Jim's practice journal

[NeverSummer]

Srom the essence traditions, like mahamudra and dzogchen, I began to appreciate the depth of realization possible during ordinary concentration and special insight meditation was enhanced remarkably by shifting to the very subtle or extraordinary level of mind...the issue became less about concentration on the intended meditation object and much more about the level of mind brought to the concentration,

===
Jim, what pages are these from? I have Brown's book but I bogged down reading it. Lots of pages and much of it covered what I'm not interested in. Your directing me to the "good parts" would help.

Jack

I hear you about the bogged down part. Really, the majority of the book reads like an extremely dry academic monograph -- gems scattered throughout, but overall very ponderous. That quote you referenced is from the preface (page xxiii), which contained the style of writing I was hoping for throughout the text...At some point I'd like to do a retreat with Brown -- he certainly has a vast wealth of experience in a number of traditions.

[NeverSummer]

Woke up this morning feeling much better -- much more equanimous. Did 40 minutes of 2nd gear/strata practice. Concentration was good at the beginning and end of the session, wandering in the middle. Felt very centered the whole time. Went through the entire arc once and ascended back up to 6th jhana before dedicating merit.

Here several hours after the sit I can find a slight residue of anxiety if I look closely, but there is a sense of cycling away from that for the time being...We'll see.

[NeverSummer]

Quick re-cap of the past 3 morning sits:

Saturday: Sat for 65 minutes. This sit had a strong feeling of equanimity stage to it -- quite comforting and blissful. I felt very centered. Concentration was interesting -- it was good, but it was also easy to get lazy with it because of the overall feeling of bliss. Went up the arc, back down, and back up to PL#1 before dedicating merit. Spend an inordinate amount of time in PL#4 and PL#3 (on the way back down from 4).

Sunday: Structurally almost identical to Saturday's sit -- same length, same strata traversed, same inordinate amount of time spent in PLs #4 and #3. This sit did not, however, have the same feeling of blissful equanimity, although I did feel good.

Monday (this morning). Sit was 35 minutes -- went up to PL#4 and back down to 6th jhana, again spending more time in PL#4 and #3 than in other strata. Concentration and centeredness were both fair.

The pulses of anxiety I've been experiencing over the past few weeks seem to be gone for the time being.

Thanks to any and all who read this....Jim

[NeverSummer]

This morning sat for 30 minutes doing 2nd gear/strata practice. The sit was marked by equanimity -- just an all around feeling of bliss and ease. Centeredness and concentration were both good. Went up to PL#4 and back down to PL#1 before dedicating merit.

As in previous sits, spent a bit more time in PL#4 and PL#3 (on the way back down). These spaces are marked by lapses in concentration and energetic/physical tension in the body.

[NeverSummer]

This morning's sit report could be a carbon copy of yesterday's with the exception that a) I wasn't hung up in PL#4 and PL#3 for a longer amount of time, and b) I ended the sit back down in 6th jhana. Again, things are marked by a sense of equanimity -- blissful, content, an overall "squishiness" (really, there are some characteristics here that are difficult to describe in words).

I was reflecting that this overall feeling of equanimity, and it's onset, mark the first time that I've really been able to clearly delineate a transfer from dark night to equanimity. It's happened before, many times (and indeed, last late summer and early fall's equanimity/high equanimity stretch remains the reference point for describing how I am feeling now), but I've never tracked it so closely. I went back through my logs just to see how these cycles have unfolded:

~4/7 A deepening of practice in terms of vantage point/awareness of awareness. There were some things happening in this stretch that, at the time, I felt could be categorized as A&P stuff.

~4/8 -- ~4/22 dark night stuff starting to show up in spots. Concentration highly variable, trending towards not real great.

4/23 -- 4/25 practice deepening intensely, almost as if a layer of reality had peeled away..

4/26 Onset of oftentimes intense dark night symptoms.

5/2 Equanimity starting to well up beneath the anxiety.

5/3 -- present: Very strong feelings of equanimity.

Another thing that came up during the intense dark night stuff -- how to adjust practice to deal with it most efficiently. I've heard two lines of thought to approach this. One is to not dial back practice, to continue as much as possible with an attitude of complete surrender. Another tactic I've heard (and this is not necessarily addressed to the dark night per se, but rather with kundalini upsurges (which seem to be a hallmark of my own dark night experiences)) is to dial back practice quite a bit, eat heavy foods, have orgasms, etc. (this from Kornfield's "A Path With Heart", although I've seen these strategies mentioned in multiple other places). For my own part, I've found it helpful to switch the content of practice over to energetic/body-based work and body-based vipassana, all with an attitude of extreme surrender. In this particular cycle through, I did actually dial back formal practice (I pretty much stopped doing evening sits for about a week). This seemed to be, intuitively, what was called for. That said, moment-to-moment living was infused with an attitude of surrender -- the symptoms were so omnipresent at times that I was basically practicing constantly (without sitting) whether I liked it or not.

[NeverSummer]

Sat for 45 minutes this morning doing 2nd gear/strata practice. Concentration was moderate, felt very centered. There was a mild feeling of equanimity associated with the sit. These preceding statements could accurately describe my practice over the past five days or so. This particular sit was marked by tenseness and pulses of pain in the body -- energy that didn't feel very "smooth".

Ascended from 2nd jhana to PL#4, back down to first jhana and back up to PL#1 before dedicating merit.

[NeverSummer]

Sat for the same amount of time and covered the same amount of strata as yesterday. Felt very centered. Concentration was strong on the way up the strata the first time, spun out a bit in PL#4 and back down the strata, strong again on the way back up. This was most probably the fastest and most seamlessly I have traveled through the pure land jhanas.

General notes:

*For the past few days during strata practice, have been spending more time in the dukkha strata than usual.

*Ever since (the recently vanished) dark night symptoms started manifesting 1-1.5 months ago, the Pure Land jhanas have been very muted in their presentation. The outrageous bliss of PL jhanas 1 and 2 wasn't manifesting. That said, this morning the bliss was back.

*Another thing I've been meaning to record in this log but keep forgetting -- Just keeping track of my general level of enthusiasm with regards to practice. Typically, practice comprises a good amount of the percentage of my random thoughts during the day, as well as of my recreational reading. The reading aspect tends to ebb and flow depending on whether or not I feel like I'm taking in too much information and not having the opportunity to synthesize it all. At any rate -- beginning with the aforementioned dark symptoms, my level of enthusiasm for practice plunged. It's not that I didn't practice -- I just rarely thought about it, and had zero desire to read about practice. Over the past week or so, I feel my interest starting to rise again, and thoughts of practice are cropping up in "the stream" once more...

[NeverSummer]

Practice has followed the same general pattern for the past few days. Very equanimous and centered. Concentration varying. Spending more time in the dukka strata than normal during 2nd gear/strata practice. Likewise, spending inordinate amounts of time in PL#4 and PL#3 (on the way back down the arc). Lots of energetic tension, 3rd eye activity.

[NeverSummer]

Haven't had ready access to internet in quite awhile, in addition to doing some traveling. Roughly, practice is similar since my last post.

My morning sits are an hour in duration, and as of late they are they only formal practice I've been able to squeeze in.
Patterns I am noticing in practice (2nd gear/strata) include:

*Good centeredness and concentration, except when in the PL strata -- my concentration tends to wander here. I also spend an inordinate amount of time in said territory. PL #s 3 and 4, in particular, still include lots of energetic tension.

*Coming back down the arc, I've been blowing through 6-5-4 territory quite quickly (sometimes within seconds).

Although formal practice has been limited to morning sits (if that), attempting to apply 2nd gear/strata practice to moment-to-moment life has been getting more fruitful...During a long road trip to Yellowstone, had some success at doing 2nd gear practice with strata cycling while driving (I typically will do 2nd gear practice while driving but hadn't incorporated the strata of mind practice until recently). Curiously, although I obviously wasn't able to devote the depth of awareness to the strata while behind the wheel, the strata tended to cycle by more quickly than in my formal sits. Likewise, becoming much more aware of cycling throughout the day. I'm not 100% sure about what I am observing, as this element of practice is new to me, but it does some like if I find myself in a "funk" at any part of the day, I'll look into it and see that a) my "locus of attention" (defined in previous post) is wide, and b) my mind is churning a bit -- both symptoms of dukkha strata as I experience it. So, I'll sort of advert my mind to 2nd gear/strata practice, and the "funk" will pass and I'll continue to cycle through the strata. (and if my observations are correct here about what's happening, I'm morbidly curious about how much of my life, especially my 20s, I spent lodged and wallowing in these dukkha strata).

Overall, still seem to be in equanimity phase. Everything is peaceful, easy and stable. No dark night anxiety of any real duration, as well as none of the real hung-ho approach to practice that seems to mark my A&P phases.

Hoping over these next few days/weeks to be able to get in at least a couple of full days of retreat.

[NeverSummer]

Finally at a spot in time where I'll have some consistent internet access and hopefully be able to keep this log up to date.

A lot has happened since my last post in early July. Following that post, I got in quite a bit of practice -- not the full days of retreat I was hoping for, but about a ten day stretch with anywhere from 3-5 hours of practice daily. As per usual, my practice was mostly 2nd gear practice incorporated with strata-of-mind practice, as well as body-based vipassana and tsa lung exercises. One thing that came up fairly quickly in this stretch was a new strata in the pure land territory revealing itself. From (what I have been referring to as) pure land jhana number four, panorama of awareness and locus of attention widen into an extremely nice, stable, rooted state. I find it most similar in character to (what I have been referring to as) pure land jhana number 3, albeit much more "stable" and permeating.

For ease of reading, here's previously posted descriptions of some of the terminology I use, as well as of my experiences of the pure land strata:

“Locus of attention” -- basically, this is what my field of vision is doing if I allow it to relax. If I look at a small point on the ground in front of me, does my vision narrow and lock on to it (narrow locus of attention), or does my vision resist snapping into a narrow focus and instead tend to remain wide and more diffuse (wide locus of attention)?

“Panorama of awareness” -- this is different from the field of vision described above. It’s more along the lines of “what is awareness doing”? Is awareness narrow and pinched? or is it wide and expansive? This is much more a function of mind than of field of vision. I realize that this falls squarely in the realm of subjective gibberish -- I took me awhile to differentiate between “locus of attention” and “panorama of awareness” in my own experience, so I hope these distinctions resonate with anyone who might read.

Pure land jhana #1 -- The 8th jhana eventually gives way to incredibly sweet waves of bliss. I invoke “Namo Amitabha” (not even sure that’s necessary, but it’s certainly enjoyable), and the locus of attention and panorama of awareness blows wide open. Everything gets considerable brighter. Bliss waves permeate my body, particularly in the chakra/space 4 finger-widths below the navel. Activity in the third eye area (bliss and/or itching, vibrating) is common here. What’s really distinctive about this strata is the quality of the bliss -- it just has an incredible “sweetness”. This space is also permeated by a strong sense of gratitude -- the mouth forms into a wide smile.

Pure land jhana #2 -- Eventually the gratitude element of the first Pure Land jhana drains away -- the mouth is no longer compelled to go into a broad smile. Otherwise, this stage is very similar to Pure Land jhana number one -- the sense of sweetness and the body sensations remain.

Pure land jhana #3 -- Past PL jhana 2, the sweet bliss element leaves. Locus of attention remains wide, but curiously, panorama of awareness narrows, giving this space a slight resemblance to 7th or 8th jhana. A smooth-feeling energy permeates the body. There is a strong feeling of stability, but my concentration wavers here.

Pure land jhana #4 -- Exactly the same as PL #3 (sweet bliss is gone, smooth-feeling energy permeating the body), with the exception that the locus of attention narrows to a point. This transition is extremely smooth, and I often don't notice it exactly when it happens -- I just happen to notice that my locus of attention has all of a sudden narrowed. To me, this strata is similar to 7th jhana -- very "dim", in fact the "dimmest" of all of the strata I have encountered

Pure land jhana #5? (and actually, there should be question marks in front of all of these -- I'm not making any real claims, this is just my experience)...anyhow, this strata is described above.

So that happened. Practice deepened over those days, and a phenomenon that's happened before and is indeed documented in this log somewhere previous reared it's head again -- I went through a few days of the "fabric" of reality in practice peeling apart and being able to "see" much deeper into things, and then got slammed by a nasty, nasty dark night (and this really seems like, having experienced it with some knowledge about what it might be a few times now, a dissolution --> dark night cycle).

This dark night didn't have the characteristics I have previously ascribed to dark night phases in this log (typically, heart chakra "eruptions" and anxiety). Rather this one had a lot in common with depression (and while I can't rule an actual depressive episode out, when I look back over years of practice a lot of parts that I have strong suspicions were dark nights do have the about-to-be-described characteristics in common) - a draining out of the field of experience of anything that seems good or meaningful; huge doubts about practice and it's application; paranoia; pessimism; just a lack of "soul" in day-to-day life.

Bad news is this sucked. Good news is, I knew/know what it is and techniques that work (for me) to accommodate it and hasten it's passing. Bad news is that after that ten-day stretch of solid practice, I was traveling, visiting friends, socializing and had very little time for constructive practice. As such, in moment-to-moment life, I don't think I was dealing with it in a completely healthy way -- rather than accommodating it, I was subconsciously recoiling and pushing it away as I attempted to fulfill the day-to-day social obligations of my summer. Piling on top of this, in late July I got hammered with a nasty case of what is most likely the cyclospora stomach flu (I had originally thought it was food poisoning -- but after 24 hours of hell, symptoms (albeit less life-altering) are persisting even now).

To wrap this up -- I cut my summer vacation short. I came back home to Colorado. I've been using the last week or so to rest and practice and exercise -- yesterday was the best I've felt in what seems like a long time. In accommodating the dark night symptoms, tsa lung practice followed by body-based vipassana has been very helpful. Just allowing the "darkness" to manifest in the bodily vessel, seeing it as impermanent and not-self while relaxing and surrendering and bathing it in love as much as possible.

As always, thanks to any and all who read. Having been away for awhile and seeing today that this log has over 5000 views is kind of mind-boggling. I hope it is helpful to others. Looking forward to posting more technically, and more frequently...Jim