Falling off the cliff (practice journal)

Hello! I'm new here. A little about me: my name's Cliff, I'm about to turn 33 in a month, and I've been doing Buddhist practice for almost a year and a half now. Before that I was interested in Western mysticism, chaos magick, and so on (I think these types of practices are known as siddhis in Buddhism). I came across Daniel Ingram's book online and it completely changed my ideas of what Buddhism even is, before then I thought it was only about surly old Japanese guys asking their students nonsense riddles and then hitting them on the head when they got the answer wrong. I had no idea that there were stages of development you could go through in meditation, I thought it was all about just spacing out or something like that and so I hadn't been interested in it before.

Anyways, my current practice involves 20 minutes every morning of out-loud noting of the four foundations of mindfulness. So far I've only been doing the first three, when I meet with my teacher (Vince Horn) tomorrow we'll be working on the fourth one. He's been having me take notes on my meditation sessions over the past three weeks, and I thought it'd be useful to post them here too. So here goes...

Tuesday, 5/31

Noting only the first foundation this week (body sensations). Tended to use notes "tension" and "pressure" much more than others. Wasn't distracted much by thoughts, but did get hypnogogic imagery about halfway through the session which got more and more persistent and distracted me from noting a few times. Feelings of lightheadedness towards end of session.

Wednesday, 6/1

Is "gravity" an ok note to use? About 1/3 the way through the session there was a huge lump of throbbing squeezing tense pain in my lower back that took a long time to go away. It was irritating to keep noting aspects of this pain and at one point I stopped and just rested in awareness for a few moments before continuning.

Thursday, 6/2

Started off with intense throbbing pain in lower back again, but this was less noticeable after a few minutes. Had more "holistic" impressions this time, such as the entire position of my body or hands; hard to break down into individual sensations. Used note "mudra-ing" for noticing position of hands, which happened several times; also used "sitting" a lot. Generally felt more relaxed and less irritating than yesterday's session.

Friday, 6/3

Noticed several times after noting a sensation, I would immediately see another sensation to note. At first I suppressed this, thinking I had to note at the same rate all the time, but then I decided to let it happen. I found that my noting speeded up and slowed down several times during the session. Also there were some times when the noting seemed to happen by itself without putting conscious effort into it. Still had a great deal of tension and back pain, but it was bearable.

Monday, 6/6

Started noting both sensations and feeling-tone today. Session unfolded in a manner similar to 6/1 in that it was mostly irritating throughout and the lump of back pain didn't show up until I was about 1/4th of the way through the session. Also seemed to last longer than usual and was relieved when the bell rang. Maybe I lost some momentum by skipping yesterday?

Saturday, 6/4

Started off with the ball of back pain again, but this time it wasn't as bothersome and occasionally even felt somewhat pleasant. Most of my notes this session where of warmth, heat, and burning. Muscle tension still there but not as noticeable.

Tuesday 6/7

Had this annoying itching which kept showing up in various places (mainly ear canal, sometimes soles of feet, shoulders) throughout the session. Lower back lump was present from the start, but not as irritating as yesterday. About halfway through the session I felt these faint waves of warmth combined with vibration flowing up my chest, and my entire body felt a little lighter than usual. It was similar to what I feel during shamatha practice when it shifts to being self-reinforcing without conscious effort on my part.

Wednesday 6/8

Went similar to yesterday's session. This time the warmth waves went down from the top of my head into my torso, and it was still associated with a slight feeling of lightness throughout the body. The itching was a little more bothersome this time, at times it was more unpleasant than the lump of back pain. Generally I was bored and irritated throughout the session, except for halfway through when the warmth wave happened, and right at the end I felt some diffuse warmth and lightness again and every sensation seemed pleasant (even the lower back pain).

Thursday 6/9

This session was a lot more pleasant than the last three. The back pain wasn't as bothersome, and I even noted pleasant itching a few times. I wasn't bored except until the very end of the sit. There were several pleasurable waves of vibration/lightness emanating from my heart and spreading out through my chest and up into my neck; they didn't have heat associated with them this time (maybe because I had the A/C on).

Friday 6/10

For most of the session I was focused on the sensations in my hands and not much else seemed to catch my interest. I had trouble finding a good posture at the beginning of the sit, I kept readjusting a few times. About a third of the way through the session my noting started to slow down, and I went for several moments without wanting to note anything. Then I seemed to fall into a trance, and my noting voice became very slow and deliberate for the rest of the sit.

Saturday 6/11

I fell into a trance again fairly quickly this time and spent most of the session in it. Felt relaxed and unconcerned and a little bored throughout, but not irritated. The lump of back pain was still there but in the background, and I didn't note it much. In between notes my mind was very quiet, there were some thoughts but it was like they were in the background with the volume turned down; occasionally they turned into more hypnogogic-like voices (that is, they weren't my own thoughts anymore). I was very aware of the sound of the A/C at one point, noticing the phasing in and out of the sound waves. Near the end of the session there was this mild but noticeable itch which started at the top of my right cheek and slowly moved down to my chin, it kind of felt like an electric shock.

Sunday 6/12

Started noting mental states today in addition to body sensations and feeling-tone. Noticed a few cycles of contracting and expanding along with body sensations, then I locked in to a deep state of stillness with feelings of excitement and joy. The excitement and joy went away after a while, leaving happiness and contentment. The excitement came back briefly towards the end of the session. Body sensations weren't as interesting or notable today, except for the annoying ear itching I keep getting.

Monday 6/13

This time I locked in to the stillness only a couple of minutes into the session, and stayed there for the rest of the sit. The first half of the session I was mainly feeling excitement and joy with an undercurrent of contentment, while for the second half the excitement went away for the most part and the contentment became more noticeable. I also noted some annoyance in response to various body aches (I went hiking yesterday so my muscles are pretty sore this morning), and if I gave that annoyance space to expand it would quickly turn into frustration and anger, and then flip over into excitement. Just about every bodily sensation I noted as pleasurable, even the soreness in my muscles and the ear itching. I had a little trouble noting a few times, since I just wanted to experience the stillness trance without disturbing it, but I broke the trance each time by noting "stillness" or "peacefulness".

Tuesday 6/14 - start of Dark Night?

It took me a little while to find the stillness, and I was only able to stay in it a few times early on in the session. So I noted frustration when I dropped out of the state or couldn't find it. The rest of the time was spent feeling either bored or sleepy, especially at the end. Sometimes the boredom turned into frustration and then anger, or anxiety and then fear. I had a few moments again where I didn't know what to note; when I noticed this, I noted "stillness". The physical sensations were mainly unpleasant aching and itching. I got the same itch on my right cheek that I experienced on 6/11.

This evening I also did a short 10 minute sit. Spent the first couple of minutes counting breaths (did 5 cycles of 10 each), then did some noting, then finished with more breath counting when I got tired of the noting. Mostly I noted physical sensations, mainly the headache I've had all day long, and other aches and muscle tightness in my legs and shoulders. The only mental states I noted where tiredness and annoyance, and some frustration developing from the annoyance. No ear itching this time.

Wednesday 6/15

The first half of the sit I went through several cycles of expanding and contracting mental states. It was like riding a roller-coaster (in a good way!). There was one cycle where I contracted into a very intense fear which was associated with body feelings of tension and twisting, like I had a bunch of rubber bands inside all taught and twisted and knotted around each other. It felt really good to relax after that and let all of that tension release. After the roller-coaster ride, I settled into the state of stillness that I'd seen in the last few sits. However this time I was observing it instead of being absorbed in it, and I had no problems noting at a steady pace while in this state.

Thursday 6/16

Today I felt like speeding up my noting, so I dropped noting feeling-tone after every body sensation or mental state except for when it was particularly salient. I experienced some stillness at first, then I went through another bout of intense fear, then I went back to the stillness for a while. The last third of the session I spent in this weird state where I felt contracted around my upper chest around my heart, with many sensations of tightness and tension and vibration. It almost felt like I was experiencing the body sensations associated with anxiety, like my heart was beating fast and I couldn't breathe, but without actually being anxious.

And now today (a really difficult, but interesting, session):

Before the meditation I had a lot of trouble sleeping, and had a very disturbing dream which I woke up out of feeling terror and disgust. Started off the meditation this morning feeling afraid and miserable and ashamed because I was unsure if I should even keep doing this anymore. My muscles were taut and aching all over, I had a sore throat, and there was an intense piercing headache that kept popping up, along with some pain in my chest, and general feelings of heaviness and exhaustion. I felt like I had the flu, actually. I had brief moments of stillness interspersed with all of this bad stuff. About halfway through I got up off my cushion and reclined on my couch instead, this was a little more comfortable. I then felt some heartburn which seemed to be connected with a deep feeling of sadness and grief. I let this develop, then it left and I felt relieved.

Then I sensed there was some kind of solid black barrier right in front of my face. I didn't know what to do with it or how to get around it, so I just noted it until it faded away. Then I became aware of the random clouds of color that I usually see when I have my eyes close, and they started to stretch, first vertically, then horizontally, then repeating between the two several times with a reduced amplitude each time, as if they were embedded in a rubber sheet that was being stretched before my eyes. I recognized seeing this before many times in my shamatha practice, but this time it seemed "stretchier" than usual. After this my eyes crossed themselves involuntarily, and wanted to stay that way no matter how much I tried to relax them. The last few minutes I felt some mild happiness, even with all of the body aches still happening.

Welcome Cliff,

Nice descriptions and awsome progress!

Antero

Thanks Antero! I think I've been through a lot of this territory before on my own, but using the noting practice really seems to accelerate my progress.

This morning I woke up in a much better mood than yesterday. I dropped into the stillness pretty quickly a few moments into the meditation. I noted a few cycles of expanding and contracting mental states, but they passed by pretty quickly and I was left with the stillness again. I tried to investigate what stillness is like, and it seemed like a heavy fog or very humid air interpenetrating both the outside world and my inner mental space. The physical boundaries of my body became fuzzy, though I was still noting many physical sensations (mainly warmth, pressure, vibration, some aching). In the last moments of the sit I felt something was right in front of my face again, but this time it wasn't quite as foreboding as yesterday, while at the same time my eyes crossed themselves again. The thing in front of me seemed like a solid bubble of space, so I noted it as "solidity" a few times, but I couldn't find any other qualities that it had. Again I didn't really know what it is, or what to do with it.

Welcome and well done!

Thanks RevElev!

Today I started noting thoughts in addition to the other three foundations of mindfulness. I started off noting the aching and sore throat I've been experiencing for the past couple of days (I must have caught a cold or something at the same time I entered the Dark Night....great). This triggered remembering thoughts of other times I've been sick, and anger at my body for not being more healthy. The anger turned into a deep sadness along with a feeling of soreness or tenderness in the center of my chest. After letting this develop for a few moments, I noticed that the tenderness was similar to the spaciousness I've been investigating in the last few sessions, but with an added emotional component to it. Noticing this triggered a wave of euphoria and a deep sense of connection with the rest of the world. This slowly faded away and I was left with just the spaciousness. My attention returned to my body and I noted feelings of tension and energy, with most of the painful sensations from the start of the sit having gone away.

Towards the end of the sit, my hands felt like they had merged together to form a solid ball of energy, which felt similar to the weird solid barrier that I experienced in the last two sessions. I noted this as "solidity" and "kinesthetic thought" at first (along with "curiosity" and "questioning thought"), and then as I kept paying attention to it, I noticed that it was spinning and vibrating all around its surface, and then finally dissolved away leaving the sensations of my hands again.

For the first half of today's sit I mainly noticed a complex vibration/throbbing arising in the center of my chest spreading outwards and going down into my belly. At first I thought it was my heartbeat, but it seemed to be going too fast to be that, and it had a rhythm that was too complicated to be a heartbeat (unless I've got arrhythmia, heh). It was pleasurable at first, then after a while it became boring and annoying. It seemed to be going by too fast for me to note any characteristics of it other than "vibration". Eventually I was so annoyed with it that I massaged my chest a bit to make it go away. The second half of the sit I spent feeling bored and sleepy, and a bit frustrated because of that. I didn't actually fall asleep, I just felt heaviness in my body and slowness in my noting, and occasionally I'd see hyponogic images flash in my mental space. I had some doubt arise as well, because I thought I'd already been through this territory before, so maybe I've regressed somehow? Feelings of confusion and disappointment, and some resignation, at the end.

Today's sit went similarly to yesterday's. The complex pulsating sensation showed up immediately when I started and lasted through the first half of the sit, then gradually faded away on its own. I spent the rest of the sit in a peaceful and somewhat sleepy space, with occasional dreamlike images popping up. This time I wasn't as annoyed as I was yesterday, instead I noted mental states like curiosity, patience, and anticipation. A few times I had the feeling that something important was about to happen, but nothing did.