Villum's thousand and one mistakes

Starting a daily practice journal here, as of now. I might not write very much every day, as the journaling has been an effort that's stopped my meditation before. But the accountability is very good, even if illusory, so i'll try to still note something each day.

Today, i met with Kenneth for the first time, and did some four foundations pingpong noting. I will be continuing out-loud four foundations noting - i really need to improve my mindfulness of thoughts, and i dont think i'm that good at distinguishing between mind states and thoughts.
This sort of noting is different, in that the states i reach seem more like very light samatha jhanas in their feel, at least so far. They don't have the sharp vibratory quality, and have more of the peacefulness. This is unlike my "normal" noting practice, which is eyes-closed and silent, and uses noting to focus in on sensations, and then just looks at the sensations - with sporadic noting to keep focus. (it's been a while, been practicing sporadically, and mostly something like christian contemplation, but with a made-up/symbolic god)
Did 15 minutes 4 foundations outloud noting later. Will be ramping that up to at least half an hour daily, or at least, thats the plan. Also planning to restart my morning mindfulness of death - it seems a very good way of appreciating the day, the times i've done it.

I also discovered that i still go through some vipassana states when i do just-sitting. I thought that had stopped, but it seems i just haven't been doing any just sitting, and/or that my everyday level of concentration hasn't been high enough lately that i cycle noticeably just by sitting down and closing my eyes, like i used to a month ago. Did half an hour or so of just sitting, and going through some states i couldn't clearly recognize. There did seem to be some 3rd-vipassana jhana stuff in there.

Anyways, good to be here

Welcome to the forum, Villum! Great to see you here.

Thanks for the welcome, kenneth

Lazy intermittent hung-over noting and meditation today. Still trying to get the hang of noting mind-states and thoughts. Thoughts are very hard to catch for me when meditating. It seems i often feel them as physical sensations in the head, without noticing their content. However, after trying to observe a lot today, it also seems that a lot of the thoughts i have while noting aloud are about what to note next. I wonder if the process involves automating the noting process, so that it doesn't take up your thoughts and you can objectivize your thoughts properly.
Mindstates, quite embedded in those a lot of the time it seems, probably what makes them hard to note, apart from lack of practice.

"However, after trying to observe a lot today, it also seems that a lot of the thoughts i have while noting aloud are about what to note next."

It's very important to be aware of these thoughts about what to note next, Villum. I would note this as "monitoring thought," or "investigation," or something similar. It's fine that it gets automated, but don't let it get so automatic that you become embedded in it and forget to recognize it as thinking.

Got another 30 minutes in before bed. Out-loud noting causes aversion, which i should be better at noting. Just noted impatience this time. Getting a bit better at noting thoughts (mostly monitoring, planning, evaluating). Will try to remember to note the impulse to check for mindstates, and the remembering that i should note mindstates and thoughts.

HA! I can note (aloud) while dancing. I think it's because i have danced enough to just let the dance dance itself, so the mind is free to note. Noted feeling in feet a lot, and got a really good speed as i noted to the rhythm. Noted all four foundations, variably as they presented themselves. Noting while dancing seems to make the difference between what (i think is) the senses of touch and proprioception much clearer than it is while sitting. The sense of the body's orientation and movement in space presents more clearer when its active. I noted proprioception as "body" and touch as "feeling"
Like yesterday, had some movement-tendencies and soreness in the neck, with head feeling drawn backwards and forwards.

Question is, does noting while dancing do what noting is supposed to do? That would be nice, seems to be easier for me to keep going like that. At least, could be a nice alternate practice to have. Also, good exercise

"Question is, does noting while dancing do what noting is supposed to do? That would be nice, seems to be easier for me to keep going like that. At least, could be a nice alternate practice to have. Also, good exercise "

For me noting while driving is a fundamental part of my daily practice, but does not replace formal samatha and vipassana sessions.

Quick question: if you note touch as "feeling", then how do you note emotions/mindstates?

"Quick question: if you note touch as "feeling", then how do you note emotions/mindstates?"

Those i specify: Boredom, Anxiety, Restlessness, Striving. et.c.
But yeah, it probably can't replace formal practice. I suspect there's some states i've reached in vipassana that would make me fall over/crash. Like when i felt the sense of space and location itself pulsing/vibrating.

Today i decided to find out what the Direct Pointing hullabaloo over on the dharma overground was all about. I read this:
ruthlesstruthdotcom.blogspot.com/2010/10...er-and-sunshine.html
And did the exercises too. I think might have forgotten the point of no-self since stream entry (pretty sure i have stream entry): There is no self.
Currently, it seems to me i got enlightened, cracked the big one, killed the elephant the three blind men were groping. Selfing still arises, but does not self in the way it used to. There seems to be something subtly missing, an irritant i can't quite point out doesn't seem to be there anymore.
Now, i have had "Is this is?"-experiences before. So i will wait, and explore. But the Direct Pointing approach from the Ruthless Truth forum does seem promising.

"Question is, does noting while dancing do what noting is supposed to do? That would be nice, seems to be easier for me to keep going like that. At least, could be a nice alternate practice to have. Also, good exercise "

Yes, of course! You can note while doing anything. Noting is always effective, as it gets you in touch with what is happening now as opposed to being lost in your thoughts.

I'm gonna be talking about some rather strange experiences here, so first i'm going to lay out the background.
Here's how you get to where i am now:
1: Play around with self-hypnosis for 4 months, learning some nice techniques, but never getting self-hypnotic anesthesia to work. Meanwhile, get into mindfulness and from there, concentration meditation.
2: While trying to finish your thesis, get a toothache. Think you don't have time to do anything about it, due to the thesis. Succeed for the first time in using anesthetic self-hypnosis. Notice that the anesthesia is difficult to remove, then put it back, because you really need to get some work done on the thesis.
3: Forget about the anesthesia. At some point, stop noticing your teeth at all. (hypothetically, the toothache continues)
4: Start doing insight meditation. For three months, forget about the anesthesia. (hypothetically, the pain starts manifesting subtly at the level of basic attention at some point, independent of object. Hypothetically, the subtle and misinterpreted sensations of pain make it easier to see all sensations as unsatisfactory).
5: At some point, start noticing that clinging to sensations can be perceived seperately from the sensations themselves, as a sort of coagulated, thickly flowing attention. Try using this to avoid distractions while writing your thesis, by noticing the gathering of attention before it can turn into a real distraction, and the dissipating it. (Note: This practice seems like it may cause madness, but i cannot say how it would work out absent the dislocated and suppressed pain)
6: Notice strange globs of coagulated attention sticking to the back of your head, strangely impenetrable. Notice how jhana involves coagulated attention beginning to circle your head in various ways, forming into a circle above or around your head. Go through the jhanas focusing on this attention.
Continues...

7: (Things start sounding increasingly strange) Notice how the globs of coagulated attention sticking to the back of your head seem to have a sharpness and an unpleasant tone to them, when examined closely. Notice further how attention seems to stick to them, so once you start examining them, you can't really get them out of your attention. Notice how the globs also go down to your ears, and how the jhana-attention sometimes sticks to your ears. Feel a little bit like you are going mad from getting caught up in mode of perception that involves noticing attention and sticking to the globs on the back of your head.
8: Notice how you can't feel your teeth properly, how the sense of the shape of your body is strangely twisted, with the felt head being above and behind the actual, physical head, such that your jaw and nose is outside your felt body. Notice more strangeness about the sense of the body around the spine, and above the heart and throat centers.
9: Remember how you anesthesized your teeth while working on the thesis. Figure out that you can temporarily get the sense of feeling back into part of your teeth by focusing, that this feels like a very painful toothache further back in a place you can't yet feel, and that the sense of feeling in your teeth fades as soon as you stop focusing. Notice that the hidden pain seems to manifest as a peculiar nausea sometimes. Notice that you can't feel your sinuses either, and that they're hurting too.
10: Keep forgetting to make an appointment with a dentist (I finally did).

All of this produces some disruptions in my meditation, which might include cramps when nearing Nirodha Samapatti (which i haven't attained yet), and might include 8th-jhana-attention-glob sticking to my ear on the way to falling down from the head and down to below the body somewhere, on the way to (perhaps) attaining Pure Land 1. The parts about being close to NS and PL might be make-believe.

So, trying out this approach to jhana:
thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/06/...ike-approach-to.html (seems to be a variant of the Anupada Sutta approach)
I hit upon something quite marvelous. I ascended the jhanas, seeing each as unsatisfactory. Ending up in what seemed to be the 8th jhana, though still somewhat soft, i tried to let go further, to see identity, self and presence as unsatisfactory.
There was a muscular loosening, and my head started falling forward. I've tried this before, not getting anywhere.
Then, the new part, there was an acceleration of the viewpoint, kind of like looking out the windows of the Enterprise in Star Trek when it goes into hyperspace.
Then there was three (maybe four) distinct moments of very subtle (visual) awareness (seeing some abstract green blob)
Then there was... Something...
Then i returned to ordinary being, seemingly out of jhana, but "blissed out", great clarity, no noticeable suffering.

Possibly NS (as cessation of experience)? The aftereffects sound very much like it.

Let us know what happens next time you try it.

Attempt number two:
Aborted in seemingly very last moment as my head was about to hit the table. got to what seemed like an time-wise acceleration of visual mind-moments, with a sense of spatial acceleration too, like being sucked into a black hole. Or green hole, the visual impression is still a greenish blob, but also noticed physical movement this time (which is when i pulled out, or i would have banged my head into the desk)
No sense of getting stuck like i used to when trying to do the Anupada Sutta trick.

After checking Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, I'll follow kenneth in calling the above event as that great deceiver, the A&P event.
I'm also gonna call the supposed enlightenment earlier in the thread as not being the case. The pointing-out did, however, eliminate a mistaken view about no-self.
The mistaken view sounds like one of the "thicket of views" mentioned in Majjhima Nikaya 2:8. "The view 'i perceive self with not-self arises in him as true and established.". I was convinced of their being no true self, but saw the arising self as something to be elimated, and not something to be seen through (as misidentified sensations).

One hour improvised mahamudra practice. Sat down and tried to sense the thing all things have in common (as a variant of the Ships in the Harbor), requiring the same sensing subtleness. Sweetness, Coolness (Mahamudra-formations, i'm given to understand from something i read somewhere). Got pretty absorbed, and seemingly went automatically up the jhanas, noticing only when i hit 8th and got the usual fallng-over and muscular loosening. Later went on to what i think was Pure Land 2. Sweetness, cool in most parts of the body, varying as i went along. Similar things in other senses, i think. The absorbtion was a bit unusual - it felt locked-in somehow, more stable, didn't seem like something i could just step out of without at least flailing a bit.
Don't know if this is a good practice, comments much appreciated. Very late here, gonna sleep now.

How do you practice mahamudra while you're absorbed? Is the absorption different that way?

I am not sure it could be said to be Mahamudra. Might be one of the 1001 mistakes. But i tuned into the feel/formations i get from mahamudra-practice, by relaxing any distinctions i was making (inside/outside, hearing/seeing), and by trying to see the what is the same about everything. This produced the more the the mahamudra-feel (coolness, sweetness, something perfect). Staying like this, absorbtion resulted - the strength was probably due to the sweetness of the mahamudra-feel. So i wouldn't say i practiced mahamudra while absorbed, more that i somehow became absorbed while practicing mahamudra. Or, alternately, stepped into Witness without noticing while doing this.

Practice seems to be going ok. Working on aversion towards writing it down.
I seem to be back in vibration-land after crossing the A&P, practice is much more recognizable (from the time i spent in probably-review).

Not meditation today. Just now i may have started recognizing rigpa properly. The sense of things arising within the mind is there, at least, and comes about through the same means as the mahamudra-formations. This is more subtle, though. Importantly, though, while in this state, there is no "me" experiencing it.

What i think may be (very early rigpa)
it is brought about by a specific relaxing, or more specifically, non-doing.
There is a shift, where awareness becomes decentered and space-like. (this part may be easier to recognize because i'm not 4th path yet)
Things are to be within the mind. There is no subject present, and all things perceived can be seen as something happening within the mind. Strange.
It causes some energetic stuff in i stay in it for a while, and seems to tend towards dissolving the hypnotic anasthesia on my jaw that i talked about earlier.

If this is it, i should probably be looking at how to stabilize it. So is this it? And if so, how is it stabilized?

It does seem possible to become absorbed in rigpa by doing nothing at all. Not taking it as an object, but sitting in what i suppose is nonmeditation (feels very much like meditation where you don't do anything).
Seems to last a bit after sitting ends.
I should probably stop it, though, or it will dissolve the hypnotic anesthesia on my toothache before the dentist appointment. Lots of energetic adjustment going on, part of which seems to be the dissolution of that hypnotic anesthesia
Still might very well be the wrong thing. but awareness-as-space (not the normal state of being for me, as probably 2nd path), things seen as within-the-mind, and energetic stuff that feels like adjustment seem to point in the right direction

Mood tendencies seem dark night-ish since yesterday, but this evening, vibrations have speeded up. Did half an hour of surrendering to the sensations seen as precisely as possible, which right now seem to have helped. Allowed fearful vibrations to fill my being and just be there. At some point, vibrations seem to cease seeming to carry fear and giving-up.

On a more general note, i am trying to switch my in-practice motivation from wanting paths to learning, knowing an understanding, which seems to work much better.

30-45 untimed noticing vibrations and allowing them to permeate everything, taking the experience of self or emotions as signs that something has not been properly included within experience yet. Very occasional noting to aid inclusion. Two noticeable shifts. In the beginning, emotions arising very mostly fearful/unpleasant, shifting to those emotions being included within a vaster sense of peace shift to caught-up-in-making-everything-vibrate. Sometime during sit, i inclined towards noticing vibrations passing away, which seemed to make things clearer, and helped include anesthesized areas somewhat. Just noticed strong pressure-unpleasant near crown chakra.