Fast or Slow, Untangling the Knot...

Honestly, yes I am. Nearly every minute if not every 10 seconds or less. I am practicing. Orienting, noting, releasing, ...

But my derriere needs to hit the cushion too.

30 minute sit yesterday, straightforward noting. Got consolidated, things got buzzy and vibratory, became spacious maybe somewhat formless, thoughts and sensations of self coming and going. What was cutting edge is becoming more common. Watching this body shave ittself in the morning, walking itself to work, etc.

No sit friday.

45 minutes dakini meditation, 15 minutes noting saturday

30 minutes daking mediation, 15 minutes noting sunday

Nothing particularly noteworthy, no pun intended.

No sit monday.

15 minutes tuesday

45 minutes wednesday - the return of the creepy crawly skin. First got concentrated, then creepy crawly, then reobservation like resistance, then acceptance, then sleepy, had to stand up, then it broke into spaciousness and calm. Some reobservationy-like avoidance re-emerging at the end.

The resistance is interesting. Not linked to a thought or emotion (although it seems to want to latch onto something). I need to get much more curious about what it is.

I've fallen behind in reporting and not sure which days I missed... I'm having meditation amnesia, can't even remember yesterday's sit, except it was 45 minutes. Today was an hour and let's see... got settled in about 10 minutes, started noting which woke things up and gave a bunch of prickly tingly sensations, somewhere in there was a bunch of really hard bliss/brain squeezy feelings, then very mundane, explored that for a while, then started noting again to really be present, then was ready to get up and still had 18 minutes left, resolved to sit for full hour, quick wave of aversion and dullness, I spiced things up and really energized the sittting, not accepting the dullness (it really did feel like avoidance, not natural sleepyness), experience was vibratory as if I was awake then asleep, back and forth infinitely fast, then very plain and present, dwelled there, still noting, but wondering what on earth I could be missing, kept noting until end of hour.

Been using both noting and 5-element meditation. It's become an algorithm, if I'm reactive and try noting, I start spacing out, getting dull, and sleepy (which is a "void" type reaction). If I'm non-reactive and do noting, it's a great practice. (By great practice I mean duration with insight, not necessarily good feelings.) If I'm reactive and do 5 elements, it's a great practice. (In this case, great practice means confronting resistance/avoidance of the sensations of reactive patterns.) If I'm non-reactive and try forcing 5 elements, it feels very contrived.

It's taken me a week to see this practice pattern and only today did I realize that I've been living in the "void" pattern -- not knowing, eliciting subtle fear, and then becoming dull and sleepy -- at work and during practice for the past several weeks.

Phew -- not easy. A 55 minute sit. Trying to avoid drifing off/daydreaming/attention falling apart etc by being aware of the experience of drifting off/daydreaming/attention falling apart. Trying to avoid going "unconscious" or ignoring. Last 10 minutes I got lazy and sat back against the wall and mostly watched the clock but (remembering the story of how anjan chah was finding himself nodding off in the heat... so it put on all of his clothes and sat inside a hot hut to force himself to really experience it) I made myself do those 10 minutes over again. Seems to be the right thing to do right now, but I can imagine this description reads a little harsh.

Hour open-eyed sit yesterday. Very calm, spacious, quietly noting or silent. Just a little bit of battle with dullness from time to time.

50 minutes yesterday. Felt motivated to try jhanic arc. Wait --- truthfully, Laurel's thread made me wonder if I've been off track and should have been working on jhana. Set my resolution and then let go. Very obvious eye position changes and jhana changes at first and then changed to a lot of headspace stuff that's still unclear to me. When things would get spacey or black, my eyes would aggressively squeeze tighter, as if I was struggling with that jhana. That seemed to be the cutting edge, things would loosen up and the eye position/jhanas seemed to reverse and release until I was back in the room. A few cycles of this over the sitting period. Hmm...

50 minute sit. Mix of open-eyed and closed-eye noting and intervals of closed eye concentration. Very sleepy at end, entering dreamy states... but awake now as I type.

So some navel gazing on this last block of practice:

On cushion:

* Dullness/Sleepyness/Daydreaming a frustratingly common occurance -- feels like a very fundamental "avoidance/ignorance" response. Not aversion or clinging, more like blanking out due to neutralness. Some of this is fatigue, but that really can't explain all of it.

* Doubt/Confusion about "best" practice at this time. Noting (which tends to lead to the dull/sleepy state), jhana arc (which tends to dead end at squeezed face, overwhelming blissful/achy state -- and frankly make me feel like I suck at meditation), or 5 element/dakini (which seems to clean up reactivity, but only "work" when already feeling/able to access stronger reactivity.)

* Clinging to mild bliss, open, airy states as being "right" or indicative of good practice. Preference to hang out here, feel congratulatory/smug, and seems to stall out progress. Sleepy/dreamyness is like this feeling, too --- feels right in a way, but seems to stall progress. Clinging to pleasant states.

Off cushion:

* Many more experiences being "out" of myself. Quick sneak peeks, mildly shocking at times, but seems so right.

* More clearly seeing process of subtle not knowing/fear and being rechannelled and solidified into thoughts of achievement, individuality, heroics... Void Reaction leading to being born in the Titan Realm. When will I ever learn the false protection of these mind made selfs?

* Stronger sense of possibility/truth of rigpa/just perception yet hard to align that with "me and my practice" -- seems other worldly but clearly possible.

(Anyone see something I'm missing?)

50 minute sit, just letting it roll... mostly jhana states mixed with open eyed clarity.

Pretty much ditto. 1hr sit, not holding the reins too tightly. Mostly noting and allowing absorptions to naturally occur. Short retreat coming up this weekend.

betawave, you mention doing dakini meditation. Is this the visualization practice with golden light, elixirs, etc.?

jack

"betawave, you mention doing dakini meditation. Is this the visualization practice with golden light, elixirs, etc.?

jack"

Yes, straight out of Wake Up to Your Life.

Back from a short retreat. Basically was like starting over. Nothing a given, not even comfortable sitting positions. Even had "jewel tone lights" showing up again, just like years ago. But good, really good. But oddly starting to think about going back into silent mode, just being quiet practioner again. I guess I see this as a long haul, no end, so no sense getting intense about it, no sense with the blow by blow reporting.

I was talking earlier this week with Beth about doing 3rd gear sits. It's where I've natually been going lately. She helped me see different ways I'm bringing models and judgements into it.

One other thing that I'm noticing is I'm tending to do shorter sits. Long sits in 3rd gear don't seem as productive right now. The quality of empty presence doesn't seem strong enough yet, like training a weak muscle.

I was just reading in Ken McLeod's book that what we call 3rd gear practices are done in his tradition in short but intense practice sessions. About 15-20 minutes to establish a base, then moving to what he calls vispassina for however long, and then relaxing at the end to bleed off the intensity. Real clear presence might last a moment or a minute at a time. I don't think that structure is necessary, but it is nice to know that other traditions recognize how hard it is to do nothing/surrender or "look for the mind" etc. Makes me feel a little better about my own inclination to do shorter, high quality (so to speak), low pressure 3rd gear sits.

My experience is like this. Shorter sits seem apropos and did more so after a certain point. But then I never did long sits, retreats or any of that. I think I am a freak.

Thanks for this. I have been really only getting short sits in lately too, 15-30 mins. The mind is inclining towards just resting, but it seems every couple of days I would get frustrated a bit. Gotta let that go too. Thanks. Training a weak muscle is the perfect words for it. Gotta ease into it and relax.

"
I was just reading in Ken McLeod's book that what we call 3rd gear practices are done in his tradition in short but intense practice sessions. "

How do you reconcile intense with 3rd Gear? 3rd Gear to me implies a letting go, a relaxing, the opposite of intense.

I do two similar exercises from Ken's book. The first is: Let go what has passed. Let go of what is happeng now.Don't try to figure anything out. Don't try to make anything happen. Relax, right, now and rest.

The second: Find where shamatha (rest) and vipassana (seeing) meet and rest there.

jack

"How do you reconcile intense with 3rd Gear? 3rd Gear to me implies a letting go, a relaxing, the opposite of intense."

It's a fair question. I think its basically paradoxical, so it's hard to describe. I think 3rd gear is paradoxically the most simple/effortless practice and the hardest to actually "do".

Obviously it's easy to do nothing in the sense of daydreaming and then periodically saying "oh yeah I'm daydreaming again". (I know that's not what you're saying.)

The "resting" has to be within a field of clear/awake/alert/present to some degree for 3rd gear to mean anything. (Not that it really means anything.) There has to be some sort of vitality. That openness is effortless, but exhausting to the discursive mind and very vunerable to a solid sense of self. (Yet it isn't exhausting or vulnerable during the openness.) I don't spend much total time there during a sit. (Yet "time" and "there" are kinda meaningless in a 3rd gear context. It just is.) There's nothing to recognize it by, yet it's obvious when it happens. (But what is happening?)

Whew, that's about as close as I can get! And it sounds like gibberish. But I wanted to attempt answering.

What about you Jack, what do you think the challenges to good 3rd gear practice are? Is there such a thing as good and bad 3rd gear sits? Is it always easy and restful? Why do we "get kicked out" of resting? I'm very curious in other's experiences of this.

beta, your description above seems right on to me. I would add to clear/awake/alert/present,, a stillness around phenomena/lack of background chatter and an avoiding of conscious "improving" or managing the process during a sit.

Sometimes I can spend 30 minutes there. Other times there are lapses, daydreaming or spacing out but not being mindful of being lost in the daydream or spacing out. A few times like a sit 1/2 hour ago it didn't reach that clear/awake/alert/present state. Unlike vipassana practice there are good and bad 3rd gear sessions to me.

One big challenge to me to 3rd gear is doubt during a sit. The urge to manage creeps in. Should I increase awareness or not? Should I let my unconscous decide or should my conscious mind step in and nudge the process a little? How much effort should I expend on awareness? And so on. Doubt outside the sit also arises as in, I don't have the slightest idea if I am doing this right. I think this urge to manage that pervades our (my) life is what causes us to be kicked out of resting.

Shinzen Young says the getting kicked out of resting and questioning what to do next is one of the richest moments in the session. It is when our urge to manage and control is the most evident..

jack

It helps when doing 3rd gear practices to keep in mind that everything is already within Awareness, so it really doesn't matter what's happening anywhere, as it all just IS. The approach that seems to work best is not to think about adding, managing or controlling, but to DROP everything. Just let it be!