Laurel's Practice II

"Just FYI, learning that an old love has died is a perfectly valid reason to feel sadness/grief and remember him. "

Especially when there's a sense of guilt and regret attached to it. Let's say that I moved on rather callously; I was a flighty narcissist in those days. So I did some forgiveness meditation this morning. Sadness and tears. I have not thought about him for decades, literally. Wish I could make amends. The only way to do that is to wake up.

Part of what's painful and disorienting is the experience of revisiting the past. I once asked my local teacher about past lives, and he said our relationship to them is something like our relationship to our own past in this life. We can remember our childhood, for example, but it's not as if we are fully identified with it. So yesterday I found myself trying to make sense of the person I was 33 years ago, and what I came up with was emptiness compounded by craving and aversion. The craving was a grasping after anything that could bring it into clearer focus, but I kept coming up with nothing, even when I dug out details I'd forgotten and turned them over in my mind. I also had the vertiginous feeling of not being present in my own skin now. I was nowhere; I'd fallen through a trap door of some kind. Unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, and not-self. There they all are.

Anyway, I had another 35 minutes this morning, part of which was the forgiveness meditation. The rest was a combination of noting and open awareness. Listening took a lot of it. There was also a lot of energy all over the body on the surface of the skin. I still can't make heads nor tails of that "fruition" the other day (if that's what it was). Loud heartbeat, ears ringing, deep relaxation and gentle vibrations toward the end. Some mapping thoughts going on. I'll try to sort it out with Beth in a couple of hours.

You really do specialize in self-flagellation!!

Give yourself a hug.

Thanks, gira; will do.

I just talked with Beth, and it looks like I did get path two days ago, on the morning of July 4th. It was so totally unexpected that I couldn't quite believe it, but the sits I've had since then, even with the feelings of grief overlying everything, have resembled review.

As far as self-flagellation is concerned: it seems that guilting myself was a way to make sense of everything, which was more comforting in its own way than just sitting with the fact of a death staring me in the face. In any case, this is indeed what my mind does; even with a new path, suffering continues. I'll be interested to see what the next few days are like. I can say this time around that it's a whole lot less disorienting than 1st path. I think I'll allow myself some happy feelings for awhile now!

Enjoy your Review. Like you said, it's never what it seems. Time to make some strong resolutions and congrats!! Moving right along. I knew you could do it!

Congratulations, Laurel!

Laurel, great news! Congrats.

Keep going!

Thanks so much, everyone. I am really, really happy about this!

Early morning sit, very deeply submerged, dreamy, relaxed. I am finding myself dropping into that state off and on all day. At the same time there is a feeling of mild anxiety, and occasional nausea manifesting. I continue to sleep poorly; there's some fatigue mixed in with that. Things feel vaguely unreal, and I'm feeling emotionally fragile. Observing all of this.

I am going to try to keep clearer track of what is going on in my sits from now on. It's hard because everything feels as if it's buried in some kind of dense insulation.

Another early sit, 35 minutes. Very deep, spacey, but the pattern was bliss waves that would build up, peak, and subside, one after another. Sometimes a dreamlike thought would enter the picture, or an image of some kind. There was music playing in the background of my mind, which was rather clearly defined throughout the sit. I also heard real sounds, and at no point did I experience that rupture in continuity of the other day, although I did space out frequently. It wasn't particularly pleasant, but kind of draining. At one point I felt the blissful vibrations in my lips and my tongue; there'd be a sense of pressure through my whole head. At the end of it felt spacey. I tried keeping an eye on an observer, but I kept dropping my attention from time to time. That's about it.

EDIT: A feeling tone of sadness would arise part of the time, so there was some dukkha stuff.

great stuff, well done laurel!

I'm late to the party, but congratulations Laurel. It looks like longer sits weren't really necessary for you after all...it made me very happy to read about your path attainment. Good job!

Thanks to both of you. I'm still in review, and have had sits that follow a similar pattern. My initial 3x10 focus on the breath tends to be rather distracted until somewhere in the third cycle, then I settle down. I begin noting, but drop that after a short time as a powerful sense of absorption overtakes me. Then I just sit back and watch. Sometimes there are wisps of thoughts, sometimes not so much. Frequently there's music going on in the background, the same thing over and over. My ears are ringing loudly and my heartbeat is sometimes audible. Then the bliss waves start, one after another. It feels somehow misleading to call them bliss waves, when in fact they can be rather annoying after awhile. But I've been trying to watch for anything resembling a cessation, and this morning I noticed one very subtle shift at the peak of a bliss wave, so I'm assuming this is what's happening with them even when I'm not specifically noticing.

I had at one point a dreamlike image of walking through a door that was hard to open, and letting it close behind me, only too late thinking maybe it was a mistake, because for all I knew I'd locked myself in. I was at the top of a narrow, concrete staircase going into a dark basement. I was reluctant to go down there. I thought of Elisabeth Fritzl, locked in the basement by her father for 24 years. I wasn't really afraid, just kind of cautious. All of this is just stuff that welled up, mind you, not something I was actively thinking. But I started to go down, and then the image shifted to something else.

While I'm sitting, I feel as if time is passing extremely slowly, and then when it's over, I feel as if it's hard to make the transition to waking life again. It's as if I've been passing time in the underworld.

For today's sit, I took a long time to reach equanimity (about 12 minutes); I spent that time gently prodding with my awareness a mass of tension in the midsection that rose in the chest and throat, creating a choking sensation, also leading to stinging in the eyes. It seemed, then, to alternate between fear and sadness. This went on as I said for quite some time, until I felt a shift into a deeper level of absorption, and then gentle vibrations. There were some dreamlike fantasies that came and went. They've been unusually vivid these days. I don't attach to any of them, but I find myself inclined at times to send them packing after awhile, as if to say, "you're not real!" As usual, the time passed very slowly. Felt deeply relaxed at the end of it.

your descriptions are brilliant. i sometimes get choking-like things too, and itchy or hurting eyes, and often pressure on/around eyes.

Thanks, Jacki. For me these sensations indicate anxiety and/or sadness (desire to cry). I am really wondering about the correlation between a new path and anxiety. It's hard for me to evaluate these things, but at the moment the anxiety is ramped up. It may have nothing to do with the path; I just don't know.

My sit this morning was similar to the others I've been having. I'll just keep on working on this and see how it all pans out.

I haven't written in a few days, but have been meditating regularly, with the same results I've been documenting here. This morning's sit I paid particular attention; what happens is I go through the dukkha nanas up into equanimity and stay there, with or without fruitions (this morning there was no fruition that I could notice). Off cushion I've cycled as well. There was a strong uptick of anxiety on Thursday and Friday of last week, lots of sleepiness on Saturday, and on Sunday morning I had such miserable dukkhas I thought I was the unhappiest person on earth, and then it unaccountably lifted. Been rereading MCTB, the section "Was that Emptiness?", and resolving to be more mindful and observant during the day.

Very late to the party here, but congratulations on your Path! I am hopefully right behind you

Thanks, Andy; all the best as you continue your progress. As for me: my sits are getting boring. I did, however, get to 4th jhana last evening, and stayed there after going to bed, which helped a lot with sleep. This morning there was a lot of distraction, however, and a feeling of slogging through once I got to equanimity. This is all very interesting.

See if you can incline your mind to 5th jhana once you are sitting in 4th. Just ask yourself 'what is after this?' or 'next, please'

Hi Laurel, congratulations on second path! Better late than never, right?

It's been forever since I've written. I've been traveling for about two weeks, first to Georgia, and then to New England, where I had a chance to meet up and talk with Jacob St Onge Casavant in Montpelier. Such a wonderful thing to meet a pragmatic dharma person in real life!

The rest of the trip(s) involved visiting and interacting with family, and I didn't get much meditation time in, I have to admit. Still, the effects of 2nd path for me have been a really marked reduction in anxiety and stress while handling some highly challenging situations (shepherding my 92-year-old mother through airports, etc.). I did all of this with a severe headcold and did not fall apart. So, this practice has been highly beneficial.

I am off to a 2-week retreat on Cloud Mountain with Leigh Brasington, leaving a week from today. I'll have to get back into a practice routine to prepare. That's about it for now.

I was just wondering where you were. Sounds like you are doing great. Good luck on your retreat.

Thanks, Russell. I'm trying to figure out whether I'm still in review. I figure I'll have plenty of opportunity to work on it in the next couple of weeks. My sits lately have begun with lots of mental noise, thoughts that are "sticky," and distractions. I have gotten into the practice of noting diligently through this, and do that for about 15 or 20 minutes, then eventually shift into open awareness. There's a sense that time is crawling by (a 30-minute sit feels like an hour), and I am constantly asking myself where I am ("Are we there yet?"), wondering whether this is Mind and Body or still Review. This morning I ended the sit with extremely fine vibrations that kicked in and subsided in waves. There's restlessness as well, a desire to get up. I keep noting this. During the day I'm hanging in there, seem to have more energy than before 2nd path. Can't quite tell what's what, though.

Good luck on the retreat Laurel. Don't forget to say hi to Leigh from me.

Metta Erik

Thanks, and will do! It's going to be interesting sitting all day, when I find that even 20-minute sits seem to last forever. Plus I've been getting lost in some dukkhas, not sure what it's all about, but unable to accept things as they are, feeling anxious, thinking about death again (thoughts of my old friend came back again to haunt me). My dreams at night are unhappy and disorienting. Also engaging in feeling inadequate. I'm watching all this stuff come and go. At the moment, feeling unsettled. When I sit, there's a ton of mental noise for about ten minutes, so I work at noting, noting, noting, until it all just drops away and the vibrations enter in. The depth of the calm at that point is amazing.