerging in my dreams; then a nice, accommodating itch woke me up, as I focused on it others came up. Settled into relaxation, felt good. Session ended when son woke up.