Yadid's re-ignited practice

Yes, I agree, it does flux, but keeping a daily practice (for me twice a day) is very important. Once I lose that grip on the thing, its very hard to get back to it.

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Following Shinzen's advice on my recent retreat,
I'm starting to extend my daily sits: went from 50 minutes to 55 minutes, and to 60 minutes this evening, also attempting to sit still without moving - being more mindful of volition to move and pain / itches which make me want to do something about them.
This is a kind of built up to my 10-day Goenka coming up.

"Venerable sir. There are six openings in a mound, which an iguana makes his home. If you want to catch the iguana, close up the five exits from the mound, and wait for it to come out from the last exit. There are six doors through which sense-objects can enter. If you close five of them, and keep watch at the mind-door, your task will be accomplished."
www.aimwell.org/assets/A%20Discourse%20o...kyaputta%20Sutta.pdf

Still enjoying my daily practice of an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, sometimes i am more tired, sometimes I am more vigilant and attentive, sometimes I see more subtle 'I' phenomena, sometimes not.

Very happy to be leaving my job here next week, having 5 days off and then off to my retreat. I will try to sit atleast 2 and shoot for 5 hours a day before the retreat, to get the momentum going from day 0.
Goenka-singing here I come!

Hi Yadid,

Thank you for writing such excellent practice notes they are very inspirational. Good luck on your Goenka retreat!

Hey Don,
Glad to hear you're enjoying my thread.

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Yesterday's sit I saw the progression through the nyanas more clearly - a settling in, a profound feeling, a disconcerting lack of ability to sit with irritating sensations and desire to end sit early = .. a&p -> dn and no getting to equanimity - I should sit for a bit more to cut the cutting edge a bit.

i'll fess up that i'm enjoying it too. it's great you're going on retreat shortly, seems like excellent timing.

Two nice little snippets from Ayya Khema:
www.tubechop.com/watch/300256
www.tubechop.com/watch/300253

Tuesday is my last day at work here, and then im off to my 10-day Goenka course next Monday.
I started increasing the intensity of my daily sits in terms of duration and frequency (trying for 3 hours a day when I can find the time, which i usually have).
I'll try increasing it even more starting Wednesday and get this retreat started with some good momentum.

Yesterday evening I started to notice the cutting edge moving to equanimity again.
The way I know this is by recognizing the nyanas in these 60min sits - first a settling in, then a 'profound feeling', spaciousness, happiness, etc, which is A&P, and then harsh vibrations, hard to sit still, and towards the end of the sit a growing acceptance, calmness, spaciousness and so on.
I was also much calmer after the sit and was able to just be nice and compassionate to my lovely gf without being so negative for no reason.

This morning's sit was vague, hard to keep a concentration going, but with acceptance and not much judgement about it. 'Whatever is here is the door to the door to the door' they tell me, so on we go.

You got it Yadid - diagnosis sounds spot on.

Unable to go on my planned retreat this Monday, due to some unforeseen family circumstances.
So.. I guess I'll just goto the Mahasi 10-day retreat two weeks later, with Sayadaw U Vivekananda.
Woohoo

Soooo. I went on a 9-day (actually 7 full days, not including arrival and leaving days), with Sayadaw U Vivekananda, Mahasi lineage - abbot of Panditarama, Lumbini.

I did about 16 hours of practice per day, usuallysitting - some walking.
I practiced my usual rapid-fire noting.
Got to A&P on about the 3rd day, and it seemed to have matured on the 4th day.

The biggest lesson I have learned on this retreat is that self-diagnosis of nyanas is a big big delusion sometimes.
As I had daily interviews with a man who was so highly skilled in these maps, who is so aware of the miniute little things that happen on each sub-nyana - every time his diagnosis seemed to have been right, and mine (which I didnt share) was wrong.

For example - Mind&Body can be highly likely be interpreted as a light A&P, and A&P can be highly diagnosed as Equanimity, and so on.
Also, it seemed to me that going through A&P does not mean that one will not have to go through it the next day, so if I went to sleep, I would again sometimes start from 0, it seemed.
Anyway, again, it seems like self-diagnosis is really problematic.

Not sure where I was, practice was really hard most of the time, except for some A&P time, and one of the last few days where I basically sat for 3 hours and bathed in the soft amazing calm of being no-one, sitting on a bed in no-where, and enjoying my just existence - it felt kinda jhanic, whatever that means. I mis-diagnosed as Equanimity at the time, later to come to the conclusion (as was Sayadaw's conclusion that I was going back to A&P rather than going forward) that I was wrong.

I also came to the realization that having a real teacher may be a real blessing, and that I may go on a 2-month retreat sometime in the near future. One of my friends who has sat for very long retreats with this teacher has said that after stream-entry...
.cont.

.. he did a long retreat of Fruition practice with him and that he highly valued it.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting this is the only way to practice nor that it is a must, but I am saying that I am drawn to doing this kind of practice for a while

In regards to the actual results - I came out of the retreat calm, I cried at the end, and also since then several times, and I haven't cried for a few years.. it was nice to let go and be sensitive.
I feel more 'empty', feel the profound in the mundane, and able to observe the arisings of defilements with much more detachment then before.
I am sometimes drawn to think that stream-entry has occured, because I do experience things that could be interpreted as cessations sometimes, according to some definitions I read here, but I still rather say that I did not get streamentry, not sure why - perhaps im expecting something big, but whatever, as long as I practice it doesn't matter what I call myself.
These results are usually known to me from previous retreats, but they get deeper every time I do it.. Very nice, but I also realize these changes can disappear quite quickly if I do not maintain my daily practice, as old habits die hard.. On a positive note, my re-ignited practice has been going on for 4 months now.
On we go!

Hi Yadid, I really sympathise with what you wrote here, as I have had similar confusion on retreat regarding interpretations of the nyanas. Sometimes I think that clearing up the diagnosis is a really important task and that the sooner we can get some really robust criteria - possibly backed up by third-person views of what is actually happening in the brain - then the better off we'll all be. But then again, sometimes it's better just to keep on at it, without much thought about where we are.

Could you describe the "cessations" that you experienced? I've experienced something that could be cessation - Kenneth and Beth think probably yes - so I'd be interested in seeing if it lines up with what you've encountered.

Sounds like a great retreat though. Congrats for getting through it and good luck keeping at the ongoing practice. As you say, that's what makes all the difference.

Hey Andy,
I dont have much to say about these so-called cessations, because if I did really experience something like that (memory is vague), it was during some brief periods and it could have been me falling asleep, simply, I don't really remember..
I don't experience anything like that at present.

I haven't written much about my practice after coming back home from retreat.

So I'm still sitting at least an hour, usually two hours, per day, trying to note as precisely as I can.
I do feel transformed by this practice, I really do - for example, the positive changes are that I can hold negative mindstates and thoughts much better than a few years ago, without reacting with various identifications and 'how can I possibly feel/think this'. The ability to have a larger container for things is priceless.
I also started doing more regular excersize and it feels helpful for this as well.
Whats still bothering me is: feeling of having to get enlightened (insight-disease), and alot of irritation.
Irritation and ego seem to be my most difficult foes lately, and perhaps generally. I get irritated by very little things and I am sometimes unable to hold this and make others around me (usually my partner) suffer out of this irritation. It is very common and I get quite irritated at least once a day. On the plus side, these episodes go away faster than before, but they are still there.

On the insight-disease front, I am plagued by the constant itch to get enlightened quite frequently, and this causes thoughts of extended retreat in the near-future, there are no definitive plans yet, but I use these as reminders to be very mindful of whats occuring in the moment and notice the suffering caused by these projections and imaginations of a future-enlightened-I.
Again I feel like practicing more seriously - I work from home and have quite a bit of spare time, and I should be able to perhaps move aside some idle activites and dedicate those to practice, as I really feel like it is helpful and necessary for me. The encouragement of seeing people on this forum who have progressed fast and far without any retreats is very inspiring and helpful for me, and I wish to do the same.

Onwards and upwards.

Realizing more and more how the desire to become, to be, something in the future is causing me suffering.
I can see it quite clearly in the 'insight-disease' feelings, those of wanting to get rid of suffering, to get enlightened,
see it arising, see how it causes stress, notice it, feel it, note it, whatever.

Morning sit: Pains, harsh vibrations - but good noting and not much wandering.
Evening sit: spaciousness, altered state, rapture (probably A&P), which slowly faded, but then returned, over all it lasted the whole hour.