Rickety's Practice Journal

Hi everyone!

I decided to jump into the public practice log habit. I'd started a private one, but figure it'd be cool to get the perspective of others and help keep myself motivated.

Before I begin, I'd just like to make a couple humble requests:

1. If anyone would like to comment on my posts, I would like to request that you please remember Right Speech in doing so. As the Buddha said, it's extremely unpleasant to hear hurtful things said in hurtful ways, even if they're true. Although all the posts I've read on this forum so far have been very respectful, I've been shocked by the insensitivity and even outright cruelty on other dharma-related boards, and so wanted to make this disclaimer just in case this place was no different. If you choose to take offense at this very request and flame me for it, that's of course your prerogative; I will just choose not to come around here anymore.

2. Nine times out of ten, the advice people give is that the OP investigate whatever they've posted about. Purely out of the desire to avoid unnecessary repetition, I would just like to say that you can assume that I am investigating everything. That includes all the content of and intention behind this very post. I understand that repetition is often necessary in training, but if that's the only thing I need to remember, then I have no need to come here; all I need is a big sign on my wall saying "investigate everything" (which actually isn't a bad idea, I guess). I would just prefer to hear about anything I may not already know.

I sincerely hope that you don't find these requests offensive. It would be quite silly if I used Wrong Speech in my plea for Right Speech. But if they did hurt you in some way, please let me know and I will edit it to reflect better speech, even if that means deleting this post completely.

Thank you,
rickety

I've thought about mentioning where I am on the "map," but whenever I've done so, people have typically just been argumentative about it, so I see no point in doing so for this purpose. It should become apparent anyway.

Yesterday, 30 mins walking meditation. I wasn't sure if I had good or bad mindfulness and concentration. I think it was bad, but at the time, I felt beyond good and bad. Maybe that means it was good, then.

My mind, especially at the beginning and the end, engaged in didactic thinking quite a bit and wasn't pinioned to my area of focus (first the sensations of my feet, then all physical stimuli). Even so, I felt like it was an easy mindfulness, not persecuted by monkey mind, very present (albeit more in some moments than others). Especially in the middle, there was the 'well, this is it' feeling, 'nothing left to do,' etc., which actually created a brief moment of resentment that I had to do this meditation crap and still haven't been enlightened. I started investigating that feeling, but it went away after just a minute or so.

I considered focusing on the 'witness', but there were way too many sensorial things to focus on to do so. I did, however, note the noting process itself, which I think may actually have hindered my concentration (i.e. because I was questioning it).

Last night, 20 mins lying in bed: focused on the breath, then physical sensation as a whole. Decided to focus on the 'observer' and did the 'chasing the tail' thing for a while. It was very annoying/disconcerting. Did 7th and 8th jhanas for a while to calm thoughts down more, after which just tried to do pure awareness, which brought up the feeling of "nothing special". Pretty much worked, with some blips of thought. Then fell asleep.

fyi, fwiw, I just read about Kenneth Folk's "3rd gear" and realized that that's what I've been doing for the past few days or so.

"I decided to jump into the public practice log habit."

Welcome to the habit!

Thanks! ^_^

Here's my next entry:

30 mins sitting meditation: At first was depressed about real life stuff, which I first "investigated", then dispersed with serenity. Then settled into pure awareness, with some intermittent flare-ups of the depressive feelings and thoughts of worry. Awareness was primarily of vibrations, mainly on my face and hands. Tinkered for a moment with the 8th jhana, but even that felt "artificial," a construct of the mind, so just stuck with awareness. There were some moments of, "omg, I'm approaching stream entry! Something's happening!" and got all excited, and of course just watched this reaction, including my quickened heart beat. I seem to be strangely afraid of stream entry, probably because it's an unknown experience.

Fought off sleepiness for the last 10 mins.

Hey, I'm on a roll! Actually felt like meditating another 30 mins. This is a first. I had a serious block against meditating as of just a few days ago, and I guess focused on the "drawbacks" of the sensory world (as Buddha suggests) enough such that meditating feels like the only thing left to do. Also, I'm gearing up for a self-guided retreat in a couple weekends, and so my minimum meditation goal is 30 mins a day this week, to ramp up to an hour a day next week, so I'm in meditation mode, I guess.

First jumped into pure awareness, then tried letting go even MORE, i.e. of trying to do anything at all. This proved to be quite effective, and led to some interesting sensations for a few minutes: nearly severe tightness in the chest and head. This seemed to dissipate as my concentration unraveled, and so I switched to really honing in on the 8th jhana. Although this worked for a while, my mind started generating random thoughts and images, as one does before drifting off to sleep, and had a momentary vision of light. Just noted them and let them go, but then my mind also wandered down alleyways of thought more than I would have liked, which made me feel a bit frustrated. In the last ten minutes, I started feeling the strain of meditating longer than I normally do.

In this sit and in the previous one, I also noticed some ear-ringing, just for a minute or so, which I had never noticed before. I'm wondering if this is because I read about this "symptom" in someone else's practice journal, or if I finally noticed it because someone brought my attention to such a thing.

Last night, 30 mins: tried really noting everything, even buried things in my consciousness I may not have noticed before as well as really dissecting my thoughts and the illusion of self. I feel like I really "non-self'ed" my whole consciousness, including the "noter" and "decider," as they can all just be lumped under "thought," just neurons firing.

When I really felt that, I felt a strange pressure throughout my entire body, especially my head. I was afraid of what was happening to me and repeated to myself, "Don't be afraid. There's no reason to be afraid," and just tried to continue focus on paying attention to this sensation and others without holding onto it. It went away after a few minutes.

Don't really remember the rest of the meditation. I'm trying not to "write" these journal entries in my head as I meditate, and try to turn off the "record" button on my memory. But obviously nothing remarkable happened or I would have remembered it anyway.

"In this sit and in the previous one, I also noticed some ear-ringing, just for a minute or so, which I had never noticed before. I'm wondering if this is because I read about this "symptom" in someone else's practice journal, or if I finally noticed it because someone brought my attention to such a thing."

Ear ringing is one of the first things I tried focusing on when I first started out. I also use it as an anchor in vipassana practice sometimes, if I'm casting about for something to investigate. It seems safer than just letting my thoughts roam too far afield.

Welcome, btw! Laurel

Interesting. Does ear ringing happen to you only happen while you're meditating?

Since I've started meditating I'm able to notice ear ringing at other times in the day, but usually I have to be intentional about it. In meditation it's very pronounced; sometimes it sounds almost like crickets chirping.

I've also experienced pressure in the head, which you remarked on in yesterday's post. In my case it was part of a larger pattern, and it began at the back of the neck and crawled up the back of the head, then receded again. Like you, I had to tell myself not to be afraid the first time it happened.

When we start meditation we notice a lot of new things, most very normal and common.Why? Because we're being still and paying attention!

"Since I've started meditating I'm able to notice ear ringing at other times in the day, but usually I have to be intentional about it. In meditation it's very pronounced; sometimes it sounds almost like crickets chirping.

I've also experienced pressure in the head, which you remarked on in yesterday's post. In my case it was part of a larger pattern, and it began at the back of the neck and crawled up the back of the head, then receded again. Like you, I had to tell myself not to be afraid the first time it happened. "

Hm, are you sure it's not an ear problem? It's just that that doesn't happen to me--except for that one minute during meditation. If you're sure it's not, then that's cool; it's probably just meditation-induced. Just making sure it's not cause for concern.

Yeah, I figure that moment of being petrified was the fear nana. Pretty intense. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to die in that moment, when I'm just lying on my bed, even though I know that's ridiculous lol.

So I barely meditated all weekend, which majorly sucks because I'm gearing up for this 2-day self-retreat in a couple weeks, AND I'm bumping up to a goal of meditating an hour a day as of today. On the weekends, I seem to want to just totally let go of everything--not just mindfulness, but all of my intentions to run errands, go to the gym, etc. Instead, I either sleep all day, read or play video games lol. After a week of work (even though it's not strenuous at all), I guess I'm just in the mood to let loose.

I suppose this is normal and common, but it's an obstacle to meditation and mindfulness nonetheless, as well as an obvious sign of just being completely overrun by sensual desire. It's making me really worry as to whether I'll even be able to successfully make myself do this self-retreat on a weekend, which will take enormous self-discipline. This is why, of course, people go AWAY for retreats, but I just wanted to try it without spending money (I know such things are usually donation-based, but I would of course make a donation) and without missing work. Yet I expect myself to be fully self-disciplined for these day-longs when I can't even make myself meditate for 30 minutes.

Some people might think I'm being too hard on myself, but I'm aware that being hard on myself or not isn't the point. It just makes me realize that the question is really "what's going on?" I thought I settled this matter about a week ago--as I mentioned above, when I realized that there was no satisfaction to be gained from the outside world, so I may as well just meditate--but clearly that answer crumbled for me this weekend. Video games were far too mesmerizing to make me believe that. Were those video games satisfying on as deep level as meditation can attain? Of course not. Did that make any difference to me? Nope.

more to follow...

Anyhow, in the grand scheme of things, I know it's not really a big deal, but getting to stream entry allegedly requires momentum, i.e. a prolonged, sustained effort that a weekend of mindlessness would certainly derail and land you back at square one.

As Buddha mentions in the somethingerother sutta, he had problems with renunciation because he didn't think about the drawbacks of the sensual world enough, so I'm thinking that's where my focus needs to be. But it's still difficult. My being is rebelling against it. It's like that sutta about the dancing girl: I want to watch the dancing girl; the bowl of oil on my head be damned.

As I mentioned in my first post, I'm sure that 9 out of 10 people would probably recommend "sitting with it" or "investigating" it, and I can see that that's a clever work-around, but I have not come across Buddha ever saying "sit with your obstructions." From what I've seen, he appears to have been in the "antidote" school of thought--i.e. if you're feeling ill-will, do metta meditation. But I'm not "clinging to rites and rituals" either. I'm fine with trying something even if Buddha didn't say it. I just think it's interesting that what is probably the single most common piece of advice from modern Buddhist practitioners is nowhere to be found (let alone the most common advice) in Buddha's actual teachings.

Anyhow, this isn't much more than a rant.... Back on the horse.

First of all, thanks for the concern--but I really think this ear ringing business is meditation related. It's not something that occurs to me unless I focus on it. But if it's not happening to you, no worries; I think there's a lot of variety out there.

I do want to offer encouragement about the feeling that you're backsliding, or rather letting things slide: I've recently been rereading Daniel's *Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha," and realized I'd never made it to the end of the book, where he goes through a number of models of enlightenment. I now have a lot more compassion on myself for the persistence of all my patterns. I don't exactly like to see myself "wasting" time doing this or that, but I understand it a lot better. Anyway, good luck with the self-retreat. Whatever happens, you'll have learned something.

Ok, good.

Thanks for the encouragement! C: That's interesting about getting compassion for yourself from the models of enlightenment in MCTB. How did I miss that...? I was probably just interested in the models themselves. Or was there something about the different models that led to this greater understanding?

I think it's mainly the way Daniel points out that even people who are enlightened still experience personal quirks; enlightenment is not a magic bullet that makes us perfect. Before enlightenment, or in my case before first path, our ingrained patterns are going to be just plain stubborn. Mine certainly are. I'm starting to be more patient with it. These problems don't disappear through an act of the will.

Still, I am interested in this question of how much b.s. we're supposed to tolerate in ourselves. There is for example the possibility of making resolves. Sometimes this is really powerful, and other times I just drift back into old habits. My brain is hard-wired to crave certain experiences; there's a lot of neuroscience recently to explain why we do the stuff we do. The one thing I've discovered is that getting mad at myself doesn't do any good. If it did, I'd have been both enlightened and perfect a long time ago!

Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, his explanation of enlightenment definitely sounds more feasible and realistic.

I guess we only tolerate as much BS from ourselves as we're willing to put up with! You're right, we're going up against a lot: millions of years of evolution, in fact. I think scientists should DEFINITELY find a way to program our minds like computers. For instance, if we don't want to eat junk food, we just type it in and suddenly we don't even want junk food anymore. But until then....

I think your statement about how it won't just take an act of will is right on the money. I had a thought this morning that it's not about discipline; it's about remembering WHY I'm doing this. If I'm stuck on thinking the sensual world is great, well then maybe I'm just not ready for this. Maybe I need to get burned just one more time or, like an alcoholic, hit rock bottom for me to realize that true fulfillment cannot be found in the external world.

But, as meditating on dukkha and the drawbacks suggests, I don't need to get burned again; I AM burning, right now. The senses are on fire; indulging in sensual pleasures nothing but a dog gnawing desperately at a bone. All I have to do is realize it.

This is the sort of thinking that led to my conclusion that meditation is all that's left to do, as mentioned in previous posts. I guess the only act of will is turning my attention to the subject, which isn't that hard, but is certainly a buzzkill, lol. I think what I'm trying to say is that theoretically, it shouldn't take any discipline at all to simply go for peace and pleasant abiding in the here-and-now.

Sorry for being so rambly. It helped me sort it out though.

Last night, sitting, 30 mins. A bit of metta, then jhanas 1-8, then noting, but unfortunately, by that point, my neighbors had whipped up quite the party (on a Monday night!! wtf?!), and so most of what I was noting was my extreme annoyance at them. Tried alternately metta and just noting the actual sounds, but suffice to say that I did not attain stream-entry, lol.