Keith' path journal

It's been interesting to see how my practice evolves and how my participation in the group has changed over the past year.
Went from a pretty strong two hour a day practice to days without any sitting recently. So i have a sense of what the two extremes feel like.
I was also pretty regular for a while on the forum and that too has slacked off to nothing.
However this only goes to show me that I truly am inflicted with what Daniel calls the insight disease because it now feels like I can't stop doing this even if I wanted to.
And knowing that there is a group of yogis out there ready to help and be helped is comforting and encouraging.

So with out further a do I'll sit for an hour and report back to you.

Noting out loud for an hour

May all beings be happy

sat with the intention of sitting 60 min. began with noting out loud. Did that for about 10 min then I slipped into eye strobing with out really trying to
interesting to see that happen. stayed with the strobing for what might have been 5 to 7 min maybe from the strobing I started to note sensations happening elsewhere in the body leg bubbling in one spot close to the surface of the skin about a 6 inch patch on the thigh right thigh characteristics like a smoldering
coal that sort of slow flickering. Various other sensations in the body noted them as pleasant unpleasant and a few surges of energy that seem to take up larger parts of the upper torso which I find hard to describe. OPened my eyes around 38 mins into the sit and tried noting out loud again.
Noted curiosity memories past scenario spinning until the end of the sit tried to slipped back into strobing for a while and the sit kinda fizzled out with an increase of wandering towards the end. Also had the high frequency ringing in the ears for most of the sit that I could note at will with nothing else showed up.

Hope to see some of you this evening.

Cheers

I'm relatively new here and did not meet you in your previous participation, but I'm happy to see you here now and look forward to following your journal. Metta, Laurel

"sat with the intention of sitting 60 min. began with noting out loud. Did that for about 10 min then I slipped into eye strobing with out really trying to
interesting to see that happen. stayed with the strobing for what might have been 5 to 7 min maybe from the strobing I started to note sensations happening elsewhere in the body leg bubbling in one spot close to the surface of the skin about a 6 inch patch on the thigh right thigh characteristics like a smoldering
coal that sort of slow flickering. Various other sensations in the body noted them as pleasant unpleasant and a few surges of energy that seem to take up larger parts of the upper torso which I find hard to describe. OPened my eyes around 38 mins into the sit and tried noting out loud again.
Noted curiosity memories past scenario spinning until the end of the sit tried to slipped back into strobing for a while and the sit kinda fizzled out with an increase of wandering towards the end. Also had the high frequency ringing in the ears for most of the sit that I could note at will with nothing else showed up.

Hope to see some of you this evening.

Cheers "

"began with noting out loud. Did that for about 10 min"

What did you note?

Are you noting all 4 foundations?

Thanks for asking. Yes I'm noting the 4 foundations.

1. Sensations = itchy and scratchy , hot and cold, tight and light etc.
2. Feeling tones = pleasant or neutral or unpleasant
3. Mind states = sleepy,sad, happy, curious impatient etc
4. Mind objects = thoughts, past / present / future

Question? If I sit for an hour and report back here to my journal I'd have a large number of words to write if I'm trying to note once a second.

What's a good balance when reporting back here I tend to mention a few memorable high lights usually senstaions that linger and act dramatic.

cheers

Keith, I suggest you review Nadav's notes for the optimal format.

It'll make it clearer if you can use a very bare bones, matter of fact approach.

will do thanks for the help.

sat 24 min this evening very sleepy.
read up on Nadav's reporting, took the suggestion of counting to 10 breaths 3 times to settle the mind.
Started noticing sensations bright pinching pin point sensations continued with the counting until all 30 were taken.
remembering thoughts, Nadav mentioned that he worked the foundations in order so I tried that but quickly was noting whatever was coming up.
Tickling in the ear, unpleasant aversion, bright pin points itching unpleasant aversion
Lower back bright pinching pin points, sleepyness, seeing, hearing, i noted dryness of my lips then moisture.
I noted aloud like this for maybe 5 - 1o min didn't look at the clock so hard to tell
noted drifting wandering mind snapped out of it and took another nadav suggestion of noting rising and falling of abdomen.
seemed to keep me in the game a bit more. I do feel I have less trouble finding sensations to note and more trouble with the sleepy mind wandering in to narrative. noted memory thought noted heat unpleasant aversion noted curiosity throbbing unpleasant in the head aversion.
high pitched frequency in ears was noted occasionally throughout the sit. Some eye scanning but not long. Noted dry lips as unpleasant and aversion
moist lips pleasant soothing clinging. Lots of bright pin point lower back area tension in the back upper right hand side.

That's all for now.

Cheers

This week the path lead me away from the Tuesday night meeting and towards the vanity of hair cuts, night clubs and schmoozing with celebrities.
It was fun but made it hard to meditate on Wednesday morning. Had some intentions of meditating during the day at work and tried to check in with the first foundation while walking.

Thursday Morning 60 min sit with timer. Counted breath 3 x 10 to get into it.
Noted out loud for 10 min. intentionally starting with 1st foundation only. This approach felt stabilizing.
Hearing, bright pinching, tension, pressure, pulsing, throbbing, bright pinching needle point, moisture, dryness, on lips. Cool air, warmth, hearing high frequency in ear, itching on face, twitching in foot, watched twitching appear then disappear, fell back to noting rising and falling as per Nadav's notes when I caught myself drifting. This also felt stabilizing and a great tip for keeping the wandering down. I intentionally looked at the timer when I felt like the out loud noting was slowing me down, 10 min had passed. At this point I opened it up to the 2nd foundation and did just this for a while few minutes pleasant , unpleasant neutral clasping of the hands neutral, subtle vibrations through out the body pleasant, then opened it up to the other foundations.
sensations, feeling tones, mind states curiosity, humor, mind objects planning thoughts memory thoughts image thoughts, out loud noting fell away eye strobing was intentionally started. Blissful sensations body felt kinda of like a formless blob definition of arms legs etc blending together feeling like a head with a mass attached. eyes closed noted wandering and working all four foundations buzzer rang no sense of impatience could've continued sitting for awhile.

Cheers

Excellent!

Great work Keith!

"Noted dry lips as unpleasant and aversion
moist lips pleasant soothing clinging.
"

I've been having the same problem (or better, phenomenon) of dryness in the lips, esp. with out-loud noting. It helps me to read other people's posts to put my own experiences in perspective.

Did about 20 min of metta on the train to work with Gil Fronsdal's metta talk on audiodharma.org. Had a moment of complete silence and space at one point.
Those are still kinda scary to me cool though.
gonna try for 60 min sit after work. I happen to have a sound proof isolation booth at my disposal. Go figure.

Cheers

"Thursday Morning 60 min sit with timer. Counted breath 3 x 10 to get into it.
Noted out loud for 10 min. intentionally starting with 1st foundation only. This approach felt stabilizing.
Hearing, bright pinching, tension, pressure, pulsing, throbbing, bright pinching needle point, moisture, dryness, on lips. Cool air, warmth, hearing high frequency in ear, itching on face, twitching in foot, watched twitching appear then disappear, fell back to noting rising and falling as per Nadav's notes when I caught myself drifting. This also felt stabilizing and a great tip for keeping the wandering down. I intentionally looked at the timer when I felt like the out loud noting was slowing me down, 10 min had passed. At this point I opened it up to the 2nd foundation and did just this for a while few minutes pleasant , unpleasant neutral clasping of the hands neutral, subtle vibrations through out the body pleasant, then opened it up to the other foundations.
sensations, feeling tones, mind states curiosity, humor, mind objects planning thoughts memory thoughts image thoughts, out loud noting fell away eye strobing was intentionally started. Blissful sensations body felt kinda of like a formless blob definition of arms legs etc blending together feeling like a head with a mass attached. eyes closed noted wandering and working all four foundations buzzer rang no sense of impatience could've continued sitting for awhile.

Cheers "

Yeah-fantastico! Great report!

30min timed sit at work eyes closed no noting. total free style lots of wondering did feel equanimous at times. was able to sit comfortable.
Noting wanting to sit is pressent. Also tried to keep the mind tied to a post at work today as well. The practice never ends right off the cushion on the cushion
on the cushion is still easier for me at this stage. grateful sleepy lazy all going down right now
cheers

Hello been away for a while. Travel and waking up with someone seems to be the latest obstacles in the practice. I know one can take it any where and do it anytime but it dropped off formal sitting not the faith or the desire to speak with others about meditation.

Sat 30 min this morning doing metta. Was very nice and I felt like I could've sat longer. Was in a great space very equanimous enjoyed the morning very much but started to stress out when my job came to mind and that my boss was not going to be too happy with me 3 hrs late. I did call and promised to stay late but it was very interesting watching my mind freak out and start looking for things to latch onto. Called a friend who laughed and assured me it was my pride and ego that simply did not want a boss over me. Super challenge currently is sitting at night after work.

cheers

Pathetic Fallacy -
One of my favorite pass times is letting my mind make connections, calms it some how. Maybe it's just a way to slowly understand things. Story is story says Goenka G. so walking through Brooklyn with a friend of mine we see a a sticker that says "Dolphins Rape People" a catchy tag line that did it's job of getting my attention failed however to make me want to go to the website it was advertising. My friend goes into the scientific facts of how a male dolphins penis actually resembles in shape and size the human male penis and that there are stories of human women having sexual encounters and actual love affairs with dolphins. Stay with me here'¦. He also starts telling me a story of a woman who fell in love with the Berlin wall and actually married it. Had a ceremony and everything she said she loved how straight and long it was etc. I was amused and intrigued but thought nothing more of it until'¦

I wake up from my afternoon nap and see on my mac book screen saver, which is set to display random words from the dictionary,
the word " pathetic fallacy " with the following definition :
the attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals, esp. in art and literature. So listening to Kenneth and recently getting a taste of the ruthless truth blog my mind made the following connection. If the mighty " I " of Keith is nothing but a pile of inanimate things earth, wind, water , heat, thoughts, mind states, sensations and phenomenon is my concern with self not a pathetic fallacy?

Read some of the no I blog posts then sat for meditation.
30 min sit - noted just a bit at first then sunk in to concentration.
This session was a bit off since I did not stick to the plan of noting aloud for as long as possible.
I was asking the question where is " I " , who am I and what part of the or this sensation is " I " .
very blissful state bit off drifting in though , tried to note the thoughts as they came up.
remembering, planning, intention, past thought future thought image though.
Body sensation were subtle pleasant tried some metta but dropped the may " I " be happy and replaced it with may there be happiness, may there be safety etc. felt all inclusive that way. eyes were shut the most part open in the beginning.
noted tension in the back and the aversion that went with it. I'll do a full hour sit tomorrow with and try and map what has been going on in a more concise way. I was speaking to Nadav yesterday and mentioned that I've been getting pretty routine experiences that are repeating themselves when I follow a routine of noting out loud etc. So I'm goin to take that suggestion just been on the ruthless cool aide for a bit. Sure taste good though : )

Sat 52 min. out loud noting, counted the out breath 30 times to calm the mind, also recorded the session to see just how long I could / would keep up the out loud noting. Plan was to do 3 gear practice starting in order. First gear - Sensation - Dryness, coolness, tension, itching, clasping, tingling, hearing just a few times, tension, release, pulsing, moisture, contact, tried to stick with just sensation not looking at feeling tones, mind states , thoughts or or mind objects. then moved to feeling tone, pleasant un pleasant neutral, tried to stay with each 1st gear object in order really concentrating before moving to the next one, adding the next object after feeling tone is the mind state was calm reflective, curiosity, investigation, content, impatient doubt, mostly calm, some gratitude, determined, then I started chasing thoughts calling them out at first just thought thought then slowly seeing ah past thought planning thought image thought thought, just kinda mac a mole style if you see something say something : ) manage to do that for almost 40 min at the end I was doing all the objects of first gear then tried to slip into second, a bit tricky for me started to fall into eye scanning having the thoughts of looking into sensations and trying to debunk me, pleasant sensation body become less defined calm blissful
then started being surrender third gear I stop talking out loud and was just awash in it. for maybe 6-7 minutes then slide out of that state and started noting mind objects again curious, mind states happy, sensations were still there but not coarse phone rang I picked it up.

Sat today 60 min eyes closed,
First gear
Objectify sensations = no room for I , sensations they just are.
Objectify feeling tones = no room for I , just feeling good, neutral or unpleasant
Objectify mind states = no room for I, just curiosity or impatience
Objectify mind objects = no room for I,
just an object a memory or a concept actually of a " me ".
I can't put any of this in a bottle and call it Keith or I could actually but it in a bottle and call it Keith.

I don't exist there is in all the things that make up the perceived reality nothing that is a me.

60 min went by very quickly - had moments of gentle pleasantness did a bit of eye scanning, maybe this is a hard Jhana did not need to change posture, did some full body sweeping watched the belly go up and down,

Second gear was kinda done already since I spent last night reading people having zero success at even finding a " me " so why ask the question who am I
just a mind frock really why would I even ask that question frocking riddle session.

Third gear surrender felt much easier since there was close to zero investment in what might by conceived as being lost. Really just sucks the wind out of it doesn't it!?

I'll keep experimenting with this.

60 min sit eyes closed - started with first gear, sensations but quickly started doing triplets tension , unpleasant, aversion , bright pinching un pleasant aversion , contact pressure unpleasant aversion, pleasant pleasant tingling, clasping neutral,
mind was very calm thoughts would arise and be noted, planning thought , curiosity , investigation, memory thought , would watch the stomach rise and fall to get back on track to focus the attention, got pretty equanimous pretty quick I'd say 10 min in, My Second gear alternate question is currently a statement " there is no I " or " who's asking " , which is working better for me than what I used to ask which was " who am I " , which really confounded me I mean i'm just not that good a riddles I guess. Seemed like a trick question, like a parlor trick, so for me. Any hoot very subtle sensations being tagged, thoughts with not alot of traction once they were named third eye area pulsing and tension, had a few moments of jaw dropping bliss which had a lot less wow factor traction noted some grasping that went long with them but not as much a death grip, did some body scanning and noticed the shape of the body outlines becoming vague not so defined a head atop a loose cloud with course anchor points here and there , 60 min went by fast did not need to change position opne eyes unwillingly or open hands or legs. my rides seemed to end in an increase of thoughts and the appearance of courser sensations in the legs that I then observe. Also did a bit of third gear surrender in the midst of al that falling into the idea of nothingness really trying it on. There was also high pitched sound being observed during the sit. sorry a bit sloppy.

cheers

okay so just 10 hours after the sit. did a 60 mi nsit today eyes closed started out with noting. sensations bright pinch , hearing, seeing, 1st gear pleasant unpleasant neutral,
thouhts just jumped right into doing all 4 sleepyness, I did for the first time connect a feeling tone with a mind state of being kinda angry or pissed off I had a headache pretty heavy actually first day of sitting with out coffee. So crazy don't know why i started that practice of drinking a cup of really strong coffee before mediattion but anyway. Sat through that i got to notice the sensation and the mood mind state kinda working together. was not rally clear. Body strated contorting head back and forth little bit of upper body motion as I'm typing this I have fine bubble sensations on the back of my upper arm. noticed imaptience towards the end of the sit when I opened my eyes there were only couple seconds left. General mood today was pretty mindful speaking with people being friendly compassion, Gonna try and sit onight when I get home. Meet with Petter and Villum and David and MUWU on line knida cool got some help with the mahamudra style listening of which I've madde my own version by listening for the sounds of sand moving on the moon : )

Did not sit last night when I got home. sat for 45 intended to do 60min but opened and stopped after 45. I had a very deep sense of well being and a still firm body very fast. seemed easy to sink into it. started noted out loud sporadically. Not very disciplined sort of all over from 1st to fourth foundation, felt the body become fuzzy the outlines watched the rise and fall of the abdomen note a sense of desire for deliverance, longing for stream entry, feel tired and lazy.

sat yesterday for 1.5 hrs sat today 1hr morning 58 min night. Took into my meditation the idea that kenneth talks about. Not just stilling the mind but applying insight once the mind is calm enough. Two things concentration and insight together.

Started off noting out loud. body sensation went right into all the first four foundations of first gear. Noting thought planning thought tension pain pleasant unpleasant aversion, sleepy ness. Got very concentrated and since I did a lot of reading here on the site felt inspired to go a little deeper. I was having little mind blips where I notice the ending of the concentration when the mind returns if that makes sense. It's kinda like when I catch my mind wandering but this is the reverse I catch my mind being still. I had one or two maybe three of these moments they happened when I went into second gear with the conviction that I don't exist. This made the surrender easier for me sa my sense of letting go was not so invested in a sense of self.

It was very pleasant and the hour went by fast. I keep my eyes open much more now to keep me from drifting into thought and watch my stomach rise and fall which I note if I get stuck. Well atleast I'm upping the sitting time it really feels like I have to like other things seems less important than stream entry right now. kinda scary but True. And as a practice side note wonderful things are happening neighbors are talking to me I feel very open and receptive and less judgmental than I used to be. My favorite pass time now is my love affair with a difficult boss. He's my mini-me meter. I have to keep the false sense of self down close to zero or I'll get sucked into a world of pain. Non reaction wise action compassion. It's working !!

Sat 45 min. this morning
Noted out loud got settled quickly. Noted sensations. bright pin prick sensations , stiff spine tension heaviness, warmth, thoughts, memory thoughts, when my eyes were closed I drifted into thoughts , noted them tried a trick that Kenneth teaches asking myself what my next thought will be. wack-a-mole. planning thoughts, opened eyes regained focus stated noting unpleasant sensations, noticed the 3 characteristics impermanence, suffering no self, bubbling sensations in my arm, stiff stretch of tension in my spine, tingling on my head, different pressures in my head noted them out loud, did have a curious moment where I felt my field of vision perception change and widen a bit moved up into my head. sharp pains burning sensation in my left leg. Observed all of this with equanimity and remained seated till the 45min were up. Really enjoying the regular sitting. Working with this idea that Kenneth introduced of re-wiring. Cooking, widening the gap. Also used the rising and falling to refocus the mind. Last few sits have also seen my upper body move in strange ways twist sway bend and what not. Cheers