j0shj0sh logs

30 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing. Concentration was very weak and kept getting distracted by content. Couldn't stabilize attention on the breath. Didn't switch to insight practice. Started to get feelings of frustration and doubt. Got averse to sitting and opened my eyes. Tried to drop all effort and just flow with whatever sensations were present, but couldn't even really do this. Mind felt very dull. Kept thinking about this log, and other practice type thoughts. Concentration strengthened a little in the final minutes and I was able to stay with my breath for a bit.

Sit 2: 35 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing, staying receptive to pleasant sensations. Felt subtle wisps of pleasure in my arms and chest, mostly on exhale. After 10 minutes, transitioned to insight practice. Felt twisting and cortorting bodily sensations and flashes of heat. Just stayed with the arising and passing of these. Concentration was strong. Pulses became very clear and obvious, and I was able to follow long strings of them without the mind sticking on the previous one to analyze and know it. Started to feel TV snow/pin prick/rain drop sensations on my back. Stayed with these sensations. Whenever I was able to tune in clearly to a pulse of them they briefly grew in intensity. Shifted attention to the feeling of the teeth touching the lips inside the mouth. Felt the grainy static which spread to my whole chin/jaw area. Sort of like the area was falling asleep and getting pins and needles, without any pain or discomfort. Concetration remained strong and sensations remained distinct and obvious. Got flashes of warmth throughout the sit.

35 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing, staying receptive to positive sensations. Felt the same wisps of subtle pleasure in the arms and chest. After ten switched to insight practice. Followed breath sensations but pounding rigid back pain arose. Concentration was weak. Mindset was averse and grew progressively more and more frustrated. Stayed with the pulsing sensations of pain, the burn of heartburn in the back of the throat. Flashes of heat. Body tensed up repeatedly. Watched the arising and passing frames of all of this. Felt like I wanted to jump out of my skin, just stand up and put my ******* fist through the wall. Got extremely averse to sitting and opened my eyes. Walked away two minutes before the bell. Uncomfortable rigid back pain is still here.

35 minutes. Started out with mindfulness of breathing, making contact with the cohensive flow. After 10 switched to insight practice. Concentration was weak to moderate. Inclined more towards surrendering to sensations as opposed to actively hunting them out. Breath fragments weren't very clear at times. Other times they flowed more seamlessly into the next sensation as opposed to presenting themselves as distinct fragments. Started to get some twitching in the eyes and face for a few seconds. Concentration remained moderate, and some mild back pain came up.

35 minutes. Smoked about an hour and half ago. Interesting sit, though fuzzy and difficult to recall in memory. I was deeply concentrated for most of it, so didn't really have time to consciously commit anything to memory. I remember starting out with mindfulness of breathing, following the flow. This came effortlessly. Transitioned into insight practice naturally. Started feeling all sorts of very discrete tickles, pringles, pinpricks, itches, and sensations all over the body. As I attended to them they easily dissolved into vibrations. Concentration was really deep. Started getting a lot of involuntary eye twitching and face twitching.

An I-thought came up and I noted it clearly as such. Felt the body constrict around this thought. Saw the thought pass away with very high clarity. With it, the sense of self sort of dissolved into static vibrations.

Also saw intention very clearly, in the body. It was a welling up of energy, felt mostly in the forearms. Like a rush of fine bubbles floating up to the surface of the skin all at once. Every time I intended to do something, like scratch an itch or direct the flow of meditation, I saw this intention clearly in the body.

The intensity of the concentration waned a little but remained high. Kept following various sensations and vibrations around the body. At one point, the body as a whole was pulsing in and out. I perceived that in between a body/no-body pulse there seemed to some sort of void spot. There was just, nothing in that gap. Difficult to explain.

I feel invigorated and inspired right now. Confidence is high.

35 minutes. Started out with mindfulness of breathing, following the flow closely. After 10, transitioned to insight practice. Got some involuntary twitching in the face right away, as soon as I started to see breath fragments. Mostly in my eyes, forehead, and lips. Followed these sensations. Concentration was moderate throughout, mostly followed various sensations around and watched them blink/pulse in and out of existence. Concentration weakened towards the end of the sit.

35 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing, sticking attention to the cyclic flow. After 10, switched to insight pratice. Started getting twitching within a few minutes of noting breath fragments. Should I be switching attention to the twitching sensations, or staying with the breath? I stayed with the breath and tried to keep noting it. Got twitching mostly in my mouth and lips. Felt rapid and subtle vibrations in the breath and in the eyelids. Concentration was moderate, and grew strong towards the end of the sit. I was just letting sensations come and go as they pleased at this point. Mostly watched the swirling blackness expand and contract at various points in the visual field (closed eyelids), like a lava lamp. No pain or aversion.

This sounds good.

What does your insight practice look like? Are you noting the rising and falling of the abdomen? If so, note anything that grabs your attention (like the twitching and vibrations) before returning to the breath.

You might want to try some "pure" aka anchor-less noting at this point: just note whatever is occurring every second or two, without following the breath. Anxiety, constriction, amusement, boredom, release of pressure, disgust, coolness-pleasant, planning thought, desire to appear competent, embarrassment, planning thought, etc.

It's a good idea to become interested in the more subtle phenomena you're experiencing, i.e., the twitching, vibrations, trippy visual stuff.

I'm not strictly staying with the abdomen, just sort of staying receptive to physical sensations of the breath wherever they may arise - nostrils, diaphragm, abdomen, etc. I guess that's halfway between a primary object and "pure" noting.

35 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing, then transitioned to insight practice. Did this on my lunch break and was distracted by work thoughts. Concentration was basically nil, mind felt very dull. Aversion arose, back pains arose. Towards the end just decide to flow with whatever came up. Started to build some strong concentration, then the bell rang.

40 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing, counting breaths. Pretty soon body contortions, and related pains came up, and I sort of naturally transitioned to insight practice and penetrated those objects. Did this for a few minutes, then fine tingling arose in my neck area. Stayed with this for awhile and got some eye twitching, moved to that and was really just watching little concrete frames of sensation wherever they arose. This went on for awhile and concetration was pretty strong, and then it just sort of faded away. The mind was over-relaxed, tired, and dull. I floated around in and out of distraction and various sensations. Equanimity (or relaxation?) was high so I really wasn't having problems with any of this, just getting mindfulness and investigation on track when I could, and not really beating myself up when they faded into seas of distraction. Towards the end I just did "pure" noting with no primary object, just watching little things come and go.

40 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing. Concentration was weak and I was easily distracted. Transitioned to insight practice, just noting sensations arising and passing, whatever they may be. Concentration was still weak and back pain arose. Flashes of warmth and heat. Body contorting sensations. Watched these all blink in and out. Watched flashes of frustration and aversion blink in and out. Eventually started feeling fine tingling in the neck area. Started to focus more on the sensations of the breath and got some twiching going on in the lips. Seems like every time I incline my mind towards busting up the breath into its fragments, thats when the twitching starts. Concentration was still pretty weak throughout but I stayed with various arising and passing sensations.

40 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing, then transitioned to insight practice. Concentration was moderate. Started getting twitching, mostly in the mouth, which persisted for over 20 minutes. At some points my whole upper body shook, and my head nodded quickly and involuntarily. If I would've seen someone else making these movements, I would've thought they were faking it, that's how ridiculous they felt. I even laughed out loud at one point. Anyway, kept following the twitching mostly as well as other various sensations, towards the end concentration dissolved completely and I just stood up, couple minutes before the bell. No aversion, mild back pain at points. My mouth is still kinda twitching now. Kinda hope it stops soon, haha.

40 minutes yesterday, pretty similar to the sit I just had:
40 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing. Transitioned naturally to insight practice. Noticed discrete pulses of reality and started getting twitching in the mouth again. Followed the breath and twitching for awhile, concentration was moderate. After awhile concentration weakened to essentially nothing and I was just sitting around daydreaming. Mind felt very dull, energy was low. Noted an apathetic and unmotivated mindset arising, associated with the sensations of dullness. Drifted between noting random sensations and just tuning out all together. Finding it difficult to string together periods of mindfulness off the cushion as well. Just feeling very dull and tuned out in general.

40 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing. Concentration was moderate to strong. Transitioned to insight practice, noting moments of consciousness of the breath. Started getting twitching in the mouth. Concentration was strong, noted various sensations, mostly expanding/contracting lava lamp like swirls of blackness of the closed eyelids. Kept noting whatever came up and concentration remained strong.

40 minutes. Started with mindfulness of breathing. Concentration was weak, but transitioned to insight after 15. Made contact with the various sensations making up inhalations and exhalations. Back pain arose, as did various itches, and averse mindstate. Back pain persisted throughout the sit and concentration was weak, mind felt like a dull knife. Couldn't penetrate the breath with any depth, consistency, or stability. Back pain remained distracting, eventually reclined in my chair with a few minutes left. This eased the pain a little but concentrationwas still weak.

30 minutes. Went straight to noting body sensations. Mostly noted touching, holding, pressure, sitting, warmth, itching, pushing, breathing. After 5 switched to vedana, noting pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. After 5 switched to mindstates. Couldn't really get a feel for these and stumbled around trying to find a spot where I could feel mindstates, and then stumbled trying to find labels for what I felt. Soon got the hang of it and noted, quiet, calm, content, relaxed, investigating, aversion, etc. After 5 switched to thoughts and mental images. Since I was pretty relaxed and concentrated at this point my mind was mostly blank with noting to note. Once one mental image popped up, this prompted a whole slew of others in its wake. Noted the mental images that came up and followed the trail of word association. After 5 switched back to body. Mind was concentrated and noting was quick and precise at this point. Switched to vedana after another 5 and saw that the speed and stability were increasing even more.

I'm liking this 4 foundations rotation, thanks to mumuwu for the idea.

35 minutes. 5 minute noting periods cycling through the 4 Foundations.
5 body: noted touching, holding, sitting, warmth, itching, breathing, etc.
5 vedana: mostly noted neutral, itches were unpleasant and breaths were pleasant
5 mindstate: noted calm, quiet, relaxed, investigating, looking, observing, etc.
5 thoughts/mental images: did the word association type thing and noted long strings of unrelated mental images that popped into my head.
5 body: back pain arose by this time so mostly noted tension, pain, stiffness, heat.
5 vedana: back pain was solid and strong so noted almost entirely unpleasant for the whole 5 minutes
5 mindstate: back pain was still strong so noted mostly aversion the entire time. Towards the end started to get twitching and weird involuntary facial contortions, this diminished the pain/aversion and so I noted interest, observing, investigating.

Noticed speed, accuracy, clarity increasing as the sit progressed, by the time one cycle was complete it was obvious that noting ability was growing stronger. Now I feel pretty refreshed and a content-type thing that was getting on my nerves earlier doesn't seem so important.

35 minutes. 5 minute noting periods cycling through the 4 Foundations.
5 body: noted touching, sitting, pushing, warmth, itching, breathing, etc.
5 vedana: mostly noted neutral
5 mindstate: noted calm, quiet, investigating. Started to get some serious involuntary movement. Started in my feet, legs bounced up and down restlessly. Involuntary movements started spreading throughout my whole body, serious twitching and grimacing in the face. Kept noting mindstate throughout, mostly interested, observing, confused, chaotic, etc.
5 thoughts/mental images: Involuntary movements were still going full force, noting extremely rapid streams of mental images, 3-5 per second. Halfway through a deep outbreath, just as MCTB outlines, things slowed down and most of the movements stopped expcept for some gentle bouncing of the legs.
5 body: noted mostly twitching and moving in the legs, also touching, holding, sitting, etc.
5 vedana: noted mostly pleasant and neutral with almost no unpleasant.
5 mindstate: noted calm, quiet, looking, and started to get twitching again. Interesting that the involuntary movements started twice during the 3rd foundation. Once again, halfway through a deep outbreath things slowed down. Eyes opened and were blinking uncontrollably. Felt on the brink of something and then the bell rang.

40 minutes. 5 minute noting periods cycling through the 4 Foundations.
5 body into 5 vedana. Started getting some twitching and movement in the feet.
5 mindstate. Twitching and movement became more pronounced. The pattern seems to be getting more obvious, twitching always seems to start when I note the third foundation. Noted scattered, fragmented a lot, felt like my mind state was being diced to small pieces by all of the twitching and movement going on.
5 thoughts/mental i mages: noting picked up in speed, I almost always note mental images, not a lot of though going on.
Throughout this I kept getting small cycles where the twitching and movement would pick up for a few minutes, then there would be a deep exhale and things would slow down. This cycle completed itself noticeably at least 3 times.
5 body: mostly noting twitching and blinking.
5 vedana: mostly noted neutral throughout the twitching, which even became unpleasant at times because I was growing tired and bored of it.
5 mindstate: noted fatigue, calm, quiet, bored, concentrated.
5 thoughts/mental images: felt very fatigued at this point, concentration was noticeably weaker and noting speed decreased. Mind felt dull, images and thoughts weren't readily obvious.

Josh,

Good going. Remember that there are going to be sits that are boring or unpleasant for the entire duration. The main thing to remember in those situations is to continue to apply your method in the face of it. Resolving to continue to practice for the allotted time when things get rough is what allows you to continue to make progress through the nasty parts of the insight process, which have their own lessons to teach.

30 minutes, noting the four foundations.

Started off very tired and averse to the idea of sitting, looking for excuses not to. For the first ten minutes, didn't note anything, just stayed with sound for 5 and breath sensations for 5. Started noting the 3rd foundation after 10 minutes. Immediately started to feel alert, energized. Twitching began and persisted and on and off throughout the sit. Pretty standard noting, nothing new to report.

Did 40 yesterday too, no report but pretty standard stuff.

Went for a walk during the day and noted the six sense doors for 25 minutes or so. I find this gives rise to a sort of spacious feeling.

Just now, 40 minutes, noting the four foundations. Typical stuff. I noticed the twitching would usually start right after a pleasant sensation arose. Got several cycles of twitching, relaxed spacious calm, twitching, relaxed spacious calm. Now I have pains and tensions in my body, mostly in the thighs and legs.

Been doing a lot of sense door noting off cushion. Earlier went for an hour walk with the dog and noted throughout. Got very stable and was able to note sense doors without any gaps in awareness. Came home and sat for 20, noting the four foundations. Had the usual twitching, pretty typical sit. Noting ability is definitely getting stronger and more stable overall.

40 minutes, noting the four foundations. Had a lot of restlessness come up during the sit, legs were bouncing and twitching restlessly the whole time. Might be starting to hit "the wall" with this pracitce where it seems like more energy and effort are required to keep it up. Or it may have just been a restless sit and I'm reading too much into it.