Villum's thousand and one mistakes

30 minutes of trying to get nirodha samapatti, button style. Started from 8th jhana, went on to PL1 later. I can find a spot that seemingly makes things slow down. There is a sense of different tensions and energetic knots letting go, and an almost irresistable urge to fall over. Didn't get there, usually losing the spot. There is a sense that there are several different spots that do different things, and i'm not sure i got the right one.

Wherever you are, be there (that's an attempt at a how-to for being mindful)

Spent some time experimenting with endinsights jhana variant today, Staying with vedana (or something else early in D-O, not entirely sure), i can say the following: It gets me concentrated faster than anything else i know of. The effects stay for a good while afterwards, and seemingly includes the cessation/strong reduction of narrative thought. I feel very present and aware afterwards.

A place can have a mood or tone to it. Such is the case for my apartment, which has a mood of apathy, restlessness, tiredness and embeddedness, as far as i am able to tell. It seems this mood or tone is made up of very subtle bodily vibrations projected out into space. These projections also seem to make up the sense of physicality of objects.
Given my current view of the situation, the task is clear. I must realize the emptiness of my apartment. Perhaps also clean up
I must, in other words, make my apartment a place where a ray of sunlight has no place to fall.

It seems i can note while tuning into the mood of the room. Will explore more.

"A place can have a mood or tone to it. Such is the case for my apartment, which has a mood of apathy, restlessness, tiredness and embeddedness, as far as i am able to tell. It seems this mood or tone is made up of very subtle bodily vibrations projected out into space. These projections also seem to make up the sense of physicality of objects."

Good catch. I have noticed this and had to deal with it as well.

Interesting. So it's not just me
I can ground the physicality-vibrations in the body to a great extent. When i instead open up to the feeling/vibrations of the place, the vibrations seem to resonate in the body/awareness and create confusion and tiredness.
Any ideas as to what practices are effective for the "exorcism" would be greatly appreciated

The ultimate solution to the problem, insofar as I've experienced it, is discerning vedana clearly and getting rid of craving-clinging-becoming (the "mood" or "tone" vibrations are the latter). When all you feel in your body is vedana, I don't think anything will have a misty aroma of something-its-like in the way that you experience it now.

Practically-speaking, I found that it was good to notice the vibrations in the body rather than open up to them, and then (while keeping them grounded in the body) ignore them as much as possible and go back to what the actual body feels like (vedana).

Right now, I often have a feeling of dullness when I'm in certain places (such as lying in bed)...the feeling is a kind of becoming centered in my head, not a mind-state. For me, it's automatically grounded...so I just stop paying attention to it, and pay attention to my body, and it either goes away or loses most of its prominence very quickly. (There is no dullness, just an illusion of it. Awareness is always pure and bright.)

I accidentally knocked over my gift-brought-from-Thailand buddha statue today. It's head fell off. I am still considering how and whether to interpret this. Meanwhile, non-sitting practice attempts to continue.

20 minutes trying to just sit. Nothing else concerns me than sitting. Thus, i keep telling whatever is trying to do something else, "Sit".

Wednesday, Kenneth taught me thought-counting, where i count my thoughts and notice the contractions and suffering that go with self-referencing thoughts. Today and yesterday, after a while the self-referencing thoughts start going "You" instead of "I". I guess that's disembedding in action.

Ask: How are distinctions/borders boundaries (in awareness) experienced?
Ask: What is not experienced?
Ask: How is the universe experiencing itself in this moment?

Visiting my sister. Meditated around 1.5 hours today. Feeling lost a lot of the time, sometimes peaceful in impermanence. Some thought-counting tells me il probably in DN, what with All the lost and selfcritical thoughts. May ve having a depression in top, or it might just be because my current life situation id triggering my anxieties constantly. Dont know what practice i should be doing, Will continue Witha the thought-counting K left me with, though it seems a somewhat brutal practice, as i might have guessed from having it described as a Skinner Box. Will also try to continue with noting and the rest of the geared practice, but its all feeling a bit of a mess atm.

I have been unable to properly feel the touch-sensations at the eyes and ears for the longest time. I finally discovered the reason, i think. Those touch-sensations are accessed by attending to the senses of sight and hearing, respectively, not by trying to direct the touch-sense to those locations. The touch-sensations seem to be part of seeing and hearing, so that attending to them is subtly part of attenting to the sense
The same seem to true of sensations of smell and taste, except those sensations overlap even more with touch-sensations. so that it's hard to say whether any given sensation is touch or smell.
There seems to be an aspect of feeling emotions that are similar to how touch and smell are felt, but i have not investigated that yet.

A trick: attend to taste, smell, seeing, hearing, including the physical sensations that are part of those senses. I notice the physical sensations by a slight turning-inwards of the sense. This seems to take a lot of power out of the "inner life", with all it's attendant suffering.

Found a new trick today. To me this feels like a grown-up way to practice.
Move your sense of self down into the heart area, in such a way that you feel a sense of vulnerability, perhaps slightly quivering. Abide as this vulnerability, return to vulnerabilty. Seeing and sensing things through this vulnerability, they open up as you do. Sensing your emotions through this vulnerability seems sometimes to create a sort of short-circuit resulting in peace. Embrace all the world from the standpoint of being vulnerable to it. One step at a time.
Vibrations sensed in this way are sensed with a variant sort of equanimity that feels deeper and more open. This is probably very logical.

Continuing the above process. The presence at the heart can be made clearer by sort of moving the energy of the witness there.
Now, from there, i found a really neat trick. Once you have learned to abide as that vulnerability, and reach out and embrace tensions and emotions within it, do this:
Turn the vulnerability towards itself. Reach back and embrace (do not grasp, embrace and include) the heart itself and the source of the vulnerability itself within the reaching-vulnerability.
When this is accomplished, a deep stillness and clarity opens up in the heart. Stay with it. Allow it to expand. Perhaps feel your breath through the heart, as if breathing out through a hole in the chest. This seems to deepen it.
This clarity and stillness seems to dissolve the tensions of direct mode, and seems to go well together with grounding the witness

Abiding as the vulnerability. Returning whenever i remember

I'm trying to find a way to rest general awareness in a kind of preconceptual experiencing-without-attending that transforms all tensions into clear light. I'm getting tendencies towards this, and it seems it should be possible. But requires some practice to find.

Current project:
See in a way sensitive to the emptiness and (from that) luminosity of things seen
Hear in a way sensitive to the emptiness and (from that) luminosity of things heard

Release things that get in the way as described in the Vulnerability and Transmutation thread
Practice EndInsights jhana to up concentration, luminosity and energetic sensousness

Thanks for the session today Villum!

A wheel turning before my eyes, saying "i don't exist" for a while.
Repeating thoughts over the last month of "who am i" seems to have changed to "i don't exist"
Probably just a momentary thing. But i can't help wondering.
I'll go back to bed.

Remembering earlier works, i am working on realizing the emptiness of visualizations and that awareness precedes the distinction between not being engaged in hypnotic/amateur-magickal visualisations and being so engaged. Doing visualisations and noticing awareness and emptiness in each step. Early signs say "this is a good idea"

This should work:
For all x, notice that for both x and not-x, you are already aware, and you don't need to notice that you are aware in order to be aware.
For all x, notice that x is of the non-nature of empty awareness.
Also, a song to keep you safe on the path:
You must remember this / A shift is just a shift, a thought is just a thought / The fundamental things apply / As time goes by

Writing this one down while i remember
1: tune into the vulnerability in the heart
2: Enter the 8th jhana directly, very lightly. tune into the fluttering and popping perceived on the body in the 8th
3: Try to perceive the fluttering and popping over the heart through vulnerability
result: some kind of short-circuit of the inner world.
Edit: confirmed so far, some very nice effect seems to cancel both the vulnerability and the flickering. Add step 4: notice that you are already aware,

"To be aware is to be awake. Unaware means asleep. You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What you need is to be aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being conscious".

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That - pg 220