Justin's Journal

I really love the spontaneously laughter that often accompanies a flash of insight. It is all so mundane, arbitrary, and ridiculous!

Sitting here trying to find bright awakeness amid some itching and dullness, watching the bubbles that make up an itch, my mind being drawn to a sound, and then back to the bubbles.

The thought: "Silly mind, assuming that the itch was present while I was hearing." Its just so funny how good the mind is at creating assumptions. All of these problems seem to be due to assumptions. Assume I am my emotions. Assume permanence. Assume I.

I am confident that my appreciation for the mind assuming and overlaying patterns on reality will continue to ripen. It seems a bit odd though - deconstructing assumptions seems to be what this is all about, but I don't see other people using this language.

Went from awakeness to just looking for unpleasantness and letting go of it. Again spontaneously started eye flickering, the not so strong - immediately noticed the unpleasantness of the eye pressure, but was locked in to the flicker for a while. Then released it and felt relieving energy flow up to the crown. Decided to cycle this again and was able to reproduce. Then just worked to let go of whatever more unpleasantness came up. I seemed to start quickly moving around very jhana-like states and at one point definately noticed some wonderful 3rd jhana body bliss. Shortly after that my attention went back to my head and the pressure there, but was able to touch on this extremely smooth experience where it felt like at the middle of my head, the top and bottom were being bisected by some plane and right in the middle there was just clear cleanliness. I cycle around this a couple of times, but it was unstable and I fell back to head pressure discomfort.

Wow. Quite the session today. Earlier I was noting a lot of depression in the body and tons and tons of irritability. I resolved to sit for 2 full hours and just note.

Started out noting body sensations, then after a while noticing fast vibrations and just switching to "noted", "noted", "noted" really fast. When a body sensation or sound would come up, that would be noted, but started looking at the vibrations within that sound or body sensation, so back to fast "note" "note" "note".

The spontaneously the eye flickering started again and there was lots of noting and after a bit I think I started cycling some Jhanas. There wasn't much pleasantness, but many shifts were occurring every minute or so.

Eventually head pressure was dominant and I started noting something else that the sense of "I" was arising as well with the pressure. As I let go of associating the pressure with I another shift occurred and the breath became vary obvious. It was less suffering than the previous state - I need to look at the Jhana maps again to see which one the strong breath is, but this time it arose totally without manipulation. On a later cycle on this session the same thing popped up again.

Then I just started looking for self within the phenomenon and my body started to spontaneously shake and tremble. In between the shaking and trembling I was seeing that as an unsolid phenomenon against an unsolid body. Then instead of looking for self in the phenomenon I started noting again whenever a sense of "I" was arising, and this was actually quite fast, like multiple times per second there were things going on that felt "I"'ish and noted. Quickly the mind started to go to something really weird that was almost like a "scrambled egg brain". Nothing really made sense at all and there was a crazy mosaic dreamlike imagery...

I don't think I was able to note the scrambled egg imagery because it seemed like pure randomness was occurring with maybe some awareness of body trembling, then a blip of selfing noting - it was all completely disconnected random chaos.

This process occurred twice I think and then the damn phone rang and I had a thread of consciousness that knew I had to answer it because my wife was worried about me. So I answered quickly, told her I was fine and meditating, then went back to looking at selfing as it arose. At this point I had my eyes open in a very high equanimity and was catching some brief glimpses of discontinuity of awareness.

**** I am shaking while writing this...I am trying to see my self arise in real time while sitting here and its just causing my head to shake back and forth....its like my thinks that it is close to seeing a gap in existence. I can best describe the shaking like watching a train pass and briefly following each car and then your head zips back to see the next one pass. My brain is trying to do that with my whole existence. Its a very uncomfortable process so as I am typing this I just now settled back into the present rather than fight with it.

Okay, back to the sitting session. After fighting with "reality frames" for a bit and realizing that they are very uncomfortable I decided to just pay attention to the discomfort and let go of it. This started another cycling around various states. I again found myself in the head pressure. It occurred to me that the suffering there was assuming that the head pressure was happening to me. Let go of 'I' and found myself on the breath again. From here the suffering seemed to be that I there was a body. So I let go of the body and shifted to something else very hard to explain - thought or even awareness was just weird. From there the suffering seemed to be that of simply existing - I attempted to let go of existing...

but that didn't really work and I thought arose that I didn't expect that to work since willing myself out of existence seemed unlikely. Then it occurred to me that the problem wasn't "existing", the problem was "trying". So I simply let go of trying and found myself simply no longer meditating - I was back in nice clean 3rd gear. I thought "hmm.....no meditation". This was about 55 minutes into my intended 2 hour sit. I simply stood up in nice clean awakeness, walked over to my laptop, and started writing this.

"
I am confident that my appreciation for the mind assuming and overlaying patterns on reality will continue to ripen. It seems a bit odd though - deconstructing assumptions seems to be what this is all about, but I don't see other people using this language."

Hey Justin! Yeah, I think this is an important facet of the thing. In my experience it's almost like where there *were* unquestioned, deeply held assumptions (that "I" am the character in my stories, or "I" am a proprioceptive location "in" the body, or so on) increasingly these same phenomena, as they are brought to light, don't necessarily stop arising per se as much as they become seen as guesses rather than assumed knowledge, and hence become more translucent and flexible. If that makes any sense!

There seems to be a sense of softening in my awakeness lately - perhaps less effort and perhaps more appreciation that I am no more or less special than everything else that the universe is manifesting in this moment. I can understand feeling love or compassion for a rock as it is just as much of an expression of the purity of the universe in this moment.

When I say "I", it is definitely meant in the traditional fashion. I'm seeing through it more and more, but I'm not really concerned since, in the present moment, "I" doesn't seem to be much of a problem.

I also have a sense of seeing through concepts more and through marinating in the present have gained a slightly better sense of the background of Awareness, or perhaps rather, what is not Awareness.

Over all there is less of a concern for figuring things out and more of an idea of seeing through all concepts as not being Truth.

But then again, I am reading Nisargadatta now, so this could just be a halo effect around the influence of that reading.

I've been reliably crossing some territory in my noting sits where I get a lot of involuntary body shaking and swaying. I am guessing that this is my manifestation of crossing A&P?

I have also noticed that I can cause this shaking to arise by being in open awareness, then trying to look backward in the time frames. My mind wants to see something prior to the present moment which somehow shifts my synchronization with phenomenon and immediately causes this involuntary shaking to occur.

Current perspective: I am seeing most of this practice for what it is, a hobby. The volume of teaching out there is written by master hobbyists for other hobbyists. Any concept is just a concept, no more or less important than anything else. Any mind state is just a mind state, no more or less important than anything else. Being awake is being awake. Being lost is being lost. This moment is all that I've ever had.

(Kenneth's talk on spiritual materialism is more profound than I originally realized)

Something in my awareness has shifted. Now I seem to be able to hold thoughts in that space, where as previously I would always get lost when thoughts arose and would have to remain in a thoughtless state. Neat.

"Something in my awareness has shifted. Now I seem to be able to hold thoughts in that space, where as previously I would always get lost when thoughts arose and would have to remain in a thoughtless state. Neat."

I like the sound of this, Justin. The phrase "independent of conditions" springs to mind.

I notice that often, when I am waking up from being lost, there will be kind of a heaviness/hangover feel and I will often spontaneously blink my eyes a couple of times and then open my eyes really wide in order to better see the visual brightness and clarity that I often associate with this mode.

From Antero's journal: "Discursive thinking that is still left has more to do with the situation at hand than creating fantasies."

As an update to my comment a couple of days ago, it seems that the type of narrative that I can hold is that which mostly relates to the here and now, typically without reference to a subject. Raw fantasy is still very easy to get lost in. My theory would be that the more "real" the narrative is, the more its possible to stay grounded in reality. The more fantastic or abstract, the more likely it is that I will get lost if the thoughts are let off their leash.

Nisargadatta quote that really caught me today: "Q: To forget, one must know. Did I know who I am, before I forgot it?
M: Of course. Self-forgetting is inherent in self-knowing. Consciousness and unconsciousness are two aspects of one life. They co-exist. To know the world you forget the self - to know the self you forget the world. What is world after all? A collection of memories. Cling to one thing that matters, hold on to 'I am' and let go all else. This is sadhana. In realisation there is nothing to hold on to and nothing to forget. Everything is known, nothing is remembered."

This really strikes me as to the pull between getting lost and being awake. Discursive thought and fantasies build up an image of increasingly greater complexity and pulls perception of reality further away from the Truth. (the more complex the story, the less likely it is to be true). On the opposite side, simply having a calm mind that is paying attention in the present moment cuts through the story and allows the fictional self to soften. Thoughts that aren't too far off of what is happening right now and don't work to build a story don't pull me out of awakeness as strongly as full on fantasies.

The use of terms such as "obscurations" are becoming clearer to me now.

"This really strikes me as to the pull between getting lost and being awake. Discursive thought and fantasies build up an image of increasingly greater complexity and pulls perception of reality further away from the Truth. (the more complex the story, the less likely it is to be true). On the opposite side, simply having a calm mind that is paying attention in the present moment cuts through the story and allows the fictional self to soften. Thoughts that aren't too far off of what is happening right now and don't work to build a story don't pull me out of awakeness as strongly as full on fantasies." -Justin

Wow. Nice. +1!

Not sick enough of Samsara lately to further cultivate awakeness. I had a couple of off days wandering around trying to distract myself and resisting being awake. At least I am recognizing this which should take away some of Samsara's fuel.

noted: "dharma thought". noted: "dharma thought". noted: "dharma thought"....

"Not sick enough of Samsara lately to further cultivate awakeness. I had a couple of off days wandering around trying to distract myself and resisting being awake. At least I am recognizing this which should take away some of Samsara's fuel."

The same thing is happening to me. I am not letting myself get too concerned about it.

Thanks JLaurelC.

Noticing a lot of heaviness while trying to recognize awareness while on a multi-hour drive today. It was very difficult to tease out the source of this heaviness but I would assume due to overstimulation and tiredness. The effect of this is that for whatever reason my awareness was very short-lived and I would constantly bounce from getting lost in narrative to noticing this, being awake, then going around and around in probably 10 second cycles like this.

Last Friday, I gave myself permission to be enlightened. I am writing this down for genuine written record but I worry that people reading this could significantly misconstrue what I mean by this.

Nothing has changed, I am still totally lost in narrative most of the time, but the gesture of giving myself permission to be enlightened allows me, during moments of awakeness to not try to manipulate anything about the experience. Its just another layer of freedom on top of an already perfect moment.

This gesture may be ill-advised and I may reconsider it if Kenneth advises against it, as I still definitely have an enormous amount of development to do.

(I also somewhat-jokingly reached down and touched the sidewalk for the universe to bare witness to that moment. I doubt this will be the last time that I make that gesture. If it is the only time, that would be bizarre indeed because there is really nothing at all special about the little progress I have made.)

(I already want to delete this entry. Please don't misread this. It is just an attitude or gesture of the mind, not an attainment or state.)

I think it's a great attitude to have! Totally.

Played around with attention behind the base of the spine today. The effect was quite similar to the no dog, but I also got a negative nausea feeling. Played with attention about one foot above and to the left of my head and this definitely corresponds with smiling joy. Seems great for passing good feelings to those around.

I had almost three full hours of the 'holy spirit' or the 'serpent' or whatever religious concept one wants to apply to full body swaying and shaking originating at the spine and working its way up. Completely uncontrollable and highly amusing. Makes me very grateful for this sangha as if this would have happened to me without knowing what was going on I would have really freaked out. Went and trained hard jiu jitsu and it has gone away for now.

While walking today worked to tune into the sense of being alive in this moment. It was a subtly different flavor than normal awakeness. A couple of times I felt some sort of mind shift, but it was light and just playing around the edges of something.

My initial impression is that, just like other attentional shape bubbles, this one too changes the quality of experience. However, the sense of "being alive in this moment" is more compounded than simple attention on the chest, so this reminds me a bit of no-dog practice where the sense of 'I' is being tuned into.

I'll have to experiment with this some more.