John H. Practice Log II

[jwhooper]

Practice continues the same every day, at least an hour, no problems, excellent focus, fine vibrations, energy moving from the third eye to the crown, very few thoughts, time passes quickly. Thoughts are being noted more like sounds or anything else that arises in awareness now. Thoughts once had a special significance as "me" or "mine" but more often now they are just thoughts. In everyday life I get caught up, but then there is awareness again that they are just thoughts, and emotions are just emotions. They arise and pass away like sounds or anything else.

[jwhooper]

What can I say? Everything is the same. Sometimes I get very sleepy, but that is because I haven't been able to get enough sleep lately, so it wouldn't appear to have anything to do with the meditation. Maybe the one difference is that there is a dissatisfaction creeping in. The sitting is easy, the time passes quickly, not much arises ... but there is a sense that it is not satisfactory.

[jwhooper]

Well, after several days of very flat sits with no focus at all, I sat for an hour yesterday and it was very intense. I was actually physically shaking with the vibrations and my breath was heavy like I was running ... not the whole time, but for five or ten minute stretches in the hour long sit. I focused on the crown area, noticing any pleasant sensations. Actually there seemed to be a little pain, but I found the pleasant part of that. Then, oddly enough, a nimitta arose while I was focused on the crown area. That's a first for me. The other odd thing is that instead of the darkness I usually have with my eyes closed, I seemed enclosed in a cone of whiteness. Then the whiteness spread out in all directions to infinity, or seemed so. There was all kinds of energy going up my spine and tingling, prickling sensations at the crown, sometimes feeling like it was a cool flame flickering from the top of my head. The nimitta stayed for a while, changed colors, moved around.

I just kept my focus on the crown and whatever pleasant sensations I could find, allowing the energy to expand.

Later in the sit, things went very dark, and for the first time I really noticed how concepts form, arise, and take on the sense of reality in the mind. It was like they were laid out in slow motion. Things that I took for granted, like a fan blowing, I noticed that only from the sensation of air passing over my skin the mind created the conceptual fan. One by one I went over what I saw in my mind and dropped the conceptual objects, leaving me only darkness, some sounds, and a few sensations. That was interesting.

[Bill29ish]

Later in the sit, things went very dark, and for the first time I really noticed how concepts form, arise, and take on the sense of reality in the mind. It was like they were laid out in slow motion. Things that I took for granted, like a fan blowing, I noticed that only from the sensation of air passing over my skin the mind created the conceptual fan. One by one I went over what I saw in my mind and dropped the conceptual objects, leaving me only darkness, some sounds, and a few sensations. That was interesting.

That is interesting, and important, i think. Nice.

[jwhooper]

Thank you, Bill. I sat for an hour again. It was full of emptiness and joy. Seeing the formations of conceptual thought from the simplest noise or sensation has brought an emptiness into what had seemed to be "real" but was only thought. Then thought became equally as "real" as anything else, and the insight that all things both exist and do not exist, simultaneously, brought an emptiness to all things while not negating them in any way. Further, the insight that "form is emptiness and emptiness is form" was suddenly very clear. I don't know why it wasn't before. Smiling, laughing -- joy. All of my serious efforts were somehow very amusing.

[jwhooper]

More hours sitting. Everything is unfocused now. It isn't bad, just unfocused. I sit and my mind wanders off, quite pleasantly. I bring it back, and it drifts off again. Still happy, no strain, no problems. Can't seem to generate any focus. Not a problem. Everything is good. I don't know how else to put it. I sit and I am happy. Not sitting, I am happy. Nothing special going on.

[jwhooper]

I sit every day, but my sits are still unfocused exactly as before. It is pleasant enough just to sit there. Nothing comes up. Nothing is going on. Just some wandering thoughts. No feeling of passing through any stage or jhana.

[jwhooper]

There is nothing to do, and no one to do it. Seen through, there is nothing left to practice. Nothing to go from here to there. There never was. I sit in peace, and joy. No practices. Things are as they are, very clear, empty. The whole thing has collapsed. There is nothing to do. It is as it is. I would call it freedom, but there was nothing to free. I would say I am off the treadmill, but there was nothing that could be on the treadmill. Just thoughts. Leafs blowing in the wind.

[Bill29ish]

Yes.

[Nadav]