limbic's sitting log

Sitting Log

11/13 10am
Distraction, practice thoughts, heaviness. A relatively loose sitting just getting into the meditation. Scenario thoughts, Situations, coolness, warmth, tingling.

11 AM
Periods of subtler sensations of tingling and vibrations across the face and less so at various other spots with periods of heaviness and uncomfortable unpleasant sensations. was sitting in the middle of a quaker meeting for worship and had a fair amount of conceptual, scenario, situation thoughts often when someone stood up to speak. mental roaming a small issue but mostly concerned dissolving the quality of mind away from the gross and unpleasant and the attention and will it takes to approach that. after the sitting I stayed through their business agenda at the end of which they encouraged visiting people to introduce themselves and this proceeded clockwise towards me from the other side of the room. as it traversed across the room my heart began to beat profusely, though there was no mental anxiety present, only whether or not my gigantic heartbeats would distract me from what I was saying.

1230pm

Solid sit characterized by dense unpleasant sensations in the beginning. Had a pleasant pocket of serenity with a general tone of clarity across the face. Noted thoughts in such a way that made it seem as if i could note thoughts on a higher level, as if I could begin to note thoughts as they began to occur in their first stages. Apprehensive about the level of noting between thoughts and the other four foundations. Unsure if my noting of mind states is sufficient. they wind up being mostly about anxiety/apprehension when that is there and serenity/calm when that is there. most of the noting centers around the same two or three things from that particular category of mindfulness.

2PM

Much distraction in this sit. Unconcentrated mind, lost at times in stories of this and that subject. Though there were good moments, and much more notes of disappointment and distraction. Good moments entailed an impression or idea that I was reaching the tipping point of really profound noting, mostly pertaining to thoughts. Though with the understanding that this good noting would entail all of the foundations, for some reason it seemed as if the proper, precise noting of thoughts was the most profound leap.

5 PM

Periods of good meditation that once again seemed to glimpse the frontiers of excellent noting. At times it seemed like there were two streams or whatever of mind constantly jiving against one another, as though there was a part of the mind noting what was happening at just that very moment and another part already in the midst of conceptualizing the past or the future couple seconds. More even noting across the foundations of mindfulness, and at the end of the sit there was a warm section of sensation on the skin around the right part of my stomach. Also there was more to this sit but I forgot what it was. Somewhere towards the end of the sit I sort of took a thirty second or one minute break, even though the meditation was in process with some momentum (though not thriving or anything).

630 PM Walking meditation

Difficulty concentrating in walking meditation. More investigation on the way everything, three characteristic wise, fits together - or how one approaches the true apprehension/comprehension or the three characteristics. or whatever. can't really say at this point in my practice.

8PM Sitting

Substantially distracted sitting with slightly deeper meditation towards the end of it -- I have a tension in my right neckish/shoulder muscle that recurs every so often during sits until I dissect and disintegrate it in meditation - or perhaps just move out of the dark night into equanimity, or who knows maybe even just from the 3 characteristics into the A&P. This sit is good evidence that things do indeed distract on retreat - owing to a supermarket trip on the walking meditation and just before the sit having listened to, in particular, "Deathwish" by Christian Death with Rozz Williams and "Fish in the Jailhouse" by Tom Waits, both on very high volume. So- I suppose if you what you want is a change of pace during the retreat, a jaunty walk and loud music is one way to do it. During the hour noted very many times futurizing or scenario thought with thoughts pertaining to the sit log and what would be good or appropriate for it. what was or wasn't actually an insight into a thought pattern. the story went there would be a moment seemingly more profound that would rouse such thinking of what is or isn't report worthy. Thus noting became solipsistic and it was very obvious that my mind was swirling in story-ish narrative type thoughts.

Dinner

More of the same in sitting meditations and walking meditations until bed 12pm. No, actually more concentration in walking meditations and slightly more in sitting meditations

11/14

Woke at TEN after deciding to do a prone meditation in the comforts of my warm cozy bed. Fail!

Poor concentration and depth of meditation all the way until one twenty.

11/14

Woke at TEN after deciding to do a prone meditation in the comforts of my warm cozy bed. Fail!

Poor concentration and depth of meditation all the way until one twenty.


3PM sit

Characterized by solidity, pretty standard and not very insightful seeming. The structure of the body was very normal, solid. Spent time throughout the session tailing thoughts and noting it, stopping that particular, small trajectory of thought only to happen upon a new one in a relatively short amount of time. Not much sensation wise, mostly heaviness. Lacking in notes of mind states, I think. Not an uncommon type sit for me, considering all my sits off retreat.

Another sit of the same caliber more or less then dinner

7PM Sit
distraction distraction solid sensations like the sittings before. Noticed a couple times how my mind seems to generate false noting, instances where it seems to fabricate notes out of a desire or imperative to move forward, I.E. there will be the standard notes then somehow there will be a note of "seeing" that seems as if it was just there to keep up a constant speed, as in I was not necessarily actually seeing at that moment. often when this happens it is combined with another note such as "neutral" and also sometimes an actual physical symptom or reflex such as breathing in through my nose just a little heavier.

11/15

Woke at 8 and endeavored again to do a lying meditation with the idea that awakening/awareness of consciousness is just based off the diligence at any one moment to disembed from the experience by noting it. Was in my warm cozy bed. It went seeemingly better than the other day, more conscious, more intentful noting, but the time passed nearly just as fast and absently -- I did this for two and a half hours before rising out of bed/lying meditation at 1030.

So a quick explanation - I've been doing the open awareness noting very intently since March of 2011 and before that mostly body scanning, Goenka style, very intently, for about nine months, which followed about six months of more casual Goenka body scanning.

Reaching the point now where I want to re-optimize my lifestyle/attitude/mindset/prerogatives, prioritizing an effective, rigorous practice to lead me to enlightenment a little sooner than later. Biggest preoccupation right now is making the change to a mindfulness spread across every moment of my day as opposed to vigorous, sort of breakneck sitting with the idea that that would better my every moment like a drop of dense food coloring in a gallon of water, or whatever.

At the moment on a kind of retreat which has been coming along not as intentful as I think I would like -- just before this took a 10 day retreat at a Goenka center in which I seemed to leave the DN into equanimity and found that it is a good bit easier to become distracted at that stage.

145-245PM

A solid sit with regular noting. Maybe forgetting to note mind states as much as I would like. I have a tendency to believe that my noting is incomplete. Other than that this sit had a nice spread of subtle sensations and concentration felt accessible. Seeming to be building back up into the momentum I had a little earlier in this retreat and all last retreat, or the first part of this one if you prefer.

Sitting log 11/16

730 - 930 am

my bed persuaded me once again to do a lying meditation upon waking from sleep. this time it was much more conscious and intentful than the last two days, but just does not have the energy that some of my sitting meditations do. that may be because it was in the morning, my meditations in the morning are usually the least substantial. But, that is a quality of my overall practice that I recognize often -- that its just not substantial enough. Not the technique necessarily, just my experience of applying myself to it.


11am - 1pm

Began slightly with a homogeneous quality of concentration but not much insight to see from it. Basic sensations, basic thoughts, the normal sort of latent mind state, mostly neutral sensations. This picked up a little to a more solid and concrete order or pace to the noting as it the sitting went on as well as the progression to a slightly more pleasant level of sensations, experienced particularly on the forearms/hands and face/neck. throughout the entire sitting it was common for the mind to wander, but the noting had a seeming effectiveness in putting an end to the wandering.

1-2pm

A solid sit in terms of noting and clarity, but again a basic clarity with nothing about it seeming to entail insight. meditation at this level seems to have become a fluent but superficial faculty. attention is not yolked into a sort of rhythm, but is capable. there is also the slight impression that what I am doing is not enough. other than that, a general calm, pleasant tone to the meditation. looking back, I think I may have been lacking on notes of mind states and having a bias towards notes on thoughts.

the rest of 11/16

More of the same really. Optimistic but latent. Confident at being at a liminal point and unconcerned about the lack of obvious momentous change.

11/17

Made the same choice to meditate after waking from sleep in my bed and stayed there for about two hours. The meditation was, continuing the pattern from yesterday, more active and conscious than before yet time still flew past quickly without notice.

Other meditations throughout the day have been rather superficial but confident like the other sits. This retreat has been less a retreat and more applying mindfulness in an every day situation in a vigorous capacity.

On friday 11/18 I had some responsibilities to attend to and I did not meditate more than two or three hours all day long. Didn't log them

11/19
Hard/solid sits dealing with heavy, cramped and kind of vacuous cobwebbed sensations in my gut and torso area. As usual I had some vibrations arising on my face and somewhat in my ands and forearms. Must was neutral, there was some unusual mind states like fear and horror pertaining to the future I am bound to experience. But that is a lesser part of the sit. A big worry of mine is that all my sits are stale for wont of missing the real meat that I need to work on. I am always sort of contented with my sits when I encounter a pocket of anxiety that I can note, and I suppose perhaps I'm boiling up in a way to really hashing these pockets out - since I am becoming more and more apprehensive and dissatisfied about not having been able or being able to take out this dirty laundry. The issue is that perhaps I have just been a loathing twenty minute dark night yogi for the past, say three or six months despite a vigorous allotment of practice time. Woops. Now, at least, it seems that there's a more complete apprehension of my sits and they're not just skating by. Even when I get to the point that before I would fecklessly maybe take a minute's break from sitting, I now continue with my sits. I've come into a more naturally faithful disposition to vertigo and adversity.

I've gone to a meditation center and have been serving for the past four days meditating three hours every day. The sits have gone mostly like this following one, although there have been a few lesser quality ones especially in the morning.

11/24

A good sit with a homogeneous noting of all the fonudations of mindfulness, though I noticed my mind is evidently wandering off on thought tangents more so in the beginning of the sit and tapering off a little towards the end. Need to do more precise noting. I saw that in my mind wandering off, I would notice it but would not note it in a way that would just stop it. Usually, over maybe a period of fifteen seconds or so I actually observed my mind in the process of transitioning away from the thought. But this was not a noting of it, it was more like watching a movie of my mind in progress. Seemingly contrived. At a few points in the sitting I noticed a sort of stiff sensation in my head that seemed to go along with the thoughts. As if if I could dissolve that area of rigidity, my thoughts would come more smoothly as well. It was as if the area of rigidity was like the pressured wall of a dam, the thoughts being water. but it was not an incredibly gross sensation by any measure. subtle.


Since I'm at a center I won't have the time to read as much about sitting as I want to so I would love it if anyone with an extra couple minutes could abide me for the moment. Really thirsty for some feedback about how to further my practice. I want to step it up a notch and I'm still putting effort into becoming completely mindful. I would be grateful for any comment on my logs!

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Following is the account of a seven day retreat I had before christmas.

halfway through the day. drifiting mind with the impression of future mindfulness. proceeding fairly well in noting all of the foundations. biggest problem is getting lost in thought trajectories

same pattern thought the rest of the day. benign sensations and vedana, occasionally unpleasant, occasionally okay (or slightly pleasant). still being thwarted by a wandering mind - the biggest problem. considering augmenting my sits with concentration meditation, something I haven't done for about a year. sensation wise, I get the tip of the iceberg, judging by past sits, with a strain in my neck and some tingling on my face - when my mind is sharp enough to do what seems like "actual" meditation as opposed to attention spent in vain. I get sits that do not even seem to concur with the dark night- they are just wishy washy.

d2
much distraction especially in the morning by objects of passion. morning sits also characterized by the normal morning torpor and entropy. slow to concentrate, easy to drift. later in the afternoon i met moments in which i seemed on the precipice of faster, more precise, driven noting.

at night my sitting was distracted. holes in noting thought patterns and also negligence of minds states. before the sit I had a one hour break during which I kept only a casual mindfulness.

d3

distracted all morning long by my libido in the early morning and anger later on. but was able to exercise okay concentration by noon . after noon my meditation scaled up to an okay sitting. during the hour long afternoon sit I was distracted by thought trajectories but had moments where I was able to note precisely. think i may stiil be missing out on mind states. there is a permeating impression that I am not doing the technique well- something totally lacking about any of the things i may note.

had an idea to do something to release that libidinal energy and the sit in the late afternoon was much calmer and smoother with good concentration developed towards the end despite some apprehension that i would have instead just sacrificed valuable energy.. what are some ideas about this, releasing libidinal energy on retreats? does not seem to have hurt this time around but also like a bad idea for the rest of the retreat. writing this i'm not sure if my noting was good all around or if i had once again neglected to note as many mind states as i ought to.

believe I hit a nice, easy, calm equanimity this sit. the concentration from the last kept up and settled down a little bit, though it is still somewhat easy to go on thought trajectories. but also now it is now easier to note. sublte low instensity vibrations throughout the entire sit, maybe starting in the early-mid part, mostly on my face and forearms. at the end of the sit a slight presence of a pleasant nest of cool, soft, sublte sensations in my lower abdomen area. looking forward to probing the rest of my body for subtle sensations in the upcoming days.

d4

in the morning stayed in bed doing meta instead of waking and meditating. this was not good. it made it incredibly easy to stay in bed for about two extra hours i didn't intend, robbing me of momentum? I assumed so. also made me sleep through a substantial part of the morning group sit. going back to the cushion come noontime, my concentration was roaming but by the late afternoon sit things had calmed down again to a clear pace although I still need to note thoughts better.

evening sit went well - clear concentration, able to come away from lust/passion when it happens and better able to note thought trajectories - though it is easy for them to happen now that my overall feeling tone is a pleasant one of calmness and serenity. had some moments when i was able to observe the body in a more introspective way - a way that I did consciously back when I was first starting vipassana with body scanning, but this time it was on a subtler level and of course in the mix wit the three other foundations of mind as well. also experienced some short tracts noting things I haven't noted before, such as doubt and a couple others I don't remember. new words for old, but only similar things.

d5
slow to a good meditation in the morning. flagging concentration that got better by 10 am. in the afternoon i encountered doubt in my meditation, though the feeling tones - aside from the emotional inputs - were by and large those I associate with equanimity, or the equanimity that I have so far achieved. i was only noting negative feelings in my stomach, as if on a purely putative level, and pessimism in my thoughts about my not doing enough. but that improved with about half an hour to an hour of intentful noting, which lead into the afternoon group sit. during that my concentration was good and i experienced subtle, subtle positive sensations across my forearms and a little on my face. also delved more than usual into my abdomen and back area which were clear in sensation. during these afternoon sits i started to get an idea that maybe I have been doing mind states wrong all along. usually, one of my biggest notes for mind states is anxiety, which most usually comes along with a poor sensation in my stomach. but my new idea about it is that i was just associating an unpleasant physical sensation with a mindstate that may not have actually been there in the beginning. as if perhaps the mind state that was actually there was something ore like investigation - investigation of the unpleasantness in the stomach.

d6

morning had usual bout of torpor but got on going okay by 10 am. by the afternoon group sitting my meditations had become well. good concentration, good equanimity, although- there was seemingly not very much activity in terms of sensations. i think that, while the overall tone of the concentration was good, it became apparent towards the end of the sit that there wasn't enough direction in the meditaiton - I was subtly wandering off on thought tangents and needing to wrought out more direct noting.

d7

again, slow in the morning. the sit went by surprisingly quickly and I moved alot. by the afternoon there was a better quality of concentration and I was noting everything okay but there was an impression that I just wasn't doing it well enough - which I don't think I got around to noting well enough. I didn't know how to note it - dissatisfaction seems okay for it, but its more than that. its almost too light to note, or something. a mental impression.

At this point the last group sit had begun and I found myself thinking much about my return to the real world the next day. The meditation was okay but only decent in terms of noting, ect.