Rob_Mtl's practice thread II

I haven't journaled in a couple of weeks. I find that Russell's recent journaling mirrors my own experience- in contrast to my previous posts, there's no Witness, no special experience of jhanas... talk about "no big wow"!

So I am using this period to "go wide" and work on my round-the-clock first gear noting. This is interesting work- I am learning a lot about how mental images, inner chatter, and physical/emotional feelings interact and glom together into compounds that appear to be discrete "objects", both at a subtle level in sitting, and in a gross level in daily life.

Watching, in daily life, how I INSTANTANEOUSLY switch into mental-chatter mode, the moment that there is even the slightest pressure on me, is very humbling and really puts the all the work done on the cushion into perspective- in my weaker moments, it still has the power to make me wonder if that work accomplishes anything at all.

On the other hand, I think the most important insight lately is that I do not need to judge the arising of this chatter as a problem- that is merely yet another complicated compound. I am less prone to letting this sense of lack-of-wow get me down.

As you said, I am having a tough time of this as well. Honestly, I feel like pre-SE for the last 2 weeks. I am just trying to do what you are saying, not judge, just watch. Sounds easy huh? Not! I get what you are saying about the mental-chatter. Mine is all over the place right now and I know it won't stop, so I am trying to just see what it is telling me. One thing is for sure. It is telling me that it is not me.

I got to a point where the no-big-wow was the norm and I was OK with that, then some big wowness came, and stupid me got attached. Now I am paying for it with more no-big-wow again. And the cycles continue.

For me, it's been over a year since "Second path" as per Kenneth. I have been through a few cycles, large and small.

About 4 times during that interval, I felt a noticeable and (apparently) permanent shift in my conventional happiness, as well as a growing "non-dual" outlook, following the end of a cycle. So I've developed a faith that the path "works" on me even when I don't get the theoretical milestones. For now, I've decided that for me, this IS the lesson of this path, and if the upshot is to ditch all expectations of "Paths" as I previously understood it, so be it. It's not a bad life!

That said, though, I still feel a certain impatience for a shift, somewhere down the line, that validates my practice as thoroughly as SE did. Can't be helped

Ooops, over a month since last posting. Little has changed, in terms of how I practice, and I am still in a "no-big-wow" phase, though there are a million little wows a day I'm continuing to try to break down mental states using noting as much as possible off-cushion. I can be too quick to accept an arisen mental state (especially anxiety / tension) as "really mine", so when I feel that arise, I try to dig into it with noting. Now I am less thrown off-track by these arisen tensions. For me, this was a block to 3rd-gear type practice: while I could come right up to the door of stillness, an excited tension would come in and try to seize the experience. Now that tension is looser, I can kinda see it as something else arisen from the stillness, and stay with the flow of experience. Sometimes

Alongside this, I am taking the cue from Adyashanti's talk about "heart" and "gut" awakening. I have to own up to myself that I've used an idea of "awakening" to subtly bypass a lot of mental states, mostly repeated narratives about the kind of person I am, resentments in work and personal life, etc. Time to stop; time to deny nothing; time to say "yes, ok" to everything that arises, and forget that I "know" anything. All this is stuff I am trying to do off-cushion as much as on- I want to not separate anything from anything.

Last night:

1h sit: my usual pattern of 15m out-loud noting, 45m alternating between noting and "open" practice.

Yestreday afternoon, I listened to Shinzen Young's "Do Nothing" instructions on YouTube, after seeing it mentioned on a thread here (Pejn's, I think?).

In that talk, he points out that moments of confusion, not knowing where to go next, is a really good experience because "the part [of the mind] that controls attention is maximally activated". This is a pointer to the the place where "I don't know", the place of choice. The instruction is: when that place arises, do nothing.

So that's one of those things where I heard just the right thing at just the right time.

In sitting last night, I saw these places of confusion that I usually treat as The Problem, and instead, I saw them as positives, as the very place I am "looking" for, and when I arrived there, I didn't act on anything.

I palpably felt that second-after-second, my mind arrives at a four-way intersection, and I *do not need to choose a way to go*. I know now that this is always the case, though I drift in and out of the sensitivity to that "arriving at the intersection" where I have an opportunity to NOT choose, NOT pick up the bait, NOT act from habit or instinct.

This was such an interesting discovery that I took another 30-minute sit later in the evening to practice this technique, sliding over to noting whenever I started to drift to thinking, or feeling the "openness" trigger an anxiety reaction. It only took a little burst of noting to get me properly "confused" again

It was a great turnaround, to actually learn to enjoy what I previously thought was an obstacle.

Adding to the above: I've often used "Ships in the Harbour" or some kind of self-enquiry to provoke that kind of flash of wide-openness/confusion, only to clamp down on it a millisecond later with a sense of excitement ("I've got something!!") or anxiety ("Help- what do I do with this before it's gone??") when I feel that interior movement.

But now I'm thinking that it's false to think of those practices as "triggering" that confusion/openness. It's always there- the bottom is dropping out of It All repeatedly and constantly- no need to think anything special has to be done.

This is probably already obvious to a few of you

Last night: 1h (15m out-loud noting + 45m alternating silent noting and openness / listening for the Ships)

Well, typically, if you try the same trick twice, it disappoints I tried to apply my insight from the previous evening, and got kind of lost in the effort. Much sleepiness and distraction; although twice during stretches of open / listening about 35 minutes in, I sank deeply in a way that was not sleepiness and experienced sharp "pops".

Still, I feel that I am finally deeply getting to understand that EVERYTHING really is grist for the mill and to stop judging any experience as a "sign" of the "state" of my practice. Everything that seems "bad" is just a call to rest and abide in the confusion, and not seek any "solution".

Tonight: 1h (15m standing, 10min out-loud noting, 35m openness / Witness)

I'm integrating a period of standing "zhan zhuang" into my sessions. I've had a longstanding feeling that some kind of physical, body- and energy-grounding aspect to my practice would be useful, and someone mentioned zhan zhuang here (Tummo thread?) and it does the trick nicely.

Tonight, in my "open" segment, I tried to stay really close to "intention" thoughts- even the "intention" to have a thought. I find that lately I have pretty easy access to a mental silence in which this kind of work goes well. Even though there's faint bubbling talking / imaging, there's a sense of non-stickiness to it. In that period, I think I experienced about a half-dozen "frutions" (if that's what they are)- a sinking sensation followed by a FOOM of light in the eyes, sometimes with a shudder and/or a surprising sound (imagined?) at the moment before the FOOM.

Tonight: 1h (10m standing, 50m open)

Continuing with last night's theme of investigating "intention" thoughts, right upstream to the intention to have a thought. Also inclining toward the pleasure of sitting, to boost concentration. I have moments of distinct silence (both on and off cushion) - not because thoughts are stopping, but because they skitter across the mind-space before they're named and become an image or talk. These gaps are a couple of seconds at most, but a relief from the ongoing chatter and cheesy music that usually occupies my aural mind-space

While sitting, there were frequent instances of lights brightening behind the eyes, but not with the conclusive FOOMs of last night. I had a strong feeling that I'm "looking" in the wrong place: watching all these mental objects, and not the background / space that they occupy. I tried (while trying not to try!) to "see" what this background was. Toward the end I was in a headspace where my whole weight seemed to be pressing upward on the underside of the top of my skull.

I'm copying this instruction from Nikolai Halay into my journal as a reminder to myself, especially the second half:

"Regardless of the mood or emotion or mind state that is dominating, notice the 'me-ness' or 'I am-conceit' and break it down into its component parts. Notice what happens to that 'me-ness' when this is done again and again. But also notice any desires or urges to do away with that sense of 'me-ness'. Notice how that leads to frustration and 'trying' and tension and dissatisfaction. Notice that urge and note it as it arises AND passes. It will pass by itself. Let it show its cessation itself."

I like reading good meditation advice, because just reading it immediately sinks me into an absorbed state, tingling between the eyes, energy coming up the spine, huge spacious senstivity to peripheral sounds and subtle movements of mind. It is quicker than when I sit down to practice formally, because (I think) while I am reading, I can't "try", whereas when I sit formally, I can't seem to help but "try"!

A few days ago, I started doing a self-enquiry based on "To whom does this arise?", suggested by mumuwu earlier this week. It's not the first time I've tried a question-based self-enquiry, but previously, it didn't catch on, and this time it did catch on. Who knows what changed.

It is a marvellous tool (when it catches on!) and really gives me no excuse to ever "stop practising". Yesterday I started to really see how little I can trust or invest in the stream of me-centered talk and imagery (mental monologuing in my own voice, or images of "me"/my own face arising at the start of thoughts or intentions). Intermittently, I can see clearly that this talk/imagery is not at all essentially me... it's more like a likeable but somewhat bratty and needy child that accompanies me wherever I go

I like the self-inquiry stuff right now too. Keep playing with the questions. For me, they have evolved from "Who am I?" to "Where is awareness?" to "How much effort does it take to be aware of _____?" Even questions like "What's next?"

Yeah, I have occasionally been winded by asking myself if I made an "effort" to see/hear/feel. And your "Where is awareness?" creates a tingle in the head just as I read it.

I think I've finally dropped some kind of resistance, some kind of seizing-up around the disquiet that these questions create. I tend to tense up when I get that tingle of insight. So now I'm trying to inquire into the tension, too, as just another 'arising'.

Part of me fundamentally DOES NOT WANT to go forward with this. Last Tuesday night, after a few hours of "to whom does this arise", I had a 3am burst of that 6th-nana existential anxiety that made me feel like I suddenly couldn't stop myself from asking that question, even if I wanted to. That freaked me out for a bit.