beoman journal 2

Hello everyone,

I've recently renewed my interest in getting 4th path as defined here. though i generally know what to do (i.e. keep meditating), some peer review might be interesting and get me to look at stuff i don't look at enough. i'll try to avoid naming jhanas, nyanas, fruitions until someone else names it for me, then i will start referring to that group of phenomena by that label. instead of giving background info i'll just start posting notes.. feel free to ask specific questions if they would help with diagnosing/giving advice.

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May 26 evening: i didn't write this right after so i'll just post excerpts that i remember
* i started with the tai chi form. nothing too interesting happened in the first section (~3 minutes). however, as i started the second section, i felt a large rush of energy throughout the body. i started paying more attention to my postures and could really feel them click into place if i held them properly. like, the way i normally do it, i'm off-balance, the world seems to be shaking a bit and is generally unsteady. however i only noticed the shakiness by comparison with what happened when i did it correctly, which is that all the energy seemed to be calm, fully contained within my body; the visual field became stable; i could relax and let all my weight go on the supporting leg. i kept speeding up again and that would disperse the effect and get back to a more shaky feel.
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i drew parallels between the tai chi principles of CABR - Centering, Alignment, Balance, and Relaxation - and the 4 jhanas. centering like 1st jhana, where your focus is very narrow. alignment like 2nd jhana, where you're still concerned with small details but more of them. balance is like 3rd jhana where your entire body has to be stable and unmoving.. balance seems kind of a peripheral thing in a way, no? relaxation like 4th of course where everything is peachy. (just a random thought - not saying i got into the jhanas while doing this form).

the 1st section (~3 mins) seemed like a warm-up. the 2nd section (~6 mins) seemed like a ramping up of energy. the 3rd section (~9 mins) seemed like a calming down of that energy. when i did the finishing moves on the 3rd section, as my arms went down to my side, it's like something just clicked, and my whole body was filled with some energy, but a very calm, relaxing energy. with that state, i sat down and started investigating all sensations (no noting)...

* the general theme was trying to see why i treat some sensations as different/more important than others. the more important ones are concentrated in the center of my head, and they are very hard, solid-seeming, can-get-painful swirling sensations. when i think something interesting has just happened and i try to see what it is in a grasping way, they tend to harden
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* however i guess i was in an energy mood from the tai chi, so i began observing disturbances in my body and trying to let them go. this worked really well (it doesn't always). starting from sensations in the groin/lower abdomen area, i focused on them and the sensations disappeared, revealing other disturbances above them in the stomach. they too disappeared, then the chest became apparent. those too went and now the neck became apparent. that, too, dissolved, and now the focus of that process was brought to the already-disturbed head. here i really just let go somehow (which i can't always do) and it's like the releasing-process went through them and 'fixed' them in some way, though they didn't disappear. i think the process then moved to the crown, but i'm not sure. after that, there were sensations back in the chest area (not sure if i noticed anything going from the head to the chest). after that, it was like all the sensations in my body were coming from one spot. i felt my head and my feet simultaneously and they were all overlapping in the center of my awareness. it was really great and i wish i always felt that way! but alas soon after this there was some gap or shift, at which point the unity dispersed. normally it all falls apart after that, but this time i noticed the process was starting again from the groin/lower abdomen area.
continued...

* there were tons of shifts and gaps and other weird things, though i don't remember them in any order, so i'll write about them as they continue to happen. the energy-thing stood out though as it doesn't happen so often.
* after some gaps i try to really pay attention to what is happening, as my whole mental state is out of whack in some interesting way. it's like all of me disappeared and hasn't quite come back, yet. i try to focus, and i get the feeling of focusing somewhere in the background, but the usual thought-commentary about what is happening cannot begin functioning yet, though when it finally does kick in a few moments later it's like it was always there, just unable to express itself. then pretty soon it's back to normal, wondering what i'm still missing.
* i'm slowly realizing the pressure in my head is just a process that i am doing. i'm learning to correlate it happening with certain intentions i make right before, so that i know when it happens and how not to do it. during the sit, i was almost able to stop doing it for a bit. it's like it wasn't quite as centered and constrained on itself, though it was still happening. there was an element of 'being ok with stopping it' which was weird.. seems like i think it is important to keep going, though i also want it to stop more than anything!
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anyway, my next reports should be clearer, though i also worry that i'll start paying attention in a way to write reports better and not to meditate better - any thoughts on that?

while walking to work today i decided to try noting my footsteps, keeping my attention on the soles of my feet and my body in general and away from my head. i think i am really ungrounded and grounding techniques might help. seems like itd be easier to investigate sensations in my head if i'm not constantly pissed off by their intensity and unpleasantness!

the results were good. it does seem to have a calming effect, though i can never seem to continuously do this for some reason - my default is to just look at what is most prominent, i.e. the head sensations.

i seemed to have been carrying some resentment around, manifesting as unpleasant physical stuff in the chest/neck area. feeling the soles of the feet and the body was good, and enjoying the environment, but then i'd be reminded of the resentment and thinking about that would cause a wave of unpleasant feeling + hardening of the head sensations.

~15 min sit just now. decided to try noting touch-sensations, sound, and visuals. there are tons of touch sensations all over - my mind kind of roves over my body and there are plenty of sensations everywhere i look. within a few seconds i felt a spaciousness open up, like from the chest down to the feet the whole body was in a slightly expanded space - it felt very calming. at some point later the visual field seemed to stretch out and become closer+more intimate with a whitish light occupying most of the field in the center. before (or after?) that there was lots of flickering, sometimes white flickering most of the field, sometimes blue flickering different parts of the field at seemingly different rates that's hard to get a grasp of.

at some point my mind wandered off and when i came back, the sensations in the had had taken on a different flavor. it's like instead of being sharp and acute and pointed they were dulled and broad and didn't hurt so much. it was much easier to see these as just sensations, nothing to worry about, than when they stung more. i also could observe a subtle painful tendency emanating from somewhere in the middle of my body to try to grasp onto them, a constant like thrashing against something. i tried investigating that and the painful quality of the sensations crept back in - no more bluntness/gentleness, which was unfortunate.

Welcome Beoman.

- i suppose i should mention - since the latest shift in my practice, i have access to this nice state. it varies in intensity, with the intense state being markedly different from normal, but it's a subtle shift from one to the other. basically it's like my awareness expands in some way, making everything around me more three-dimensional. i seem to recede from my body and my hands in a way with the result of my body's boundaries being more clearly delineated. sometimes the visual field begins pulsating slightly, but in any case it's much clearer and more pleasant, with the clarity varying a bunch. it's really nice and quite relaxing and i wonder why i don't try to stay in it at all times, though when i try sometimes the sensations in my head act up and grow hard and im overcome with suffering-feelings and resentment and i can kind of keep them at bay but it prevents me from going further.
- i seem to easily tune into the 'in the hearing, just the heard' aspect, more so with sound and touch than vision. but like hearing a noise, it's obvious it's over there, arising and passing, whereas before the shift in my practice there wasn't such a sharp knowing of it being 'over there'. this actually is an aspect i can tune into separately from the state mentioned above but i suspect they are related.

any tips on what it is - well a name doesn't matter, so - on what it might be and how to use it to my advantage would be helpful.

'desire to know' seems to cause the tensing up and hardness. 'desire to know' means when i dont know or feel i should know, i get pain cause the desire is being denied. 'intention to know' means when i dont know or feel i dont know, that's a great opportunity to learn more. i got to do more of the latter and less of the former. i seem to have a natural curiosity about various sundry things.. time to apply that to the painful sensations i'm experiencing as well!

easier said than done - but why can't i do it all the time? this is why i want 4th path, so a particular random set of selfless impermanent sensations doesn't block my investigations.

"Welcome Beoman. "

thanks! good luck with your practice, grats on the stream entry

~20 min sit. same expanding thing happened as before. then really annoying sensations in the head area that were getting intense and leading to me wanting to stop, so i switched focus to the legs, but that didn't help much. my mind wandered into drumming-related thoughts and when it came back, everything was much calmer. now the sensations in the head took the form of a really hard solid ball vibrating back and forth in there. really wanted to dissolve it/get rid of it.. things became less OK after that, with more annoyance and stuff. particularly thoughts kept coming up about writing down what had happened, and that was annoying me because i wanted to focus on what was happening ... then i realize that is also just a thought and why should such a thought be more annoying than any other thought? in particular, practice-related thoughts seem more important/cause more suffering than, for example, contemplating the benefits of cheese on a sandwich.

Hi, beoman!
I suppose the same Beoman as on DhO?
Read some of your work!

" in particular, practice-related thoughts seem more important/cause more suffering than, for example, contemplating the benefits of cheese on a sandwich."

Right. I sometimes try to disembed from these thoughts quickly by labeling them "dharma thoughts." But it's really funny to me how these happen to be the stickiest thoughts of all. LOL!

"Hi, beoman!
I suppose the same Beoman as on DhO?
Read some of your work!
"

the one + only!

"Right. I sometimes try to disembed from these thoughts quickly by labeling them "dharma thoughts." But it's really funny to me how these happen to be the stickiest thoughts of all. LOL!"

aye a large part of my daily suffering seems to be from the fact that i'm suffering because i'm not not-suffering. brilliant to just categorize the thoughts though! i'll have to try that

nother ~20 min sit. here i realized that really what i want more than anything is to be at peace from what seems like a really oppressive foe, the painful sensations in my head, though on some rational (not deep-intuitive-second-nature) level i know it's not a foe at all but just 'me'. i think 4th path will go a long way towards making it easier to deal with and will help with other things, but really im going for that issue to be resolved, an issue which started around stream entry.

with that approach i had an interesting sit where i took a really really really delicate approach to investigating the sensations in the head. they stopped tightening so much, and, holding them in place, its like my awareness was prodding at it ever-so-slightly from various directions. i had to really focus, not in a bearing-down constraining way, but in an alert relaxed way, to not have everything start tightening again. it kind of felt like i was digging from the inside of my skull out. maybe if i just do that for a while something interesting will happen.

decided to start noting again. great results! just noting stuff seems to make it easier to see what nyana/jhana i was just in / am in, as i'll make notes not knowing what it is, and then due to pattern recognition i'll simply know 'oh that sounds like X'.

sit started neutrally. space expanded soon. then came a wealth of pleasant-feelings and happy-feelings and such. sometime after i heard a clear high-pitched ringing note in my left ear which quickly subsided to reveal much softer and harder-to-tell noise in the background. there were some pretty vile parts in there noting disgust and desire to stop this, fast vibrations, etc.. at some point an ok-ness prevailed. here's where it got quite interesting. the noting seemed to be happening on its own. the investigation seemed to be happening on its own. it was hard to keep track of stuff and coming up with notes was difficult. still unpleasant head sensations but not very much so, though it dipped into unpleasant stuff around there. what was great is that dharma-thoughts kept coming up like 'am i close?' and 'dont wanna mess it up' and 'gah wish this was done already' and 'what am i missing/what should i be doing', but the consistent noting meant that they didn't derail me for long.

"at some point an ok-ness prevailed. here's where it got quite interesting. the noting seemed to be happening on its own. the investigation seemed to be happening on its own. it was hard to keep track of stuff and coming up with notes was difficult. still unpleasant head sensations but not very much so, though it dipped into unpleasant stuff around there. what was great is that dharma-thoughts kept coming up like 'am i close?' and 'dont wanna mess it up' and 'gah wish this was done already' and 'what am i missing/what should i be doing', but the consistent noting meant that they didn't derail me for long."

Sounds like a fairly typical cycle through the ñanas, you're definitely hitting Equanimity at the end so just pay attention to what's happening and what's still experiencing these thoughts. If you're present in the moment as sensation arises and passes then all you're doing is being there, the noting just happens so look at what's doing the noting and turn the attention back on itself. As long as you're staying present it'll all unravel naturally.

Good luck mate and it's good to see you on here!

i asked on 'thetaobums' what to do about painful blockages in the head, and they recommended bruce franzis's book which teaches how to dissolve blockages downwards. i remembered i had it, so i read it (way too fast) and tried it a bit after doing the tai chi form.

had pretty nice results! first i just did scanning downwards, which is just starting at the head and going down bit by bit noticing all blockages and what not. i noticed there were large gaps in the perception of my body as i went down which would be filled in as i gently scanned around the area. i think i got a good indication of where the 'seat of naivete' that actualists talk about is. what was really great is that when i finished scanning down to my feet, it's like something 'clicked', and i felt like my whole body was connected from head to toe with a constant downward motion. what was neat is i have this weird thing with my left foot where i can focus on it and cause a lot of pressure (of a different kind) to build up, where if i keep forcing it it gets painful and uncomfortable and tense. however when my body was connected, it's like i could do that (and was doing that) but it was all flowing smoothly instead of being blocked.

i then tried sinking the chi, which is starting at the top and letting whatever is blocked fall down to the next spot. couldn't really get the head stuff to go down, though i did come across a huge huge block in the solar plexus area, it was like a pulsating ball of energy. i didnt know what to do with it and the book warned about not overexerting yourself so i stopped.

i think it helped, though.. i might just focus on these dissolving-downward techniques for a while to get generally more relaxed. seems like it will be easier to have insights if i am calm.

"Sounds like a fairly typical cycle through the ñanas, you're definitely hitting Equanimity at the end so just pay attention to what's happening and what's still experiencing these thoughts. If you're present in the moment as sensation arises and passes then all you're doing is being there, the noting just happens so look at what's doing the noting and turn the attention back on itself. As long as you're staying present it'll all unravel naturally.

Good luck mate and it's good to see you on here!"

thanks for the tip! look at what's doing the noting.. and what's observing it..

i feel like i get into an infinite recursive cycle though. it's like every time i notice what is noticing, then what is noticing has shifted to what just noticed that. i guess i'll just notice that too..

"it's like every time i notice what is noticing, then what is noticing has shifted to what just noticed that. i guess i'll just notice that too.."

Bang on it, that's the ticket right there!

well there was an interesting shift last night. it didn't happen while sitting.. basically i did a ton of tai chi and trying to dissolve downwards and scan my body from head to toes to make a connection to just relaaaaax. then while doing nothing... well, while blazing up.. i got some shift. was just like a tiny gap while i was turning my head to the left.

what followed was incredibly jarring. basically like a wave of insight crashing into me, felt like a ton of my world that i used to take as constant was being unraveled, basically all stuff relating to getting 4th path. i would start chasing the 'me' around or whatever, and the process would be interrupted by a fruition (i noticed this before, that it seems that after a new cycle you get fruitions when you follow certain lines of thinking, generally related to the new stuff the cycle uncovered. it's like the brain hadn't fully absorbed it so it still crashes a bit when going over the stuff, heh).

then a thought process came up of like just fully allowing myself to self-aggrandize enlightenment, like 'o man im enlightened out the wazoo!', walking around, projecting no-self everywhere into the room, and it was really just kind of funny. importantly i noticed that i had a fear of becoming that before and that was preventing me from looking at some stuff.

the painful sensations in the head were still there, though. anyway then i sat down to relax but instead began digging into them by default, and made them worse a bit, but when i just opened my eyes the reaction was just 'oh that was stupid.. i really should just relax now.' still did it once or twice after that.. have to not smoke so much.. but after opening the eyes it was just a very matter of fact 'i shouldnt do that anymore, time to relax more', instead of a 'what am i missing!?!'

today was nice so far. upon waking i noticed that the painful process in my head was still happening. however, my relation to it seems quite different. now it's a plain matter of fact: "there is something painful happening there. i should do whatever i can to lessen that pain and cause it to stop since it's clearly bad for me." it really just felt like there was a huge hole in my head. whereas before, i was more concerened with what it 'really is', what is going on there, trying to see what's up with it, etc. i still want to know what's up with it but only so that i can get it to stop.

some things are pretty surreal. it's like there's a non-existent bed of neither something nor nothing to neither fall back nor not-fall-back on. what i mean is, like thoughts about whether i'm 4th path or not and whether there's stuff to do or not still come up. and they are still annoying. and then i notice that noticing and its like 'darn its happening still, that's bad', then i notice that, then i notice that noticing, etc. before, i would just stop there and be sad about it. now, it's just like.. i move onto something else? hard to describe. there's like certain moments where it's just like very peaceful and feels very dissociated from everything, not in the sense of me over here and the stuff over there, but i guess that the stuff isn't bothersome. but that too is a feeling.. so it's like there's nowhere to hide, but no need to hide either.

all that being said the process in my head is still annoying and hasn't gone away so i'll keep working on the relaxing.

Hi Claudiu,

I realized I forgot to say hello. You might remember me as AndyR from DHO -- we had a few short conversations regarding some questions I had about stream entry.

Good to see you out here. Enjoying reading your posts.

Andy

after that i got into jhana mode and seem to have gone from 1st jhana up thru 5th pl and into NS*. well i dont know if the pure land ones were the pure lands, i just mean that i experienced what seemed to be 5 distinct states, all of which were nice. upon entering the 5th i was thinking 'ah i guess NS* is next', then i immediately forgot about any of that, and came to after noticing that a cessation seemed to have occur, followed by some sweet sweet bliss. this is the best kind of bliss. it's like, imagine the bliss after a fruition. it's really nice, but you kind of experiencing it realizing there will be an end. there might be a little gap where it's buildilng up and hasn't hit you and you know it'll be big, but then it courses thru you and it's done. this was the kind of bliss where i felt it and was experiencing it, but it seemed like it wouldn't end - like there's an unsensed reservoir of bliss extending beyond the bliss's range and that it will feed the bliss for a while. still feeling it now if i tune into it. after that i went back down all the jhanas. going back down jhanas is pretty great actually - it seems like the best way to really become able to distinguish between all of them, as you see exactly which additional complicating factor comes back in as you go down.

(* i'm not sure whether this is the same NS as the NS gotten straight from 8th jhana. that one feels a lot more complete, in a sense, as the extra stuff after 8th just complicate the perceptual field. the pl-NS is definitely a cessation but less staggering in its simplicity. they do both seem to generate comparable magnitudes of bliss. i think technically, anyway, NS is defined as a cessation gone through the 1st-8th jhanas, then right into it (or maybe right after exiting 8th), so a cessation by another route would be something else perhaps)

anyway, painful head sensations still present and somewhat annoying.