limbic's practice log

I'm starting this new practice thread as part of a formal resolution to start being very qualitative about my practice.

I'll kick it off with an account of the three week (sorta) retreat I just took.

It began with 10 days of sitting in my apartment. Just before this I had begun to reintroduce breathing awareness into my practice and upon Jayson's advice, I augmented that with a durational note for the in and the out breath. Starting off, I did about 25 minutes of breathing awareness then shifted into 25 minutes of open awareness noting and capped that off with a walking open awareness noting of variable length. Rinsed and repeated. This continued for a few days, 4 maybe 5 during which times the sits went up to an average of 35 or 40 minutes. Then I gave a brief report to Ron and talked to Nadav on skype and extended the sits to be as long as an hour on concentration and maybe an hour and a half on insight, and the walks increased in length as well, but only achieved an average of 20 or 25 minutes at the most. As I neared the end of the 10 days I began to forego equal concentration and insight in favor of more insight.


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Okay now for the experience of those sits. It was pretty low key for the first few days - the usual character of my sits from before my retreat (including other retreats of around ten days in which I would only have one or two exceptional days). On a low order of magnitude. Persistent effort but no real dissolving and dissecting of gross sensations. Not many gross sensations, actually. Just the sitting on the chair - the heaviness in my butt and back. I would have some cool vibratory sensations on my face and forearms in small amounts. The only change in this, at around the 4th day maybe 5th during a couple of the long sits my right thigh would begin to develop an immensely dense sensation of pain, like you might feel the next day after playing football and getting absolutely trounced. I stayed with it, and noticed at any given moment it would occupy my mind to varying extents. When it was more intensely painful, it would occupy more of my attention, sometimes it took almost 100% of my attention to stay with it and not react. A couple moments where it would be really quite intense and would would then escalate momentarily in more intense pulses to where it was so painful I almost couldn't believe that I was still observing it equanimously.


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This characterizes most of the sits from thereon out to the 10 day mark where I had to take a break to go up to the center. Actually, I did have one sit where I seemed to get beyond that. I was going through the motions of the less intense meditations that lead up to the aching pain in my thigh, but instead of that (maybe leftover insight from the sitting before) I encountered a kind of attent quality pertaining mostly to the limits of my body. Much awareness of the front of my chest, stomach and where my head was positioned, like they were upped to the level of attention I usually have in my forearms and face when going through the states I described leading up to the aching phenomena. It was constant, and very investigative. There was a heaviness about it that pertained to my whole body. I think this was actually my last sit of the day before the next day I had to take a break. After I got up from it to do a little bit of walking before bed, my attention was very present. My mind was cohesive with my body, even when I moved. I had a good, natural posture with my movements at this moment. Like being in a kinda "zone".

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Okay now for the retreat up at the center. It would seem like being in a center had a big impact on my meditations, but also I'd been doing it for 10 days with only a 36 hour break or so.

To preface, I was upset about my performance this retreat as far as waking up and getting started in the morning time (this actually applies to the first 10 days as well). It was only ever by 9 or 10 that I was noting with momentum and real concentration, and I think this could have been happening by 7 or 8 if I really applied myself getting up at 4.

Big change. On the 1st day, I had worked up to this cohesive state of attent, concrete and constant noting by the evening group sit. And now it became very pleasant, saturated by quick quick vibrations. Easy noting This continued through the discourse with a little less amplitude. Then went to bed.

Same deal on 2nd day, but with a little less amplitude.

3rd day to 5th day was sort of the same thing but I had to negotiate very unpleasant spans of gross, heavy knots sort of like the aching in my femur from the 10 days in my apartment. By the end of each day I had dealt with the area and experienced some relaxation and easy noting, but not as intense as the first two days. Well, maybe near the 2nd day. One day I had a serious ache in the back upper right part of my neck, the next day or maybe two I had a serious aching on both sides in the area between the scapulas but next to the spine (on each side). After that it went back to the area in the neck.


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Then on the 6th I had an experience briefly at around 1 or 2 of pleasant vibrations in my gut area, my lower abdomen. This has happened before on a 20 day retreat I did back in august 2011 for the last 6 or 7 days of the retreat. But unfortunately this only lasted an hour because for some weird reason after the group sit, around 3:30 I became absolutely incensed about a situation from the past. I really ****** up here!!! After that, I had to work through an absolute ************ of a tangling in my neck for three hours, through dinner time, through the group sit, through the discourse and it just barely got dissolved by bedtime. Hahahahaha. What a way to learn a lesson. It was awful.

The next day, I encountered a new gross sensation in my left scapula area. This lasted very intensely until the group sit and then spread to my whole upper back. Good god! It was incredible, but I was very equanimous. There was this totally awful gross sensation like broken glass, but it was not obfuscating my attention. I contained it very neatly and did not react to it. Even towards the end, it was very gross and unpleasant, but this wasn't bothersome. Great sit. Really great sit. I felt kind of light afterwards. I felt like I was a member of Hells Angels or something. Heh, whatever they do. Like Ghost Dog. ( heh.. a provocative meditation on Sheila...) 4 sho sho. This dissolved itself a good bit through the discourse and I had some pleasant sensations by the end of the day.

Then on day 8 disaster struck: Allergies. I couldn't do unfettered concentration, really messed up my sits. Or, I may have let it mess up my sits. Do remember doing noting around that. Low order of magnitudes, but I was into pleasant, easy and concrete noting somewhat by the end of the group sit or somewhere in the discourse. Day 9 was the same with this but I had taken some nasal decongestants and by the end of the day, I had dissolved one slight unpleasant gross knot in an area hitherto untouched, the back upper left of my neck. Then I was in pleasant vibes and easy noting by the end of the group sit.

Then it was over!





One hour sit at 3pm on thursday the 29th

Started with concentration and went slowly into gradually. Had some good moments of concentration, but I think I may need to learn to start differentiating concentration from any rythym of the breath. This might be the advantage of kasina practices if I recall correctly... a constant, uniform, uninterrupted object. I'm going to try one later this week.


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Now this was a one hour sit so I don't know if I remember everything that happened.. I think the meditation was faster upon beginning insight but began to dwindle in intensity, though it was always persistent. Had some subtle vibrations along my arms and face as usual and felt heaviness much from the sittings. This time I did notice a short duration of slightly unpleasant sensations in my face that reminded me of something I read yesterday in Mumuwu's journal about the disgust nana. But mine were very slight. My whole meditation is not as, like, acrobatic as I think it should be. Some people find themselves with very distinct sensations naturally even as they do very short sits. I think there must be something I'm doing wrong. This makes me want to sit so much more! Talking with David and Villum in the virtual sangha has me noting neutral sensations as I should have been all along. Before I would only note unpleasant sensations and pleasant sensations when they happened, where as for some reason I didn't give any stock to neutral. They're always there, or something like that. A unexamined, bad reason. There were also a few spans of a few seconds wherein I thought that I can note much more constantly and completely and thoroughly. But can't explain what I thought that was. Maybe, it was noting that. So maybe also I was noticing a hole in my noting game like something about the sequence of noting I was doing where I would note note note and slack for a quarter second and note note note then slack note note note and so on, and realized that that's a spot where I can just note note note note note note note, and then also I didn't note this noting revelation with a practice note. woops!

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30 min mapping sit with 20 minutes of concentration. Later that day, the 29th

The main thing I took from this sit is that I need to disembed earlier from my roaming thoughts. This or that thing or narrative had me wrapped up in it a significant bit. When it came to thoughts, it was as if I was half meditating. I was watching myself meditating, watching myself on the journey out of suffering into a higher strata of mind or humanhood. I was, like, kind of rubbing my own back. I was in a super spa. (why do people go to spas?!?!?!). But to think of the sensations I encountered during the sit, there was a lot of heaviness. Towards the end there was unpleasantness in my legs, shin areas. There was warmth. Heavy warmth. Also light sensations, light, cool vibrations. But they were more towards the beginning. Also put more intentional neutral notes in there. Thought once or twice: this is going to take me a little while for it to become natural. Thought also about doing a sit or two of 3/4ths or 4/5th mind states.



25-30 min mapping sit Today:

Started out with some concentration and immediately upon moving into insight I had a slight jerk or wretch or tension in my face. That went away and I noted with a fair ease the standard stuff, heaviness, warmth, coolness, investigation, calm, practice thought, neutrals, unpleasants and so on. a little bit into this there was a very cool light vibration on the upper thigh of my left leg, for a second. continued noting and eventually ran into an itch on the front center of my ribcage just a little bit to the left where the pectoral muscle begins. This lasted till the end of the sit. Need to remember to put in more neutral notes.


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Another session of the same right afterwards:

Forgot to note neutral sensations more intentionally. Lost attention a couple times. Disappointed. Noticed a slight headache after the shift from concentration to insight. This went away quickly. Noticed a lot of unpleasant sensations in my right hip/femur - was sitting on a chair with my legs spread apart, the knees hanging slightly off the edge putting pressure on my hip/femur area.


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I forgot to put this into my logging of the retreat...

On the 6th day when everything was going very well at about noon I had my first walking meditation that was comparable to my sits on the cushion. It was pretty interesting. Things just kind of lined up in my attention, or offered themselves to my attention, or something. Everywhere I walked I had something to note and wasn't phased by having to move my attention and find something. It was distributed evenly among all the four foundations and I felt no apprehension about what the notes would be or about messing up. I noted that pretty easily. Practice thought, or apprehension, or anticipation, whatever.

I'm wondering - what was this? Was this the witness? Dropping the doer? I'm not familiar with any of that in my experience though I see people fairly early on in their practice logs talking about it.

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25-30 min mapping sit on the 30th
sat with concentration without any real initiative to have a sit for about twenty minutes before this, then decided to go formal. Continued concentration for a bit maybe 5 minutes, 10 at the very most, and upon beginning insight I had a subtle pleasant coolness in the right forearm. There were a couple times in the sit where it felt like my attention was more stratified, containing my body in a way in which there was more perspective on the sensations and areas of the body. A field of attention in which the notes would arise rather than an attention of chasing the notes wherever they may be found. Reminds me of Kenneth's essay on chicken herding concerning concentration. My mind in this sit wandered a good bit. Remembered to throw neutral notes in.

Straight into another mapping sit:

The same only with subtle cool areas on my right tricep and top deltoid area.

25-30 min mapping sit @ 10:30 am 31st march.

Started with concentration, went okay, not very good at it, and when I switched to insight had subtle light vibratory areas on the left side of my ribcage, the side of my body, and also on my left tricep and lower rear deltoid area. This kept up for a little while through a rather hazy sit with a good bit of wandering mind, and eventually I experienced mild pains in my mid back seeming;y related to the upkeep of my posture, though definitely insight related. I ceased to feel them seconds after ending the sit. Those continued in mild capacity to the end of the sit.


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25-30min mappingsit @ 11:30

Started with some concentration, remember during that I had subtle cool sensations somewhere on my body in one or two small localized spots. Immediately after shift into insight I experienced an aching on the bottom right of my jaw which went away in less than 5 seconds. After this, aching, tension in the mid back began to pronounce themselves, but not for very long. Somewhere along the way, that went away - I realized this when I got a brief wash of pleasant, cool sensations around my left ankle and inner shin. Following that the back pains returned but only to a 50-70% shade of what they were before. This palliated and I began to experience an ease of noting and attention as if it became quick and nimble enough at the same time that sensations became plentiful enough, which came long with subtle pleasant vibrations on both forearms along with a process or event of subtle pleasant vibrations coursing throughout other parts of the body that would last maybe a dozen seconds each, the total process of which was apparent until I encountered the back aching again to a mild degree and then I may have resurged back up (up?) to the more homogenous pleasant vibratory stage. There might be a couple things wrong about this report since I'm unsure if I remembered everything in the right order.

10-15min walkingmeditation @ 12:15

Was not a very concentrated walk by any means, my mind wandered at least 5 times. But there were some moments where I seemed to pass through meditation phenomena, in the early maybe first three minutes of it I had a pain in my sternum area. Then throughout the sit I would have tiny kind of itching kind of vibrating sensations briefly eek along my skin in places like my hands, face, forehead, and maybe a couple other places. My left leg ached in either the upper hamstring area or the knee area right near and at the end of it. I think it was the upper hamstring.

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Candle flame kasina practice 20 mins @ 4:40

Not much luck. I used small birthday candles from the supermarket and though I was surprised at how red the dot became after I closed my eyes, it would fade too soon. Tried burning 3 candles at once and this didn't help. The first time I closed my eyes to concentrate on the after image, it kept on going up and up in my field of vision as a condition of my making it concentrated, but this didn't repeat itself the second time.

25-30 min sit @ 5:20

Began by counting breaths which went only okay. Upon moving into noting there was subtle sensations of aching in my back skull and neck area simultaneously with subtle neutral vibratory sensations in a random sampling of places mostly on my face and arms. This wasn't the best sit concentration mind wandering wise. What I remember for sure is mostly from the end of the sit when I had unpleasant aching and tension in the back right of my skull and a little bit in my trapesius muscle/right neck muscle. The noting before that I think may have had some easier and more pleasant (slightly pleasant) stations. There was some unpleasant knotty sensations in my right femur up by the hip to a small degree somewhere in this sit too.

50-60 min sit @ 2:30

Started with three sets of 10 breaths. Don't much remember where I went from there. Slid through the stages of insight a bit I think. THere were instances here it was heavy, and somewhat choppy to note, but not really. But that's the idea that stands out - the experience of doing the notes was a shade of choppiness and muddiness. These were the parts where there was the back pain, or the awareness of my posture and the pressure it put on my back. There were other times where it was easy to note and there was the more open quick attention engulfed in subtle lucid areas of slightly pleasant vibrations. The biggest thing about this sit is the disappointment when it comes to concentration and meditating properly. Maybe its that I just read this yesterday on (I think) Mumuwu's sit log (early on), but I think I may need to spend time gauging the proper force with which to note the sensations, a la the foam peanut floating in water. Towards the end of the sit I picked up on some aching in my right femur up near the knee.

Walking/bicycle meditation to the store @ 3:40

Began with some concentration in the apartment beforehand. ....That went okay but the walking meditation was not really a walking meditation - So much distraction. Finding the items, seeing exceptional women. Alas! I was meditating and I'm not going to bother myself with anything else until I get this stuff done. I did return with some candles!!

25-30 min sit @ 1:10

Instituting the practice of counting the breath to 10 three times. That worked out just okay I lost count by the time I got to the mid 20s. Throughout that time I had sublte light vibrations in a couple small spots on my body for a moderate length of time each, 20 - 30 seconds. Upon switching to insight, they increased a little. I noticed a wide area of coolish warm sensation in my abdomen. What I remember after that is another encounter with the mild back pain, but then my mind was prone to wander for the remaining portion of the sit. Though I did go into a phase somewhere towards the end where noting was easier, more panoramic in attention regarding a higher energy quality to the sensations particularly in my arms (mostly forearms) and face/neck area. I remember in this stage there was still the unpleasant heaviness in the mid back, or perhaps the two states, subtle pleasant somewhat fluent/ mild persistent noteworthy back pain, oscillated with somewhat quick speed, 30-40 seconds.

25-30 min sit @ 1:50

Began with counting breaths to 10. Upon noting, I experienced things typical of the last few sits, with a more prevalent coolish warm field of sensation throughout my abdomen. Progressed more quickly through any back pain that was there - I barely remember it. Wound up in that somewhat lucid, calmly energetic and pleasant stage in which noting is pretty easy. Investigations become easy there. Thinking about my practice, I need to more attentive to noting neutral sensations and perhaps could benefit from ten minutes of each foundation of mindfulness in varying orders. Still haven't gotten around to that. I want to do an hour sit next, then I'll see about trying new things like candle flame kasina and the single foundation noting.

25- 30 min sit @ 6:00

Began by counting breaths which didn't go too well - I didn't keep much count and eventually just kind of found myself noting... Had subtle vibratory cool sensations to begin with largely in my right forearm and hand with a lesser order of the same thing throughout my face, left arm, some on the torso, and neck. Think my legs may have been involved a little. Eventually, I found myself experiencing an unpleasant state in my head, similar to flu symptoms or migraine sinus headache, kind of wobbly and compacted, maybe involving pulses, and an unpleasant aching in my arm, which I think may have pulsed too. I had a wandering mind after that and the sit ended with my feeling the pretty standard sensations with only an okay degree of lucidity - around my hands, my face, investigation. I don't know. Disappointment.

Walking meditation for 20 25 minutes or so @ 6:30

Distracted mind multiple times, towards the second half I developed an aching in my left scapula with a much less intense aching in my back left neck muscle.

Digestive challenges for 40 or 50 minutes @ 7:00

Uh some diarrhea but after that I had the strangest feeling of being completely empty in my stomach (lower abdomen) at the same time as being absolutely full. Weird. Eventually figured there's no point in being mindful of it in the vein of treating it as something requiring/kind of developing stoicism, may as well take preventative action instead. Laid down for about 10 minutes on my stomach, then it went away. But it was interesting to see how much being mindful of it lessened the intensity.


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Hour sit to cap off the day @ 8

Started with counting the breath and did a pretty standard job at that, judging it from my previous sits today, and found myself in noting at some point not far into the meditation. Hard to remember these 1 hour sits. I remember that at one point I had many itching sensations, the whole of the areas that I often have slightly pleasant cool vibrations on were now half itchy at the same time. This went away and I think the rest of the sit was more or less the same - pretty good definition and ease of noting, though writing this I feel like I probably missed a lot of notes I ought to have had in there. I remember my posture was quite good, quite clear and solid. In about the middle of the sit a couple times I noted tension and relaxation pretty distinctly and suddenly in my abdomen/ lower abdomen area. I feel more on point than I did all day long with this sit, and afterwards now writing this. A slight ease of processing. A good sense of space.

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April 1st

Did a couple sits today. One in the afternoon for about an hour, one part concentration one part insight. I didn't keep in mind the thought of logging any of it, so I don't have as much to say this time. The concentration went alright, and the insight went okay too. Nothing new. After the sit, I had such great energy, getting my lunch, talking to strangers having a couple wacky conversations. If I ever move to Texas and get married, by the way, I'm getting two sets of akimbo gold plated guns instead of wedding rings. And studying was no sweat, which is something that thus so far in my life has baffled me repeatedly at how laborious it is.

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Later in the night I sat for two and a half hours, half an hour concentration to begin followed by maybe 40-50 minutes insight then 10-15 minutes of walking then an hour of insight w/ a little concentration. Again, I didn't keep in mind logging these sits while I was doing them, so I don't know exactly how any of them went. These sits seemed to go pretty standardly with one new insight: towards the end, the aching came into my right femur down closer to the knee and I realized this time that it was a pulsing, a rather slow pulsing, over 10 seconds or perhaps 15. Before I just thought the pain would come and maybe lessen maybe stay the same or become greater, but with no general rhythm to it. This time there was, while the pain could have gotten lesser or stronger, it tended to have the pulsing rhythm to it where it would increase slightly when the pulse began and stay that way or maybe increase slightly more through the duration of the pulse, and would palliate however much, greater or lesser, at the end of the pulse. This went away towards the middle/last half of the second sit, the area beginning to convert itself to cool pleasant sensations typical of those felt on the arm. But the conversion was not total, there was still the residual heaviness of the ache.

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April 2nd @ 230:

Concentration for 15 minutes followed by 25-30 minutes insight. Concentration went okay. Noticed aching in my right leg akin to the poundingly unpleasant pulse I logged about last night, but in only a slight capacity. Upon starting insight, I encountered nothing out of the ordinary: somewhat fluid and natural noting of all the four foundations, this time a little more frequent on the neutral vedanas. This went on and changed slightly a few times but I didn't retain what the changes were. Eventually, the pain in my right femur started pronouncing itself, but the intensity was not much, nowhere near last night's and the times it showed itself on retreat. This lessened eventually and I was left with pleasant, subtle vibrations throughout my arms most noticeably but somewhat encompassing wider areas of my body like my head,face and somewhat in my torso, but my leg was still with the residual aching. But don't know how this state related to my other leg.. (That's a hole in my meditation I would imagine, a pretty big one: I often seem to leave my legs out of the mix) These slightly pleasant cool vibrations came along with somewhat easy noting, or increased energy in noting to a level where it wasn't a drastic change but things were just slightly more keen. In the past I have said that it is easier and more precise at this stage, but now I wonder it might not be much more precise at all, just energetically easier to come to. Just now writing this I realized I did not note very much pleasantness when I arrived in that stage which I definitely should have.

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@ 3pm, concentration for about 15 minutes. This time tried to work with a very sensitive breath, trying to approach it with just the right pressure, not come in too fast and overshoot anything on moment to moment, but still to be able to sense the object. Went okay, mostly for a few consecutive moments maybe six or seven times, other than that I was sort of in quest to settle down with the object/being a little distracted. Then about half an hour of insight. Began pretty commonplace, but changed up a little about halfway through. Just before halfway through I noticed in my visual field, with eyes closed, there were hues of different colors sometimes in a dispersed field other times in somewhat distinct shapes, mostly circles. This lasted maybe for about 5 minutes. Then, while encountering the same general sensations I began to note some unusual notes, at least in the recent past, of Dissatisfaction, concern, investigation, introspection and a few other... some things I usually note but this time they were salient, being all in reaction to the pretty clear cut dissatisfaction about what I was experiencing, observing. Later at the end of the sit the pain in my lower left femur began to manifest, but didn't really get anywhere.

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@ 7:20, sat for approximately an hour and a half. Did some walking meditation in between two long sits. The sits didn't go very well, I was restless and actually stopped 10 or 15 minutes early. Something about the futility or pointlessness of practicing those 10 minutes. I regret this since I think I should be introspecting all the time without aversion to it without ideas of accumulation towards the end. The thought was that since the meditation was somewhat fickle thus far, it was worthless to keep up the whole hour and so I failed on two levels: not kicking it into gear when this urge came to me as well as having a sit with a pretty wandering mindthat would cause something like that to happen.

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April 3rd

Sit for two hours @ 10 am: began two 50ish minute sits with a walking meditation in between. Stated with breath awareness and tried to be very subtle and sensitive with it, but did not count breaths (I think counting breaths brings on some negative thought patterns since I usually don't wind up doing it - something to work on). So at some point I segued into insight. I do not remember the order in which things happened, so I'll just put down the differing states I had. General neutral relaxation with subtle vibrations along my arms; states where I had back pain. That's pretty much it. Didn't have much of the more pleasant easier noting states, possibly because somewhere in the middle of the second sit I decided to do three point noting and it changed my experience up a quite a little bit - I found it was very very easy to note in duos with a sensation and the vedana, but very difficult to do it in three so that there'd be each trio containing three different foundations. I found many more mind states than I did thoughts, which had a weird vortex like way of bringing a thought upon me, and whenever this would happen I would sort of fumble. I could still note, but it wasn't fluid and would note myself into notes like confusion. Really interested in this happening. Also had some reflection thoughts this sit concerning my mind states being kind of sedate. This led to a lot of judgmental thoughts, criticality, irritation, dissatisfaction. Mainly the discontent was that I never have happy mind states. I've had a little deal of amusement here and there but never really satisfaction. Or maybe I just don't know how to note it - writing this I remembered that I did have a bunch of those for a fact upon returning from retreat last monday, but thinking about that, they were mostly in contact with external things, humor, art, poetry, people. Anyhow.

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I had a moment of clarity about the technique, I now remember writing this, in which I wondered how much in the past I had viewed noting as something that would unfold areas of my mind, sort of in the way I was just writing about here about the lack of thoughts inspiring thoughts, whereas it is proper instead to note that which Does come up, whatever and regardless what it is.

Limbic,

I'm off for a few days. Maybe we could have a chat.

PM me?