Justin's Journal

All day jiu jitsu seminar yesterday - very little awakeness during that time. I am noticing s strong correlation between experiential focus activities and lack of triggers to wake up. It currently seems like things have to be bad to be a trigger...which isn't so bad.

Did ping pong mahamudra noting today and after about 15 minutes started noticing a lack of a sense of agency and was very amused and curious if I would just get up and walk off. The lightness and playfulness that manifests in my mahamudra noting is a nice contrast to the "serious business" of most meditation.

With the combination of my last shift and Mahamudra noting, I have not had a bad day in probably two weeks. Energy levels still vary, but don't manifest as grumpiness, just perhaps silence. I notice some aversion to future planning. It just often doesn't seem natural at that moment. I only use the mahamudra noting a couple of times per day and it takes less than 30 seconds to deal with any upwelling anxiety or tension, effectively defusing it before it builds,

Spontaneous awakeness has (seemingly) further decreased, however still zero significant bad times. One thing I am noticing is that there is a selfish inertia or laziness present where I may not realize for some number of seconds that I could be doing something helpful for another person, but I am slightly resisting doing the action. It is not so much that I am intentionally being lazy, its just that I am not actively and habitually seeking to be helpful.

I've been trying to work more on increasing body awareness as my default head-centered awareness seems slightly incomplete or momentarily ignorant.

As a data point, I should note that I have not done sitting noting in many days and have not taken an extended walk in a couple of days, which is the time that I usually do not give myself permission to do anything other than be present.

For whatever reason, noticing cause/effect is now the leading edge of my practice. I am seeing how some of my carried over habits are selfish and cause pain for others and often a loss of awakeness will occur.

This interplay between getting the mind within a happy place in the Skinner Box then opens up the perspective to larger cause and effect - I can see why Kenneth talks about dynamic equilibrium so much, because this human organism and nervous system, if able to interpret the data clearly with right mindfulness, will automatically navigate its way to create as little pain as possible. Initially the pain is reduced for itself, then when it realizes that it is not self and fundamentally connected, it seeks to reduce pain for all. REALLY FREAKING WIERD. Its an odd thing being a reflexive ball of meat and neurons.