Pablo P. Practice Journal

[PabloP]

Date: 05/26 to 06/04
Length of Sits: 40-50' most days, tried to stretch it to 80'. Skipped two days in a row
Posture: half-lotus
Cutting Edge Insight Stage of the Session: Low EQ

Meditative Techniques Utilized: I tried many things: all-round silent noting with earplugs, four-foundations noting with and without earplugs.

General Thoughts:
* With earplugs on, sometimes DN symptoms usually presents themselves through thoughts and pain in the left (or right) nadis (near the collarbone), probably because of the earplugs, so it's a warning to be understood. Other times, the ear tones get really loud, and it's very difficult to investigate them. Usually, I can note 3 or 4 different pitches, see their "endings" and also a full gap (lack) of sounds. It takes a lot of work to keep track of them. But more often, I slide into the concentration camp, as this ear tones get replaced by a low pitch and vibrating tone, that it's harder to investigate than the previous higher pitches. So I can just keep hearing it, and soon I lose momentum.
* Thoughts can be easily noted as not-self. But there seems to be a degree of "distance". That is, sometimes they are less me than others. I was expecting more of a binary situation, so I was a little surprised. There seems to be many shades of grey in between me and not-self/true-self.
* Its becoming easier to note thoughts off-cushion, and many times I play with focusing in the pleasant aspects when negative mental-states pop up. It's kind of fun. Added: also, I easily notice how thoughts trigger tension in the temples and skull.
* Low Equanimity seems to be all about dealing with Aversion, in my experience.

Goal for Next Session: Keep trying to sit for longer periods, 90' would be best.

[PabloP]

Date: 06/05 to 06/14
Length of Sits: 40-80' most days
Posture: half-lotus
Where am I: Low key DN off-cushion, climbing up to Low EQ in the sits
Meditative Techniques Utilized: Noting pairs feeling-tones + any other of the three, observing the pleasant on the unpleasant sensations, mind-states and thoughts, or watching with amaze any kind of feeling-tone. Applied metta to the noted objects, as if they were not me ( the "metta-sanna" ) until the sensation settles down into an zero aversion state, which leads to a kind of samatha-esque practice, where there's little to note.

General Thoughts:

* Concentration is building up day after day, but I alternate between moments of great concentration and others of stream of thoughts.
* Instead of doing the Four Foundation Noting, I focused on the feeling-tones in order to see if the insight dynamic would be different. As I noticed that most of all notes were unpleasant, I decided to investigate them, and detect any pleasantness in them. That derived into watching the unpleasant objects with amaze, and then actively apply metta (empathetic joy) to them. This metta then dissolves into an equanimity. As the metta isn't applied externally to any human but to inward phenomena that arise and pass away, I call it "metta-sanna" as it merges metta and vipassana. It's similar to Bhante Vimalaramsi's method, but instead of dissolving with a smile any tension in the head triggered by thoughts, here's a pre-thought moment (watching physical sensations & feeling-tones), plus the metta is applied in every body part and to any sensation, being them pleasant, unpleasant or neutral (the spacial sensations). Also, the speed of the practice is closer to vipassana-noting (~5 seconds) than to a typical samatha-metta.

Regarding the 3C's, the unending necessity of applying metta shows dukkha, the stream of sensations observed initially with amaze and the transformation of joy into equanimity shows annica, and the watching and application of metta to inner objects as they were other than me shows anatta.

Goal for Next Session: Keep trying to sit for longer periods, 90' would be best.

[PabloP]

It's been around 45 days since my last log here. At first because I was trying a few new things, but then because my (first) son was about to be born. Nowadays, I'm getting a bit more of sleep and spare time to restart my practice. Since early April, when I first hit EQ, I didn't make big progress, because I moved to a new noisy flat which forced me to use earplugs (which were ok for samatha but not so good for insight), and added 4 extra hours of job which I couldn't tolerate with my current sleeping ours (5~6hs). As I didn't come to a solution, I periodically went up and down from Re-Obs to Low EQ. Then, I changed the focus from noting the four phenomena to note degrees of clinging/aversion, and watch how I reacted to them. Finally, with a focus on jhanas, I observed how clinging/aversion impede a fuller experience. The thing is that when I tried to get back to a standard noting practice, it felt like starting from zero again.

From now on, I plan to first:

1. Have at least 5 hours of non-stop night sleep.
2. Get back to standard Mahasi noting practice, in order to get back to EQ.
3. Find a coach/teacher.

[Antero]

Then, I changed the focus from noting the four phenomena to note degrees of clinging/aversion, and watch how I reacted to them. Finally, with a focus on jhanas, I observed how clinging/aversion impede a fuller experience. The thing is that when I tried to get back to a standard noting practice, it felt like starting from zero again.

Welcome back, Pablo!

It is interesting how this clinging/aversion thing works underneath all the emotions, basically giving rise to them and we don't necessarily notice it happening when we are doing noting on the cushion. If you want to explore this theme further, one great application is to note pairs: feeling tone + your reaction to it. It could go like this:

unpleasant - aversion
pleasant - greed
unpleasant - greed
neutral - aversion
pleasant - aversion

Things are not as straightforward as one might think, so it is a worth of to try.

[PabloP]

Hi Antero!

In fact, I've been doing this noting by pairs, and usually what I noted was big deal of aversion everywhere, so that's why I tried to note the degree of aversion, in a 0 to 5 scale. Complementary to that, I tried to put the focus not in aversion but in pleasantness, to find if there's some kind of pleasure (or at least interest) in unpleasant phenomena, in order to have a more balanced view (it's easy to find the other way round ). The results are amazing, as it stopped (every now and then) some knee-jerk reactions in daily life, usually when I face time constrains pressure, dead-lines. But I admit I haven't practice it consistently yet.

Thanks for your help.

[PabloP]

In today's practice, I started noting physical sensations and then switched to feeling-tones + aversion/greed. As I mentioned earlier, I observed lots of aversion and just a few of greed notes in neutral feeling tones. A question worried me, regarding Antero's instructions: how is it that I'm not noting more greed/clinging towards phenomena? Then I saw myself clinging to thoughts! That's where greed shows up. There's both tension and greed towards some line of reasoning / goal, etc. I realized that up to now I was noting the aversion to get lost in thoughts, when in fact there's clinging to be noted first. I spent the rest of the session in choice-less awareness, so as to let space for thoughts to appear and see how I react to them. So far, it's not so easy to see the greed in the thoughts, but it's easier to spot the physical tension associated.

[Antero]

Hi Antero!

In fact, I've been doing this noting by pairs, and usually what I noted was big deal of aversion everywhere, so that's why I tried to note the degree of aversion, in a 0 to 5 scale. Complementary to that, I tried to put the focus not in aversion but in pleasantness, to find if there's some kind of pleasure (or at least interest) in unpleasant phenomena, in order to have a more balanced view (it's easy to find the other way round ).

That is a great application, thanks for sharing!

It is my experience also that if any of the three feeling tones are exclusively present, we are not seeing the reality clearly.

[Antero]

So far, it's not so easy to see the greed in the thoughts, but it's easier to spot the physical tension associated.

See if you can feel the size of your attention. Sometimes it is expansive and it feels good. Other times it is hovering tightly around the shape of our bodies, or it might even contract for example at the area behind the eyes. Each thought makes the attention contract, which not surprising because most of our thinking is mind grasping an object that is absent.

This is self contraction and is feels painful. If you can develop the feel for the expansion and contraction of the attention, you will start to see aversion/greed phenomena in a very detailed way and feel it as a physical pressure in the head or stomach created by the movement of the attention.

[PabloP]

Cool! I'll try that.

[PabloP]

This past week I restarted the noting practice. Following Antero's advice to feel the expansion/contraction of the attention, I did some research on Shinzen Young's "Flow" method, which focuses precisely in that expansion/contraction. It's an interesting path, a mix of vipassana noting with heavy focus on impermanence and non-dual awakening as a goal. So far, it's the closest method I've seen that matches my taoist background.

One mistake I noticed is that while doing the standard Mahasi method, I was noting the trees and not the forest, that instead I should note both at the same time. It was making me jump from one phenomena to another, instead of seeing the big picture, perhaps gaining in insight at the cost of adding more tension to the attention. I've found that (triggered by aversion) jumping from one phenomena to another didn't allow me to fully sense their arising and passing away. Instead, I let the pleasure or tension rise fully and see how it eventually fades partially/completely.

After some sessions, I've sensed the expansion/contraction of attention in the body, but also in the near a rounds, like a magnetic field, something I noted months ago during A&P. In fact, this week I had a mix of mild A&P and DN symptoms, and a closer and calmer stepping into early 1st jhana.