Laurel's practice

"Ruthless Truth" hmmm... Interesting. I've been following it as well. Seems almost like a spiritual pyramid scheme somehow. If you say on the site there is no "I" you are deemed enlightened, then you're supposed to go enlighten others.(maybe not that simple, but pretty close) There may be something to it, but they seem to have pretty low standards for enlightenment. Maybe they'll take over the DHO now.

Yes, well, I suppose there's a bit of curiosity at work for me, but I'm going to just look and then keep on doing what I'm doing.

I managed to get up while my husband and son were still asleep this morning and get in 45 minutes meditation and an hour's worth of incredibly slow, mindful yoga. The meditation was irritatingly plagued with sleepiness (maybe I should have just stayed in bed, huh?). That's my biggest problem these days. I had some itching, some movement in my legs and arms, but nothing dramatic. I didn't get all that focused to begin with, which may have been part of the problem. I feel it as backsliding, although people have told me and others on this website that what's happening is new. I feel as if I've lost my capability. I'm not complaining about it, because I think feeling that way is part of the process, and I just have to make a note of it and let it go. But what I really want to do is WAKE UP! Is torpor a form of avoidance, or what? Sometimes it leads into the next stage, and other times it just keeps repeating endlessly. This morning was the latter.

It's good to be home; it was a brief getaway.

Dissolution perhaps...

You might want to read up on that stage

It's hard to believe it's dissolution because I never went through a full-blown A&P event, just a lot of trembling, although I suppose the vibrations are something else again. But you may be right. I'll see--with my luck I'll have a full-blown case of fear, misery, and disgust. Been through enough of that as it is.

Did some concentration practice this evening, managed to settle into a nice meditative state, but it wasn't completely stable. Took a long time to get there, then spent about 15 minutes absorbed and then came out of it, found myself unable to settle again. Altogether lasted about 35 minutes or so. But at least I didn't fall asleep.

I'll see what happens on the retreat. In the meantime, I want to try to keep the ball rolling.

I never had a full-blown A&P Event, in the dramatic way they sometimes describe... just a few days where I felt like I was riding high.

You've got a point--and now that I reread my posts, it sounds pretty dramatic overall. The dissolution description sounds eerily like what I'm experiencing now. I have to admit I'm so mellow I'm ready to melt away.

Well, this sure is an interesting ride! I'll see how it goes. I gather that now would be a good time to hone the concentration skills a bit, to power my way through the rest of the path.

my experience with the big vs small A&P is that the big ones I have had were always preceded by extremely nasty buildups, like walking around for days with this intensely unpleasant sensation in your chest and throat or head, a twitching, nasty, 'you'll do anything to get away from this' sensation - then the A&P ends up being a sudden release of this buildup. I've also gotten attached to the 'events' that come from this kind of A&P, which of course seem to be one-off deals. I'm happier having the shorter, milder ones with very little buildup to them!

It won't be long before you start feeling like you are *losing* your concentration, and the present moment starts running out ahead of you. Working on concentration skills might exacerbate a sense of failure around that, so don't feel obliged. In reality, your whole notion of what concentration is is changing as we speak.

You'll go from seeing concentration as "focus on a fixed and stable point" to seeing it as "living with a giant, ever-changing panorama". On the way it will seem like you are losing concentration, when actually you are gaining a better kind of concentration.

I think it was Jackson who made a point that the Dark Night is related to avoidance strategies. The path is *happening to you* at the moment, and "control" or "power through" strategies will be like holding back the tide with a teaspoon. Surrender! Everything you experience from now on is just a passing phenomenon, no matter how much it tries to convince you that "I WILL FEEL THIS WAY FOREVER". Not true! Each feeling disappears in not even 20 minutes!

"It won't be long before you start feeling like you are *losing* your concentration, and the present moment starts running out ahead of you. Working on concentration skills might exacerbate a sense of failure around that, so don't feel obliged. In reality, your whole notion of what concentration is is changing as we speak.

You'll go from seeing concentration as "focus on a fixed and stable point" to seeing it as "living with a giant, ever-changing panorama". On the way it will seem like you are losing concentration, when actually you are gaining a better kind of concentration.
"

Oh trust me, that ship has definitely sailed. Concentration on a fixed point is gone, which should be interesting b/c I have to write a book review before I leave Friday. But right now it's all good, I'm totally mellow, might have been smoking some grass for all I can tell . I guess the A&P was what it was, and now it's dissolution. I was reading an old thread on Jhana and Nana from a year back, and Kenneth said something about post A&P types with inadequate concentration skills tend to have trouble. I hope that isn't me; that's why I suggested Jhana practice for myself.

I know one thing, I really don't feel like doing precise noting. Whereas a couple of days ago I felt like a pro at it, I feel now as if I'm back to pre-Kindergarten. I can't focus enough to name anything, or get up enough enthusiasm to stay awake for it.

I went to see my yoga teacher this morning and we did a session of chakra balancing; I think it will help me survive the Dark Night. It was kind of hard b/c we were supposed to do visualization to work through blockages, and I couldn't visualize anything, being in dissolution. She's very intrigued by what I'm doing; she's working with a different system, and was careful not to do anything that might interfere, but has knowledge of the Theravadan system I'm working with. In the end we were able to do some good work.

BTW, I mentioned that I have much different results in the evening than at any other time, and she said it's b/c the periods of sunrise and sunset are especially good times for stuff to get moving. My evening time is at sunset these days; I know in the winter the late afternoon will probably take over as the more active period. By the time I meditate in the a.m. the sun has already been up for awhile. Anyway, I thought I'd mention it, b/c it's the first explanation I've had of why things follow a pattern day in and day out. The same things would eventually unfold, but take longer, if I only sat during the day.

Let's see if I can get up the energy to write this report. I meditated for about 45 minutes at around sunset tonight. I was determined to stick with noting and not be deterred by sleepiness and torpor, but it made no difference--I'd note for a bit and think, this is okay now, and then dreamland would interrupt. After slogging along like this for an eternity I checked the timer, and I was only half done. I thought, I can't take any more of this, so I got up and finished the session with walking meditation. It was like walking through deep sand, or mud. I felt like one of the souls in Dante's Inferno, the circle of the hypocrites, where souls trudged around in an eternal circle wearing leaden cloaks. I wondered whether souls in Dante's hell could experience change, an increase in tedium, a sense of long, long time passing, or if they existed in an eternal now of torment, and whether an eternal now wouldn't be as much of a torment as a sense of time passing slowly. I noted this. I got really philosophical trudging back and forth, and noted it. I got bored and frustrated, but not too frustrated b/c I had no energy for it, and noted it. I was on a carpet, and it felt uneven beneath my feet. I noted how that felt with each step. I also felt as if the carpet and the floor were askew, not completely straight, as if the floor were dipping and swerving ever so slightly as I moved along. I got a touch of vertigo, and queasiness in the stomach.

It was a long, long slog. I made it to the end, although I checked the timer just as it was about to go off, so I didn't make it absolutely to the end. I've never enjoyed a walking meditation less. I began to wonder how I'll make it through a 9 day retreat.

Hi Laurel,

Just to throw in my two cents, the first A&P event I had while meditating was sort of like what you describe, but even more anticlimactic and underwhelming (a lot of shaking eventually leading up to a few second's worth of a LOT of shaking). I didn't believe it was A&P until the dark night started kicking my ass.

Thanks, EndinSight. I gather that this is the Dark Night kicking my ass. I was in a state of dull depression all day today, couldn't concentrate to do any meaningful work, had no energy whatsoever. I took my son to his soccer practice, and a guy backed into my car in the parking lot, leaving a dent in my passenger side door. I matter-of-factly got his insurance information; it didn't even faze me, although I felt vaguely sorry for the kid (he was young), thinking young drivers need to make these kinds of mistakes to learn how to pay attention in parking lots. Back home I wanted to mow the lawn or at least do some weeding, had absolutely no energy. I made myself go for a walk, just to get off my butt and get some exercise. It didn't do much for me, but I'm glad I did it.

Last night's sit was confusing and unpleasant. Lasted about 45 minutes. After counting breaths I began with some serious out-loud noting, which went on and on and on, nothing much happening. Shifted to silent noting, when I noticed myself losing focus I shifted back. Went back and forth with it for awhile, then noticed some mild twitching, itching here and there, but mostly lots of pain popping up in odd places--my upper arm, big toe, etc.--all over the body. This seemed to precipitate some mild shaking, nothing like what I had before. It went on for awhile, with the beginnings of pressure in the head, but nothing like before. Subsided into vibrations. These lasted awhile, then built up into more jumpiness and shaking, then eased up a bit. Stopped the sit when the timer went off but maintained my meditative state, got to bed. Then things got really unpleasant, and I remembered I hadn't taken my #*!&$! medicine. The sooner I can taper that stuff the better, but not while on retreat.

Had flickerings of fear and sadness, but nothing that I could trace to strong sensations in the body. All day yesterday in a state of mild apprehension, couldn't concentrate well but got some stuff done for a change. Today I'm feeling mild sadness, separation anxiety, but it's as if there's a great big cottony buffer between myself and the world. Both yesterday and today feel like a mild hangover (and yes, I know hangovers from my foolish youth). No real pain today, but some unsettledness in the digestive tract, verging on nausea.

The Nausea... yeah, I got used to it after a while... Disgust nana!

Welcome to the dukkha nanas! I found this to be bizarro world, up is down and black is white. If it feels like you're doing it wrong, you're doing it right. Feel like your going backwards, here in bizarro world that's progress! Keep going it doesn't last, unless you give up now.
Something that helped me was that mumuwu, called it dookie bananas, which is a lot less sinister sounding then it feels. Thanks again for that one, man!!

I'm back from 8 days at IMS, feeling in a bit of a daze, but beginning to come 'round. I have a lot to report, won't begin to get it all down here, but will do my best to get up to date.

First of all, the teachers of the retreat weren't much interested in hearing my theories of where I am on the insight map, although one of them did ask me what I thought was going on when I told her about my shaking and vibrations. This was on the second day. At that point, I'd been battling torpor the entire time, and was finding it an uphill battle. She didn't confirm or refute my answer (that I'd gone through the A&P), but told me that any opening is apt to be followed by backlash from the hindrances, and said I might even be in for a whole week of spacing out, but not to worry, not to try to get back any particular experience just to get back to it. I decided to see what unfolded, and lo and behold, I got more shaking and monster itches and all that sort of thing that very day, plus an extraordinary rapture wave or two that brought tears to my eyes. So I signed up for an interview with one of the other teachers. This particular teacher had a strong affiliation with the Thai Forest tradition and Ajanh Chah, and told me outright that he was extremely sceptical of all maps, advising me to retain a complete suspension of expectations. He also advised me to avoid anapanasati and follow the breath into the body, to ground myself better rather than staying in my head. At that point I was having a lot of shoulder pain.

So I did that. I also fretted considerably over the conflicting advice I've been getting: I can only assume that he would not approve of the kind of feedback loop we engage in on this forum, and of course I'm an academic, which means I did well in school, where one progresses from one grade to the next, jumping through the requisite hoops all the way to whatever terminal degree one is seeking. I see my tendency to look for a corresponding kind of structure here, and I don't see this tendency as a strength.

I had trouble stopping the thought-loops of wondering who's right and who's wrong, or if maybe there's something to be taken from both approaches, or whatever. A lot of this was trying to think my way through the problem, and it occupied another day or so of the retreat. I finally really got into meditating in earnest (not that I wasn't doing that already), and had a combination of sits, some of which involved struggling mightily to stay awake, sometimes accompanied by lots of back, shoulder, and neck pain; others of which involved shaking, sometimes not unpleasant, other times miserably twitching and spazzing out; and still others involving nice relaxed states of noting with ease. I used a combination of noting and bare awareness. Towards the end I treated myself to a jhana with my old standby of anapanasati and had such lovely bliss I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

My thoughts were sometimes miserably intrusive, but grew less so as the week wore on. I also became more and more focused in moving between sitting and walking meditation. The walking, in fact, was a great relief from the difficulties of sitting at many points. I felt some real openings while walking, and on the whole was more uniformly focused during those periods.

One other phenomenon that showed up about four or five times was a feeling of static electricity crackling all over my skin. This wasn't particularly uncomfortable, and would continue after getting up from the chair, in a couple of cases all the way up the stairs and into my room, where I'd do a stretch or two before settling in to bed. I also had lots of mood swings, including several waves of uncontrollable sadness, the knot in the gut fear that is so familiar, and one clear experience of disgust during walking meditation that was unmistakable. I had another walking meditation earlier in the retreat that felt as if the floor was tilting under my feet. At other times I had the fine vibrations that I was experiencing at home before the retreat.

So what I'm describing is a mixed bag, in no particular order. I avoided eating in between meals, refraining even from making a cup of tea. I never blew off walking meditation. After meals I'd sit quietly and just observe things, doing a kind of noting combined with bare awareness (I found noting particularly helpful in disembedding from thought threads). I did a lot of stretching, because I was dealing with so much pain, not constant, but frequent. During walking meditation, for example, the weight of my arms hurt my shoulders, and my lower back became stiff and painful. I tried adjusting my seat, moving from a chair to a cushion and back again, all to no avail. That was one of my biggest hurdles. Re-entry was disorienting (the airport was miserable), and I've been pretty much out of it, but treating myself gently all day.

One last point: the retreat experience at IMS was not for me the mushroom culture I found described in MCTB, but I don't know what it would have been like had I not had the benefit of that book and this forum. The instruction was in the four foundations of mindfulness, unfolded over the days. It was good for me to have already encountered this teaching here at KFD. Mostly, the group interviews stayed focused on practice, and teachers did not encourage or allow us to wander off into musings about content. They kept us grounded in our bodies, and in particular emphasized the need to note rather than attempt to stop whatever phenomenon or hindrance we were dealing with. For example, in response to my complaints about intrustive thoughts, they said to note these thoughts, not to get involved in trying to counter them in any way. This is of course the key to it all, and yet it is the easiest thing in the world to forget.

One other thing: we did metta practice, and I worked on that most mornings doing my yogi dishwashing job as well as in the practice sessions and in the walking meditation that followed. Got some openings there, not necessarily pleasant (a bit of crying). But the biggest change was that by the end of the retreat I had finally come to prefer practice to the compelling narratives that I have found so hard to give up in the past. In fact, when one such narrative began repeating at one point, I shifted to noting and felt a distinct sense of relief. The teachings on anatta were extremely helpful in my beginning to understand the process by which I construct myself with narratives, although there has been some backlash in the form of wishing I could have my old life back! I am noting this and letting myself reintegrate to family life. I am keeping an open mind about what my practice will be like at home now.

I'd say you had a great retreat, Laurel. Sounds like a lot of dukkha nanas, which, although unpleasant, are a good sign of progress. Thanks for the update and keep us posted; the dukkha nanas are just part of the passing parade and there is lots of good stuff on the horizon. Meanwhile, keep us in the loop!

Thanks, Kenneth. I don't know whether this is normal, but I have had no desire to meditate since getting back, and have only done so once, without much of anything to report. I am feeling sad and kind of unmotivated to do much of anything. The world seems flat to me. I am glad to see my family again, but I feel sleepy or spacey and have no emotions to speak of, just a blah feeling. That's the latest, for what it's worth.

I continue in my unmotivated, emotionally-muted way. I meditated 30 mins. this morning, pleasant sit, actually, a bit of noting, got really relaxed and in touch with a number of things, most important a buzzing of anxiety in the midsection that wasn't all that serious, just there. As the sit progressed it subsided into the background. Some restlessness, clock-watching kind of stuff, but I felt pleasurably absorbed.

In daily life I'm putting on my best effort at controlling anything like bleed-through. I'm noticing how I react to situations, whether things are different or the same. I find some of my old triggers still bother me, but not as intensely, and not for all that long. It feels more like apathy than like anything else, though, so I'm not ready to congratulate myself yet.

I don't know if this is what it is, but I have been in a kind of depression, feeling sad most of yesterday until I was able to distract myself with an absorbing task. Then today have felt like I've been grieving.

This morning's sit: 30 minutes + a little extra, but I felt as if it went on forever. At about 20 minutes in I cheated and checked the timer; I thought I should have been done for a long time and was amazed to see I had almost 10 minutes left! Lots of torpor, mind spinning off into dreaminess, which is how I lost track of time.

Real dreams, at night, have been disturbing lately. The other night I dreamed that my violence-prone ex-husband, whom I haven't seen in over 30 years (and whom I rarely think about any more), was stalking me through an enormous, multi-level shopping mall with the intent of killing me.

It's as if all of the good vibes I felt on retreat have totally evaporated, leaving me feeling abandoned. Am trying not to make too much of this.

Metta, Laurel. If you've got the drive to sit at all in the face of depression, that's heroic, even if it doesn't feel like it.

Take or leave this- I don't know if this is relevant to your situation right now, but:

If there is a flavour of flatness and sameness to everything, maybe at this point, simply observing *that your mind-state changes* is all you should demand of yourself. No need to find out what the state is- simply to observe the bare fact that the shape of your mind-state shifts and shifts and shifts, even if you feel like it's all an empty rut. (If you are restless to end a sit, then there is something driving you forward... torpor is shifting to wanting is shifting to aversion is shifting to restlessness is shifting to etc. etc. etc.)

I find it helpful sometimes in non-meditating situations to just keep asking, every couple of seconds, "Am I the same person as I was last time I checked in?" No need pin down or understand the changes, but I perceive that the whole universe of views has shifted a bit, even just in the couple of seconds.