Howard's Practice Notes

2nd June
Two sits of 30 mins both awful, lots of physical pain ect.

One sit of one hour, just noting thoughts, counting thoughts actually, rock solid, felt very liberating.

3rd June
9.30am, 30mins
Noting thoughts again. This session was much improved on my normal early morning sit. The unpleasantness was the same but being more present allows less suffering.

1pm, 1 hour
As above. I really like this practice. I feel as if it gives me the most direct route I have yet encountered to mindfulness. If you are not thinking then you are almost by definition, mindful. The problems start if you start to get in to debates about out what is a thought and what is not. I get around this by noting every damn little thing as a thought. I think of thought as pre-recorded sense data, so the thinking of words is just recorded hearing. Visualisation is just recorded seeing. Dream states are both of these with recorded touch added and maybe smell. Every damn little thing, works for me.

6pm, 1 hour
The same again. I felt much more tranquil this time. I felt the sensations of the various nyanas come and go without actually stringing a narrative around it. I was a bit distracted in the second half but overall pretty solid.

11pm, 30mins
As above

4th June
9am, 11am, 10pm each of 30 mins
More of the same, observing thoughts. It strikes me that I have got 'better' at this when compared to a month or so ago. Still get distracted though, slippery little bleeders

5th June
8.15am, 30 mins
I saw the transition to first nyana very clearly this morning. Normally this is obscured by some distraction or other. It has always mystified me as to why this is so. Now it is clear that before 1st thoughts are muddy and indistinct, after clear and sharp. The mind, upon entering 1st nyana, immediately goes towards the bright shiny thing i.e. my thoughts, thus obscuring the transition.

9.30pm, 75 mins
Sometimes, after a long day at work, meditation just needs to happen. The quality is less important than that a decent stab at mindfulness is made. Today was one of those days.

6th June
9am, 30mins
I did about 15 mins noting thoughts but I had some persistent visual and aural distractions, so I switched to noting seeing and hearing. Interesting to see how the real world crowds out memory. For long periods I had the remembered imagery superimposed on actual sense data. Ditto hearing

3pm, 1 hour
I was fairly dreamy and sleepy this time. I had no inclination to note silently or out loud so I just did noticing. Not too bad considering, I found I was able to take the dreamy sensations as object a lot of the time. I had a fair amount of distraction but it could have been worse.

6pm, 1 hour
I started with simple noticing but rapidly grew tired of the volume of distraction so I returned to noting our loud.

10pm, 1 hour
This session had a melancholy feeling too it. Perhaps I am coming to realise how little control I have over what my mind does'¦again.

7th June
7.45am, 30mins
Noting mind states, most of them unpleasant, ho hum.

2.30pm, 45 mins
This session was easy and very clear. I found my self drifting into 'surrender' and I assume 'freefall.'

10pm, 45 mins
I was very drowsy, any attempt to do anything interesting just put me to sleep. So I just looked at my hands and noticed the changing patterns of perception inherent in that activity.

8th June
9pm, 30mins
My mind was unusually supple for this time of the morning, so I decided to investigate the possibility of freefall. Unfortunately my mind did not want to go there so I stuck with garden variety noting.

11am, 45mins
Not too bad considering that I had a headache. It's never as bad once you start cycling up and down the nyanas. But it took about 15 mins to get into first, I almost gave up.

10pm, 45 min
Just hanging out with sensations, lovely.

9th June
9am, 45mins
I was noting thoughts; it felt like I was in equanimity the whole time. I know this cannot be the case but it sure felt like it.

12 midday, 1 hour
As above, but plenty of evidence of nyanas turning over. Nice.

3pm, 30mins
More of the same, drifting into freefall about half way though.

6pm, 45mins
As above, nothing fancy, I was a bit distracted but it felt very nice; which was probably why I was distracted.

i've gotten this feeling too - of being in equanimity, but noticing nyanas cycling as well. my theory is it might be getting into some samatha jhana which provides a nice calm base for the cycling

Yeah, maybe. Feels nice anyhow and a nice break from the usual chaos. I suppose some kind of equanimity is a good bet.

Your experience of nanas in a particular sit is colored by where you are currently in the larger developmental cycle.

Ah ha! Probably is equanimity then. Let see though, might be gone tomorrow.

But then again, today's notes...

10th June
9.30am, 30mins
Much the same as yesterday. Just simple noting, but a pervasive sense of peace and spaciousness surrounded all sensations. I had no sense of nyanas passing but I rarely do at this time of the morning.

11.45, 1 hour
I had lots of feelings of peace and tranquility and sensations of nyanas turning over. I was also fairly distracted so I decided to take a close look and note my thoughts. However after half an hour I was just too distracted so I went over to 'normal' out loud noting and regained some of my stability; at the expense of some of that lovely spaciousness. A fair trade I suppose.

10pm, 30mins
This time was it was very clear and sharp with lots of spaciousness. Nyana transitions were very faint. It all felt distressingly normal. I was pretty distracted though, lots of very sneaky thought processes sliding in under the radar. That means mid equanimity right? Re Ob to Mid equanimity in one mighty bound? That doesn't feel right.

11th June
9am, 30mins
Lots of space and peace. I was looking a bit more cleverly at my sneaky thought processes this time. Today they look on, closer inspection, to be periods of disorientation and confusion. I noticed a few nyanas, got a fairly clear look as dissolution but bizarrely was also alert and spacious at the same time.

12.45, 1 hour
The first half hour was wall to wall peace, space and tranquility. As the half hour approached a strong sense of drowsiness arose that was objectified fairly easily. There then followed a series of strong distractions that turned out to be an unresolved personal issue. This has not happened for a long time so was difficult to spot. The rest of the sit was an alternating of tranquility with more messy sensations.

4pm, 1 hour
The main theme of this session was of bliss, serenity, spaciousness and peacefulness. These sensations only increased as the session progressed, at one point it felt as if there were not enough sensations to note and I had to work quite hard to stay in touch and not drift off completely. I had no sense of nyanas passing and very few unpleasant sensations at all.

10.30pm, 30 mins
Spaciousness and tranquility were by far the strongest sensations during this sit.

12th June
10am, 30mins
I had lots of unpleasant sensations this morning, none of which seemed to matter because of the pervasive sense of tranquility and spaciousness that was present.

1pm, 90 mins
The sensations of spaciousness and tranquility were not so overwhelming in this session. They have become, instead, the backdrop to everything else. All sensations were played out against a much larger sensory field that was soft and transparent. When DN sensations did arrive they would be like minor storms that could be seen in context.

6pm, 1 hour
Spaciousness + Tranquility + Sympathetic Joy for the guy upstairs playing bangin' dance choons real loud.

13th June
7.30am, 30mins
The spaciousness was fairly solid. Tranquility came and went alternating with lots of anxiety. My perceptual clarity was also very variable, I assume nyana related; ditto the anxiety.

4pm, 1 hour
Lots of strong sensations this time. I had the usual spaciousness and tranquilly but very 'strong,' also strong distractions and nyannic stuff as well. Quite a heady brew. The intensity ramped up when I became tired of the distractions and started to look at them firmly, this appeared to release more intensity.

9pm, 45 mins
I am now heartily sick of the way my mind wanders in this new spacious state, so I decided to put my thought processes at the center of my practice and let the spaciousness sort itself our. The effect was to stabilize those very sensations. I did this for the whole session, dipping into the more ephemeral stuff when the practice started to feel dull and lifeless.

14th June
8.30am, 30mins
The usual, but better. Some spaciousness but tranquility did not show up till the end.

11am, 1 hour
Spaciousness and tranquility as standard this time, everything playing out on this background. Not so distracted either. Towards the end it all got very intense but also refined.

2.30pm, 30mins
Spacious but a bit messy.

12pm midnight, 40 mins
My attention was clear, sharp and silent. When I was not distracted that is.

15th June
9am, 30mins
I was getting into surrender when the fire alarm went off, bah!

12.15 pm, 1 hour
Oh the usual; spaciousness and tranquility coming and going. Some distraction; also coming and going.

9pm, 30 mins
I'm starting to take the whole field of awareness as object now. This is pretty much what was happening when I was noticing spaciousness and tranquility at the same time. However the thing is stabilising more now, so I don't have to go back to noting individual sensations so much.

16th June
8.30am, 30mins
I took the whole field of awareness as object from the get go and managed to stay with it for the whole 30. I was expecting to be dragged away by individual sensations periodically but I was able to stick with it, much to my surprise. Distractions were also muted.

12.30pm, 1 hour
I took the whole sensory field as object again. I managed to hold it for about 40 mins with some distractions but without much fragmentation. The last 20 were more difficult with strong DN sensations arising. Not wanting to over effort the thing I switched between noting individual sensations and 'wide angle.'

3.30pm, 30mins
Not so bad, a bit scrappy though.

6pm, 1 hour
Full-on sensations of fierce joy. I was very careful not to indulge or inflame these feelings, just observed them. Quite a ride, none the less.

8.15pm, 1 hour
I went to a 'Satyananda' yoga class. Mindful asana, a very different energy.

17th June
10am, 30mins
Very calm and relaxed. Nice.

5.30pm, 1 hour
I was observing thoughts this time. I noticed that when a prolonged period of silence occurred I would start to get drowsy and dreamy. This did not occur if I had a prolonged period of noting other sensations directly.

10pm, 30 mins
Watching thoughts again, I had everything from the most sublime golden silence to total chaos. Just the jhanic arc doing its thing I suppose.

17th June
10am, 30 mins
I started well but got rather distracted towards the end.

2pm, 1 hour
I started with a very relaxed kind of surrender which was easy and fluid. When distraction became too much I moved to the breath and noticed how it would change in character depending on the nyana so constricted, to loose, to snatched, to deep and relaxing. Also how at some points it occupied my whole attention to just being a small part of a more panoramic awareness. Then at some point I move to out-loud sequential noting.

5pm, 1 hour
I rapidly entered a very matter-of-fact silence which persisted throughout the sitting. I don't think I've been this focused for quite a while. It felt very normal, not special or exalted in any way, just silent. There were lots of difficult sensations arising but nothing to put me off my stride.

11.30pm, 30 mins
More of the same, very stable.

19th June
8.30am 30mins
Lots of unpleasant, chaotic, anxious sensations.

9pm, 30mins
Tired after a long day at work, half an hour seemed like plenty.

20th June
8.15am, 30mins & 2pm, 30mins
This was a very unpleasant half an hour, I was very anxious throughout. It was not until I was almost at work in my car that I noticed the cause. I have noticed over the years that the desire to breathe is often out of sync with the physiological impulse to breathe. This can create anxiety if you are not able to just accept and go with it. Today my desire was only to breathe out, which was in direct and constant conflict with the physiological impulse to breathe in. The result was the feeling of having a heavy weight on my chest and an extended pause at the end of the out breath of anything up to 8 seconds.

I revisited this awareness throughout the morning and it remained a consistent presence until about 11am after which it slowly dissipated, but left me exhausted. Later, when I came to sit again the anxiety was gone but the usual menagerie of DN sensations remained. Just at the end I burst out in to some very tranquil space with a suddenness that came as a real shock. Unfortunately I had to go back to work so was unable to explore this.

9.30pm, 30 mins
Back to that matter-of-fact silence again. Weird.

21st June
9.15am, 30 mins
More of that matter-of-fact silence. Also my visual field was vibrating and flashing to an unusual extent. I always get a bit of this but today it was quite pronounced. I was also drawn to the breath again and noticed that I only desired to exhale, this time I relaxed into it and spent a few minutes examining life at the bottom of the out breath. My breathing was very shallow and relaxed, but only at the bottom of the abdomen. This soon passed and my practice returned to 'normal.'

11.55am, 1 hour
Matter of fact silence; maybe I had better explain what I mean by this. When I am in this place, most (not yet all) sensations are inherently spacious and tranquil. The mind is relatively quiet, this is not always the case but thought processes are more visible and less likely to distract. Some sensations are still problematic; drowsiness is a particular culprit, although sometimes I can be drowsy and present at the same time, seeing it as just physical.

9pm, 30 mins
I had strong feelings of excitement and anticipation, my mind was very active as a result. It got very intense at the end.

22nd June
9am, 30 mins
My sensory field was rather limited today; it was rather like being stuck under a heavy blanket with only the vaguest notion of what was actually going on. My mind appeared to be entirely comfortable with this so I did not fight it.

11.15am, 1 hour
I had periods of matter-of-fact silence interspersed with periods of spacious bliss and periods where I had intense sensations around my hearth chackra that I cannot categorise. Large it up.

9.30pm, 30mins
Wednesday night is the end of my working week, so this particular sit is always delinquent. The sad thing was, that underneath my desires to watch crap TV and eat junk food was a rather sublime mind space. Shame I missed it.

"
Wednesday night is the end of my working week, so this particular sit is always delinquent. The sad thing was, that underneath my desires to watch crap TV and eat junk food was a rather sublime mind space. Shame I missed it.
"

Beautifully put. I can relate to the desires, but need time to develop the mind space. I suspect it's there; you've confirmed it.

All you can do is keep looking.