Bill H practice log

[Bill H]

Noting mindstates is a wonderful thing.

I was in a most difficult DN dishwasher today for hours, moving from one unpleasant state to another... At some point I gave up the idea that anything would work, that it would ever go away or change, and started choiceless noting... After a few hours of this I started getting interested in mindstates more, and decided to do hearing, the occasional sensation and every single mindstate or thought I could catch. At first it took some effort but eventually I moved into a place where the thoughts were easy, coming and going and there was a strong feeling of okness, like nothing could ever bother me, and even though the mind was calmer it just didn't matter...

[Bill H]

OK I am sure I made some progress this week - its felt like its been a while though so I am recording what I did... Stuck with pure concentration a day or so until I crossed A&P then was forced to switch to noting.. I see a pattern here. If I stick with pure noting it always fizzles out, loses steam and I get stuck (I just spent an hour noting in what felt like re-ob, and I feel trashed now) - but if I stabilize for a few days and then cross up ans switch, sure its painful but the noting seems to be effective for a few more days until it starts to become ineffective.

Not sure about this but it feels like I make better progress with the noting when I start with concentration for a day or so until I cannot concentrate anymore due to DN then switch out..(I cross A&P without any intent to do so anyway) Thats how I crossed A&P originally anyhow, maybe that charge/release method will work better than what I have been doing.

Funny I have this belief that I must stick with one practice or one regimen every time I sit down but that doesn't seem to work very well for me.. One day I can get the best benefit from metta or samatha and the next I might need the noting machine.

[Russell]

Maybe it only feels ineffective because you are in reob? That's what it does to you. It seems like you are resisting the 'bad states' and only going for the good ones. Watch that resistance. It is the key.

[Bill H]

perhaps? Good pointer though, thats exactly what needs to be noted. Thanks

[Bill H]

Was experiencing some very uncomfortable stuff again last night, in fact all of yesterday. Sitting was a study in changing negative mindstates, shaking, pressure in the head and forehead/crown, very strong like my head was trying to explode.

Was in a movie theater noting all this unpleasant stuff and then used some essence noting which seemed to help - then I remembered how sometimes the pressure is the head is due to awareness being stuck at a width it doesn't want to be at... So I used metta to all of space/universe for a while and noticed that awareness got extremely wide, and clearer while the inpleasant sensations went away, and then I was able to note in the wider space. after being at this expansive setting for a while things seemed to be OK returning to a more 'normal' width on their own.

[Bill H]

Working on simply knowing whether I am breathing in or out, feeling the breath coming all the way in, going all the way out and watching as a relaxing awareness slowly spreads upwards into the head - as it does so old wounds start to surface, and it feels like this is working to unwind the knots of tension and fear stuck up in the head, the things that if I just note past them seem to cause instability enough to derail the noting (I cannot look at them directly).

-Edit, remembering now I did have some hot spot and painful release activity in the neck and some very short periods of almost effortless staying with the breath as a whole body object, flowing in or out.

[Bill H]

Second sit also close to 50 min, this time samatha wasn't on the menu apparently as I was unable to keep from crossing over A&P in a series of fast sensation/explosions in the head, went up and down a few times from 3rd through 5th nana I think then eventually moved on to some DN, stopped somewhere in DN near the end.. As soon as I realized it was no hope staying below A&P I switched to choiceless noting which seemed to do OK.

[Bill H]

Stopping Insight for now. Harshness and stuff was too much, overwhelming and if continued without stabilizing for a while I can see that I would probably wreck my job/marriage. Vipassana making me nuts at the moment.

Been almost two days since I last sat - which never happens and it seemed to be long enough to let things settle down (coming back to the bottom of the maps is always a shock to me since it never happens - I am used to not feeling like I am my thinking) so I could do some tranquility work (twim).. Did 55 min this AM of twim on the full-bodied breath. I place the mind on the object but I don't try to hold it there, I watch to see how it comes to move off the object. Every single time I manage to catch this what I see is there is some part of my experience that the mind is NOT OK with and then it jumps away from the object.. I do my best to let go of the distraction and relax this tension caused by the dislike while coming back to the object - the insight gained is the direct seeing how my own likes and dislikes cause my suffering. Its a different trip altogether but its what I want to do right now, figure its better to record what I am doing rather than clam up.

[Bill H]

55 min breathing mediation using Thanissaro's Instructions here http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writ ... 130123.pdf

Quite amazing actually - I could see by what was happening when breathing through various areas that I still have a blockage in the neck, one in the front and a big area in the head with some sort of traumatic stuff stuck in there - I was eventually able to relax the neck and front channel but the third thing only partially, although it felt really good to do so - some sort of light joy in the body as I kept the whole body as object while centering on the breath in the chest. It was good to have a sit where I started out with anxiety and felt like I learned something without making it much worse.

[Bill H]

Have been doing lots of samatha off cushion and what I am finding is there is some sort of buildup in the head that occurs which the mind jumps to - If I allow attention to stay up there the buildup gets worse and worse and so does the instability - what seems to work when this happens is a continual relaxing of the head and this idea of breathing down the front channel on both the inbreath and outbreath, gently asking the energy to flow down the front - not always but sometimes this results in a remarkable shift back to a wide clarity and a feeling of ease, but takes quite a few repetitions.