James-ing's Practice Journal
- james-ing
- Topic Author
13 years 1 month ago #91138
by james-ing
Replied by james-ing on topic RE: James-ing's Practice Journal
Haven't been posting much lately (sheepish) but I have been keeping up with the practice! It's been busy in my life and only so much time to fit in so many things (also, I was out of town for a little while visiting with one of my wife's sick relatives, so I wasn't really online a bunch anyway). No great insights to report in the interim, though I've been noticing lately that volitions have a sort of energetic rising/rush that happens when they've been noticed before they actually set the body off into whatever it is that the volition wants the body to do. It's quite interesting because once the volition is noted in this way, that rush is very much felt to happen to oneself, not to be owned by oneself.
Anyway, sat 40 minutes tonight after dinner and spent just about the whole time fighting sleepiness (of the I-need-to-go-to-bed-earlier variety). So the big things I noticed today was that as sleepiness creeps up it both cottons off the rest of the world so everything is quite faint and it also feels really nice. It's very seductive: "hey, just close your eyes, it feels so good..." So I'm going to go to bed early tonight and hopefully I'll have something better to report tomorrow!
Anyway, sat 40 minutes tonight after dinner and spent just about the whole time fighting sleepiness (of the I-need-to-go-to-bed-earlier variety). So the big things I noticed today was that as sleepiness creeps up it both cottons off the rest of the world so everything is quite faint and it also feels really nice. It's very seductive: "hey, just close your eyes, it feels so good..." So I'm going to go to bed early tonight and hopefully I'll have something better to report tomorrow!
- james-ing
- Topic Author
13 years 3 weeks ago #91139
by james-ing
Replied by james-ing on topic RE: James-ing's Practice Journal
45 minutes choiceless, silent noting
Had an ok sit, have been noticing lately that volitions seem to flow naturally from thought patterns without much involvement on 'my' part. For example, I'm sitting there and then I suddenly remembered that a movie needs to be taken back to the store and then there arose a volition to look at where I know the disc will be sitting. This is good because I am noticing these volitions more and more clearly, even if I am not in every case catching them *before* they result in acts. Also, I am catching more and more before they do result in acts, but I figure they must have been very close to doing so because when I do notice them there's something of a rising or a rush of energy or a sense of feeling momentum (not literally, but that's what it feels like).
Also have been having some absurd fun noticing thoughts lately. I feel like when I'm doing this practice my mind is something like a dog chasing its own tail. A thought/memory/whatever arises and I notice it. Then I label it, but in the moment I'm labelling it I am already aware that it is gone, done, in the past. That noticing itself becomes a new thing noticed and... It's actually kind of funny, but I feel like I might be starting to see how we naively mistake things as being more permanent than they are due to the *content* of thoughts indicating other things that are already gone!
Had an ok sit, have been noticing lately that volitions seem to flow naturally from thought patterns without much involvement on 'my' part. For example, I'm sitting there and then I suddenly remembered that a movie needs to be taken back to the store and then there arose a volition to look at where I know the disc will be sitting. This is good because I am noticing these volitions more and more clearly, even if I am not in every case catching them *before* they result in acts. Also, I am catching more and more before they do result in acts, but I figure they must have been very close to doing so because when I do notice them there's something of a rising or a rush of energy or a sense of feeling momentum (not literally, but that's what it feels like).
Also have been having some absurd fun noticing thoughts lately. I feel like when I'm doing this practice my mind is something like a dog chasing its own tail. A thought/memory/whatever arises and I notice it. Then I label it, but in the moment I'm labelling it I am already aware that it is gone, done, in the past. That noticing itself becomes a new thing noticed and... It's actually kind of funny, but I feel like I might be starting to see how we naively mistake things as being more permanent than they are due to the *content* of thoughts indicating other things that are already gone!