NickP's practice notes

[NickP]

Not much is happening on the meditation front. When meditating I feel like going through the motions and getting somewhere nice, but the motivation isn't there. I went on holidays for a few days and I didn't practice even once while away. From Thursday to Tuesday, the total time spent meditating was 15 minutes, and no practice off the cushion. Stopping the practice doesn't make me feel guilty as it once did. From time to time I stop and check in with myself and appreciate how everything is deeply OK, even if it isn't on the surface. That is, I still see that my mood swings (a less loaded term than "cycling") but I'm fine with that.

I doubt that this is the same path that the Buddha taught and that people here get enlightened to the standards described by the Buddha, so I might be just doing a practice influenced by Buddhism rather than a Buddhist practice. It's not that I'm a Buddhist, but what makes me "care" about this stuff is that Buddhism is validated by 2,500 years of history whereas this stuff is validated by a much more homogeneous and small group. "Care" goes between quotes, because regardless of the label I use, be it Buddhism or Folkism or Ingramism, I'm convinced by my own experience that this practice does some very nice things to the brain. And this doubt won't lead me away from the practice. This lack of motivation will pass away at some point.

Today I sat for half an hour, did some concentration, went up to some absorption. In the last 10 minutes, I went in and out from a very pleasant physical absorption, maybe one minute in, one out.

[NickP]

I'm leaving all this doubt behind. My thoughts aren't any different from last time, but I just don't care that much. I'm keeping the practice and seeing where it leads.

Lately I've been distractable and tired. Not sleeping as many hours as I'd wish, and I'm attributing my crappy concentration to that. Family visit is over, I guess I'll get back to a more normal schedule now, and possibly start with more serious vipassana.
In the last couple days, I've been too tired to investigate reality, and settled for samatha. Getting to some nice but unstable concentration states where I can see the jhana factors follow the progression as in 1J-->2J-->3J-->4J, but without being very absorbed (compared to previous experiences), in fact I alternate between these states and the hindrance of the day, either sleepiness or embeddedness in trains of thought. The world is solid, both on and off the cushion.
Feeling like a beginner again, but happier. That's how I feel these days. I don't see anything special or awe-inspiring in my brain like I saw a month ago. Thoughts are impersonal but I don't pay attention to that, shyness is there as it always was, my behavioural patterns haven't changed - or if they did it's too subtle to tell - and the other metrics (compassion, concentration, faith, etc.) seem to be near the previous baseline. I'm somewhat less obsessed about maps. But the change I see most is that the happiness baseline is higher up. It's subtle, but definitely noticeable.

[Russell]

All of this is very normal. You will go through this over and over again.

[NickP]

A couple days ago things starting to vibrate and become more energetic. Stronger sensations at the brow, sometimes so blissful it's actually too much. Pretty distracted, although not as much since I've started to sleep more and better.

Not incredibly motivated to sit, but I'm still managing to put in 1x30 or 2x15 a day.

Haven't done noting for quite a while, these days I'm doing mostly samatha. I keep moving back and forth between very pleasant absorptions and thought streams. When moving back to being mindful, I don't feel irritation. Path related mood swings aren't very apparent. I think about meditation a lot less and note phenomena a lot less off the cushion, although I might have some spontaneous mini-insights or short depersonalisation episodes every now and again.

Today I got into an absorption that was extremely pleasant and I felt gratitude about that. Two things that hadn't happened in a while with that intensity.

[NickP]

Motivation is coming back slowly. I'm doing less jhana and more vipassana, but still not doing much noting, I'm mostly noticing without labeling. Still distractable but a little bit more engaged.

Lunchtime sit, 15 minutes noting. Quite a few solid itches appearing here and there. Not much pain going on. It's easy to focus on the itches, but hard to keep the focus on the physical sensation of the itch without getting distracted. I'd actually welcome some more intense itches. If I do keep the focus for long enough, I see it start to fire some irritating and not very consistent vibrations.

Evening sit, 45 minutes mostly noticing with a bit of noting. The sit started evolving pretty much as the lunchtime sit, it was laborious to keep going, had to fight/notice a desire to end the sit quite a few times. Then, with 10 minutes left I went through a couple minutes of nice sideways-moving lights with no intention to quit. Then that went away and I went back to the same negativity towards the sit. A few not very intense vibrations would appear every now and then at one or both index fingers, lasting for a couple minutes.

[NickP]

Just sat for 45 minutes. First time in a while when I can actually say I was well rested. Approximate chronology: counted 3x10 outbreaths, then 2x10 inbreaths, start noting, some very clear flashing lights at the lower part of the visual field, irritation at hearing others talk in the other room, a sudden noise outside startles me and the body reacts but the mind stays focused, a solid annoying itch in my face on which I focus, it vibrates a little and then goes away, exhilaration, gratitude, spaciousness, pleasant tension at the brow (which remained for the rest of the sit), mind gets very scattered and it gets hard to focus on anything, stays like that for a couple minutes, then it gets clear again and malleable, mind feeling at ease and expansive, desire to stop noting and just notice stuff, not out of laziness but out of the feeling that noting was too coarse. Visual field and mind fell for a couple seconds into a state very similar to the entrance to fruition (expansive and trance-like) but it didn't feel like one. Then got distractable very embedded in mapping thoughts and reporting thoughts, surprised at having the sit evolve like this. Every now and then coming back from these distractions to investigate, it all felt peaceful and not much was happening. Near the end of the sit, both index and middle fingers and one foot started buzzing persistently (neutral vedana), and the tension at the brow started to vibrate/throb at a low frequency. At this point, every now and again I'd feel a tiny wave of coolness coming out of the brow, and that effect is still felt now as I type (30 minutes later). A couple times in the last 15 minutes I also felt a sensation of having the Axis vertebra being pulled up.

Speculation corner: Feeling it's way too soon for some phenomena to show up, as I identify them with the EQ ñana. Weird. Time will tell what they actually are.

[NickP]

Just sat for 30 minutes. Got to the place I described in the last post, where everything is mellow, gently vibratory, and I get lazy and distractable, but got there faster. Maybe 5 minutes into the sit. The crazy thing is that it resembles a lot some of the sessions that I had in 1st path EQ, but this time it's like I know what to do to go forward - which is, stop trying to go forward! In the middle of the sit I got something I hadn't got in the last session I described, which is crown activity. It's resembles in kind the last few days leading to 1st, but the energy is not as clearly defined, and I'm not getting excited or agitated or jumping the gun. I care less and am more distracted.

Amazed at the speed this is evolving. I don't quite believe it is so.

Off the cushion, feeling pretty dark nightish. Feeling tired despite good rest. Feeling dumber, less articulate, and going about my day feels laborious. Not feeling sad though.

[Russell]

I had this same pattern shortly after first path review. I thought I was already up in EQ again. I was like, this is going way fast!!!

You may very well be, but it ended up that I was finally taking the smoothed-outness of the time after review for the later stages, when it was really the early nana's again. I think Jayson pointed this out to me, but I didn't want to believe him at the time. It wasn't till I hit 3C's and A&P again that I realized that he was right. I'll try to find it in my old log.

[Russell]

Actually is was A&P not EQ: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2&start=120

[NickP]

Thanks for the reference Russell, it is probably not EQ judging from what I've seen in the last couple days. That means one thing for a map geek: one can't rely on the energetic markers of one path to mark the same stages on another path.

Going through the day feels even more laborious. Doing what I always do is many times heavier. Wondering how much of that can be attributed to bad sleep and some recent changes in my personal life unrelated to meditation. But the feeling is that I only want the day to end and go back to bed. Depending on the bias of the reader, it can sound like dark night, depression, classic stress or insufficient rest. Feeling strangely better now that I've meditated.

Just sat for 30 minutes at work after going to the gym. Abysmal concentration for the first 15 minutes, spent them bouncing between dreamland and a feeling of frustration and helplessness (due to the lack of control). In the next five minutes I tried jhana with some success and managed to stay awake contemplating the sukha. When I felt like I was losing it again and going back to dreaminess, I remembered what I used to do to fight sleepiness in the ol' days, noting out loud, so I did it for the rest of the sit and it worked great. Still sleepy but not in dreamland. Almost all the notes were negative: frustration, desire to stop, irritation. Some neutral and positive ones like hardness, brow tension, flashing lights, vibrations in the fingers. I don't care about the content of the notes too much, but it felt like doing an actual technique rather than struggling helplessly.