NickP's practice notes

[NickP]

2013-01-13

Sat twice today, first one for 2hrs, untimed. Started off with breath counting, aiming to get some concentration and then switch to vipassana. Out-loud sparse (as in post #4) noting for the first 50mins, then noticing. Mins 30-50 included prompting à la “I wonder what my next thought will be”.

Notes up to min 50 (notation: x means repetition, T means “thoughts”): touching, vibrations, pleasant, coolness, hearing, visuals(x), waves(x), touching(x), tingling, itching(xxx), heartbeat(x), touching(xx), vibrations, tension(x), itching(xxxxxxxx), tension, seeing, tension, flashing(x), tension(xx), focusing, remembering T, energy waves, itching(x), flashing, heartbeat, future T, jerking, anxiety, jerking, timer T, focusing, itching(xxx), imagining T, vibrations(xxx), visuals, neutral, floating, crown tension, energy waves, itching, waves rising, tingling, jerking, floating, reporting T, throbbing, flashing lights, jerking, heartbeat, tension, unpleasant, tension(xx), reporting T, throbbing, tension, practice T, daydreaming, pain, desire to think, breeze(x), tension, speculation, reporting T, pleasant, reporting T, restless, desire to stop noting, throbbing, restless(x), pain, pain dissolving, pleasant, remembering T, itching, posture T, remembering T, visuals, yawning, aversion to throbbing, itching, searching, calm, desire for something to happen, vibrations, itching-unpleasant, vibrations-neutral, restless-unpleasant, energy waves-neutral, floating-pleasant, itching-unpleasant(xx), frustration-unpleasant, calm-neutral, mapping T, practice T, timer T, swaying(x), pleasant, calm, leg going to sleep, back pain-unpleasant, floating-pleasant, noting T, tingling, remembering T, wondering T, engaged, pleasant, remembering T, pleasant, engaged, coolness, stopping swaying, pain, heartbeat, itching, posture T, timer T, itching, planning T, timer T, tingling. [Checked timer.] Anxiety, desire to end, tension(x), pleasant, tension, pain-neutral, tension-pleasant, swaying, reporting T, tension, spacing out, pain-unpleasant, mapping T, heartbeat, timer T, itching, space.

After finishing breath counting, found myself in a weak concentration state, started fast silent noting for a minute, then sparse out loud up to min 50. The primary object was the visual sensations rather than the breath. After some 25-30mins of sitting, I started to experience postural discomfort and started to sway to ease it rather than recognising it and just sitting with it. Only realised that after quite a few minutes, and noted it. That physical discomfort and a foreground mental feeling of unpleasantness was on top of a background mental feeling of calm/OKness. After 45 mins I checked the timer and committed to keep going until 1 hour had elapsed. But then after settling down for 5-10 more mins I experienced a bit of space, then more space (although pretty sure it wasn’t 5th jhana), then something shifted and practice became really easy to sustain and I ended up sitting for 2hrs. Mins 55-100 were just seeing thoughts and feelings unfold, which happened in a very transparent and obvious way. At some point (min 75?) the mind naturally leaned towards bystander noting, which ended up showing me a lot of stuff too subtle to see without. Things like being very happy with my perceptual abilities, and how I was striving to focus on space and get a taste of the immaterial jhanas. The final 20mins were just calm abiding and spacing out.

A humbling lesson for the real-time mapping mind is that whatever stage I was in up to min 50, it wasn’t EQ, although I believed it was before the shift. After this experience of the second hour, I now think I’m closer to my cutting edge.



The second sit was 1 hr, timed, pure concentration practice. The jhanas feel different every time, showing different combinations of markers. 1J was pretty standard, with tension in the 3rd eye area and flashing lights, also with muscle contraction around the neck and a grimace.

In 2J the tension was somewhat more diffuse and intense, with joy more prevalent, the grimace, visual energy waves rising and the tactile sensation of energy crawling in two ways: first upwards from the 3rd eye area to the crown, and then backwards from the 3rd eye area to the throat and then from there to the crown. This is the first time I’ve ever felt any energetic activity in the throat. Also it’s great to know there’s no way I could have scripted this (which I’m always fearing, sometimes justifiably so), I just looked up the chakras in Wikipedia and there seems to be one at the throat, didn’t know that.

3J, the grimace lessened and the visual energy waves started to go downwards. Neutral tingling. Fewer pleasant sensations of floating, very prevalent in the first two jhanas. During this jhana I focused on an itch on my nose and saw it started vibrating. I’m not sure when this jhana ended but between the pleasant sensations felt here and the EQ of 4J, there were quite a few unpleasant sensations including pain, boredom, mind spacing out/wandering away with its corresponding self-loathing when coming back, desire to check the timer, etc.

Eventually 4J arose and all was very peaceful and silent. Energy waves still going downwards sometimes, although most of the time visuals were just diffuse or nonexistent, looked like a partially cloudy moonless night. Very easy to focus on anything, but soon I became bored and started trying to visualise space to get into 5J. That didn’t work out but I ended getting even calmer. After some 25-30mins abiding there the timer went off, but I always get bored in 4J and feel that I should be doing something other than just abiding.

[NickP]

2013-01-14

Sat for 15 minutes doing samatha at lunchtime at work, reached a weak version of 1st jhana and surprisingly I didn’t care. I was able to concentrate on the breath and the visual sensations for nearly the whole period and was quite happy about that. I think that ability to focus is a healthier metric than the jhana number or hardness that one gets, but so far hadn’t managed to make my gut understand it. Today it clicked.

After the gym I tried walking meditation to the station, and then from the station home. Was totally focused on the sensations on the soles of my feet, and felt so much as a default, as the monkey mind normally feels. Whenever something distracted me, the mind returned to those sensations on its own. I “sat back” and observed the process completely amazed. It’s been a while since I last experienced it. At some point this thought occurred “tomorrow I’m going to cling to this experience”.

Then came home and sat for 82 minutes, untimed. As soon as I sat started counting breaths and already felt itches arising and becoming masses of tingling and vibration. After finishing the counting there was neutral intense pressure at the temples (which didn’t last long) and pleasant intense tension in the 3rd eye area (which did). Sensations and thoughts were very easy to follow and I just kept practicing with those sensations, really engaged and uplifted, sometimes noting, sometimes just noticing, with very few hindrances. After some 15 minutes the tension subsided and I just felt good for a few minutes, then the hindrances came back, and I was trying to navigate this by noting (a little) and concentrating (more than a little). It felt like all the hindrances came together, there was torpor, dreamlike images and thoughts complete with incoherence, spacing out. Then I spent the last 40-50 minutes in a calm state where noticing was easy again, and sitting was effortless. It felt like I was going deeper as time passed.

[NickP]

2013-01-15

Woke up with a lot of energy today, although I hadn’t sleep that many hours, just the usual 7. This energy lasted until about lunchtime, when I had a 15-minute sit at work. In the evening I sat 2×15 minutes with a local vipassana group.

The momentum that was apparent in the previous two days is not that obvious, and didn’t manifest in the sits, although it might be related to the fact they’re so short. In all three sits I was just tired of directing my practice labeling it “samatha” or “vipassana” beforehand, and just let it do their thing. The mind drifted to vipassana in the lunchtime sit and to samatha in both group sits. I’m doing almost no noting, instead mixing anapanasati with choiceless noticing. Or actually not that choiceless, as the visuals are still my main focus.

Had to fight the hindrances a lot today, many timer thoughts, mind drifting off in chains of thought, and more pain than I would expect from such short sits. For half of the time on these sits, itches changed to tingling as soon as focused on, and on one occasion I felt generalised tingling on both forearms (on the same side as the palms) for about 15 seconds. Also some ringing in the ears, slightly different in pitch, intensity and laterality each time I focused on it.

Also did some involuntary practice of “mindfulness of remotely helping grandma fix her computer while my own laptop fan was making very loud noises”. Felt increasingly irritated until both the noise and the mutual incomprehensibility with grandma (effort to avoid bleedthrough) were unbearable for a couple minutes and then something shifted and kindness to grandma was more natural, and the loud noises felt just OK. A couple minutes later I was able to solve grandma’s problem, and the noises calmed down – it seems that my laptop shares my EQ

[NickP]

2013-01-16

Thanks for your support.

No lunchtime sitting today, no walking meditation to speak of, it was a bit of a busy day at work. Went to the gym and then sat for an hour at home, untimed. The bit about the gym is relevant because I came back very tired and then torpor/dreaminess was a persistent issue in this sit. Much initial aversion to sitting, just wanted to eat and go to bed. Started counting the breaths, and lots of stories came up about the work day, it was hard to stay focused on the counting. Tried to focus on the visual sensations. Through the sit I felt tingling in random spots in the body. After a few mins trying to bring the mind back after it made up stories nonstop, I started to note aloud and that seemed to work. The noting seemed comprehensive, and when I stopped and returned to bare awareness the stories were fewer and easy to spot. No ñana markers I could perceive, until around half of the sit when a nice calm appeared. Still, there was much restlessness in the calm, and I noted its manifestations: a lot of path T, practice T, reporting T and expecting, more than usual, but also remembering T, planning T and social T which hadn’t been hindering my practice recently. Towards the end I noted a lot of timer T and desire to end the sit. When I finally checked the timer 57 mins had elapsed, and just sat in awareness until 1 hr mark. At some point when things went subtle, I tried bystander noting but that didn’t last long, maybe 2 minutes. Asked “Where is the self looking from?”. Asked “How am I feeling?”, the “answer” I got was a bunch of 10-15 notes competing to fill up the space at the same time. “Thanks, but how am I feeling?” …another bunch of notes. Repeated that a few times. Also at some point I found I didn’t care about getting path. Did some repeated enquiry to find whether I was just deceiving myself. Couldn’t answer conclusively, but the familiar path obsession returned soon enough.

[NickP]

2013-01-19

Yesterday was also a bit busy, and I only sat for 15 mins, good sit. Although to be fair I can’t blame the circumstances this time, it was just aversion to sitting.



Today I just sat for 45 mins. Silent noticing with sparse noting. It took a while to settle the mind, as it was constantly chatting about one topic for about 10 mins. Pressure building up in the 3rd eye area, and at one point it _suddenly_ got slightly bigger, much more intense and the narratives stopped almost completely. Visuals: circle on the right of the visual field irradiating energy towards the left. Noticed distractions at play during most of the sit, most of the time in the background, while the noting of those distractions was in the foreground, while noting the sensations that appeared. The real-time mapping mind is still very active, but this time it didn’t pester me with narratives, it was just non-verbally “saying” 3C, DN, EQ. The stages of insight appeared very clearly, and they’ve done so so many times that it’s no longer exciting to label them. After the pressure subsided and pain/restlessness/uncomfortable tingling started to be apparent, the visuals were luminous circles on the center of the visual field escaping forward (as in 3D). After some 25 mins I saw a shift to this expansive calm, but also had great doubt on what to do in this territory. Didn’t know whether to note, to just pay attention, to relax into the moment, or to start asking questions like “who am I”. Didn’t note the doubt, but chose to just pay attention. At min 28 checked the timer and stretched. Sat for 15 more mins, and an itch in one eye mapped to a luminous patch in the visual field. Chased it for a while and enjoyed watching how it escaped. It disappeared, and so did the itch, leaving great calm and some spaciousness.



<What’s below was originally a reply to Rob_Mtl, I lost his original post>

Hi Rob,

you’re pointing right at the missing piece in the puzzle. I try to stay mindful during the day but to be honest when I do that it feels like I’m just being obsessive about meditation, and I back off (i.e. just get embedded), can’t “note my arse off” or at least, not for too long. During most of typical day I’ll be either focusing on a left-brainy problem which requires me to be 100% embedded to solve, or interacting with people. Staying mindful while talking/listening to someone probably looks very weird and I avoid it.

Normally what I do is to be mindful of the sensations on the feet when I’m walking from A to B, of the breath when I’m just sat waiting or in a lift, and sometimes Bahiya meditation even if for a few seconds. On my commute I read, normally either dharma books close to the pragmatic approach, or other people’s practice logs. I tried to meditate in the train a couple times, sometimes with good results, but it’s much more mental effort than sitting at home/lunchtime at work so I don’t normally do it.

All that said, I think my off-cushion practice waaay behind that on-cushion. I will eagerly accept any advice people here might have to improve mindfulness levels because in daily life, because I’m kinda lost on that one.

Mood has been very EQ-like in the last 5 months except for a few week-long lapses. Sits are generally good, but I’m looking for the much needed prop to get to the other side.

[NickP]

2013-01-20

Today I had a good chunk of time to devote to practice, and did so for 4 and a half hours: 30 mins walking, then 1hr sitting, then 30 mins walking, then 2hrs sitting, then 30 mins walking, with 5-min breaks in between. Mainly doing silent noticing (50% of time), out-loud noting (20%) and silent noting (20%), the other 10% is anapanasati, bystander noting, and asking tricky questions (who am I? who is this happening to? who feels sensations? who looks out of these eyes?).

Lots of vibratory activity throughout, but the novelty is long gone. The first walk was just settling in, good mindfulness, although with some lapses. The 1-hour sit had some activity and hindrances at the beginning (particularly narratives) but the mind settled and there was much peace for the last 45 mins. Thoughts kept intruding, but were relatively easy to note. In the second walk I was very distracted and I kept making an effort to stay mindful but the mind was hard to tame; did no noting during this walk which in retrospect sounds silly. In the long sit, originally timed for 1 hr, after 50 mins I checked the timer and as I was really engaged, I set it to 2. Much peace and calm, some vibrations, feeling of normalcy, and the usual thoughts about practice, maps, SE and reporting. Noted many of those with bystander noting, which feels spot on for disembedding but is sometimes too verbose (almost like a narrative). Tried to visualise space and got very concentrated, with very few thoughts thereafter. (Maybe because of that, ) towards the end of the 2 hours, boredom was crushing. Noted it, kept noting it, switched to anapanasati and tricky questions, but boredom was boring. Made it to the end in a heroic effort. The last walk felt very ordinary, out-loud noting throughout, repeating the same patterns as before except that I had some papañca on SE at some point, going on for minutes.
<What’s below was originally another reply to Rob_Mtl, and I also lost his original post>
Hi Rob,

I think I’ll try to ramp up my off-cushion mindfulness, because TBH I wasn’t putting much effort in it. I must have subconsciously thought of it as a lost battle and was trying to get SE purely based on on-cushion momentum. I do see my experience changing second-by-second…until mindfulness is trampled by some thought that I don’t resist or even recognise. I’ll try to pay more attention in that area.

Regarding autopilot vs. fully engaged: many times when working on the left-brainy tasks I’m after the experience of flow, as defined by Csikszentmihalyi, which is very rewarding and productive but is the opposite of mindfulness, it’s probably more similar to what you’d refer to as autopilot.

I hear what you say on doubt, and SE not requiring perfection, but right now all sits feel the same and I feel stuck in EQ. I can’t avoid doubt. I can only note it. But AFAIK the only way out is through, so I’ll keep practicing.



Thanks for your advice.

[NickP]

2013-01-24
After these posts, WetPaint blocked KFD and I didn’t keep a log for myself. I’ll try to reconstruct what happened in these few days.

So, I tried to ramp up the mindfulness off-cushion a little bit, and it is sometimes easy, sometimes hard. I try to do a combination of things, not just noting, as noting tires me out too fast. I try to notice things as they happen, but in a relaxed way. When I’m in some form of downtime (walking, waiting, etc) I switch techniques liberally to whatever feels better in the moment.

To give an example, today I walked half an hour from work to see some friends, and I thought it was a good time for walking meditation. I can’t really meditate and cross the street at the same time, but I’m not worked up about that anymore, I’m a lot more relaxed, flexible and accepting for these things and that might be a reason why I’m doing more walking meditation than before, as I’m less strict on conditions.



On Monday I was at the gym and tried to be mindful during the whole session, with some success. By the time I went in, real-time-mapping-mind had ruled “dukkha ñanas”, and when I went out it said “high EQ”. (If that was right, then it is) very interesting that one can move through the ñanas so significantly off-cushion (thanks Rob!). I use what the mapping mind said, as a shorthand for the phenomenological description, but hey, it was 3 days ago and I forgot the details What I do remember was that noting everything, fast, was very easy and the mood was very calm.

A couple insights from the gym:

Awareness wasn’t being that choiceless. When I’m doing that technique, it really needs to be choiceless, rather than being “searching” for sensations. As in, it’s not body scanning!
I wasn’t really noticing frustration when things got boring in EQ.



Then I got home and the narrative “I’m going to get SE in the next sit” kicked in big time. Then I sat, having formally resolved do get it (second time I do it, I think). I didn’t get SE but what I did get were very energetic 1st and 2nd jhanas, and then a full-blown A&P event (similar to this post but without the space), the third one since I started practicing. Then the dukkhas were very clear, and by the time I got EQ I was interrupted and had to stop (after 37 minutes sitting).

On Tuesday, I had one 15-min sit, noting, at lunchtime at work, then 2×15-min samatha sits with a local vipassana group.

Yesterday I only sat for 15 minutes, samatha. Reached 3rd jhana, all 3 very energetic.

Today, I one 20-min sit, jhana, at lunchtime at work, reached 3rd jhana, all 3 very energetic. And then this 30-minute walk after work, alternating between attention to the soles of the feet, and relaxed noting/noticing. Attention wandered much more on this one but I was able to get good practice, I think.

I’m observing this fact that since this event on Monday the mind has leaned towards the samatha side (and I’m following it), and also the jhanas have been so energetic and intense, including 3rd which isn’t normally intense for me. Haven’t really reached 4th as I did all short sits since Monday.

I’m a little bit more accepting of the fact that SE will come when it must, but again, this acceptance comes and goes as well. Tomorrow _I_ might want-it-now.

[NickP]

2013-01-27

Didn’t practice much on Friday and Saturday, I think the total sitting time was about 12 minutes. On Friday, it was due to a crazy workload in the office. On Saturday, I just let other things take priority.



One thing I hadn’t written about is that lately (last 3 weeks maybe) my mind seems to pick distant memories of places I’ve been to, completely at random, and throws them to the foreground. I don’t know what to make of it so I generally just smile when that happens. Most of the places featured in these memories are places I’ve been to once in my life.



Today, I sat at home for one hour, then walked half an hour and then sat for half an hour, timed.

The first sit pretty much followed the usual sequence, similar to recent days. Good, relaxed, concentrated start, reaching something like a peak in attentiveness, followed by a while when I’m very distracted and get frustrated at this fragility of mind, then calm and openness coupled with very few thoughts and general easiness to spot them and spot mind states. In this state, I still usually find that the odd thought or story falls through the cracks and I bring myself back after 15-60 seconds distracted. It doesn’t bother me when it happens, partly because it doesn’t happen that much, and partly because I tend not to get worked up.

Some differences compared to other sits:

- Persistent fine vibrations in a few fingers of my right hand throughout the sit, and other fine not-so-persistent but easily noticeable elsewhere, including left hand fingers, forearms, face, even the sole of my foot for a few seconds while sitting.

- In the EQ stage, in this sit I noticed that the visual field was bigger and wider than usual. No 3D quality, but it felt bigger.



The walk and second sits were plagued by distractions. If I hadn’t been so calm from the previous sit, I would probably have gotten frustrated, which actually happened for 5 minutes or so during the walk. I noted it.



Off cushion I’m trying to note/notice whenever I remember, but I still feel I suck at it.

[NickP]

2013-01-28

How disgusting is grasping onto Stream Entry as another gold star for Me. How boring ends up being, the mind’s response to each new cue about progress, spitting up more grasping thoughts. Seeing them clearly is starting to let go of them.



I have seen this process over and over, its different steps at different times:

Clear seeing leads to progress. Progress manifests itself with cues such as fine vibrations, jhana factors, equanimity and so forth. The mind immediately grasps at them as My attainment. The grasping is observed, and a reaction to the grasping ensues, be it amusement, annoyance or acceptance. That reaction is seen, sometimes prompting another immediate reaction. That reaction is also seen.

I’ve never made it through all these steps in real time. It takes me a while to jump from one step to the next, and the less time it takes, the higher the level of attention. But I’m starting to see the slow but continued improvement in that regard.

Lunchtime sit, 15 minutes, rose to some concentration state and then did some noting and noticing. Pretty distracted throughout, invaded by thoughts about work.

After a very long day I went out of the office frustrated about not being able to manage my own time. But the “me” wasn’t in the frustration, it rather felt that the “me” was watching the frustration. Good start. Did I just say “good start”? Noted.

Then at home I sat for an hour, and the sit didn’t follow the usual pattern. Instead I was calm and engaged from the beginning to the end. Fine vibrations in random places, feet, upper lip, right side of the face. Fine but more intense than usual. Lately, vibrations don’t manifest so much as tactile waves moving through my body (as they did before), but as some persistent electricity that varies in intensity while staying put in one place.

Some periods with wave after wave after wave of shuddering, probably attributable to the cool temperature in the room. The first half an hour was very visual and around minutes 10 to 20 the visual field had a 3D quality, even colours for a couple minutes (light shades of green and blue), while I was sitting I thought it was like watching a movie, but now I say it’s more accurate to say it was like a screensaver. Deep calm throughout the sit. Who wants Stream Entry? What do “I” gain from it? What is it that I’m actually grasping at? Grasping was clearer than usual. Maybe it took me the same time as usual from the grasping to the realisation of it, but it felt clearer, more transparent. Very little timer anxiety, less aversion to anything, even to the grasping mind. That, and pain, and itches, and thoughts on maps and how to report on the sit, were treated with noticeably less (but by no means zero) aversion and more curiosity than before.

PS: There was a point about 40 minutes into the sit, where it was difficult to work out which door a given piece of sensory input came from. Initially, touch was mixed with hearing, and thought was mixed with seeing (smelling and tasting never really came into play), and then all 4 senses were tied together and I had to make a conscious effort to determine what was what.

[NickP]

2013-01-29

Feeling under the weather today, with a bit of fever, also had a pretty busy day at the office, and the spell isn’t over.

Just sat for 34 minutes, initially timed for an hour but gave up. Energy level is low. Practicing immediately after eating makes the heartbeat sounds infinitely louder. Yet I’m impressed I sat at all, 6 months ago I just didn’t bother if I had a fever. Technique was a couple minutes of breath counting followed by choiceless noting. Nearly invariably unpleasant stuff, featuring itches, pressure on the temples, some pain, sleepines, a bit of spacing out. Many times during the space-out trips, I knew I was supposed to note and was actually focus on one sensation but the note just didn’t materialise, so sometimes I noted “confusion” and sometimes I kept injecting energy until the actual word appeared. Feeling a bit more distant from these sensations than last time I had a sit like this, which was a while ago. And as no noticeable progress through the ñanas this sit, I had an always-welcome break from the mapping/grasping mind. A bit of relief towards the end, where the hindrances ceased for a little while, only to come back later with the same fury.

Feeling tone during the day was pretty calm, and although I’m happy that I don’t feel constricted as in the ol’ days before starting meditation when there’s lots of pressure at work, maybe the body still reacts against the crap and gives in.

Trying to use all the intervals between busy times as opportunities for mindfulness, not using any technique exclusively, but mostly four foundations noticing, a bit of noting, and when feeling like it, Bahiya.