Bill H practice log

Still here, coming back around to just noting more and more on the cushion instead of doing 2-3 different things as 'prep'. Mixing in at random some yes notes and some ships in the harbor a few times here or there... Having very painful off-cushion sensations in the front of the face and head. Feels like parts of the nervous system coming alive after disuse? Sometimes wondering what makes progress so painful for some yet not for others? I'm not sure thats even knowable. Maps a bit more clear with straight noting - just keepin on.

"Bill H":1ohexvwn wrote: Feels like parts of the nervous system coming alive after disuse?[/quote:1ohexvwn]

Cool. Keep us posted on how this shapes up. Will the newly sensitive areas stay that way or go back to sleep?

- Well it seems to be a slow painful process, but yes it does feel as if areas in the head bit by bit are waking up. Seems more like a two steps forward, one back deal.

What I have been doing the last week and it really seems to accelerate this process - is to generate metta and project it around and through the head, finding areas of tension or unpleasant sensation and kneading the metta through it if possible.. I have found some small but very painful spots in my neck that have been 3/4 cleared out now from awareness - some really odd emotions and memories tied to those spots in my neck. Slowly freeing up more bandwidth to use for being alive!

Still here -

I have been continuing to practice twice 40-55min a day as I have been the last 2 years.. Some days its easier although for the most part lately things have been difficult on the cushion and staying on there for 45 minutes is sometimes tough. Seems like on certain random infrequent days I might get a peek up into low EQ (maybe) and the nanas seem obvious and on others the whole thing is just wild, harsh, painful, and everything just shakes (like I was looking through a camera that was being shaken).

I have been playing a bit more with concentration to see what kind of pre-noting work helps out the noting the best and I seem to have come to an understanding of something that I hadn't really grokked before - Its not holding the mind still on a spot on the stomach or nose or anything else that helps the noting out... Its applied continuous thought, using up the bandwidth of the mind so it doesn't wander.. THAT seems to help the noting the most. I don't need to spend 15-20 minutes trying to hold the mind onto a spot at all - in fact that may work (sometimes) but it doesn't seem to help noting.

Two situations I have played with where I can come up with an example -

Mahasi style noting, to make sure I get more out of it all I need to do is make sure the riiiising and faaallling notes are continuous with the breath, with no gaps in the note if possible and that the noting becomes the only thing the discursive mind is doing while watching the breath (even if somewhat haphazardly at first)

Choiceless noting - the noting needs to be fast to 'work' (to see the 3C of anything at all), fast and continuous, again the only thing the discursive portion of the mind is doing is the noting - everything else is random chatter that comes up on its own but is always being noted when it does. If there are small gaps in the noting (it feels very slightly rushed when it seems to work) - it stops being effective for me.

Just writing this down for my own sake really - I know Kenneth has written this stuff down numerous times but I think I finally see how it works in practice..

Keeping on...

Tried a session (50min) of just pure choiceless with no mahasi or at least anchored warmup and I got stuck in perhaps the most painful (what I thought was third) nana possible...

repost from DHO: Hope this helps anyone who might be in a similar place


For anyone interested - I did *finally* discover how to gain some stability in samatha practice so I am doing a bit more of that right now (have been noting for the last 6 mo or more) - I appear to have some sort of PTSD type stuff going on which comes up when I get more concentrated and tends to cause(or be involved with?) intense pain and blockages/etc when/if I go up into the dukkha nanas. It also seems to create so much instability that it derails insight(and concentration of course). I was able to get beyond it temporarily somehow on retreat at the first of the year and have a fairly stable half hour in EQ but since then have only seen that place once for a minute at best.

So I am going back to work on this 'stuff' and have been using some somatic experiencing (I will go find a practitioner soon for this) and am trying out some of the Byron Katie stuff... But thats not what I am here to add today, just background.

I found that if I use the rising/falling note of Mahasi almost as a mantra that takes up 2/3 of attention it can help wipe the mind of the repeating PTSD stuff that I normally cannot see, and seems to be deepening concentration in a way I haven't been able to get until now. It is also opening up awareness of painful areas in the head that I have a hard time with so it feels important to do this right now. It seems so far that I am also able to do this type of practice without moving up the maps as long as I don't look too carefully at the details of either the breath or the note. Not sure where I am getting up to but it feels like close to access or 1st VJ as things start to stabilize and I am floating with the breath 'way down there' and a sense of being immersed in stillness and space (pretty sure I am not up to 5th, so not sure why space is so obvious).. Think I will deepen this for a bit and then see what happens when I investigate it.

So the method is a continous riiiiising and faaaaling note the ENTIRE time the breath is watched for direction and that mental activity seems to help gel the mind on the task better than just looking at the breath would. Its like giving the mind a continuous task so it can settle down (applied thought?)

Hopefully if anyone else out there has been having similar issues with concentration or 'stuff' causing instability this will help them too.

FWIW I meant not moving up the maps 'on the cushion' as I still dont seem to have any control of it occuring off-cushion, but Im used to it by now.

straining at all is starting to get in the way... Seems like the more relaxed I can do any practice the better. Couple of sits today and it was clear that a loosely anchored mahasi done in a relaxed way produced better results (I think I flip flopped between mahasi and choiceless a few times just because). Pretty sure I got to a lowish EQ, fine vibrations, sensations of peace, awareness complete in the head and open into everything at once, then near the end falling back down into some rough stuff, different types of unpleasantness doing their thing.

Beth had told me a few days ago that I needed to relax more - as stubborn as I seem to be I will do my best to take this to heart.

Been doing near constant mahasi and some choiceless during the day but generating way too much agitation, trying to focus on anything ramps up agitation still..

Curious about the 'focus on rest' practice and whether it could be a good base for choiceless noting. I have used lots of concentration in the past and it speeds the noting along but doesn't seem to do much for stability.. I will test this out and see how it goes.

As usual when I go off on one of these tangents things seem to work for a day until I get stuck in wicked harsh DN, then the only thing that helps at all is choiceless noting...

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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. <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

55 min breathing mediation using Thanissaro's Instructions here <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href=" www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/Eac...ryBreath_v130123.pdf "> 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.

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.

Same, also doing some somatic experiencing stuff with a psych which is probably going to take some time. Finding pleasantness in the body is helpful when the mind gets stuck in fear (my brain doesn't let go of fearful energy..When I get surprised by something it can take days for it to wear off) - although interestingly I still need to breathe down the front when things get spacey/fuzzy and then stuff starts to get clear again to a degree. I have heard that some chinese medicine can help with that sort of thing although I have always been fairly skeptical. Very difficult to ground myself but learning how to do it..

Had a rush of piti the other day as the breath got extremely bright for a bit, and it was an interesting experience, the warm exciting energy felt like it was filling up every spot in my body... Somehow soothed over anything else there and lasted for a while, after which even off the cushion I noticed that it was easy to find a bright clear breath-object when desired (for a bit)...

Am finding that there are two ways to concentrate on an object, and I am starting to see the beauty of the second way <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

1. First way is to simply place awareness on the object. Usually this requires a certain amount of 'force' and seems to be difficult.

2. Second way is to simply decide to restrict all my thinking to the object only. Can I just sit here and think about the breath in a way that causes the mind to be interested in only that thing? Yes this works and feels natural, less strained and leads much more quickly to enjoyment (so far)

I will continue to experiment with this - its very interesting stuff.

OK this is interesting - apparently there is no way to avoid the maps... I prefer to use the breath with a loose focus, no words and a wide peripheral awareness that lets everything in (trying to focus in seems to add aversion anyway) and let the rest of experience do what it will, which is 'the maps' - it just seems alot easier to keep grounded that way, 3C's of the rest of experience happen on their own in their own time and so do the shifts... I was fooling myself thinking I was somehow avoiding them.

Learning that the *way* I breath has a similar impact on the nervous system as smiling - its a reverse feedback mechanism. If There is lots of anxiety, I can calm the system down by simply directing the breath to move in a way that would be normal if I was very calm. The nervous system seems to be able to pick up on this cue and can follow the breath back to a less stressed place. Its going to take alot of work to see when this is useful, when it works, and when it doesn't.

Came up with a method that seems to release the energy of stored emotions, initially as emotion and then as a 'shudder' of sorts -

concentrate for a while until difficult tension arises as it likes to do... Looking into the middle of the tension I see there is some sort of repeated self-image, an image of being terrified or of being worthless, or sad, or hurt in some way, whatever... I look briefly at the image and then verbally &quot;not me&quot; or &quot;this image is not who I am&quot; - and not in a 3C way, in a sortof refuting any belief in the image way.. Curious - will have to compare this to what my somatic experiencing guy tells me to do to see if it has similar effects.