Jon's Practice

So I've pretty much avoided noting meditation for a long time now. Like many others of you its safe to assume I'm in the dark night. I know when I first learned about noting a year and a half ago I crossed through the arising and passing on the 3rd time I sat down just following Daniel's rapid fire noting method. Within the past year there's been a particular kind of fear thats developed where I try to control my thoughts and the situation and I end up getting totally burned by it. If I have to do public speaking which at one point was so easy, I can see too much of whats going on in my mind, it becomes overwhelming, fear arises and I can't deal with it. It's like the insight caused and causes the problem. Beyond that, there's just 'thing' I need to work out, no one understands it when I try explaining it, something is in the way of something being totally free. So here I am making this practice log as a commitment to keep going.

8-25-12 Day 1
Sat for 30 minutes, not sure if I settled into a good concentration. I followed the breath in and out, sticking with the simple stuff like body sensations. I could notice pressure happening, pain, softness, relaxation, hardness, tension, hunger, I could see if they were good or bad or neutral. I could hardly notice emotions, was occasionally seeing thoughts but usually after the fact. Only thing interested is I decided to bring attention to my left foot resting on the carpet as I sat in a kneeling posture. The ground, or my foot resting on the ground felt solid so I held attention, constantly noting "foot" or "hardness" to keep focused on the particular sensation. I could feel ever so subtle differentiations within the "solid" feeling of foot on the ground, so I guess I was starting to see through the sense of solidness.

8-26-12 Day 2

Sat for 30 mins, mostly the same sort of thing happening. Noticed lots of super itches, like a laser point spot that just itches so bad, but I just notice it until it disappears. I mostly stuck to noticing body sensations and whether they were good, bad or neutral. I noticed thoughts when I would get lost in them, usually future thoughts, fantasy thoughts, comparing thoughts. They were usually noticed after they had already arisen

For my second day of sitting for many months I'm noticing:

Bodily phenomena are easy, sometimes there's very fast ones like television static other times there's slow pulsing ones that aren't as easily seen. The feeling tones of good, bad, and neutral are easy to see with body sensations. Emotions that don't have a strong physical correspondence like curiosity or confusion are hard for me to notice. Thoughts are usually only seen after they have arisen and I've been aware of them momentarily.

The only difference I noticed was an expanded capacity to notice phenomena that were arising. I was getting lost less less and noticing sensations in the body that had previously been 'blank' or unrecognized.

8-28-12 Day 3

I sat down and meditated for 20 minutes. No emphasis on noting in the way taught by Kenneth or Daniel, no "trying" to do any formal technique. I simply watched the breath and became curious in what was happening, and wow! what a difference that makes! I just sat and noted "arising" on the in breath, "falling" on the out breath and watched as all the thoughts, emotions, fantasies, projections came up to try and entertain themselves. There was no judging any of the stories, just seeing how tiring they are and how they're going to keep a sense of groundedness.

This way of sitting was successful from reading Chogyam Trungpa's book the lion roar. His advice is so straightforward, no split between doing shamatha first then vipassana. No cutting and dicing, just simply sit and let your neurosis expose themselves and begin to see impermanence and egolessness.

"The sitting practice in hinayana is called shamatha. This literally means 'dwelling in peace' or 'development of peace' but let us not misunderstand peace in this case. It does not refer to tranquility in the sense of a peaceful state. Peace here refers to the simplicity or uncomplicatedness of the practice. The meditator just relates with walking or breathing. You just simply be with it, very simply just be with it."

8-29-12 Day 4

Just sat for 24 minutes. Brought attention to the breath, noted body sensations, emotions, thoughts. Right away I noticed that I had expectations about how the sit should go based on last time. I noticed heavy confusion this time that kept me wanting to think and sort things out. I noted the confusion, then I remembered "this is what happens so often when I meditate, I have good sits and bad sits, I remember the good sits and try to replicate them again which only causes more confusion." I noted that thought and the conjoined memories.

I did notice at several points things becoming more spacious, like blinders being taken off, things felt more open. It was as if I had been standing with my face very close to a large painting, moving back and forth trying to see the whole thing and now I took a couple steps backwards and didn't have to move so much, it was a much simpler to notice and not become involved while like this.

8-29-Day 4

Had no expectations this time. Sat down and right away started observing whatever was happening indiscriminately. No rapid noting, no trying to see anything just whatever came. Began to really see the 3 characteristics, I've found this is really easy way to meditate. If I try to get into the whole noting thing too much I stop being 'with' the phenomena I'm noting, its like I'm with the noting and not observing what's happening. So I simply just watched the 3C's, saw how thoughts arise, abide and cease. Was able to see how many self referencing thoughts I have, and how when unnoticed they completely and flawlessly create the sense of a solid self. One really interesting thing that happened was I had a imaging thought of a situation I fear, I saw the fear arise and completely felt all of it in the center of my chest. I could see the aversion of fear, there was a region in the very very small pin size center that didn't want to be touched by awareness, it felt painful not guard. When I stopped resisting and relaxed it a little there was a lot of energy moving to that spot. There was a sense of "Ok wow something is definitely going on, something is stirring."

After this I noted self-congratulatory thoughts, like being excited while making a mental note of this experience to write on here. I kept with the breath noticing egolessness now, I could clearly see how no thoughts were me, no feelings were me, even seeing the bare sense of existence that I always always overlook is still just a 'feeling'. Noting felt slow so I went with my intuition and relaxed myself and just noted every flash of impermanent body sensation. Things began to shift rapidly like moving through layers of vibrations, seeing fast ones while seeing slow ones and many in-between. It felt like I was going to burst at one point, but the energized feeling dissipated, I didn't try sustain it.

8-30-12 Day 5

Sat for 20 minutes. Never felt like I really got into it. I felt distracted non stop and was unable to focus enough to see thoughts without getting absorbed. Felt lots of back pain and itchiness. Noticed lots of planning thoughts, past thoughts, projecting thoughts. Could feel a general tightness with the in and out breath. Might need to pick an earlier time than 1am or do two sits. Usually by the second I'm much more focused. Also reading a short dharma talk on the 3 characteristics helps enormously.

9-2-12 Day 7

Sat for 20 minutes. Focused on the breath, all the tension, relaxing, peace, openness that it brings at the various stages on the inhale and exhale. Felt confused a lot, I noticed a lot of past and future planning thoughts coming up. Noticed some feelings of frustration and trying to manipulate experience accordingly. Noticed tension in my back, able to see the smaller vibrations that make it up. I noticed the tendency to get sleepy and zone out. Having done one 20 min sit a day for a week I had a few great times happen right away and now its getting difficult. Thoughts seem to fly and stick to me and create confusion. I noticed a lot of it has to do with thinking back to past times where I felt like I was having insight into egolessness & impermanence and trying to recreate it rather than just noting what was happening in the present. This bad habit has caused me problems in the past and contributed to me stopping practice last time.

9-10-12

Have been busy with work and school so haven't been able to sit recently. Sat for 30 minutes just now. Took me a while to get back into it, breath felt jerky and pressure in chest for the first 15 minutes before it became effortless. I noted body sensations; pain, tightness, flashes of heat, the relaxation that comes with the out breath. I noticed body sensations feel subtle and less definable than in the past. I'm not really watching the beginning, middle, or end of sensations very well. I don't know if this is important or if simply watching them can suffice without the intent to see their ends. I noticed thoughts of all kinds, lots and lots of getting stuck in stories and scenarios.

At one point it felt like I was naturally shifting towards self inquiry. I became curious about who was meditating. I noticed how there's this sense of a solid self, its just a feeling inside the body especially in the head. Its difficult to describe but when I noted it as something observed. I had a strange thought of "What if the asking of who am I, the searching, the belief that I need to find it, are all just happening." I dont know how exactly to explain the 'just happening' part.... like maybe all this simply "is what it is."

It was a quick insight more conceptual like "hmmm maybe this whole enlightenment thing is more like that rather than the bliss and ecstasy I keep imagining it to be."

9-11-12

Sat for 25 minutes. Went through the four foundations, noticed a lot of suffering from judgment, worry, anxious, irritated. Mostly keep judging myself for not getting the pointers from nondual teachers. And then there's the longing for enlightenment, to be done with grasping and aversion.