AndyW's Practice Notes, Version 2.0

Since the old thread was getting unwieldy and since I'm also taking a new direction in my practice after what was probably Stream Entry, I thought it time to start a brand new thread. Old thread is here: kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/4467460/-

At the moment, Beth is encouraging me to practice choiceless awareness in the style of Adyashanti. It's a kind of non-meditation really. Just sit there, and take your hands off the wheel. I've been doing this for about a week now, still sitting two hours a day. Occasionally I use anapanasati to get myself settled, and sometimes I'll switch to vipassana when I get bored or fidgety. But mostly I've done the choiceless awareness. Or rather not done it. Unlike with vipassana, you need to really do this for a few consecutive days before working out what it feels like and what it's doing. Because I'm not noting every second, working out what's going on only really happens with hindsight and zooming out.

What's emerging for me is a two modes running in tandem. The first is me feeling very settled, relaxed and happy not to have anything to do, with tonnes of patience and ease, and lack of worry about whether I'm doing the practice right, tolerant of thoughts and unpleasant sensations. The other mode is restless, aversive, bored, fidgety, occasionally worried about thoughts and getting lost, often checking the clock, and also feeling the tension/stress in the body associated with "doing in right". As I said, these modes coexist. I don't really go through phases of either, but in each moment I can see some sort of freedom and some sort of stress/dukkha. The initial fear of doing nothing has gone, which is good. But a lot of residual striving and tension remains. Beth suggested using the phrase "Let it burn!" when things got difficult, which has been helpful.

I've been dipping into Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche's book "Crystal Clear", which is a commentary on the Mahamudra classic "Clarifying the Natural State". He has a section where he discusses faulty meditation practice and then flawless practice. In the first he says:

"Some people believe that meditation training is to act natural, letting whatever happens happen, without preferences, judgments or evaluations, merely letting things carry on as usual. This is an indifferent sort of calm and is simply an ordinary state. To practice like that is pointless." (p. 94)

I suppose I have pretty much been doing what he says we shouldn't do! But then he says in the section on flawless practice:

"You do not need to modify or correct anything. In short, everything is meditation training when you have naturally aware patience of mind." (p. 100)

That also sounds like what I have been doing! I imagine the difference between the practice described in first and second quote lies in the "naturally aware patience of mind" and lack of distraction in the second. But how do I become less distracted when there is nothing to be distracted from?

2 hour session just now, comprising of 25 minutes of shamatha (whole body breathing), 35 minutes of noting out loud, 10 minutes of walking and then 50 minutes of sitting there doing nothing.

It's good to bring the vipassana and the "non-meditation" together, because they inform each other. Non-meditation makes me more relaxed and open in vipassana, and able to practice with less striving. On the other hand, vipassana makes my non-meditation a bit more responsive, so that I come back quickly from distracting trains of thought, without "trying" to do so.

Most of my dukkha still comes from physical discomfort, mainly in the shoulders, neck and upper back. Sometimes it feels like a raft of tension across the shoulders, sometimes a squash-ball sized lump between the shoulder blades or in the neck, sometimes just the flicker of an itch or prickle in the middle of all that. I kept honing in on it, allowing it to fill my perceptual field, not shying away from it, noting the aversion, fantasing, worrying, images and craving that come along with it. Sometimes I felt waves of cool energy by doing this, other times, bursts of fear, then sadness, then anger. Tingles down the arms too, right to the middle of the palms.

I found this wonderful quotation in "That is That" by Nirmala (free ebook via Amazon www.amazon.co.uk/That-Is-Essays-Nature-e...id=1336295434&sr=8-1 ):

"In every moment, there are two possibilities. One possibility is to have all of our curiosity, attention and passion focused on what is happening. The other is to have that same curiosity, attention and passion focused on what is *not* happening, and *not* present, or what we think should or shouldn't be happening. In every moment, the question is: What are you giving your attention to? Are you allowing what *is* or going to battle with it, trying to change it in some way?"

This seems to speak to all areas of my practice: vipassana, non-meditation, awareness throughout the day, Mahamudra noting. It's great.

I haven't update my journal in a long time, because my main practice at the moment is sitting in an easy chair and doing nothing for two hours a day. It's hard to know what to say about it, if I'm honest.

That said, there have been some interesting developments of late that might be worth sharing. My retreat in April showed me pretty clearly that I could make life a whole lot easier for myself by being a little bit more patient with my practice. The irony, of course, is that being impatient and getting wound up about "doing it right" was really getting in the way of me making progress. It took a throbbing skull and a whole lot of fear to show me that I needed to ease off a bit, and that was what got me to the fruitions I experienced at the end of the retreat.

Doing nothing is a really effective way of easing off the pressure internal to practice - all the striving and craving, in other words - without actually letting up on the dosage. I have now been sitting two hours a day for over 6 months, but just recently switching to this non-meditation mode of practice in the last three weeks.

I think I am beginning to understand what "the Witness" is about for the first time. Sitting this week I suddenly became aware of the distinction between knowing a lump of pain in the body, and getting caught up in that pain. I could, if I wanted, just be the knowing, and be totally okay with the unpleasant sensation. It didn't change or even weaken, but there was a lot more space around it. The Witness didn't feel located anywhere, rather it was like this blank canvas on which everything appears.

[cont...]
Each time I became aware of it, I tested it to make sure i wasn't located anywhere: sometimes what looks like equanimity is actually just a very spacious and contented feeling in a particular part of the body, usually the head area. But at this particular point, my skull felt tense and there was some energy blockage in the nose. So I knew that the particular spaciousness of this Witness feeling wasn't located in the body. Even calling it a feeling is wrong. That's the first development.

The second is that I'm fairly sure I'm in the dukkha nyanas, because various emotions - self-loathing, frustration, anger, guilt - have arisen in conjuction with bodily tension, as well as an aversion to practicing. So perhaps this is pre-2nd path DN. Anyway, the doing nothing is a real boon for dealing with this. I just watch the emotions arise and fall, and don't have to worry about what to do with them.

I think I'm getting into Equanimity (i.e. just before Second Path). My practice at the moment is pretty evenly split between Vipassana and 3rd Gear, and in the last two weeks or so, I've seen the stuff I associate with the dukkha nyanas fall away. The Dark Night for me consists of repetitive anxious thoughts - content is unimportant, but worrying about dharma fills the gap when there is nothing else for me to worry about - and tension in the body. What has changed in the last two weeks is that when these things arise it is more likely that they are clearly known and less likely that they are resisted. They just emerge, and seem small and distant. Negative thoughts and worries are known quickly, felt in the body and then allowed to subside. Repetitive thought patterns are more easily recognised, and seen as "not me". I'm getting to the point where anything that arises in body or mind is treated much like a sound that I hear in the distance - nothing to do with me, it will pass, and it can be tolerated even if unpleasant. There isn't much in the way of joy, or even contentment, more of a kind of quiet ease. Concentration in shamatha is not particularly good - I still find that breathing meditation can engender a kind of tightness rather than ease at times - but its pretty good in vipassana, not wandering off too much.

I have been sitting two hours a day still - now up to a run of 225 and gunning for a full year at least - but practice feels pretty relaxed and easy. I'm not really thinking about progress - hence the lack of posts here - but rather focusing on ending the struggle and just relaxing in this moment, with nothing particular to do.

Less than a month till my next retreat, at Gaia House with John Peacock.

Andy, I never congratulated you on first path. I'm so glad for you! Quiet ease is good. Metta. Hope you have a wonderful time with John Peacock.

"In every moment, there are two possibilities. One possibility is to have all of our curiosity, attention and passion focused on what is happening. The other is to have that same curiosity, attention and passion focused on what is *not* happening, and *not* present, or what we think should or shouldn't be happening. In every moment, the question is: What are you giving your attention to? Are you allowing what *is* or going to battle with it, trying to change it in some way?"

This quote is great! Thanks for sharing and Congratulations! It's clear you've done a lot of hard work.

@Laurel - I thought you did! Anyway, thank you again

@Alvaro - Great isn't it? The whole book is full of that stuff, and it's free to download.

Indeed it is! It reminds me of another, much pithier, quote from some anonymous yogi, "We're always practicing something. The only question is, 'What?'"

Last week I went on to Gaia House for 9 days retreat. The first two days I was left to my own devices, and switched between doing normal walking meditation during the walking periods and doing "non-meditation" during the sits. I listened to some of Adyashanti's talks from his "True Meditation" CD in the evening as my digest of dharma teaching.

Then John Peacock's retreat on Mindfulness and Equanimity started, so I switched to vipassana. John teaches a breath-based style of vipassana, with an emphasis on treating the mind kindly and patiently. We spent a day on just the breath, a day on the breath and body, two days on breath and vedana, and two days on breath and mindstates. Sticking to the schedule you'd get about 7 or 8 hours a day, but I always did a bit extra to get me up to between 9 and 10 hours a day. Often I'd include a "non-meditation" in the extra sits.

Some interesting things that happened while on retreat:
- Noting vedana proved to be a really effective way of remaining equanimous in the face of pain. Doing this practice I felt almost no aversion to the unpleasant tension in my back and neck. On a couple of occasions this practice just propelled me into a state of gratitude and joy.
- Noting mindstates helped me understand for the first time that boredom is really interesting! Boredom, it seems to me, is just the other side of a really beautiful calm contentment. The states are remarkably similar and it doesn't take much to tip boredom into this kind of contentment.
- When experimenting with "non-meditation" or surrender, I tried imagining that I was saying "yes" or "I approve of this" to everything that happened. Once, after about half an hour of doing this in a really relaxed way, I experienced a very brief landslide of joy that was so overwhelming I actually had to stop the practice.

[cont...]

[...cont]

- Non-meditation really is just about resting, and I'm slowly feeling my way into this practice. Less anxiety around just relaxing now, some moments of real peace.
- I had a few "blips" that felt a bit like cessations. Somehow they weren't as intense as the cessations I'd felt before, while on retreat in April. The only way I can describe it is as if the button hadn't been pressed down far enough to be a real cessation. But perhaps they were.

And some interesting things have happened since the retreat:
- On the first night back, I was lying going to sleep and experienced some jolts in my consciousness that might have been real cessations. I would find myself jerked into a new position, as if the mind had ceased just at the start of the movement of the body, and then arisen again once the body had moved. Then again, perhaps these were just me falling asleep and waking up again, but I haven't experienced anything like them other than the cessations I had in Germany in April.
- The next morning I was having a very distracted sit, with lots of sticky thoughts, and then one of the "blips" happened as they had on the retreat (i.e. less intense than what I'd called cessations in the past) and my body was flooded with pleasant, cool tingles. The mind wasn't particularly effected, but just watched these tingles flow over the body for maybe half a minute, and then I proceded to have one of the most painful and aversive sits I'd had since beginning the retreat.

[cont...]

[...cont]

- Today, having been off retreat for about 5 days, I had a sit which was completely overwhelmed with pleasant cool tingles in the body. I was doing normal noting, but trying to investigate what I usually gloss over slightly aversively with the word "tension". I was focusing on areas of tension when they arose at the forefront of my attention, and tried to describe exactly what was going on: i.e. was it touching, or vibrating, or moving, or burning, or heat, or pressure. I also asked how exactly I knew that this was tension. The answer to this question didn't arise, and so I'd note "uncertainty" or "confusion" and then the whole body would be flooded with cool pleasant tingles. This kept going for most of the hour.

The question is: have I got Second Path? Are these blips real cessations, and is all the pleasant cool tingling a "bliss wave"?

Yesterday evening: 60 minutes, beginning with counting breaths up to 30, one "breath" being an inhalation and an exhalation. Usually I can count to 30 within five or ten minutes of sitting down, but yesterday was very distracted and I kept having to restart. But the distracting thoughts weren't seen as a problem or something to worry about, just the way it happened to be that evening. I probably spent 30 minutes at least on just breathing and counting, until I felt stable enough to switch to vipassana. Spent the rest of the sit noting freestyle, in a very relaxed way. The mind was still quite distracted, but everything felt very free and easy, and I was surprised when the bell rang to mark the end of the hour. No tingles or energetic phenomena, just a sense of relaxation and ease even amid the distraction.

This morning: 60 minutes. Again, it seemed to take me a while to settle the mind. Probably about 20 minutes until I was able to count 30 breaths. I started the sit with some ill-will: jealous thoughts about the progress of others etc. So I decided to do Mahamudra noting once I'd done the 30 breath count. The thoughts faded, but the ill-will left a residue of aversion and tightness in the body and mind, so after a lacklustre 15 minutes of Mahamudra noting - not many positive mindstates coming up! - I got up and did walking meditation for the rest of the sit. Some distraction, and some clockwatching thoughts, but was mostly able to keep my attention on the soles of my feet.

"The question is: have I got Second Path? Are these blips real cessations, and is all the pleasant cool tingling a "bliss wave"?"

As we are learning a lot around here lately, all of us experience this stuff in different ways...

For me markers for 2nd path was an obvious big frution but then I could tell I was in Review. I would sit and I would be at A&P. Not very prominent, but noticable lights and squinting of the eyes and energy that would take some time to settle. Then I would cycle very quickly and feel the A&P over and over again, sometimes one every couple of minutes. Once again, we are not talking "Big-wow" but it was noticable. Second big thing I noticed was a compassion for strangers, but at the same time a large distaste for people when they couldn't deal with their stuff. (I would be so sick of myself right now. Hah) What I mean is I could just watch people trying to handle stressful situations and I couldn't understand why they had to make such a big deal out of little stuff. It was annoying at the time. I also dad a very hard time making decisions, because everything seemed fine with me at the time.

Keep watching, sitting and reporting. Time will tell. Also wouldn't be a bad time to talk to Beth or Kenneth.

"Second big thing I noticed was a compassion for strangers, but at the same time a large distaste for people when they couldn't deal with their stuff. (I would be so sick of myself right now. Hah) What I mean is I could just watch people trying to handle stressful situations and I couldn't understand why they had to make such a big deal out of little stuff. It was annoying at the time. I also dad a very hard time making decisions, because everything seemed fine with me at the time.

Keep watching, sitting and reporting. Time will tell. Also wouldn't be a bad time to talk to Beth or Kenneth."

Thanks Russell. This is interesting, because I have certainly noticed an increase in concern for others, patience with others and (the down side) a kind of bewilderment about the ways people tie themselves in knots of worry and anxiety. Sometimes this leans towards actually wanting to encourage others to talk up meditation (but thankfully, I've been enough of a zealot about other things over the years to know that inflicting my obsessions on others is rarely welcomed or effective). I've also experienced big waves of gratitude, mainly for my teachers and for the Buddha.

I'm usually an underestimater in terms of progress, but the reduction in suffering and the increase in gratitude and joy that has happened recently seems to indicate a shift of some sorts. I have a lesson with Beth on Tuesday, so I will await her verdict!

"I'm usually an underestimater in terms of progress, but the reduction in suffering and the increase in gratitude and joy that has happened recently seems to indicate a shift of some sorts. I have a lesson with Beth on Tuesday, so I will await her verdict!"

Awesome! I am a doubter too. I always hesitate before making any call on something that may or may not have happened. Sounds good though! Keep us updated!

"For me markers for 2nd path was an obvious big frution but then I could tell I was in Review. I would sit and I would be at A&P. Not very prominent, but noticable lights and squinting of the eyes and energy that would take some time to settle. "

Interesting, this is the first time I've heard of squinting of eyes as linked to A&P. Makes sense.

"Interesting, this is the first time I've heard of squinting of eyes as linked to A&P. Makes sense. "

Yeah, when I have been in review and right when I sit, there is kind of a built up tension and for some reason I always strain a bit. I can feel tension in my eyes like I am squinting. Not sure If I actually am squinting or if it is just the energy. It finally calms down though and I can relax my eyes.

Just sat for 60 minutes. Got my 30 breaths on the second or third attempt, well within the first five minutes. Then started noting outloud and freestyle. Pain in the body was clearly seen, but also no big problem. Just unpleasantness, very little suffering and no real aversion. Experienced a small tingle of energy and then shortly after that a sense of fear and dread which made me think that I was going up through A&P and the Fear nyana. But then soon after that I found myself "in" a blip, which is to say I noticed the ambient noise in my ears cut out, go silent, and then resume. This clearly wasn't a cessation, because there was a sense of time passing within it, but it had that same sinking feeling in the head, and a clear cut off and resume. Afterwards there was a big rush of pleasant tingles and energy, mainly in the right side of my body at first, and then moving around all over. From then on I stopped noting outloud and noted silently or just let things roll. I found myself sort of spacing out a bit, and then stuff would come to an abrupt halt - like a dreamy image or thought would just stop dead in its tracks. This is the kind of experience I associate with "no self" fruitions/cessations. I then have little idea what happened in perhaps the last 20 minutes of the sit. I was genuinely surprised when the bell rang, but I definitely hadn't been lost in thought or asleep. Something is going on!

60 minutes this morning. Took about 10 or 15 minutes to get to 30 breaths, kept getting distracted around the 25 mark. Then silent noting, which was broad and equanimous, but not very precise. It feels a bit crude at the moment to note sensations distinctly, and my instinct is just to let it wash over me. But how to do this without spacing out entirely? I heard a clock chime 40 minutes into my sit and was, again, surprised it passed so quickly. Last twenty minutes were slightly more aversive, due to physical pain, but I didn't budge. A few small, barely noticeable snags and blips in experience, felt in the skull or in hearing ambient sound.

"Yeah, when I have been in review and right when I sit, there is kind of a built up tension and for some reason I always strain a bit. I can feel tension in my eyes like I am squinting. Not sure If I actually am squinting or if it is just the energy. It finally calms down though and I can relax my eyes."

I've also noticed not so much squinting, but a strong isometric tension in my eyeballs as I pass A&P sometimes. I can see where it might be described as squinting. Sometimes, my eyes with turn a bit up and in when this happens.

"... and is all the pleasant cool tingling a "bliss wave"?"

I call them bliss waves. I started getting cold, blissfull rushes of tingles when I got second path. The first time it happened, it was fairly massive. Review fruitions got fairly intense this way at times. See my entries starting at #336, Oct 23, 2011.

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/45...et=336&maxResults=20

Early evening yesterday: Sat for 60 mins, with the intention of trying to see the jhanic arc as Mumuwu recommends to andymr in Andy's practice thread linked above. Didn't really work! There was a cool rush shortly after I finished doing the 30 breaths and switched to vipassana, and then another, bigger one a few seconds afterwards. The whole sit wasa mixture of these pleasant rushes of energy, and lumpiness in the neck and shoulders. Some meandering thoughts, but recognised calmly and precisely. Also some blips and snags in mental experience, but not full blown cessations I'd say. It's as if one aspect of experienced was being snagged or cut out - such as the audio, or a thought - but not the whole thing.

Late evening yesterday: another 60 mins, with the aim of getting into first jhana. I made a formal resolution at the start of the sit, and it did seem to get me into some pleasant and solid states, but only for a short while. As the mind became concentrated on the breath at the nostrils, there would be pleasant surge of energy (similar to the cool rushes I get during vipassana, but less destabilising) and then the mind would feel like it had "locked in" to something, although weirdly not the breath as such. I'm still such a rookie at jhana that I can't help but start a lot of thinking about what different things mean, so I get booted out of whatever concentration state I'm in. This happened a few times throughout the first 30 mins. Then I switched to vipassana, lying down for 20 minutes, and finally 10 minutes of non-meditation, all of which was very sleepy and dull.

This morning: 60 mins of noting. Got my 30 breaths done very quickly and easily. Not much happened in the rest of the sit: some distraction, but held equanimously. No energetics or blips. Felt very awake and calm afterwards.