Adam L's Practice Journal

Some background on motive:

After soliciting some advice on the DhO a few weeks ago ( www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/2995052 ) I received a few private messages suggesting that I find a teacher and recommending some names. Heeding this wisdom, I sought out a teacher who, during our first session, said that it may be helpful to start a practice log on the KFD or DhO sites (or both). At first, I was hesitant (mostly due to ego/self-consciousness) so I created the log in a place where only he and I could view. After spending more time reading logs and seeing the wealth of advice, I've decided to make my practice log "public".

My first couple posts below are the aggregate of log entries and a couple practice questions from the past couple weeks. As such, I apologize in advance for the initial wall-of-text.

Some background on my practice: I cover this territory a bit in my original DhO post...

www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/2995052

Somehow "goals" seem a bit strange, even counterproductive, but perhaps I should mention that I am working to attain first path and would like to do so with as much efficiency as possible, but without much dramatic adverse effects to my close personal relationships (namely, my wife, kids, other family, and close friends...again, see the aforementioned DhO post for more context in this vein). In the very short term, I'm trying to build up some insight "momentum" in preparation for my first retreat, a 10-day Goenka retreat at the end of June. I spending about an hour with my teacher every one or two weeks.

I would be absolutely thrilled if anyone would mind commenting on my practice, suggesting "tips", or making technical recommendations...or if you just want to say "hi"

Practice Notes 3/27/2012
Late afternoon sits on 3/25/2012 and 3/26/2012 of initial samatha practice (30-50%) followed by insight practice for remainder. Both sessions had a duration of roughly 1 hr.

Observations: Concentration on both sits were flimsy at best and more difficult to establish than is usual. Externally-speaking, there have been lots of tasks and "stress"-type content which I surmise has been contributing to a lack of sleep and hence a bit of low energy levels (by "low energy", I mean I've been tired, I'm still unsure at to whether there are other contexts for this expression when I read it from others). Leading up to the a more solid concentration state I felt physically uncomfortable, like my back had pain and or like I couldn't find a comfortable posture. It would seem comfortable for a few seconds then almost feel like my spine was twisted or curved and that I should adjust the way I was sitting. I would adjust and the same thing would happen again. I gave up on 'getting comfortable' and moved to focusing on the sensations of the breath passing the nostrils. Access concentration(?) follows after perhaps 10-20 mins manifesting as a sinking sensation in my awareness "center" -- this "center" seems to be analogous to my eyes or in the same "spot".

[CONTINUED...]

This sinking is fairly poignant and often unexpected, I have not yet ascertained the composite "steps" to attain this efficiently. In addition to this sinking sensation, there is the sensation that other "stuff" like (five) sensory distractions (sounds, etc) and mental distractions like thoughts are "far away" and easy to ignore, but more like they have no pull on my awareness. I recall feeling/thinking that I was amused or that it was almost humorous that thought/mental chatter is such a dominant part of my daily life. Accompanying this sinking was also a feeling/sense of relief or peace. Maintaining awareness on the breath is exceptionally easy and felt a bit 'vibratory' or choppy in rapid succession. Leading up to this 'state' there were lots of psychedelic-type mental imagery, similar to black and white pinwheel or swirly type images. Once this sinking sensation occurred, mental imagery turned into a hazy grey, almost like very fine 'static', sometimes morphing color to a pearly white or beige. It was kind of like being in a room that was brightly and evenly lit with eyes closed, but somehow the light permeating the eyelids was perceived as static-y.

[CONTINUED...]

At some point I felt "compelled" to move to noting practice in both of these sits. I noted aloud. Would note physical sensations like "itch" (which often occurs on my right cheek when I sit, for some strange reasons), "back pain", "leg switch", "fan sound", "knocking sound" as well as mental sensations with "planning", "fear", "lust", "love", and "judgement" being the dominant things I noticed and noted. Noting the mental phenomena seems harder to remember to do for some reason, it's was far easier to scan my physical senses and note awareness on these. I think I may be trying too hard. I'm a bit puzzled by "what is supposed to happen" during insight practices. Concentration practice seems so simple and the "what is happening" seems much more obvious than the subtle things that occur during insight practice. Another thing that seems to happen during insight practice when I happened to do it with my eyes open (first sit) was that my visual senses seem very "jerky" almost like I was just perceiving snapshot...or like they were fluid and then "jerk"...it reminded me of the way a graphical operating system behaves when the CPU gets overutilized, say for example, when you try to move a window with your mouse cursor, only to have it temporarily 'freeze' and then catch up to the movement when it needs to process other threads. The overall tone of the senses and feelings when I switch to insight practice is kind of/subtly stoney, slowed-down, a bit pleasant, and "wondrous"/mesmerizing (like realizing I'm seeing things "for the first time")...this tone makes for something I inadvertently try to grasp at when I 'feel' it slipping, at which it fades and concentration needs to be reestablished.

[CONTINUED...]

I want to figure out a way to just let these things flow without trying to manipulate it, but I feel "out of control" in this regard.

This was a long log entry to fully explain these sensations for the first time (which often manifest in a similar manner during sits). In future posts, I hope to focus just on simple comparisons and contrasts of these general patterns.

Practice Notes 4/4/2012
Seated practice has been pretty tough for some reason. Feeling lots of aversion and find my thoughts wandering in a strange way (similar to the wispy/dream like wandering mentioned earlier). Spent the last couple days reading about noting practice and now I try to subvocalize the sensations in my awareness as much as possible and as I remember. I try to verbally not "louder" when I'm in a space that permits it, like walking to my office from a bus stop or while showering, etc. I'm finding difficulty doing this however when I'm trying to listen or focus...e.g. in a conversation, while reading, while watching a video, etc. Not sure if I should be 'turning off' the noting practice during these activities or if I'll get better at doing both simultaneously. Right now, if I note while needing to focus on the activity, I end up focusing on the noting and not hearing the activity...if that makes any sense.

Practice Notes 3/30/2012
Late afternoon formal seated practice lasting 45 mins. Same pattern starting with concentration practice and into insight practice (mindfulness of breath/noting). Feel like sensations are tough to find when noting, like there are none. I end up noting things like 'rising' and 'falling' but it seems like it's a habit and not something I'm inherently experiencing. I don't know how to explain it but I tried to exert more effort or force into my awareness, almost like trying to burst my awareness outward and felt a change in sensory awareness. My bodily boundary awareness became more distinct. I could actually feel my hands folded in my lap if I chose to try to feel them, as opposed to just knowing they were there. This was a nice change because it felt like non-contrived awareness. Not sure if these observations are even relevant or if I'm fabricating these things. I just ended my sit maybe five minutes ago and like most of my sits recently, I feel very strange afterwards. Not really good, not really bad, but sort of shaken. Like I'm watching my fingers type these characters, but "I'm" not really controlling it. The emotional tone of the way I feel is a bit detached or disassociated...again, but maybe I'm fabricating these experiences...describing them makes them seem almost trite. Random question, why is it that almost without any volition I open my eyes between 45 seconds to 1 minute before my little alarm goes off? Is this coincidence? It seems like it happens ever time I sit now...I don't even really find myself asking...ummm..."myself"... whether or not I should open them...I just do. Then I sit and soak the visual simulations for several seconds before looking at my timer and observing this thing...anyway, it's probably unimportant.

Practice Notes 3/29/2012
Late afternoon formal seated practice lasting approx. 45 minutes. Started with samatha practice focusing on breath at upper lip/nostrils. After concentration settled, spent several minutes maintaining this state. About half way through the sit, I switched to observing sensations while maintaining a loose focus on awareness of breathing. No extraordinary events during the sit. Felt no real 'insight', whatever that is supposed to feel like. Overall tone of the sit was one of periods of focus, intertwined with short periods of distraction. The only real distinction in this sit was that These distractions had almost a dream-like quality to them, as opposed to the usual 'planning' type thoughts that sometimes arise. These were more ethereal and wispy, with my awareness observing for a moment these dreamlike qualities with interest upon realizing the distraction before shifting back to watching the breathing process.

Practice Notes 3/27/2012
No seated practice. Hectic and busy day made even informal mindfulness practice sporadic at best.

Practice Notes 4/5/2012
Seated practice: one ~20 min seated subvocalized Mahasi-style noting practice in the morning. one ~45 min seated Mahasi-style noting practice in the early evening. Diving right in to noting, as opposed to building up concentration doing samatha then switching to noting seemed much more..."productive" (i.e. less tendency for my thoughts and focus to drift off for some reason). I think I'll be switching to this strategy.

A couple minutes into the sit, noting rising and falling of the breath, I felt an abrupt dropping mental sensation accompanied by a flash and rotation of a TV-static type mental vision. Then I felt a distinct shift in awareness, almost like how one feels when you "wake up" while after realizing you've been daydreaming and ask "have I even been paying attention to the road"...it's like I noticed that I am almost never "paying attention"...but now I can, at least for the moment. After this 'drop' I felt a distinct separation between what was happening in the traditional senses and the 'who' that was sensing these things. Some euphoric sensations (like when one crests a roller coaster) came and went several times during the longer sit.

Spent a good chunk of my day doing un-vocalizded noting during daily activities. This is getting much easier to do (and to remember to do).

Practice Notes 4/9/2012
No formal seated practice over the weekend. Spent a lot of time bringing myself back to noting during "normal" daily activity. Noticing that noting speed and accuracy is increasing, also noticing that I'm "inadvertently" being more specific while noting. For example, for the past couple weeks I've been mostly noting things like "sight", "sound", "touch", "step", "rise", "fall", etc...the past couple days have been more like "fan" (sound), "brake lights" (sight), "cold" (touch). I think this is progress, but I'm not sure.

Practice Notes 4/10/2012
Short formal sit today (~25 mins). Focused on noting the sensations related to the breath. Starting to notice some patterns during these sits...like a visual flash and stronger focus, there always seems a period of physical discomfort (e.g. my back hurts/posture feels off), there always seems to be a period where things go (visually) black. I plan on trying to pay closer attention to this phenomena to see if I can get a hold of their order or significance. I noticed now that when I begin to feel elated, I easily remember to just let it happen (as opposed to my previous propensity of "trying" to cultivate the feeling into something magnified).

Second late-afternoon sit (~35 mins). Nothing additional to add to previous entry.

Practice Question
When doing seated/formal noting practice sessions, should I be focusing exclusively on breath-related sensations? Should I allow for my awareness to "note" other sensations, like when I am hear the fan or other noises, when I swallow and feel these related bodily sensations? Or, rather, should I concentrate on keeping my awareness as tightly centered as possible on breath-related sensations and "ignore" or "keep my awareness off" other sensations?

Practice Question
When doing noting practice during daily activity I'm noticing that my noting is speeding up to the point that I'm often noticing a few (three to six) sensations and thoughts for every one explicit "note" I perform. Is it better to try to speed the noting up and make them more inclusive or slow it down and place more awareness on the particular sensation being noted, "ignoring" or relegating the others.

"When doing seated/formal noting practice sessions, should I be focusing exclusively on breath-related sensations? Should I allow for my awareness to "note" other sensations, like when I am hear the fan or other noises, when I swallow and feel these related bodily sensations? Or, rather, should I concentrate on keeping my awareness as tightly centered as possible on breath-related sensations and "ignore" or "keep my awareness off" other sensations?

When doing noting practice during daily activity I'm noticing that my noting is speeding up to the point that I'm often noticing a few (three to six) sensations and thoughts for every one explicit "note" I perform. Is it better to try to speed the noting up and make them more inclusive or slow it down and place more awareness on the particular sensation being noted, "ignoring" or relegating the others.
"

First of all Welome to KFD. You will find lots of valuable info here.

I will try to answer some of your questions.

When doing vipassana/noting practice you note any sensation that you recognize in the current moment. I think you are mixing up samatha and vipassana. Look here for the basic instructions:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/ Right on the front page, read the section on 1st Gear.

If you hear a fan noise, note "hearing", if you swallow, note "swallowing", you can even note the "intention to swallow" before swallowing. Anything that arises in the moment. If it happens to be the rising of your breath, then fine, note "rising", if you itch note "itching", etc...

On your second question. Note what is present now, if you remember that you had 3 sensations but you didn't realize you caught them all until later they aren't in the present anymore. 1 note every second or 2 is a nice steady pace.

Thanks for the feedback

Just to ensure I understand, are you saying I should not place awareness (emphasis) on my breath while noting? Should it be more like settling into an unfocused (for lack of a better term) or inclusive and present-moment awareness and noting all sensory phenomena that I notice? I have been operating under the impression that there ought to be an object on which my awareness centers. I think I have a (shallow) understanding of the difference between samatha and vipassana, but perhaps I'm incorrectly mixing "noting" techniques with Anapanasati techniques?

EDIT: just to clarify, my earliest journal entries reflect some sits where I was (based on some of Shaila Catherine's works) mixing using samatha techniques to increase my concentration then switching to vipassana...perhaps this is what you were referring to?

You can mix. I usually start with a few minutes of samatha (anapanasati) to get concentrated and settled in. Then I start vipassana (noting). If you notice the breath then note it, but you dont need to have an 'object' to concentrate on while noting other phenomenon if thats what you are asking. Have you read MCTB yet? It seems you might like how technical it is when it comes to explaining this stuff.

Great stuff. OK, when you put it so simply, it's hard to understand how I could have so easily missed the point. Yes, I read MCTB maybe four or five months ago. It was the "thing" that resonated with me in a profound way and got me motivated to get serious about practice.

Thanks again!

Late morning sit ~30 mins. Five minutes or so counting breaths to establish a 'comfortable' level of concentration. Remainder of time spent noting. Nothing remarkable to report other than my concentration levels seem much easier to establish early in the day, before I've had anything to eat. I feel less prone to lengthy daydream-y tangents during pre-lunch sits. I may need to figure out how to tweak my schedule to allow for lengthier sit times in the morning with a shorter "tune up" session in the late afternoon/evening...

Late afternoon sit ~40 mins. Five minutes or so counting breaths to establish a 'comfortable' level of concentration. Sat with the intention of letting things flow in a more relaxed, trying to stay mindful of habits or thought patterns that ratchet up tension. Remainder of time was spent noting simple sensory phenomena. Two interesting/strange things happened during this session that sticks out in my memory, the first was a distinct dropping feeling immediately after noticing that I had digressed into "planning" type thoughts (i.e. right before I was about to note "planning"). For a fraction of a second I felt as if I was falling, like when abruptly drops on a roller coaster or like I fell through a trap door or something. Perhaps irrelevant, but striking nonetheless. The second interesting thing that happened was that a "thought" appeared almost as a distinct image or bubble of images that I could mentally follow (is that even possible to mentally follow thoughts? it seems like a fallacy, of sorts), as soon as I notices that I was "following" this "thought bubble" it disappeared and completely ceased to exist, as if it 'popped' out of existence ... though the memory has a slight tinge of trancey-ness it's possible that I silently giggled when I noticed this, for some reason...I don't recall the nature of this thought.

This week's meeting with my teacher we discussed some observations and techniques related to investigating expansion and contraction that seemed to really resonate my practice and reveal some previously unnoticed tensions that were likely impeding progress a bit. Formal sitting practice (~45 mins), noting and investigating thoughts as they arise but more often (for some reason) when they are about to cease. Sensory 'patterns' are becoming much less subtle and regular. During my sit, I quickly (within the first 5-10 mins) began experiencing the some fairly dramatic twitching/jerking/spasms throughout my body, most notably in my torso and shoulders, but also sometimes in my neck/head area as well as legs/feet. Concentration feels like it's narrowing during this time. Noting is not easy/flowing but it's not too terribly hard either (it's quite easy to note twitch,twitch,twitch 2-5 times per second ). After about five or ten more minutes, this twitching seems to slow down fairly quickly (not abruptly, but from a revving pace to an idle pace) and ceases after another minute or two of deceleration. Then the pattern seems to be a large number of tactile and emotional sensations related to exhilaration. This time feels not-so peaceful, but not unpleasant...actually fairly pleasant. These sensations are followed by a dramatic slowdown in my mind and body. Things somehow "feel" peaceful and somehow not. My awareness seems to be more "interested" in looking inward at thoughts and feelings as opposed to physical sensations like tactile, visual, auditory, etc. Sometimes, particularly when my awareness "moves" to investigating the thinker/investigator, everything gets jerky and wonky like there's some aversion (anxious and fearful emotional sensations) related to a seeming paradox of the watcher watching the watcher (that doesn't seem to make sense, but I'm not sure how to explain it better).

My "daily life" practice feels like it's progressing nicely even though I've decided not to be too mechanical/systematic about it. When I "feel like" it's a good time to do a systematic noting, I'll do that. Otherwise, I'm just noticing that my thoughts are constantly returning to asking myself the questions "what are you doing right now? what are you experiencing right now? are you noticing these things? are you daydreaming? if so, what does that feel like?". The transition from being "lost" in fantasies and daydreaming or planning to being mindful (still not sure if this is the correct context for this term, ironically, I feel like I'm getting more and more confused about what "mindfulness" is) of the present moment is very fascinating. I have this desire to try to figure out what evokes this shift in perspective (i.e. why do I go from daydreaming to present moment awareness? what is the catalyst for this?).

Formal sitting practice was very different than the past few. No twitchy phase, no exhilarating phase. Maybe my concentration is crap. It seemed like, from the beginning, my consciousness was on some day-dreamy schizophrenic journey; stories/imagery of people and places, some real some imaginary(?). I would notice these daydreams within a few seconds and "gently" investigate pertinent details (via noting "feelings" surrounding the stories). This unfocused mish mash of thoughts (the thoughts themselves seemed remarkably clear, FWIW) carried a feeling tone of pressure, guilt, etc...even if the theme of the imagery did not reflect these feelings. It was like I was mad at myself, for no clear reason...seemed related to the imagery, but that wasn't clear based on what I was observing from the senses. It's a bit confusing. This went on for about 45 minutes. The last 15 or so minutes of my formal sit still seemed a bit focused, but it was very peaceful. I felt like I could continue indefinitely, though ended my session after my timer went off at the 1 hr mark.

UPDATE: Late afternoon formal session (~40 mins). Same pattern as this morning. During the last 10-15 minutes of the sit it, when the relaxed "phase" kicked in (very little tension, very little grasping, very little aversion) , I felt as if I dropped into an absorption state, that felt like descriptions of jhana (perhaps, even later formed jhanic states, if that is even possible to "skip" earlier ones). I would slip in and out of this state every couple minutes like a sinusoidal wave pattern over time.

Question: when one is moving through insight stages, is it possible or even "normal" to not "fall back" to the beginning between sits? Perhaps when coupled with a diligent practice during one's day?

Late morning formal sit (~1hr). Very similar to yesterday's post. Thoughts are much less subtle though. Nice long communte on bus/train (1+hr each way) giving tons of extra time for practice. Ugh, today, on the otherhand (4/18), I'm don't even feel taking the time to post (also long public trans commute day). Feels like all my negative type thoughts and feelings are magnified and beating my skull in. Anxious/fearful thoughts and feelings, judgemental thoughts and feelings of myself and everything else, sad thoughts and feelings...the only good news is that all these thoughts and feelings seem very "tangible" if that makes any sense...which makes them easy to note....I suppose that's something, right? I simultaneously want to go do a nice long formal sitting practice this morning, but also don't.

Morning formal sit (~50 mins) was preceded by a rough 12 hour patch or so (see previous entry). This the tone of this sit was a welcome change from the past few which seemed punctuated by flimsy concentration; breakthrough-ish, this practice session felt well concentrated (sort of...it's a different feeling of concentration than has been experienced over the past 4-6 months). Phenomenologically speaking, I sank into a markedly peaceful (dare I say equanimous?) feeling where noting felt a bit ... umm ... effortful, but accurate and rather than being drawn to physical sensations, my awareness seemed drawn to more tangible emotional tones and thoughts. On advice from my teacher, I focused on where my awareness was drawn and then, with the act of "letting go" or relaxing, tried to bring awareness to the (expansion qualities) of the entire experience. At this point I felt as if I (almost immediately, within 20 seconds of "building") dropped into an jhanic state. The "building" period of this was dominated by an almost visual and tactile sense of "openness" or "opening up", as if I was covered by a thick curtain that was being removed. The time that followed this phase was very much dominated by a sense of relaxed peacefulness / "equanimity" ... I'm putting that term in quotes because, despite much of the evidence/signs being present and being filtered by my own brand of self-doubting skepticism, I have a real hard time believing that I am capable of progressing to this stage so ...umm...well, progressing to that stage at all, if I am being honest

... a huge chunk of my adult life has been dominated by feelings very akin to those given in descriptions of the dark night, the last thing I want to do is begin believing I'm "out of those woods" only to have my...anyway, anyone reading this probably gets the idea...and I'm not sure who I'm even writing to other than myself. The remainder of the sit was a cycling of the aforementioned phenomena: basically, what felt to be building levels of concentration, wanting to relax in the peaceful but resolving to investigate/note, feeling an "expansive" quality to my awareness that was my queue to "let go" whereby I would become absorbed in feelings of peace and equanimity, where I just, "let things be" but was somehow still able to watch/investigate with an almost detached level of interest, "falling out" for unknown but somehow un-frustrating reasons, rinse, repeat the cycles occurring perhaps 3 or 4 times during an almost 1 hour session. There's so much more I can describe about the phenomena, but I just don't feel like I have the time right now ... (e.g. a strange "chunky" and sometimes vibratory sense to off-the-cushion reality similar to my experiences months ago...things, particularly people, seeming to exist in a high level of definition...). Whatever this is, if anything or nothing of importance, it sure is nice to be free from anxiety/fear/doubt/etc/etc/etc...even if it only lasts today.

Afternoon sit (~40 mins): practically a carbon copy of the morning sit. Time for a long commute where I plan to get lots more practice in...

neral notes: My "content"/"stuff" during daily activity has been quite volatile for the past few days...nights have been disturbed sleep dominated by fearful anxious physiological phenomena (e.g. waking up with a racing heart) but without the accompanied emotional "feelings" of fear...very strange dichotomy, that also includes other "stuff" in similar ways...I'm noticing lots of physical sensations that are usually associated to feelings of guilt and sadness/etc that don't have the accompanied emotional feelings. Hmmm...I'm going to just keep noting, but I'd be lying if I said it's been easy to stay grounded/keep perspective. I do have lots of faith in this process (for some reason) which may be why I'm not flying off the deep end emotionally...I don't know.

Morning sit formal (~1 hr), phenomenologically very similar to yesterday's sits. Emotional tone for the first 20 mins-ish was very negative and was accompanied by physical nausea..Nausea perhaps unrelated or from a meal perhaps. Concentration seemed good during this initial period, but there was a weird negative vibrational undercurrent...tough to explain without getting real ambiguous or full of psycho-babble. However, about a third-ish way into the session, the "absorption"-like state I described yesterday occurred again, only this time it was *very* stable and completely effortless...peripheral distractions (e.g. a door closing in another room) didn't really seem far off but did not pull my attention at all...the sounds that I perceived were simply noticed and noted).