Laurel's Practice II

It's time to start a new thread. My first one got very long, and I thought I'd mark the new year (and the new stage of my practice) with a new thread.

This morning: 30 mins. anapanasati, focusing on the breath at the nostrils. I've been doing this lately and it follows a pattern: I get into a nice state of relaxed concentration, then the concentration gets thinner for awhile and thoughts seem to be closer to the surface. Towards the end of the time I become more deeply concentrated, so that the timer feels very jarring when it goes off.

This evening: for the first time in awhile I did some relaxed noting for 30 minutes. I began with 3x10 on the breath, then as soon as I started noting there was a lot of tingling. Thoughts, aching, tension, sadness (stinging in the eyes), more tingling, sounds, lots more tingling. More fear, sadness, more tingling, relaxation, sleepiness towards the end of the time, gentle vibrations. It felt good to be doing this again. The tingling is all over the body, particularly in the lower legs and between the eyes. It's rather pleasant.

EDIT: My first thread is at kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/45.../Laurel%27s+practice and the post that refers to stream entry is 440.

Welcome, LaurelJC 2.0 !

Thanks for the welcome! I've been continuing with my jhana practice; it was somewhat difficult this morning, no persistent thought-loops or anything like that, just a general dragginess. I eventually began to feel more absorbed in it about 5 minutes before the end. Will work on this practice for 30 minutes, twice a day, gradually increasing the time.

Good to see you back Laurel!

I don't really know if "I" am back. In one sense, I am back--that terrifying emptiness that I felt for a little over a week subsided, and I felt the comforting return of a more solid sense of self. But what is back, I'm not sure.

Part of what is going on is that I'm casting about for what to do next. I think about practicing jhana as a way to protect myself from the difficulties of this insight path. Or maybe metta, or maybe just trying to find joy in everyday life. But all of that is a form of self-protection; I don't want to be suspended in that awful void again, so instead I'll try to make myself happy somehow. I'm afraid to embark on more insight practice in a serious way. So I'm casting about. What's motivating it, however, is a form of aversion, grounded in fear.

I'm also getting tied up in confusion from time to time about this thing called Stream Entry, thinking that certain things ought to happen now, I "should" be above and beyond certain reactions. Then when they happen--irritation that someone may have cut in front of me in line--I think, what's that all about, aren't I supposed to be beyond this?

I think this may be why Mark, my local meditation teacher, is opposed to labels--because they end up being just another form of self-identification. Instead of letting things be as they are, I create a new set of expectations for myself. But then the expectations are part of things as they are, isn't that so? Which is something I'm curious about. It's something I'm reluctant to admit to, as well, which is also curious. All of which is by way of saying that I'm not by any means done. Not that I thought I was, but it's confusing, working through a shift of some kind, to see what's different and what's still the same.

One thing that remains is my old habit of trying to think my way through stuff. So I'm going to watch myself doing that, and see where it always tends to lead, which is to an illusion of comfort that ends in contraction. I wrote earlier that I didn't care any more about the drama in my department, but then the other day I got drawn back in, and what I found there wasn't anger, but a sense of isolation, loss, and sadness. And I actually cried about it. All the narratives kicked in, but the truth was that I had been substituting a kind of bitter indifference for equanimity. I tried to figure out how things got to that point, and couldn't do it. And I tried to think about what to do next and I couldn't do that either. So i decided that this is the time for letting myself be sad, because that's what I am right now.

From time to time in meditation I've been willing to investigate the fear, and it keeps dissolving into sadness. So instead of engaging in practices designed to protect me from it, maybe I just need to touch it gently and let it go where it goes. What felt natural to me on retreat was a kind of focused but open awareness, occasionally noting or else following the breath but not intensely. That combined with walking meditation. Also keeping that awareness of myself as I move through the day, seeing myself acting out old patterns. The impulse to jump in and fix things is what it is, another pattern.

I do have something to say to people who are impatient to get stream entry, as I was: maybe things take the time they take because there are things that just need to unfold, however unwelcome they may be. And I guess I should say the same thing to myself, as I am impatient to start enjoying the fruits of this shift: things take the time they need to. I can rush to get somewhere, but what I really need to do is look at wherever it is that I am.

Isn't it kind of funny how attached we are to our habits? For 30, 40 or more years every time so and so walks through the door we've though "damn that *****, she always insults me" or "damn it he's always late and it ruins my day" or "god I never spell that word right, I'm such a *******" or whatever. It's just automatic, like a rat trained to press the blue button in some lab. What I think practice can offer, especially after you've had a shift that opens things up a bit more, is to give you the tools to be more conscious of that process at a deeper level. All the chitter chatter in the head - the stories, the narrating, the dialogues - is really just...not nearly as important as we think it is. But we are so used to it being the central part of our existence, what makes us "me," that the silence and peace (that awful void???) is actually scary. It's unfamiliar, weird, and it threatens that attachment to the chatter. What if we were just quiet. What if we just rested, peacefully? The fear can come up, the grief can come up. Who would you BE if you didn't maintain the focus on the endless stories? The mind can't imagine, so it imagines death, a void, something awful, surely... but that's just another story, a defense against risking the silence and peace. The silence is not actually an awful void. It's just quiet and radiant and peaceful, loving, knowing, embracing. But it is so strange to touch it at first that the thinking mind rebels and starts rumors. Don't look! it cries. Don't risk it! Don't go there!!! I think when I am in such a place any practice that a) attends to RIGHT NOW (not stories) and b) generates kindness and love are good places to start. Be well.

I'm so glad giragirasol posted this. I don't think I've had the same void experience, but my suspicion is it probably isn't something to be deeply afraid of.

It's good to be gentle on yourself and go slow, but at some point you might want to talk with your teacher about how to approach that experience.

Just for fun I'll mention something that I struggled with... For a while during sits, I would experience a deep blackness, like night with just a sliver of a moon. Just enough light to vaguely see objects. To me, it was like being deep in the ocean with just a little light making it through to that depth. Very calm and peaceful.... but part of me was terrified that a big shark was going to swim into view and attack me. I would look into the darkness, feel the peace, and then feel my self getting anxious, and then could feel myself imagining different scenarios. Seems silly, but that was my experience and it was a VERY tangible feeling. Not terror. But a very hard to define sense of fear or dread.

Of course I tried to deal with this on my own. I felt a little childish for even having the situation come up. Anyway, at one point I felt like I should mention this to my teacher and he said: let it eat you, it will just get rid of the stuff that isn't you. It's hard to communicate how much that changed my confidence!

The end of the story is I gave up..."eat me if you need to"... and the fear and the dread went away. No big fish showed up, but I always extend the same feeling of welcome if I feel that same feeling.

Hope this helps!

"I do have something to say to people who are impatient to get stream entry, as I was: maybe things take the time they take because there are things that just need to unfold, however unwelcome they may be. And I guess I should say the same thing to myself, as I am impatient to start enjoying the fruits of this shift: things take the time they need to. I can rush to get somewhere, but what I really need to do is look at wherever it is that I am. "

This lines up with my recent experience (if it was Stream Entry.) It seems that i needed to get pelted with anxiety and then have the no-self realization with my thoughts and then things just happened. No matter how impatient you are it doesn't matter. No amount of striving can get you there.

I also appreciate the advice about dropping the expectations about how things should be after certain milestones, because no one can really tell you how it will be. All you can really say is, something is changed and feels different, but I can't explain it. At least that is what it feels like now.

It feels like that to me, too. I've been terribly "lazy" lately--not meditating a lot, even skipping whole days, and when I do meditate it's hard to get through half an hour, which feels like an awfully long time. I don't think I'm in review any more because I find myself just sitting and watching stuff in a leisurely way. There's still tingling in the legs in particular, but not all that intense. Lots of thoughts come and go. There's a bit of activity in the visual field, flashing and strobing, that sort of thing. There is ringing in the ears, pains here and there, pressure. My fear comes and goes, doesn't seem as monumental any more. Had an experience of being discontented last evening, noticed it, talked about it a bit. Things are settling down.

Thanks everyone.

I'm continuing to feel a lack of motivation for practice. I'm also dealing with a kind of conundrum over what to practice: samatha or more noting and insight practice.

On the pro samatha side, I feel my previous insight path was difficult and painful, although I recall starting out with jhana practice last spring and into early summer, with a 3-day retreat in May that got me over the hump and pretty solidly concentrated. I eventually began noting in June. My DN was not worse than a lot of other people's, but it was pretty bad nonetheless. The path attainment led to increased fear and anxiety, which has now eased up considerably. But perhaps I should go for more "lubrication" from jhana practice before taking on a second path.

I do have an aversion to it, however. I have a theory, which is actually not just mine, but which lines up with current research: deep relaxation can have a backlash effect on those suffering from anxiety. It's as if the lizard brain is noticing that the person's guard is down, and responds by doubling down on the vigilance to compensate. I had one of my worst experiences of anxiety following a therapy session in which I had tried a technique called "alpha stim," hooking up to an apparatus that directly stimulates alpha waves in the brain. Driving home afterward I had to pull over several times, and wondered whether I'd even be able to complete the trip. I also recall that my anxiety increased several years ago when I began practicing yoga regularly. So getting nice and concentrated has had mixed results for me, at best.

At present, I still experience fear and anxiety, but nowhere near as much as before. I can navigate through the day without taking much of anything personally, which is a big help. My phobias are still there, but I'm not as freaked out about them as I was. I still have trouble sleeping, and wake up with my stomach in a knot.

(cont.) This, I've been told, is a common phenomenon. I continue to experience my chronic pain, which in fact has been worse lately because of the insomnia. But my reaction to it is different, although I can't claim that I'm indifferent to it.

As for jhana practice: when I try to do it I find myself wandering all over the place. It's less settled than it was back in late spring of last year. Noting practice, on the other hand, goes relatively well, although I have trouble sitting through a session to the end. So far I'm taking a "wait and see" approach to all of this, even though I also succumb to the temptation to try to think my way through it (which is what I'm doing now).

I can't help wondering when I'll settle back into a routine of daily meditation practice. What I have instead is a fascination with the results of first path. I know there's more to do, but to an extent I'm just enjoying this mind right now. There are things I don't like: I'm still apt to ruminate over stuff, even without the intense emotional charge. But the lack of (or lower) emotional investment interests me.

So there it is.

So there is it!

Take your time, be patient, love yourself, and stuff will work out no matter what you do

Thanks, Chris! When everyone in my life keeps telling me to chill, I guess it's time to chill.

I have been doing some relaxed noting in the morning, concentration in the evening, and a bit of metta as I go to sleep. Seems like a decent balance for the time being. I still struggle getting through 30 minutes (by struggle, I mean encounter restlessness) and sometimes peek at the timer before it's up. Maybe once about a month ago the timer got accidentally jammed, so I'm thinking maybe it has happened again, haha. Things are rather mellow, noting sounds, sensations, and then feelings that manifest in the body, mostly poking gently into the fear that is a kind of tension in the gut. This almost always leads to an aching in the throat or a stinging in the eyes. I'm thinking that letting this happen in meditation may eventually dissolve that knot; then again, maybe not.

Horrors! Someone who peeks at the timer!

Yeah, well, as I said, you never know when the damned thing might malfunction :-0 !

I caught my teacher peeking at the timer during a workshop once. I was peeking, too, which is how I caught him. We gave each other hell about it for a couple hours, and laughed our heads off.

I am glad to see that your initial experience post SE has lightened and you are enjoying the fruits of your labor. Nice work.

Thanks! Your post on my thread helped a lot. I still have some fear, and I also wonder when I'll have that experience again--maybe accompanied by a sense of peace and wonder. At least I've tentatively resumed meditating.

30 mins. this morning, with mostly calm, some fear manifesting, some aching in the area of my surgery, coolness, warmth, mild itches, thoughts, some dream thoughts (at one point I was in an interaction that I didn't want with someone and suddenly I thought, "Wait a minute, this is *my* dream and I get to tell you to go away"). The most interesting feature is repeated, subtle bliss that steals over the upper body. All in all very refreshing. A bit of the same old restlessness, but not bad.

It's been a hard day. For some reason or other I find myself plunged back into Fear, not the vipassana nana perhaps, but the psychological condition. I'm also having a lot of pain in my hands, neck, and shoulders. I'm distracted and wishing I could take a couple of days off. Also seeing the world, especially the human world, as a hostile and threatening place. Go figure.

Glad I could be of service. Others will have a different experience, but I experienced more fear and alarm in the period right after stream entry than at any of the other stages. I've experienced plenty of weirdness and disorientation since, but not with the alarm that I felt at that point. One thing I wish I'd done in retrospect is not neglected other important areas of life while overemphasizing the importance of stages, but that's just me. Good luck. I'll be stopping by your journal regularly, if only just to see where it leads.

I'm afraid where it's leading now isn't particularly encouraging. I have not been practicing regularly; every few days I sit for about 30 minutes, doing silent noting, not rapidly but in a rather relaxed fashion. I have very fine vibrations, some tingling, sleepiness, some restlessness, not too much problem with intrusive thoughts. It's hard to tell what exactly is going on. No kriyas to speak of, a rather active visual field, sometimes very peaceful, on the whole rather pleasant.

But off the cushion some of my old emotions are coming back, even though they're not as intense as before. I am having problems with insomnia, waking up in the middle of the night. I'm starting to get caught up in drama again, although the level of emotional investment isn't what it once was; it's just out of habit. But at the moment I'm feeling a draggy kind of depression that I can't quite get rid of. Sleep deprivation is part of it, I'm sure. My son's unhappy and I'm letting it get to me, wishing I could fix things for him. This kind of boundary issue reminds me of where I used to be. I've engaged in some unskillful speech lately that leaves me feeling that I've let myself down.

I also miss the level of commitment I used to have to my practice. I am hoping I can get it back again, but the urgency isn't there, so now I'm going to have to give myself a push. I think a part of me is reluctant to go forward, but I know I can't go back.

I appreciate your comments about your own disorientation just after SE. I think in my case I'm still sorting some of that out. I'm also sure that there are things about my life, unrelated to practice, that need attention. In any case, I'm not panicking over it, just hanging in there.

One thing I haven't posted much about: my fibromyalgia is flaring up again, and when that happens, all sorts of unpleasantness follows, some of it cognitive, some physical, and some emotional. My theory is that my long drawn-out recovery from surgery has triggered the flareup because it's the kind of trauma that can tip things over the edge. In dealing with these things I'm just beginning to see the line between path-related phenomena and stuff that has other sources. I don't personalize my condition or resent it, but it is a drag. I also am beginning to conclude that my anxiety is not all path related. There is a problem that needs to be addressed outside of meditation practice, even though meditation can help with it.

My depression at the moment is, I think, part of the fibro flareup. There's a certain flavor to that kind of depression that's very familiar, and specific to that condition. Plus both my hands hurt, and after awhile the whole system is affected. After awhile I feel like I just want to go to bed and pull the covers over my head. In spite of all of this, work is going reasonably well. I'm mostly keeping up with things. Maybe, just maybe I have enough on my plate right now coping with the things I'm coping with, and all will be well.

I'll say this again (and not just to Laurel) -- stop judging your sits and your practice, but especially stop being so hard on yourselves. Treat yourselves with some compassion. Just be consistent with practice and things tend to work out. And, if they don't work out for some reason maybe it's not your fault. Think about this: it might just be that the universe is trying to get you to pay attention to the fact that you really don't have any control over this stuff. And you don't really know what's working and what isn't, do you? Can't a bad sit be extremely helpful and a really good sit be just a contended waste of time?

Just some food for thought...

Looks like our posts crossed--and looks like I've wandered to the same conclusion. Thanks.