Russell's Old Journal

[Russell]

Oct 16 2012, 2:28 PM EDT

Brutal anxiety for no apparent reason again today. It's just the swing of things it seems. Trying to still remain thankful for the moment and realize my awareness is still very clear, even though it mainly only clear about not being very clear

Replies:

JYET
Oct 17 2012, 4:53 AM EDT

Feel with you Russell. I'm also fluctuating from day to day. Mote anxiety recently. But yesterday I felt great. It's funny how the storylines about the external situation change with the emotional states. Do you also have this? Nothing of it can be real because we watch both bliss and despair, right?

Metta
Erik

Russell
Oct 17 2012, 9:58 AM EDT

Yeah, I really don't notice much of a physical difference in how I feel when it's a good day vs a bad. It is all 100% my emotional reaction to things, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason why some days everything is so clear and some days everything is muddy and I have violent emotional reaction. Feels like and battle with my ego, head on. Thats a good way to describe this part of the path. Ego battle. It's putting up a good fight to stay alive, for sure.

[Russell]

Oct 18 2012, 12:54 PM EDT

Anxiety level down again, but I have quite a strong feelings of defeat. There is nothing I can do here, complete surrender. I feel done with the fighting, just going to observe. Got into a mixture of trying different techniques in the last few days and it just leads to frustration.

Replies:

nadavspi
Oct 18 2012, 4:34 PM EDT

I can't tell you how familiar that sounds, especially the last sentence.

cmarti
Oct 19 2012, 8:31 AM EDT

Russell:

http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/t ... offset=620 (dead link)

Russell
Oct 19 2012, 4:46 PM EDT

Thanks Chris. This helps, fairly embedded today though, so I need to keep working.

Last nights sits, just sat. Feels like my body slowly disappears, thoughts other than questioning my experience are few and far between. Had a few fruition like moments and then one moment where I just started laughing about all of this. Don't know why I found everything so funny suddenly.

giragirasol
Oct 19 2012, 5:50 PM EDT

It is really rather ridiculous in retrospect. And sometimes in moments of clarity along the way.

[Russell]

Oct 22 2012, 1:57 PM EDT

Been on vacation since Saturday in Quebec City. Beautiful place. Had my normal sitting time. The plane was very good for that too. Nothing much to report other than I keep cycling in and out of anxiety mostly, but that is pretty par for the course right now.

[Russell]

Oct 23 2012, 9:30 AM EDT

Nothing like a frantic cab ride back to the hotel where my wife left her passport and a delayed flight to really see how far this practice has taken me. I was rather calm and accepting somehow.

Replies:

Rob_Mtl
Oct 23 2012, 4:21 PM EDT

Hey, hope you enjoyed Quebec, Russell! I think you came in good time- we've been having a fantastic run of fall colours, and all sorts of beautiful or dramatic weather (at least, upriver here in Montreal).

Russell
Oct 23 2012, 6:08 PM EDT

It was beautiful Rob. Thanks. We had a little rain at first but yesterday was fantastic. I didn't know you were from up there. I will have to visit Montreal sometime as well and say hi.

[Russell]

Oct 24 2012, 8:07 AM EDT

Noticed some fruition like activity when meditating while in bed the last night of my trip. Feels like another review-like cycle or something because when I sit now I keep getting A&P like bliss waves over and over again pretty rapidly. Baseline is the same though it seems.

[Russell]

Oct 24 2012, 7:59 PM EDT

This whole thing is pretty absurd. I am sitting here cracking up at myself about how childish I have been acting through this whole process. Just back and forth, not learning lessons, having to fight myself over and over again. I sit here with the on going dilemma that some technique will do something, but once I try them they are all unsatisfactory, but when I try 'no-technique' or just sitting, after a while I feel like I need to be doing some technique. Hahah. This is madness I tell ya.

[Russell]

Oct 24 2012, 8:56 PM EDT

Tried to meditate for a bit and it took me 10 minutes to settle down. I was nearly crying, I was laughing so hard. Finally settled down and the next thing I remember is my wife waking me up. Feel very dazed. I think I slept for about 45 minutes.

Replies:

giragirasol
Oct 24 2012, 9:14 PM EDT

Dude, I'm on the edge of my seat, feeling every moment of this. You describe this phase of the journey so well.

Russell
Oct 26 2012, 9:14 AM EDT

I have to thank all the people I have talked to recently over skype and/or email. It is amazing how talking to other practioners at this point helps more than almost anything. Last night was the opposite of the night before where I was laughing. I had some good cries last night. Not from sadness. I am just overwhelmed by all of this. This is the most interesting/crazy/amazing/painful thing I have ever gone through.

[Russell]

Oct 26 2012, 3:56 PM EDT

OK Something happened today, buts not super sticky yet, but if I look directly for it it still happens. For the first time, I felt like I became awareness itself and Russell became an object, just like everything in my experience. It was like 'Whoa!' and 'Duh!' at the same time. I was giggling, then tearing up, then giggling again. Like I said, it isn't super sticky (going back and forth a bit), but it feels like dipping a toe into non-dual awareness. It's been there all along!

Replies:

betawave
Oct 26 2012, 4:36 PM EDT

Neat -- and not surprising given the previous posts! Wishing you the best!!! Got my fingers crossed for you, but it kinda seems you don't need it!

andymr
Oct 26 2012, 5:22 PM EDT

+1

Keep us updated, Russell.

Russell
Oct 26 2012, 9:07 PM EDT

Thanks guys. You know I will.

[Russell]

Oct 27 2012, 8:05 PM EDT

This is very strange. It feels like something changed and nothing changed at the same time. Very hard to put my finger on it. I feel calmer in a way, but still feel all the same stuff coming up. I guess I just have to sit back and see what to make of all this.

When I sit. I just keep getting expanding and inclusive awareness. Feel like 5th jhana, but space inst the only thing there, everything is there.

Replies:

nadavspi
Oct 27 2012, 11:11 PM EDT

Oh, that sounds good.

cmarti
Oct 28 2012, 9:12 AM EDT

Do you still see any mysteries?

Russell
Oct 28 2012, 9:17 AM EDT

Depends when you ask me. I don't even know if I can answer that. Hrmm

cmarti
Oct 28 2012, 9:27 AM EDT

My personal experience: one of the biggest changes at 4th path transition was resolution. Something became absolutely crystal clear. One minute I was the way I'd always been and the next minute I knew exactly what that being was, and what I'd been fooling myself about.

Russell
Oct 28 2012, 10:53 AM EDT

Good point Chris. I'll try to explain. 2 days ago it was crystal clear. Now, it feels like there is no way that it is possible that this was it. Either way. I'm just going to keep doing what I am doing, see what pans out. If that wasn't it, another layer just peeled back and I will keep looking. I'm luckily having a chat with Ron in a couple days so that will be good.

cmarti
Oct 28 2012, 12:04 PM EDT

Yeah, there's some nuance to this, and there are two different and distinct but related experiences: 1) a no-self experience, where the sense self is absent and which can be had without a permanent shift and 2) the baseline shift that comes during the 4th path transition that permanently resolves the mystery that folks carry around with them regarding what they always had assumed about the self.

Russell
Oct 29 2012, 4:22 PM EDT

Some turbulence yesterday but pretty deeply calm today. Calmest since I can last remember. It's like I don't feel like I have been needing to check into how Russell is doing as much. Does that even make sense?

cmarti
Oct 29 2012, 6:24 PM EDT

Nice! Keep us posted, please.

[Russell]

Oct 31 2012, 10:15 AM EDT

Had a good chat with Ron last night.

I keep wavering between truly calm and flow-like to having rough conditioned patches. This really does feel like something switched, but it's a gradual unfolding process where the calm moments get longer and the embedded moments get shorter. If I sit, I think I am going to start up some simple metta practice and see where that takes me.

Replies:

JLaurelC
Oct 31 2012, 2:02 PM EDT

How's the anxiety, Russell? Of course you know I'm going to ask you that, as an interested party! If I hadn't been on planet Laurel for the past month or more I'd have weighed in sooner.

Russell
Oct 31 2012, 3:47 PM EDT

It's been pretty wicked since late August. Lots of dissatisfaction with everything during that phase. That pull or dissatisfaction with the path is gone now, however anxiety remains. Well everything really remains. The sensations arise, and they are unpleasant, but not as effective. I am wavering in out between a very calm phase where sensations just arise, even anxiety, but they aren't happening to Russell. I actually don't even need to check in to how "I" am doing during those times. However, this is mixed with some unpleasant ego fighting where I seem to get embedded again. Really strange to watch, but I realized I just do my thing while this is going on too, even if it is unpleasant. I don't have a pity party and sit there and ask "Why is this happening to me?"

kennethfolk
Nov 2 2012, 3:58 AM EDT

Whatever problems arise will be related to the dissonance between what is happening and what you think SHOULD be happening. The first is real, the second imaginary. Embrace the first and let the other go. Anxiety is happening? Fine, let it happen. You get embedded again? Fine, get embedded. There is "ego fighting"? Fine, there is ego fighting.

My wife and I like to tease each other by occasionally shouting out "Calcified idea alert!"

You know so much. You are practically an expert on meditation and its results. And yet this knowledge is causing you nothing but pain. Notice how often your expectations are at odds with the reality of your experience. What can you learn form that? Your models are wrong. Just notice. And forgive. You are not in charge. Renounce your enlightenment and see what's next. You can be an unhappy pundit or a happy idiot. I recommend idiocy.

JYET
Nov 2 2012, 7:33 AM EDT

"You can be an unhappy pundit or a happy idiot. I recommend idiocy."

Now we're talking. Love the punch of that.

Russell
Nov 2 2012, 9:35 AM EDT

Thank you Kenneth. Very, very helpful.