Howard's Practice Notes

Hi all,
I've been with Kenneth since the end of Feb and I think its time to post my stuff up. I miss the cut and thrust of peer review, so feel free everybody.
I've been meditating since like, for ever, but only got stream last Dec. It soon became clear to me that I would need proper support if I wanted to go any further. I'm happy to say that my progress has accelerated dramatically since I started studying with Kenneth and now I'm fairly sure that I'm in mid-high 2nd path Equanimity.

Here goes; today's notes

21st May
9.30am, 30mins
The first fifteen was pure Silence + Spaciousness = Scratching that Itch. The second was increasingly unpleasant noting things like, anger, injustice and exasperation but all in silence. I had no angry thoughts just angry feelings.

1pm, 1 hour
The first fifteen mins was all silence and spaciousness, the rest of the time was still in silence a lot of the time but the emotional sensations were mainly negative and unpleasant. I did a lot of 'allowing' and 'opening' but it did little to mitigate these sensations.

4pm, 30mins
I spent a very happy time noting spaciousness and silence with very few distractions.

5.30pm, 30mins
More of the above but with a little more distraction.

8.30pm, 30mins
After a choppy first ten minutes I settled down to note silence. I did not bother with spaciousness as my mind was not in the mood to multi-task.

Nice report, Howard. Welcome to the forum!

Hi Howard, and welcome. I enjoyed reading your posts on DHO, and am glad to see you pop up on here.

Thanks guys, its good to be back in circulation.

Welcome Howard!.

Curious: Do you find it more "productive" with multiple 30-mins sits (instead of maybe 1 more longer)?
Myself I would have the possibility to add many short sits but it feels like I only "progress" in the longer.

/Pejn

Hi PEJN

Yes, absolutely, my own preference would be for a 1 hour sit as the basic building block of my practice. Unfortunately, some times commitments and the unexpected get in the way. So yesterday was unrepresentative.

The problem with a half hour sit is that I maybe spend 5-10 mins settling down and maybe get 5-10 mins of distraction towards the end so that can sometimes leave only 10 mins in the middle where good focus is achieved. For an hour sit, the settling down and distraction at the end remain the same leaving 40 mins of good focus. A much better investment of time.

You say:
"Myself I would have the possibility to add many short sits but it feels like I only "progress" in the longer."

You seem skeptical about the value of short sits, do you see any value in them at all?

Regards

Howard

22nd May
7.30am, 30mins
I found it hard to note silence this morning, my mind was dripping a steady commentary on the progress of my meditation, but the real distracter was the succession of ticks and twitches that my body was going through plus a kaleidoscope of strong physical sensations. The culprit was a strong sense of excitement and agitation underneath it all; I was my own, one man football crowd.

I still noted silence; what I normally do is notice the sensations, but note the silence (or otherwise) of my minds' response. On particularly noisy days like today I will alternate my noting; so I note, hearing, silence (i.e. what is my mind doing?), seeing, silence, itching, silence ect. At the moment this works quite well.

9pm, 90mins
Initially I intended to sit for an hour but I soon decided to sit for longer, 90 mins seemed necessary.

My mind was full of chat from the day so I decided to observe the chatter directly. I have found that just prior to a thought arising I get a kind of turbulent, throbbing pressure sensation(s). Often it defies localisation, but today it appeared to be in the crown of my head. If I attend directly at this it tends to dramatically reduce the flow of my thought processes. So I did this for a bit and when things had quietened down after about 20 mins, I started to attend to the sensations of spaciousness that had unfolded around me.

When in equanimity one is advised to gently explore the sensations of equanimity and spaciousness. For me spaciousness has a definite sensation but I'm damned if I can describe it. But sensations seem to 'hang' within it, so when I notice them it's a kind of sensation + context kind of a deal. I did this for the rest of the sit in various configurations. Normally I note out-loud and a few times I stopped just to see what happened. Eventually I drifted off, no surprise there. I got a bit distracted a couple of times. But generally it felt solid.

"Hi PEJN

You say:
"Myself I would have the possibility to add many short sits but it feels like I only "progress" in the longer."
You seem skeptical about the value of short sits, do you see any value in them at all?
"

My short morning sits are valuable, the make a good foundation for the day.
I do 30-mins "bonus" meditations sometimes and their after effects are great. Also short "noting bursts" during day.
Thing is I have always associated "being able to sit longer" with progress. First getting past 3C. Then getting past DN to EQ.
My guess all practice is valuable, I was just curious if you actively choose to make many shorter instead of one longer, and it seems like you do not.

I think I would agree with you on all of this. My morning sit is essential and has an effect out of proportion to its length. A few minutes mindfulness as the supermarket checkout is always valuable. But I do need the longer sits as well to provide momentum. Some times I do chose shorter sits though, if I'm experiencing a lot of aversion and I don' t have the energy or inclination to tackle it head-on. This may not be the most skillful approach but you have to live a little, right?

23rd May
7.45am, 1 hour
I don't normally do an hour first thing as I usually feel too awful, but today I had the urge to extend out to an hour and it was good. Standard noting, nothing fancy; only noting spaciousness when it became apparent. Great.

12.30pm, 1 hour
The first 20 mins was all about some very strong sensations of anticipation and expectation; strong to the extent of being uncomfortable. These faded to be replaced by intensely chaotic physical sensations along with drowsiness leading to some very odd dream states. Suddenly all this cleared and I was into some very intense spaciousness, like treacle. My mind was fairly focused through this a few wobbly moments but pretty good overall. The whole thing was probably A&P up to EQ but unusually intense. Anyone got a better guess?

9.30pm, 1hour
The first 20 mins were fairly focused but the slow but constant drip of minor distractions was becoming irritating. So I directly noticed my thought processes until the calmed down a bit. Then I widened my focus to notice spaciousness. From then on it was just a relatively quiet mind, spaciousness and stuff happening that got noticed with no particular sense of urgency or effort. I felt no aversion, anxiety, or particular sense of wanting to be doing anything else. Great.

24th May
8.30am, 1 hour
Just for a change I decided to note rising/falling of my breath today. I don't do this much anymore but and was more distracted than usual as a result. So I went back to my usual practice at half-time. Or was it? The alarm went off much sooner than I was expecting. I probably set the alarm wrong, but practice has been fairly whizzing by the last few days, so maybe not.

11am, 1hour, interrupted
I spent a very pleasant hour just hanging out with sensations. Nice.

2.15pm, 30mins
More of the same really.

9.30pm, 1 hour
I came in from work with a strong desire to sit immediately. Unfortunately I was also very tired and full of mental chatter from work. It did not end well. I had some good periods of clear strong focus 'hanging out with sensations' rapidly alternating with some very compelling distractions. It was all rather disorientating. The positive spin would be to say that I got a good look at some of my stronger attachments. So a result of sorts I suppose.

25th May
Towards the end of first path I had this period when the brakes came off. All I wanted to do was sit all the time and I had the energy to do it. I felt that that shift may have happened again on Sunday night.

On Monday and Tuesday I had two long work days, yet still managed to do more practice than I would normally do on a day off. Last night I hit a wall and my practice suffered accordingly, this morning I am still very tired. At the end of first path this 'no brakes' experience was new to me and I was very cautious about increasing my practice time. The result was a sustainable increase over about a week and a half to a maximum of about four hours. I think I need to throttle back and start again, at or around my normal regime and work up.

7.30am, 30mins
I'm still tired from last night. Oddly, part of me feels 'cheated' that I am only doing 30 mins, weird. The practice itself was okay, I was agitated and I'm not sure if it was because it is early and my first practice is usually cranky or whether it is the 'injustice' at only doing only 30mins, like I said, weird.

11am, 1 hour
One hour blissfully coexisting with sensations. A bit too blissful actually, any physical sensations were so nice that I kept drifting off, either sleep or daydreaming. However, if I stayed with mental sensations, thoughts, moods, mind states I could stay nicely focused. It beats me why this is so exhausting though.

3pm, 30mins
Sat down tired got up about the same. Lots of intense hot and cold flushes and tingles; my guess is somewhere in the dark night. At 15 mins the dust settled and clarity arose, EQ I suppose but lots of drowsiness too. Mind fairly calm throughout. Not bothered.

11pm, 30mins
I had lots of hot sensations all over. It felt like I was in some kind of DN nana, but also very focused and not concerned or perturbed. Not much spaciousness but very focused. Wasted again.

26th May
8.30am, 1 hour
I had resolved to do just 30 min but found my self setting the alarm for an hour. I must have gone up and down the jhanic arc at lest twice maybe three times. It was all rather confused and unpleasant. But also a very strong desire to stay with it, that appeared to be independent of 'me.' Also, I was very focused, few distractions and no need to attend to my thought processes to keep them quiet.

1pm, 75mins
This was a very confused session. After about 20 mins in what felt like DfD the rest of the session felt like Re-ob and EQ all mixed up with lots of spaciousness, tranquility, drowsiness, aversion and confusion existing in close proximity to each other. Very confusing.

Ha! The sudden onset of DN stuff is now clear to me. I've done it again, got caught up in some holy grail attitude to practice and my mind is just putting me straight . I was getting way too obsessed with the ideal of a silent mind and getting a bit anal about it. The intermixing of blissful stuff is my mind shifting in and out of 3rd Jhana, so Kenneth tells me, apparently 3rd Jhana is the flip side of dissolution. So I've dropped all the techniques and gone back to bare noticing in silence. I am more distracted but much happier.

27th May
8.30am, 30mins
I was very gentle this morning. As usual this first sit of the day was fairly fragmented, but was much more enjoyable than of late. I did'nt appear to get stuck anywhere but I'm at a loss to say what nanas I accessed.

2pm, 1 hour
Very gentle again, I was up and down the nanas very rapidly. I lost count of the cycles it may have been more than ten.

Off the cushion
I was up in dissolution in the doctor's waiting room and well into EQ at the bus station. I find places were there are lots of people doing unconnected things great places to be in EQ. If you watch the crowd with a broad focus and filter out the content the apparently random movement is a marvellous wide angle meditation object.

9pm, 45 mins
A very pleasant session, I didn't notice the nanas so much; as in feeling afraid in 'fear' or sad in 'misery.' But I am starting to notice how the visual field wants to be one pointed at certain times or wide angle at others. Ditto hearing

28th May
10am, 25mins
Rather distracted this morning, experience as has taught me not to mess too much with this first sit of the day. My mind was melancholy and withdrawn, so I let it do that, just gently sit with it and hold its hand. Awww, sweet.

2pm, 1 hour
I'm still liking the simple noticing practice. I suppose what I'm actually doing is Zazen. I find repeatedly that any technique that I use tends to encourage me to partition off bits of my sensory experience and privilege it. I then proceed to throttle the life out of my practice and end up in some foul smelling backwater.
Now, I feel I need to generate acceptance and compassion for whatever arises even daydreams and distractions. I don't want to hate bits of my own sensory experience; it just seams weird beyond belief to adopt that attitude, but time and again that's where I end up.

My actual practice is becoming more subtle. I notice the nanas passing but the indicators are now mild anxiety, mild confusion ect. I seem to be spending a lot of time in EQ I know this is an illusion but is quite a compelling one.

5.15pm, 1 hour
I'm rapidly losing interest in what nanas I have or have not accessed. I have as much control over which sensations I notice than I do over the weather outside the window. So why does it matter whether the sensations I experience are of euphoria or constriction? I don't think it does.

9pm, 1hour
More of the above, except that the nanas showed up more clearly. What I am to do with this information escapes me at the moment.

29th May
10am, 30mins
I felt pretty vile this morning, but since I am working to embrace my inner skank at the moment, that worked out rather well.

2pm, 90mins
After a less than promising start I saw the nyanas cycle through with breathtaking clarity. Not sure how significant this is but it sure is pretty.

6pm, 1 hour
More fragmented, ho hum. Going up or going down? No idea.

11pm, 1 hour
Now I'm seeing the progress of insight more clearly, it's becoming embarrassingly clear that I don't spend anything like as much time in EQ as I have assumed up till now. I've been confusing EQ with A&P ( not often as its gone so fast,) mind and body (sometimes) but mainly big bits of the DN. The problem is that the DN is not that dark anymore, often just mildly unpleasant and I often get some spaciousness there as well. Also being concentrated and tranquil is nice even if the sensations I'm experiencing aren't. So I tend to think 'Oh, EQ is a bit rough around the edges today,' that's because its not EQ, bummer.

"Now I'm seeing the progress of insight more clearly, it's becoming embarrassingly clear that I don't spend anything like as much time in EQ as I have assumed up till now. I've been confusing EQ with A&P ( not often as its gone so fast,) mind and body (sometimes) but mainly big bits of the DN. The problem is that the DN is not that dark anymore, often just mildly unpleasant and I often get some spaciousness there as well. Also being concentrated and tranquil is nice even if the sensations I'm experiencing aren't. So I tend to think 'Oh, EQ is a bit rough around the edges today,' that's because its not EQ, bummer." -HowardClegg

Nice insights, Howard, and refreshing honesty. We all do this; hope springs eternal. We tell ourselves that we are basking in equanimity all day long because we think that is what should be happening. Of course, the truth is that what should be happening is whatever *is* happening, but this is a difficult lesson that each of us has to learn over and over again.

This moment is just as it is, whether it is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, deep or shallow, sacred or profane. As long as you clearly objectify it, you are seeing it as not-self. That's the job: what was previously taken as subject is seen as object. Keep doing it and the brain figures this out all on its own: it hurts to be a self and it feels wonderful to see through that mirage. With enough practice, peace is the only viable option. And peace is what you get.

Be especially attentive to the narrative about your experience. Notice that when you are engaged in the experience, the narrative is suspended, and vice versa. Choose the experience and let the narrative go.

edit: typo

"Now I'm seeing the progress of insight more clearly, it's becoming embarrassingly clear that I don't spend anything like as much time in EQ as I have assumed up till now. I've been confusing EQ with A&P ( not often as its gone so fast,) mind and body (sometimes) but mainly big bits of the DN. The problem is that the DN is not that dark anymore, often just mildly unpleasant and I often get some spaciousness there as well. Also being concentrated and tranquil is nice even if the sensations I'm experiencing aren't. So I tend to think 'Oh, EQ is a bit rough around the edges today,' that's because its not EQ, bummer.
"

I have been re-discovering the same in my own practice as of late.

Its tricky because Equanimity is also a power of mind (indriya), a quality, which also arises in the A&P stage, and is also cultivated while in the DN.. so once I am feeling 'Equanimous' one could think well thats the Equanimity Nyana..
I first discovered it while Skyping with Kenneth and describing a sitting session which just occured, going "ok I sat down and after a bit I had spaciousness equanimity etc, so thats equanimity, and then fell back to DN somehow after a while"
and Kenneth just simply counted forward through the Nyanas and I could see that the beginning phase was A&P, just on que, and the most important lesson he taught me was "once you recognize A&P for A&P, and know DN is next, you're not surprised" (forewarned is forearmed) and even further than that, "you know that if you keep sitting, you will get to equanimity"
So basically its a motivation booster to sit through sometimes excruciating vibrations knowing one is not in a dead-end, but rather advancing right as one should.

"I've been confusing EQ with A&P ( not often as its gone so fast,) mind and body (sometimes) but mainly big bits of the DN"

Happens every day for me these days...

Thanks for the support guys, hmm not as smart as I though I was.

Today's notes

30th May
8am, 30mins
Deeply unpleasant.

12.30pm, 90 mins
This was pretty full on. It stuck me early on that I'm going to have to leave behind any ideas about noting the nyanas. Any concepts, techniques or structures just mess me up at the moment. Just another thing to obsess over. It seems odd that I'm trying to ignore the progress of insight after getting such a good look at it. Paradoxically I only got that close look because I was deliberately ignoring it.

So, I continued to cultivate bare awareness of the next moment. My mind settled after this and I was able to 'proceed.' Some fairly intense sensations arose and it helped to be able to note 'A&P maybe' but that was as far as it got. Not bad.

5pm, 1 hour
A rather difficult practice, lots of challenging sensations, I had to switch to out loud noting to keep up.

31st May
9am, 30mins
I'm back to out loud noting. I think I can trust myself not to get too 'keen' now.

1pm, 1 hour
It's funny, the less time I spend looking for nyanas the happier and more productive my practice appears to be. I had a very happy 40 mins hanging out with sensations, pleasant and unpleasant. Towards the end I gravitated towards something Kenneth showed me last week about noticing the sensations of effort that accompany seeing. I've touched into this a few times before but not this fully. It was a surprise to realise how much effort we expend in the act of seeing. The feeling was so intense I had trouble opening my eyes, it was so tiring. This accompanied by an intense sinking feeling in my upper chest. Fascinating.

10pm, 1 hour
More of the above, but without the tired eyes.

Howard, can you say more about the noticing of the sensation of effort that accompanies seeing? I've never heard anyone refer to this before.

Hi,
Actually I'm not sure what this was. To put it in context I was very interested in my visual field just prior to this. Its fair to say I was probably overtaxing my attention. Last week Kenneth drew my attention to the physical sensations associated with seeing, hearing ect. so I was primed to notice any over effort. When I did get to notice these there was a lot to work with, as it were, and it may just have been simple physical release. It felt like more than that but I had been sitting for about 40 mins before paying attention the this aspect so maybe I was seeing a bit deeper.

The sensations themselves were tightness followed by deep throbbing in the neck, back of the head and upper chest area. The sinking feeling was in my heart chakara and was like a lead weight. I have been back in since and have not been able to replicate anything close to this.

1st June
7.15am, 30mins
The usual.

2pm, 1 hour
The trend appears to be continuing. The more I studiously ignore any attention to to the progress of insight the more clearly I see the nyanas. The transitions are now very clear and not accompanied by any distraction or turbulence. It's more like the sun coming out on a cloudy day or a sudden gust of wind. Although is obvious what is happening I am avoiding thinking 'Ok that's EQ where is high EQ?' and then actively looking for it. I'm just noting the clarity and exploring that and trying to avoid any agenda. This would be especially problematic if I was, in fact, in A&P, after all.