Jacki's journal

just to add a bit of colour to this dull scene of my practice journal, i shall just briefly mention some curious concentration experiences of late. one of the things that has happened a couple of times is that i'm noting away and suddenly my face is actually adyashanti's face, or another time, this other person's face (someone at my zen group); i'm noting or whatever but in my minds eye it is their face that is speaking (ie. saying the notes) and doing little expressions or whatever, it really makes me laugh. once i start seeing this it sticks around for a while.
another fun thing was at my zen group on sunday it seemed that my head opened right up, sort of spreading out sideways from the middle of my head forming a platter and my brain was sitting there balancing in the middle. this was during walking meditation (which we do slow for a few minutes then fast for a few minutes) and was making me laugh because i was like a waiter with a head which is a platter serving a brain. sounds a bit hannibal lector.

That kind of thing (electrical/energetic things at night, waking up from it) used to happen to me regularly. I believe it's quite normal and signifies that things are happening, rewiring is taking place, or something like that.

thanks chris, thats good to know. i think you're replying to an entry of mine from a while back, not that it matters.

90min practice. started with noting, moving into concentration fairly quickly. experiencing some uncomfortable/embarassing thoughts or else angry thoughts, and that is about the only symptom of nanas i can detect.

the concentration is good. it is strange because i can't seem to concentrate on noting at all, but if i do actual concentration it seems to work OK. experiencing some interesting states (interesting = not a very informative adjective, but i don't know which one to use). it's almost like falling asleep except realising you can just be in that place and not fall asleep. some curious perceptions. i think i'm getting a taste of fourth + jhanas.

i don't feel crappy any more, in my off cushion life.

somewhat concerned that this shift to almost entirely concentration practice isn't necessarily optimal. distaste for noting and mind seems to wander and noting just doesn't cut it with the flavours of what one perceives.

2hr concentration. started with noting but seem to be moving into concentration without really intending, it just seems to be where my mind wants to go.

yesterday afternoon had the odd experience of not knowing who my kids were talking to when they were in fact talking to me. ("mum"? who is this "mum" person?). i remember aquanin recounting a similar thing. gosh. i felt dispersed or something, and i went about doing all my mum things i had to do on some sort of effortless autopilot.

i don't thing this is the same as what laurel mentioned on her practice journal of late. i'm not sure about feeling "non-dual" or anything like that. i'll let you know if i do

being probably in lower equanimity and tending to have a bit of a mushy mind, i am paying attention to noting again, as per ron's suggestion by email.

practiced for 4 hours today 2 x 2hrs, just because i could (i.e. the boys were with the ex-hubby). some of it was pretty mushy but i had a good thing happen. i've battled this thing for forever. i have a difficult relationship with my mum. she left me and my dad when i was three; she took my brother who was four with her. i barely saw her until i was 16. she has had all kinds of difficulties which i won't go into. she occasionally turns up in my life and i know this might not make sense but it's something i fear. and i feel guilty about fearing it, i feel guilty about a lot of stuff to do with my mum. it's really awful. i've never known how to handle this. it came up today when i was meditating. i've looked at this lots of times and tried to pull it apart and look at it from every angle and try to figure out how to make it all ok. when it came up today, i was going nuts and i just asked "what am i supposed to do with this?". the answer came. the answer was "nothing". it's a bit of a revelation to realise that i don't have to do anything. then i had a sense of something moving from my head into my stomach. cont...

cont... it wasn't a pleasant feeling. it was like swallowing something painful, because it's better to feel the pain of it (which i've felt a thousand times anyway) than suffer the pressure of feeling like you have to fix it. i'm struggling here a bit with my words, i think because i'm still coming to terms with what this means.

i've felt an increasing feeling of vibrations the last few days. a bit stronger today. this gives me encouragement to keep going. ron gave me some great advice which is to note quickly and with a reduced vocab, even one word. then gradually backing off in high equanimity. the method is to try noting a little less quickly and then see if the vibrations feel stronger, if so keep backing off, and so on until you aren't noting at all. i'm not at this stage yet, still trying to note quickly even though i find it difficult. i am naturally a slow noter.

another point just to mention is the feeling of what is perhaps some kind of channels on my head getting tender, burning a little, like high on my forehead and on top of my head. also pressure on top of head near the front. when i meditate still getting pressure behind the eyes and ringing in the ears that sounds like crickets at night. it's a nice noise.

2 x 1hr noting sessions. mind still tending to wander a lot. feeling more vibrations in my body and behind eyes and focussing on that.

having some nice energetic experiences. had the sense of touching the inside of the top of my head (as if putting the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, but not that literally) and an energy build up at the top/front of my head which then poured cool energy over my face. and similar things like that.

at gymnastics today it occurred to me that all that i was experiencing was in a sense all "mine" and i didn't need to pick and choose or consider some of it as mine and some not. hard to explain.

long time no post.

it's winter school holidays here so been busy with that and so practicing less.

enjoying feeling engaged with the world again. spent a lot of time, months really, not seeing people much (outside of immediate family).

start is nice, then experience sort of swallowing and throat clearing and some kind of oral/breathing discomfort. then wandering mind. then good concentration. ringing in ears like crickets, sometimes higher pitch.

have just started noting again after basically stopping noting for a couple of weeks. needing it to kick start things after period of less practice.

sometimes experiencing a lot of itchiness and hotness under the skin. i can be cold, but my skin is burning. weird. this is not necessarily when i meditate so it may be related to the fact that i'm tapering my lupus pills.

despite this, feeling good off cushion.

same kind of experience as in last report. takes about 15min to get through the stages, pleasant clarity at first, really bright flashing pulses, lots of vibrations, breathing/mouth/throat discomfort, wafty mind with yucky thoughts, then wafty mind with nice thoughts, then crickets and also hearing some higher pitched constant notes at the same time.... this signals the start of the concentration experiences (above and beyond the visual experience) which seem to be interpreted by the brain as kinds of conceptual, rather than visual, shapes or movements but really have no shape at all .... these are new experiences of discovery that do not have any meaning in words or concepts; in fact it isn't even clear how they are experienced at all.

concentration is grabbing hold of me when i sit, though today i tried gently hold on to non-absorption while i noted, there is effort in this, but it was wonderful to keep my clarity and yet still be concentrated but not absorbed... after half an hour or so i let the absorption suck me in more and it resulted in deeper samatha than usual.

i'm not really after deep concentration; actually i usually don't like being off on another planet... perhaps it's a control thing. also it's necessary to switch from this, rather quickly into regular daily activities, and this isn't straight forward. sometimes i feel like i might "break something" in my brain by snapping from deep concentration to regular life especially involving interaction with others. i have no idea at all about popping into and out of these states effectively. i don't want to wander around and talk to people in some weird semi hypnotised state.

I'm feeling better generally these days and not so fanatical about practice. just practincing once a day for 45min. doing lots of things that i put to one side for a while. the sense of where i am isn't so clear, but also doesn't bother me as much as it previously did.
about 5 weeks ago i had a tiny little mental hiccup and bliss wave which may or may not have been anything. i ignored it as too nothingish at the time. i haven't had any fruition like things since so it probably wasn't a path. my reports here have fallen apart a bit, at least in part because it takes a lot of attention away from my sit to keep going over the list in my head of what's happened so far so that i can remember afterwards. it is just difficult for me to remember, even straight afterwards.

i'm resisting concentration states more and enjoying being more present in my sits. a couple of days ago something upset me a lot and it got to me in my sits and in non-sit time. but i do feel that i've handled it better than i would have in the past, in my pre-meditation life. i'm glad about that.

last night's sit was kind of like really nice at first, soon wandering mind into nice thoughts, laughing, and electrified looking pulses... soon after that wandering mind, but yucky thoughts (e.g. remembering embarrassing), also had the spider on my head experience which i had to flick off (jeez, when will i learn that there aint no spider there!), and finally (this is after probably 45 mins) get into absorption. felt like i experienced absorption states that were distinct and almost unrecognisable from what i've experienced before. had to sort of break out of it at the end because it wasn't at a natural point of resolution (if you know what i mean) and i wanted to go do other things. about 70min sit.

sat for about 30 mins

the things experienced but probably not in this exact order....

sour taste, swallowing, itches, sore throat, sore watery eyes, lights - blobs like in lava lamp, sparkly ones, but mostly random without obvious pattern, yawning, embarrassing thoughts, happy thoughts, wandering mind.

it probably wasn't as unpleasant as it sounds. a while back i had probably my worst period since starting meditation. it was about six weeks of waking in the morning to be clenched by terror in my stomach. keeping my mind busy the whole day to survive. did some unskillful things such as creating unnecessary conflict with my ex-husband. i was filled with the fear about things, such as that the way i had been raising my kids was all wrong and i was going to ruin their lives. it was very bad.

things have been better than that for a couple of months now thankfully. in terms of maps it feels like i've been slightly in and out of re-observation/low equanimity

if things work out i'll be doing a ten day goenka retreat starting 26 december. in terms of where i am at right now, it is good timing.

"sour taste, swallowing, itches, sore throat, sore watery eyes, lights - blobs like in lava lamp, sparkly ones, but mostly random without obvious pattern, a while back i had probably my worst period since starting meditation. it was about six weeks of waking in the morning to be clenched by terror in my stomach.
"

Sorry to do this, but I've been studying traditional chinese medicine and shiatsu all this year and have been developing a serious case of 'diagnose everyone' (for practice reasons), and those symptoms quoted above seem to be a classic case of a liver disharmony, perhaps liver qi stagnation, though more diagnosis would reveal a more exact pattern of disharmony. You could get that dealt with via acupuncture or shiatsu or a chinese herbalist or becoming aware of the factors that trigger it or all the above. Check the advice on acupressure points you could use to help the situation in the following link:

www.acufinder.com/Acupuncture+Informatio...+Liver+Qi+Stagnation

Sometimes meditation isn't enough as the body is telling you something.

Blatantly promoting and practicing his new interest,

Nick

I'm so sorry to hear you've been having this trouble. Good to have you back on the forum. All the best to you for your retreat. Take Nick's advice, too; I've got an acupuncturist and he's worth his weight in gold to me. Hugs. Laurel

thanks for that info nick, i'll check it out... hope your shiatsu etc is going well

and thank you laurel, for your ever warm welcome back