Limbic's practice journal

I had a practice log here last spring that I posted to frequently to, but my meditations came to real avail, and it began to seem a little redundant. Looking back, I was in the trap of trying to fool myself that I was in the DN going into EQ, owing to a couple transient, really quite brief cutting edge experiences involving the now A&P type stuff, but was in fact still pre-A&P.

Now my cutting edge is hovering around the A&P, looking forward to crossing it soon - at least I would expect it to happen like so, thinking that the A&P brings itself along more swiftly than the other nanas.

Recently having spontaneous A&P shimmerings throughout the body in varying strengths and lengths of time. Seeming to happen over a cycle of 4 or 5 days. Meaning, a few days will elapse before another incident will occur. Not that they happen persistently over a number of days.

This morning (yesterday actually) sat for maybe an hour all together waiting for the train and taking it down to the city. During the strong part of the sit (I don't know if this was towards the end or the beginning. I think possibly beginning, before I got on the train, with the other passengers and the conductors and a couple habits that took me away from the meditation a little) during the strong part of the sit, I encountered tensions and pressures in my head that seemed to surround my third eye area, but were not so distinct that I would say I was feeling my third eye. It was my whole optical/nasal area.

James, I am glad you decided to start a new practice journal. I hope it helps. Welcome back.

Hey Russell, thnx. It's good to be back.. I was reading some practice logs on the way home on the train, which was nice this time, rather than the labour it seemed like the last time I gave it a go. Was something that before even in times of good mindsets, like the odd day I was closer to the A&P maybe, was a little tedious.. around last summer/spring. So only a little to do with where I'm at on my cycle (which is basically the only reliable emotional indicator for me).

Had a 50 minute sit before the train came, experienced sometimes rather intense pressure around my third eye area. Rather distinct this time. Were some slight fuzzy vibrations in my hands. Fuzzy but not warm.

Throughout the week experienced a couple highs and lows. Most remarkable was Wednesday morning during class, was the most lucid I've been since maybe one night back in June. Flowing well with everything. Mentally, emotionally, socially, the body linguistic. Was quite remarkable. Even adept. This continued through lunch while I went to the gym, up until the second half of my afternoon class in which I crashed and my general feeling and mind tone were weak and diluted. Perhaps if it had been on retreat, there would have been a more complacent feeling to the experience, but since it was in a social situation charged with a fair degree of identity politics, it wasn't a pleasant thing to behold.

The next day, a similar thing, but it was truncated sooner. Same today, although I stayed in bed for a while in the morning, perhaps much of the high moods passed during that time..

The thing to observe here which will be productive is the desire for pleasant feelings and the aversion to less pleasant feelings. Don't try to make yourself feel a certain way (like "Oh crap, here I go feeling averse to a bad mood, damn me to hell!") but instead just observe: "Ah, now I am feeling uncomfortable. Now I am feeling restless. Now I am feeling excited. Now I am feeling worried." and so forth. Notice that all through the day, moment to moment, these feelings change, shift and move. The purpose of practice is not to learn to see a good feeling and then hang on to it. That's the fundamental cause of suffering, because it never works for long. The point is to learn to closely observe all the phenomena that happen to come and go in the body and mind, INCLUDING the reaction of liking them or not liking them.

Yeah, good point. I usually thought that I had this down, but there's a finer resolution that I hadn't grasped until you said that - the line between practicing and not practicing. In that moment, even though I generally think of myself as at least trying to be mindful/aware, I was still engaging in moments of discontent. Even if I was being mindful of it in between the gaps, even while sitting there in the class, I was still allowing a bunch of moments of judgment to perpetrate un-noted and un-disembedded. I wasn't fully taking noting on.

and a little about the negative feelings, there was the thought that that moment wasn't inherently bad, that if I just knew how to organize things correctly, it wouldn't have mattered at all that I was feeling like molasses. So there is a slight dilemma there - should I practice in a moment like that, or maybe expend the energy to compose myself in the situation.

I'll be trying out the practice instead option for a little bit.

So tonight, got there in time for the train, and then all of a sudden decided to forget it in favor of the next one and do an hour sit there on the bench.

Had a similar sit to the one I logged yesterday, but there was a stronger, or more persistent pressure in the third eye area, and a small amount of visual flickering - brief and very feint while eyes closed - and subtle, but at the same time kind of strong, vibrations in my hands, with a slight warmth accompanying it.

Hmmm haven't done much formal sitting this week, other than on the train and waiting for it, and haven't logged those. But I can say that I had a somewhat strenuous week at times, a couple periods where the frustrations and loathings from my life were agitated and brewing unpleasantly with various tasks I had to do; and some periods where there was some kind of desperation and discontent along with some pretty pointed doubt , but about my worldly life and not the practice - pertaining to a number of things for which the possibilities of a resolution and catharsis seemed slim to none, just fraught up with incidental difficulties preventing closure.

But today and yesterday have been a different matter. Much easier going about tasks, and doing some work in my studio, easily skirting difficulties related to how the physical/mental aspects of doing my work intertwine with one another - where physical difficulties inflate mental difficulties which thereby dictate a set of future conditions for myself predicated on the general difficulty of the activity and its relation to the doing of all activities, blah blah blah - this wasn't a problem today

And just had a 45 min sit before writing this..

Fairly early on there was pressure in the head and jaw and eventually this worked itself up to be mostly around my third eye area. Noticed at a handful of points that there was a subtle throbbing/pulsing happening in my head. At one juncture, there was a feeling of spaciousness, an observation I noticed almost immediately adjacently to noticing the subtly of thoughts arising. Was able to observe thoughts rather easily, but I will be honest and say that some of that was watching and steeping a little as if watching a movie, there watching the montage experience of thoughts come out and name themselves sort of for my entertainment. And don't remember if at any points in the sit there was flickering vibratory things on a slight, small level happening in my hands.

Just had an hourlong sit where, by the end, was observing distinctive, strong pressure at my third eye. Throughout the sit I was letting my mind wander, a little bit like the last sit I posted about just above, but not so mindfully. Somewhere in the second half, maybe the 45 minute mark or so, there was a warm soft tingly-ness on the back of my neck. Somewhere in the beginning, there was an encounter with an itchy spot where the quality of the whole observation was pretty solid and active, or constant. Like the strong pressure at the end of the sit, it had a specific direction and form to it which was continuous for the time that it lasted

Earlier this morning I had a session with my teacher in which I successfully investigated mind states only, for the first time. Before at times when I had tried it, talking mostly back in april and may, my experience was of constant paralyzing doubt that I could even observe it. Even doubt that it was doubt that I was experiencing, doubt that there was something else my completely obtuse latency was incapable of picking up. So it was always some kind of a *********** when I would try to do it, always winding up in some way completely self defeating.

But this morning, it appeared to have a life to it, a certain solidity that I could actually gauge, actually experience. Occurring in a spaciousness I've rarely felt before, at least in an aware way.

Just had a sit of about 25 minutes in which, while noting with my eyes open, it seemed as though things in my peripheral vision were moving around. It was a trippy effect, like I imagine being on magic mushrooms might be like. It would change if I moved my eyes, but while held still, a couple times (while my eyes were open which was a minor part of the sit) various parts of my vision would do that, in quick succession.

Aside from that, a pleasant very subtle vibration taking place in my legs, with most of the pleasantness happening in the feet, but with the effect seeming to go all the way up to my lower abdomen at times.

Just sat for an hour and a half or so with a break in the middle to take care of laundry.

In the beginning of the sit experienced a small amount of itching, and also some fearful/loathing thoughts when thoughts the haplessness of life flitted by. Don't know if the itching was before this or the other way around.

Then at some point remembered I need to do laundry.

Then when returning to finish out, sitting for about a half hour more, I encountered a gentle and sensible but rather firm pressure where my third eye is. This one was different than experiences I've had before with pressure on the third eye area in that this time there was a small rhythm to it, sort of. It was as if it was the recipient of a massage of some kind

Last night off cushion I was experiencing, in close succession, some pleasant tingly waves/surges, within about 10 minutes in proximity to some pretty intense aching in my teeth, or tension, which isn't unusual, but this time it actually bordered on unpleasant.
I don't know what the order was, but I would hazard that the aching came first.

Then tonight I had a long sit, don't know how long, but more than an hour by a good bit.
At a couple points there was very strong unpleasant tenseness in the back of my neck, seeming to kind of compress my head (in the back). It waned and came back towards the end.

Also, before that happened, there were a few moments where I tried very very intentionally to be as total and complete as possible in my noting, and when I did this my I sort of twitched a little, in my neck. But it was not necessarily like it was my neck that was twitching, but it was me, and the twitch happened in the neck. Does that make sense? It was seemingly connected to a bunch of other things going on due to my intentionality in those moments.

Just emerged from an hourlong sit.

Had some minor unpleasant aching and pressure, compression aches in the beginning of the sit. The idea for this sit was to maybe penetrate the object, be attentive to the manner of continuance and change in each sensation, notably the pressure in my head and jaw/mouth.

As I was approaching the end of the sit, something unusual happened. I was investigating things more and more intensely, or the phenomena became more intense to the plain observation, and the kind of tension involved in observing things increased, and reached a point where things dissolved into distinct, strong vibrations throughout large parts of my body. My face, my hands, my legs, my arms. And at the same moment that it dissolved, I broke into tears. I was noting so much sadness and remorse, right next to the pleasant vibratory phenomenas coursing through my body. This went on for a couple minutes, and eventually subsided to be just the pleasant vibratory A&P kinda stuff.

I find a release of tears often follows the dissolving of heavy tension and does a body good.

Yeah, I found just that. It was coupled with a sense of disconcertedness, however. But that did not stick. It was a little ghostly. A feint refrain of doubt.

Which brings me to how my sit've been going. In reliable A&P territory. Really good times, in a way. The other day I wandered around the city, just walking without aim, not lost or befuddled with what to do, but just sort of soaking it all in. Totally unprecedented for me! Usually, I'm always compelled, in an often rude and uncaring way (by my own self), to be DOING something. This was awe-some to not do that. Satisfying.

But my sits recently have had a good amount of doubt, and of fear. And it's when I get to a point where I can feel distinctly sensations in my head. 3rd eye type stuff. It's sort of a that's-all-there-is? type thing. The brief, immediate impression is how it's taken me so long to get there. And it seems informed by the rest of my life, which is vacuous and frustrating and completely unconnected with me. Speaking here of social and familial life.

But this fear is something I haven't really panned onto before. I have had fear before, but then intense doubt, which was manufactured it seemed by the belief that there really, actually needed to be more fear and more gruesome and hideous emotions present, and that I wasn't doing it right because I wasn't meeting them. Because without a doubt my life was all abject and just all ****** up. Something along those lines. This was a real and serious prejudice of mine

But here I am with these subtle moments of fear and anxiety. A good thing

And I've been getting very angry, very quickly, but also very controllably. It's sort of a wieldy drunkenness. Maybe the term is just incensed. A very whitely burning heat. I've been remembering fairly often to note these things instead of becoming consumed by them. Also, been applying myself in terms of being equanimous with it to the best of my ability.

Also recently have had a lot of off cushion cycling in the form of pleasant wavy vibrations through my body, and some moments where when I close my eyes, faint flickering. And also some times where the tension in my jaw is almost intense enough to be called unpleasant - distractingly unpleasant. A good sign, in my opinion so far

Quick clarification about the new instances of of subtle fear and anxiety, about how it relates to the previous doubt.

The reason, it seems to be, is that that place in the meditation, with tension at the 3rd eye, in the head, jaw area too, appears as if its an important station on the path. And that all I have to do is do it, see through it. Penetrate the object. I just have to do it. And the immediate thoughts coming along with that are an awareness, or idea, that I've just spent so much time trying to do this stuff. Then all of a sudden its so simple, its unnerving. It's a little humbling, a little frightening. But it remains to be done. That's it. I have to do it. It's what I've been trying to do all along. So there is this big repute about it for myself personally, to do it. Maybe that has something to do with the uneasiness.

And its at these times all of the other dissatisfaction in my life, fear and repulsion and desires, basically cravings and aversions I suppose, are experienced too. The anxiety of, kind of, really being there with the nest of sensations, seeming like that's it, that there being the state to which I hold everything else in relativity, it commands a real urgency about everything else in life, about really experiencing it, ect ect. Its like being living on a little island with a bunch of stuff happening all around, and there's a small mountain in the middle, and this is the summit where you can see everything else, there in the balance.

And it seems like once I do it, dissolve this thing, really do it, there's no going back. That that's going to be it, when I finally do it. Don't know what that'll be like, but it seems as if it would be completely unprecedented.

I've been mostly inactive meditatively for about a couple weeks due to a surgical procedure. Have done some "sits" but just casually with no timer, probably no more than half an hour on the longest one. Have been being "mindful" and attempting equanimity during regular life, and have also been cycling off cushion.

I had once instance of that (I think) which began with me feeling feverish. Hot and cold at the same time. Hot on the inside, cold on the outer edges of my skin. And vaguely nauseous. From there a fast vibration began to creep into me at the hands. This sped up and spread throughout most of my body. I began breathing very heatedly. It was as if I was hyperventilating maybe, but I don't know since I've never had that happen. All the while, my hands were tensing up very very stiffly in my fingers. My wrists bent themselves and my fingers became very very tight, making a concave curve on the top of my hand. And they grouped together, so that my palm bunched in on itself. This went on for about 5 minutes before palliating quickly but gradually.