Howard's Practice Notes # 2

Right Lads, time to cut the crap. I've been messing about with wet paint trying to get it to recognise me and having it delete some of my posts for reasons i don't understand. So I've decided to cut to the chase and set a up a fresh accout. So back to bussiness as usual I hope.

21st Aug
10am, 30mins
The last few weeks have been fairly chaotic practice wise. I am very lucky to get a very long summer holiday and spending most of this time in unfamiliar environments has scrambled my practice to the extent that this chaos has become the new normal. Also there appears to be an inherent instability when cultivating Dzogchen, which is what I have been doing for a while now. So it was a pleasant surprise to spend this session almost exclusively in Witness. The relief of having clear boundaries and a sharp, stable focus was very welcome, almost weird. My mind refused to go anywhere near emptiness, until the very end, when the clear boundaries of Witness started to dissolve and sensations started to 'dance' to their own music, as I finally re-entered emptiness.

6pm, 30mins
Not to bad, mainly 1st gear, solid though.

22nd Aug
10.30am, 30mins
It was pretty solid this morning. Often, when I see emptiness it's just aural objects. Today the whole lot was moving in and out of emptiness, nice.

2pm, 30mins
Not only was the whole sensory field moving in and out of emptiness but my mind was happy to dwell in it with only a little prompting. Ever since I took Mahamudra as my core practice it has felt like I have had to go back to basics. Constantly having to stand over my mind saying 'sit idiot, this is good for you!' only to find it has wandered off and/or soiled itself. The ease and stability that I used to get with noting has been absent for a long time. This session felt like a return to that ease, and I am very pleased to welcome it back, even if only for a brief time.

6pm, 30mins
More of the same but a little less disciplined.

23rd Aug
8am, 30mins
Second gear mainly; the mind would have no truck with third this time.

3pm, 30mins
My mind was very distracted, first day back at work and all. But behind that was a rather deep and narcotic emptiness.

7pm, 30mins
I spent most of the time in surrender.

24th Aug
7am, 30mins
This was a text book progression up from 1st gear in to 2nd for 10mins and then the rest of the time flipping between 2nd and 3rd. But just a half hour today.

25th Aug
8.45am, 30mins
I was interested to see if the progression would be from 1st gear to second and then third, or some other arrangement. It actually went 1st, 3rd, surrender, 1st and 3rd together and then 1st, 3rd and surrender together. Hmmm.

11.30am, 1 hour
I've not done any hour for ages and it was pretty varied. I had a lot of strong energetic stuff, probably a house cleaning going on.

25th Aug
8.45, 30mins
Mainly first gear, some second and third towards the end.

5pm, 1 hour
Like yesterday's hour long, this one was a bit chaotic for the first half. It all settled a bit towards the end and some nice emptiness arose. It's odd how one can even get bored of emptiness. During the last twenty I would be in some really strong space, get bored, drift off, suffer a bit too much and then move back into emptiness. I discussed this with Kenneth last time we spoke and was assured that this is fairly normal.

27th Aug
7.30am, 30mins
I was mainly in a very stable version of 1st gear, drifting in and out of 2nd. I'm finding that when in 2nd gear for any length of time, surrender and then third gear arise fairly soon after and I spent the last 10 doing just this.

10am, 1 hour
This was a very nice session. 60 mins has always been the magic number for me, anything less does not quite hit the spot. The last two hour long sessions have been fairly chaotic, this is normal for me returning to sessions of this length. It's a bit like getting in to a cold swimming pool, bracing at first but fine once you get used to it.

After about ten mins in 1st gear and 5 in second I was in 3rd gear for almost the whole session. I would come back to surrender when the sensations of self (that icky, anxious feeling around my lower chakras) became too strong. But once these are seen as empty I could move back into emptiness. A new experience for me was my sense of a central reference point dissolving and a unitive sensation arising, I got excited about this and this put a stop to it happening more than a couple of times. This is my next task, obviously.

I think I'm starting to see the progress of insight again, but from an empty perspective now. I have a suspicion that the unpleasant sensations of self that I get around my bottom chakras, are actually Re-Ob. So when I get pulled out of emptiness by them, it is actually a new cycle starting/finishing. So that would make the 'unitive' feeling Mind and Body? Lil' help anyone?

6pm, 30mins
I wasn't expecting to do any more today but I got insight disease so bad earlier that I had too. So I spent 30 mins just looking directly at the sensations that, for me, constitute insight disease, aka, Re-Ob, aka sensations of self. Anyone got an opinion on this? Similar observations?

28th Aug
I over slepped this morning and was unable to do my normal practice. I was interested to see how this would affect my day. Badly actually, I was noticeably less sharp and less productive. One to avoid then.

8.30pm, 30mins
All 1st gear, just a catch-up really.

29th Aug
7am, 30mins
I spent the time in a fairly loose and unsatisfactory 1st gear. I still feel like I'm running to catch-up.

2pm, 20mins
Shoe-horned in between other things, not too bad though.

11pm, 30mins
I left it way too late to practice, and kept falling asleep.

30th Aug
7.30am, 30mins
Mainly 1st gear with a lot of surrender. I cultivated 3rd but was always pulled back to surrender after a few seconds. Towards the end surrender started to dissolve into 3rd gear of its own accord.

11am, 1hour
I was in and out of 3rd the whole time. I had lots of unpleasant anxiety around the chakras that required me to surrender a lot. But the rewards were also good. It was a bit like having to constantly climb small but steep hills but then enjoy marvellous vistas as the top of each, only to slide down again.

11pm, 30mins
1st gear but fairly pleasant, not a hint of Dzogchen.

31st Aug
9.30am, 30mins
Mainly first gear, but I had lots of anxiety around my belly chakra, normally I am able to see around this into emptiness but not today, it was fairly stubborn, I just had to tough it out.

2pm, 30mins
I was getting a bit sick of all this 'anxiety around the chackras' business. It stuck me that I might be painting myself into a corner and manufacturing sensations rather than seeing what was actually there. Often I wait in first gear for something unpleasant and constricting to show up and then look behind it to find the Dzogchen. This time I just started to look between sensations from the get-go and went straight into a very stable 3rd gear. It was tricky to maintain after a while because I started to analyse what was going on. I was keeping all sensations in my peripheral awareness and loosening my focus to almost nothing. Being aware of this created a 'do not read this sentence' situation, and from then on I was screwed.

11pm, 30mins
A dreamy 1st gear, that felt a lot like surrender and Dzogchen as well. No clue, nice though.

1st September
9am, 30mins
I woke up with quite significant physical pain today. Luckily 3rd gear was in easy reach and I hardly suffered at all. I still have to pinch myself sometimes when this happens.

1pm, 1 hour
It's great to get back to doing an hour again. After some initial turbulence I settled to a familiar pattern. Emptiness, distraction, suffering and then back to emptiness. With each cycle emptiness was stronger and easier to access. I used mainly ships-in-the-harbour and seeing 'between' sensations.

5pm, 30mins
This was directly after chatting to Kenneth, just hanging on to the coat tails of the experience if you like, nice.

2nd September
8am, 30mins
Yesterday, Kenneth showed me how to scaffold myself up to Witness and from there to Dzogchen. Up until now I have been going straight from 1st gear to 3rd and it is a rather hit and miss affair. Going via Witness is much more reliable. This is what I did this morning with very satisfactory results.

Out and about
My walking around practice is usually 3rd gear at the moment, but with a high failure rate. This is because nobody has ever showed me how to scaffold up to Witness before and 1st just don't cut it no more. But today was great in and out of 2nd all the time.

3pm, 1 hour
Not so good. Whenever I moved in to 3rd I would fall asleep, which was very frustrating and the cause of much distraction.

9.30pm, 30mins
I tried something different tonight. Using Kenneth's scaffolding, I switched from 1st to 2nd gear every couple of minutes. it turned out to be surprisingly easy; when trying to switch between 2nd an 3rd it was more difficult. Once in 3rd it was very difficult to get back to 2nd and would lead, almost immediately, to strong distraction. Upon 'waking up' I would still be in 3rd gear, and strongly too.

What exactly do you mean by scaffolding?

Ah hah! Okay, stuff like 1st gear and witness et al are difficult to describe, as these are experiences that are beyond conceptualisation to a greater or lesser extent. But, by doing formal exercises and procedures with the mind we can incrementaly lift the awareness to a level that these experiences become much more accessable and more likely to occur spontaniously. Once you see Witness, for example, for the first time, it becomes much easier to get back there, but these procedures continue to be of great help. Kenneth calls these procedures and exercises "scaffolding" and in a on-to-one will often lead you by the nose through the process. I appologise if you already know this, you may well be familiar with the process but call it something else.

Cheers
H

Thanks. I don't quite know these exercises but now I have the curiosity for them

You're welcome.

P.S. Kenneth's got loads of stuff on you tube, doing scaffolding in real time. its a good place to start.

3rd September
10am, 30mins
I'm loving this scaffolding up to witness malarkey. One of the problems with 3rd gear has been that when I get kicked out of it, I have nowhere to go except 1st gear. Sometimes the climb back up to 3rd is really hard work, now I can go straight to witness and from there it's only a short hop to Dzogchen. As a result my practice is much more focused and less distracted.

2pm, 55mins
I while ago I was moaning about only paddling around in the shallows of Dzogchen and simultaneously moaning about all the anxiety I was feeling trying to get into Dzogchen. It turns out that the two were related. I was only paddling in the shallows because I was brute-forcing my way up from 1st gear which was damned hard work and generating a lot of anxiety. Now I have a much more stable access to Witness both problems are now much reduced. I have just had a very deep and relaxing sojourn in Dzogchen, better than any tropical beach, and just think, no airport security! Result!

9pm, 30mins
I was very distracted all afternoon, with some very strong opinions about stuff that I did not care about yesterday. As a result it took a while to get up to 2nd gear and then forever to get properly into 3rd. Both 2nd and 3rd were strong and full experiences, but frequently interrupted by these intense internal rants about stuff I really don't care about. All rather disconcerting.

4th September
9am, 30mins
I was straight into Witness today, but I knew that it had no momentum in it so there was no point looking for Dzogchen. I had to sit and wait for the dynamo to spin up, I often know when I have some momentum because something happens to my vision, and it gets 'fuller' somehow. At this point I started to sniff around for any hints of 'looseness' which is my normal way in. There was nothing doing in this department so I went to 'debunking the observer.' This gave me some leverage and allowed proper access via 'ships in the harbour.' Dzogchen was fairly faint this morning and I was a bit distracted, still for a first sit of the day, I am well satisfied.

11.30 am, 1 hour
After pottering around the house in 1st gear for a couple of hours I had plenty of momentum when I came to sit again. Unfortunately I had no tranquillity to go with it so the first five minutes of this sit consisted of me grasping after 3rd gear and it not happening. Eventually the penny dropped and I just sat back and let the thing unfold which it did of its own accord. I spent most of the hour in 3rd except the last ten which was full of energetic stuff and was difficult to see around.

10pm, 30mins
This one was all a bit random. My concentration was okay but I'm not sure what gear I was in for most of the sitting. At the end it was solid 3rd for a while.

5th September
7am, 30mins
Mainly second gear with a bit of third.

6pm, 1 hour
At first I was in a rather messy 1st gear for about 10mins, then briefly in 2nd. My transition to third was so subtle that I missed it for a while. Normally entry into 3rd is accompanied by bliss waves of varying intensity; also any development of my mind state in third will generate bliss waves as well. This time they were entirely absent, just a very pure, clear, emptiness was experienced. Over time a gentle buzzing arose that became the predominant experience of sensations. Also everything became solid in some way, my breathing, traffic noise, subtle bodily movements, all solid. I suspect that this aspect was just the mind trying to rationalise the experience. Eventually I had to adjust my posture and the spell was broken with maybe a few flashes towards the end of the session.

9.30pm, 30mins
Mainly 2nd and 3rd gear, but heavily distracted, mostly about food.

10am, 30mins
Mainly 1st and 2nd, with a bit of third.

12.30 pm, 1 hour
That new shinier version of 3rd gear popped up again. I have no idea what to do with it. It's so pretty and nice and clean that I'm afraid to do any of the normal stuff that I do to maintain 3rd gear. All of those techniques feel vulgar somehow. So I'm torn between good old fashioned spiritual materialism and confusion.

Anyway it went after a while and there followed a period of confusion about what gear I was in, as I appeared to be in all three at once. So I just noted 'confusion,' 'anxiety' and the thing settled. Then now improved 3rd gear appeared again! This time I just ignored it and pretended that I was in first. This helped a bit because this more perfect kind of perfection came and went a few times before the end. I should feel exhilarated but actually I'm still confused; compounded by something I read in Daniels book last night about Mahayana Buddhism's 'emptiness' not being the same experience as Vajriana's Dzogchen.

9pm, 30mins
This one didn't go anywhere, too fried from work.

7th September
8am, 30mins
Mainly 1st and 2nd gear, a hint of 3rd but I don't think it counts on this occasion.

2pm, 20mins
Squeezed into lunch time.

Out and about
I had one of those experiences that feel really special at the time be sound naff when you try to put it into words. For about 2 hours, I noticed how empty the moment is. Up until now I've been looking at individually sensations or groups of sensations and seeing the inherent emptiness of them. Today it felt like I was missing the point, the whole lot is empty, everything. You had be there really.

8pm, 30mins
More the above but gradually fading, so sad. Now it's just me and my cluttered world again.

8th September
8am, 30mins
I started in a fairly solid Witness with some momentum. Soon I was dropping in and out of 3rd gear. It seemed like a good time to look at what you guys call 'affect' (?) I assume this to mean the body/minds response to sensation on a visceral level. I've never spent any time analysing this for reasons I don't understand. I'm intimately familiar with it but always on its own terms, I've never picked it apart.

But now I'm struggling to understand why I don't suffer in 3rd gear. Preliminary investigation suggests that affect is dramatically reduced in 3rd gear or disappears all together. Often the bare bones of affect are seen, like a ghost, or shadow, but it has no substance or suffering in it. At this point I start to understand what statements like 'no acceptance, or not-acceptance arises.' Previously this kind of thing has mystified me, but if there is no affect there is no response. So the above statement becomes meaningless. The Buddha was so cool.

5pm, 30mins
I suppose I've been looking at the affect portion of sensations for years, it's nice to finally put a label on it. I have avoided discussing it because when I do I just get funny looks from other Buddhists. The way I have treated it is to look as the affect as if it were another set of sensations related to primary sensations (hearing, touching ect).

Anyway, in third gear affect sometimes stops; sometimes it can go fluffy and nice, usually it flips between the two 'modalities.' That's it really. It's a great way into third gear; recently I said that I can find 3rd gear by looking 'between' sensations, what I actually meant was looking at the affect of sensations. I think it amounts to the same thing.

9th September
8.15am, 30mins
I dropped straight in to Witness this morning and spent the half hour observing 'affect' which is usually uniformly unpleasant at this time in the morning. At the half way mark I started to notice a shift to 3rd gear with a sense of ease and spaciousness developing. Sensations became looser but the final shift did not happen and affect remained largely unchanged.

3pm, 1 hour
It took a while to get into third. In the end I did it by setting up a really solid Witness and then de-bunking the observer. The rest of the sit was spent surfing the cusp of 3rd gear. It was fascinating to see the affect of sensations appear and disappear as I crossed and re-crossed the boundary.

10pm, 40mins
There was so much going on this time that it was difficult to see what gear I was in. I had all kind of throbs and tingles; my vision was lit up and sparkly; and lots of vibrations especially at the beginning. Years ago I would have got really excited about this kind of thing, now I know its just stuff that happens sometimes.

10th September
9am, 30mins
I dropped straight into Witness again today and this was pretty solid for the first 15. Funny that how I feel physically in the morning no longer affects my practice. I felt absolutely awful today but practice was strong and clear. At the half way mark I moved up to 3rd by debunking the observer using my visual sense. This is new, before I would almost always use my hearing but that is not working so I use hearing now. Very solid (and pleasant) for the last 15.

7pm, 30mins
I've come down with a bug, the symptoms of which are quite spacy, so its difficult to say what happened exactly. Mixing practice with illness has given me mixed blessings in the past so I'm going to take it easy.

11th September
11am, 30mins
This one was all very business-like. 10mins 2nd gear, 10mins 2nd/3rd, 10mins solid gold 3rd. Waves of anxiety coming and going but 3rd gear, clear as a bell. It times like this any debates or differences about whether 3rd gear is the same as Dzogchen is the same as emptiness is the same as whatever, seem totally redundant. What a relief.

4pm, 30mins
Debunking the observer is by far the fastest way yet of scaffolding up to 3rd gear. It must have taken me about 2-3mins this time. And then 30mins in Dzogchen, you know, awareness without a central reference point. I (sic) rock!