Yadid's re-ignited practice

Thanks guys, your encouragement means a lot to me.

Still noting all day, starting with when I get up in the morning, noting the struggle between wanting to get out of bed, and the wanting to stay in bed.
Reaching equanimity in this morning's sit, nice, spacious, more complex deep rooted mental phenomena, deeper dukkha-inducing little desires for progress and stuff, things usually seen as self but more of them seen as little cravings.
There's this part where the body feels like one of those faceless featureless manikins (correct spelling?), which the mind keeps overlaying with images and thoughts of self, like a blank diskette being constantly rewritten

Difficult beginning of the day, as I have this "Dont wanna be at work" mindset, and when in DN its very hard to deal with - as rationalizations about how I should quit and work from home while practicing more arise.
I continue practicing throughout the day.
Then I slowly started to see how this is a great opportunity to wear-down the 'Dont wanna be here' neural path by observing these things deeply while I am at work.
Had a lovely beautiful ride with the bicycle back home, now about to do my evening sit.

Also, Kenneth's recommended book - The Ego Tunnel is great.

"In the same way, there are these three urgent duties of a monk. Which three? The undertaking of heightened virtue, the undertaking of heightened mind, the undertaking of heightened discernment. These are the three urgent duties of a monk. Now, that monk does not have the power or might [to say:] 'May my mind be released from fermentations through lack of clinging/sustenance today or tomorrow or the next day.' But when the time has come, his mind is released from fermentations through lack of clinging/sustenance."

""In the same way, there are these three urgent duties of a monk. Which three? The undertaking of heightened virtue, the undertaking of heightened mind, the undertaking of heightened discernment. These are the three urgent duties of a monk. Now, that monk does not have the power or might [to say:] 'May my mind be released from fermentations through lack of clinging/sustenance today or tomorrow or the next day.' But when the time has come, his mind is released from fermentations through lack of clinging/sustenance.""

Lovely quote.

On the work front, you might appreciate this hilarious comic: theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home

"Lovely quote.

On the work front, you might appreciate this hilarious comic: theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home "

Got it from some post on Nick's old blog.

Thanks for the comic, I Liked it, but i didnt LOVE it

Ran into 'jhanic-like' concentration / altered state in bed last night before I fell asleep, nice.

also starting to notice A&P clearly a few minutes after I sit, and noticing my sits end in re-ob / low-eq most of the time (50 mins)
So I added 5 more mins to the sits, to see if it will climb higher, which I think it did this morning.
We'll see how it goes.
My current opinion is that I haven't gotten stream-entry.

Still sitting daily, some rough personal times relationship etc.
I am starting to feel like I should just stop forcing myself, and go on a month or so retreat,
I have been planning to let myself go on a long retreat after I finish my degree, since I started it (finished it a few weeks ago), but as I got with my current girlfriend who I live with, it became harder to think about just leaving it all for a while,
but I may just let myself fulfill this aspiration soon.

Its been about 3 years since I have discovered Daniel's book and the DhO and I am yet to attain streamentry, though I have made progress in that direction.

Ending suffering for myself and those around me is the most important goal for me, and although I practice quite a lot, atleast 2 hours per day, sometimes more, during the day, weekend retreats etc, it seems not to be enough for stream-entry for me.

Therefore, I've decided to change my life situation around to give more time for practice and retreats, this means leaving my current job, which is 5 days a week 9 hours per day, which I started recently, In order to allow for more practice to match my goals.
I can still earn a living working half the time from home, which allows for retreats and more home practice.

I'm gonna make this change at the end of this, or next month, and go on a 10-day Goenka, which I haven't done in a bit more than 2.5 years, and a 10-day Mahasi retreat with Sayadaw U Vivekananda here in Israel, a few weeks after that if I'm willing. a weekend retreat with Shinzen at the end of this month just for fun, while maintaining the momentum in my daily practice.
After that, I may consider a month or longer retreat, but my current goal is stream entry and we'll see from there.

Still sitting an hour in the morning, and an hour or 30mins in the evenings, and trying to note during the day.

At the moment: anxious, restless, jealous, exasperated, bored, wonder, pain, physical and mental tiredness.

I quit my job and will be leaving it next month.. looking forward to a Shinzen weekend this weekend, and a 10-day Goenka after I finish this job.. also a 10-day Mahasi two weeks later,
I hope I can get stream-entry at this time, I'm building up my practice now for it, so to speak, so I have a solid start on those retreats.

I bet you'll do it! Looking forward to your updates.

Yadid, your journal is terrific and very inspirational. Reading it makes me feels like I'm riding shot-gun on your quest. All the best and much success!!!

Hey thanks guys!

So although I have been sitting every day two hours a day, I somehow lost my "spur" and cutting edge, I attribute this to not having done any longer weekend sits lately, which seemed to drive progress forward.
But yesterday evening's sit opened up spaciously and nicely.
I could speculate that it is equanimity, but I could also be that I have dropped below the A&P threshold and that was Mind&Body, meh, screw it

This morning's sit full of tiredness.

Wowowow..
This body mind is so full of illwill and anger, sheesh.
Also constantly attributing illwill to other people's motivations when its clearly sometimes not really there.
Phew.

Hey y'all,
I had a nice weekend retreat with Shinzen Young here in Israel. Also got the chance to meet up with Moshe from this forum who recently moved to Israel. Much fun.

The retreat was excellent, although short, I was able to really push through and leave in equanimity, and so I managed to avoid the difficulty of going on a short retreat, only to emerge in harshness due to having gone deep into the Dukkha nyanas.

Shinzen Young is an amazing teacher, although I did not practice his system as my practice is working well for me, I had a very positive impression about it. He basically brought together Mahasi Vipassana, U Ba Khin/Goenka style practice and Zen into one coherent, scientifically phrased system.
He is also very knowledgeable in meditation and has a deep understanding, and is not ashamed to talk about Enlightenment from his personal experience.
Some key quotes I remember which struck a positive cord with me:
"If you can really love the small self deeply and completely, you love it to death."
"If you sit for 6 hours for about a month, you will most likely wont be able to avoid Classical Enlightenment [stream-entry]."
"Dont be afraid of Enlightenment, its natural and waiting to happen".

"
"If you sit for 6 hours for about a month, you will most likely wont be able to avoid Classical Enlightenment [stream-entry]."
"

Welcome back!

I'm going on a 8 day retreat with Shinzen at the end of April in Niagara Falls. Looking forward to it very much. Should I tell him you say hello?

About Shinzen's quote, where he says "6 hours for about a month," does he mean 6 hours a day for a month?

Hi Alvaro,
Enjoy your time on that retreat, I'm sure you'll have a great time.

Yes, he said 6 hours for a month, but essentially I understand it to mean: Practice deeply and enough and it will lead to it, rather than the specifics of numbers.

About my actual practice on that retreat:
I was doing noting, got into a solid groove on Friday, and then in the evening I started to notice more moments in which I am not noticing stuff - which led to me noticing more stuff and filling in the gaps.
Then on Saturday it got deeper, and I had to go home
All in all, great stuff ,and looking forward to my 10-day Goenka coming up next month!

Today I noticed something about Doubt.
I notice how Doubt makes me think and worry about whether the end of suffering is possible, and whether there are people who have attained it.
Although I have much more conviction about this fact (this is why I am doing all this practice) than the average person, doubt still attacks on a pretty much regular basis.

Trying not to be too literal about it, Shinzen's quote about 6 hrs practice is very encouraging. if only i could go on retreat for a month...

"Trying not to be too literal about it, Shinzen's quote about 6 hrs practice is very encouraging. if only i could go on retreat for a month..."

You might try Shinzen Young's monthly weekend vitual reteat. The usual format is to hook-up by phone for a 2 hour session Friday night plus two longer sessions on Saturday and one Sunday morning. Combined with a daily practice, I think Shinzen said this meets his guidelines for a good practice.

jack

thanks jack, i'll check it out. jacki.

edit: Yadid, sorry for hijacking your practice thread

Nice quotes. I need to hear this one especially: "Dont be afraid of Enlightenment, its natural and waiting to happen". The small self one was good too.

Oh and I know what you mean about losing your spur - that's what I've felt like recently. Finding subtler and slipperier things to note helps, like all the thoughts about technique, progress and, yes, spurs and motivation.

Hey Andy,
Thanks for dropping by
I actually got my spur back after this weekend, got up to Re-ob yesterday evening's sit, like-being-electrecuted sensations which made me want to jump and cry, which actually is motivating.
Today, seems like equanimity, onwards we go!

Still practicing daily, assailed by a ton of dark night **** yesterday evening and today morning, feeling better, had one of these moments of looking at my hands finding myself in this body going 'wow, what is this', pleasant.

Last night, inspired by this dark night, I had this dream in which I realized all life is suffering and it will never end until the final nibbana without remainder. Meh, I did enjoy this dream though as it ended with me in the dream meditating.

Here's something I wish to take with me on my upcoming retreat:
"Remember how precious an opportunity to practice on retreat is.
Thus, do not waste it. Rare it is to be born a human. Rarer still to hear the dharma. It is even rarer to have the motivation, time, political conditions, money and freedom to go on a retreat. You are the hope for the future, one of the very few people who has a chance to really understand the dharma and then perpetuate it. Remember this when times get hard or you are feeling sorry for yourself." - Daniel Ingram

Nice Ingram quote. I need to make a collection of things like this to take on retreat.

Glad to hear you're back in the saddle. It really ebbs and flows doesn't it? One day I'm on, one day I'm off. It'd be good to hang out on Skype some time - sounds like you and I have similar experiences.