Ron's Practice Journal

"Apparently I've run out of things to say on nothing, so there is nothing to look forward to."-telecaster

I dig your sense of humor, Mike.

"Yesterday as I was experiencing this I was meditating in a public park across the street from my apartment, and someone's dog barked. I felt like it was directed at me and jumped."-RonCrouch

Knowledge of Fear is the smokin' gun here.

It happened again tonight and I'm getting a better sense of it.

The sitting started out normal and ran the typical course of cycles (up to A&P and back for the first 15 minutes or so, then up to Dissolution for each cycle during the sit). Tonight, about 25 minutes into the sit I was noting the lack of focus, coolness, sinking, and so on that signals Dissolution and then I became more alert and focused, however the rising sensations and pleasant raptures that happen during A&P didn't come up. The sudden alertness (ease of noting and ability to focus on sensations without trouble), suggested to me that this was not Dissolution, it just felt different, and if it wasn't A&P, then I think it really may be the Knowledge of Fear. What happened was that I suddenly felt a subtle tension and nervousness that spread over the front of my body. It was both an emotional feeling of dread and physical sensation that is difficult to describe. It lasted only for a few minutes.

Tonight I realized that what was pushing me along on the arc was the noting combined with concentration. When I get into Dissolution, I just don't want to note. It seems hard to do and there is no clear focus to the attention, as if I suddenly get drowsy without feeling like I need to sleep. The key, I think, is to stick with it and note. Not just note, but really feel what is being noted as fully as possible (concentration to me).
What made this clear was that the first few times I was in Dissolution the noting became soft and fell into the background, but the last time I put more energy into the noting and concentration, and that is when I emerged out of Dissolution and not back into A&P.

Hey Ron... Great to see you are progressing along the path. As you know its not all pleasant but Keep the Faith...

Clayton

Thanks Clayton, I'm mucking through it but what a yucky part...

30 minute sit tonight. Started with A&P raptures immediately (light, pressure, rising sensations). This was not a surprise to me because I had been feeling some tickling in the 3rd eye area throughout the day, which sometimes happens and seems to correspond with good concentration. Dissolution was reached about halfway into the session, which is soon for me. However, I didn't experience Knowledge of Fear this time. It may have happened very quickly and i missed it though, because I'm very spacey in Dissolution.

One thing that I'm noticing off the cushion is that I have more nervous energy than usual, and am cranky. My wife mentioned it yesterday and that was confirmation that it wasn't just something I had thought up on my own. Another thing, I'm finding my mind is busier with what seems to be "junk thinking", just random thoughts related to stuff I don't really care about. It feels aimless, distracting and a little distressing. When I sat tonight it was hard to clear my thoughts even though the concentration was good. A strange combination for me.

Ugh! frustration.

I've not experienced Knowledge of Fear since earlier this week.

Two things are seeming to happen. The first is that the 30 minute sits don't seem to do it anymore. I may need to commit more time to go further along the path. The second thing, and I don't really want to admit this, is that I feel like I'm avoiding meditation more. Funny. I used to want to do it more than anything. Now it is beginning to feel like a chore. sigh. This is definitely dark night.

I used to avoid working on my dissertation by taking extra long meditations. Now I'm avoiding meditation by working extra hours on my dissertation.

Wow man been there. Sounds like Misery to me. (Take with a grain of salt) Defiantly Dark Night sounding. As the wiser say... consistency not heroics... The fruits of your practice will be worth it... All of us have to navigate this territory again and again

Thanks Clayton - I'm keeping on keeping on.

Tonight I sat for 45 minutes. After about 25 minutes of cycling up through A&P and Dissolution I once again experienced that strange Knowledge of Fear state. It is fear, but it is a different kind of fear than I thought it would be. What happens is that as I'm noting my way through the sluggishness of Dissolution I begin to feel like I'm waking up out of it. The noting becomes easier and the mind moves more swiftly. The strange thing is that I experience a change in the bodily sensations, as if my nerves slowly go on an "alert" status all over the front of my body (not the back for some reason). I don't really feel fear in the sense that I'm startled or scared, it is as if I'm getting more and more nervy and on edge.

This is definitely impacting me off the cushion. I feel more tense and irritable, and I'm noticing that I'm just being more insensitive to my wife. Really not good, seeing as how she is in the second trimester. I should be a super nice guy to her right now. When I catch myself being crabby I try to apologize and make up for it right away (I've been cooking treats a lot lately). Another thing is that I'm having some physical symptoms, mostly headaches and muscle tension.

As a bonus, I do feel more energetic than when I was topping out at Dissolution.

35 Minute sit tonight that started slowly with a lot of discursive thinking. The thinking settled down on it's own after about 5 minutes of noting the thoughts and "stepping back" from them. A&P started with tickling sensations around the third eye area, pressure at the top of my head, and rising sensations of energy. Cycled between A&P and the lower nanas for about 8 minutes or so and then felt dissolution. Noted sinking, coolness, difficulty noting (I actually noted this), and the cadence of my breathing changed. I also noticed that I slumped a little with each exhale. After cycling back down and back up to dissolution I felt myself drifting into knowledge of fear. Again it felt like I was on edge, as if I had too much coffee. I could feel my muscles tensing up. Then it was back down for another cycle.

The last few sittings I have been experiencing KoF sooner and it is lasting a bit longer. As I sit with it I find myself grimacing and making faces, which Kenneth warned me might happen as I move along in this territory.

Another interesting thing that is happening is that I find that after cycling up to KoF, in the next cycle up I'm more distracted by thinking. This happened during the last two sits. It goes like this, once I'm moving out of A&P and into Dissolution my mind starts to drift more than usual. Junk thinking mostly. Songs repeating, memories of the days events, fantasies of conversations, planning for what to do after the sit, etc. I catch and note the thoughts as soon as I can, but then a new thought pops up and starts to take me along... I've had this happen before, but mostly when I was learning the basics of mediation and was very new. The intensity of it is different than before getting into this new phase of the path.

The psychologist in me can't help but wonder if this isn't some little pattern of avoidance. I don't like KoF and it could be that my mind is basically saying "yuck! no more" and throwing up all sorts of distractions.

Of course, speculations like these probably are not helpful. I'll just keep up the practice and stick to the method.

You're beyond Knowledge of Fear, Ron. You still go through it in each sitting, but it's no longer your cutting edge. Once the dukkha nanas begin, they come hard and fast. It doesn't take long to go through Fear, Misery (which is where the grimacing begins), Disgust (more grimacing), and Desire for Deliverance ("Let me out of here!"). Soon after seeing Knowledge of Fear for the first time, you find yourself in Re-Observation, the King-Daddy of the dukkha nanas. This one can last a long time, so you have to have your wits about you and good practice technique. Make friends with it, with no intention to avoid, short-circuit, or "get through" it. About the time you have befriended it, it will give way to Knowledge of Equanimity.

As always, the advice is "constancy, not heroics."

Kenneth

Thanks Kenneth. I'm sticking with it and trying to come to peace with whatever comes up. I had some strange Dark Night dreams that I'll tell you about next time we talk, they are likely not important but kind of fun to talk about.

Today an interesting thing happened. About halfway through a 30 minute sit I got to KoF and then into the grimacing and then a new sensation occurred. A weird pulsing around the field of my attention. It seemed to happen at random places around the body and the pulses sometimes overlapped and "clashed" with one another. No other good way to say that. I'll see if it comes up again and keep you up to date.

"It seemed to happen at random places around the body and the pulses sometimes overlapped and "clashed" with one another. No other good way to say that."-RonCrouch

Knowledge of Re-Observation. 10th of the 16 Insight Knowledges. Steady as she goes.

Keep up the good work Ron!

Thanks for the encouragement Clayton, and Kenneth, thanks so much for the guidance!

Today I had a 30 minute sit in the park to try and make things a little nicer (the weather is wonderful in Chicago right now). About 20 minutes into the sit I experienced KoF. I noted "anxiety" and "fear" and "tension" frequently during those first few minutes, and soon noticed myself grimacing like before. This time Disgust came out very prominent with a strong sense that the bodily sensations were strangely "yucky." I suddenly became aware of every unpleasant sensation, and particularly unpleasant sensations on my skin. A few moments later the Desire for Deliverance came on very strong, much stronger than I expected, and I actually had the thought pop into my head "God, just stop!"
No pulses or other things that would point to reobservation this time.

I am pretty impressed by how much this is affecting me off the cushion. It was much worse today, and I felt just a strong but vague sense of discomfort all day. It was as if I hadn't had enough sleep and was cranky. I'm trying to make peace with it and not get caught up in sensations.

I seem to be coming to peace with this and though I'm still being affected off the cushion, it isn't having such a big impact anymore.

Yesterday I went up through the stages and got into DN territory for quite some time, perhaps 5 to 8 minutes. As before, I noticed feeling on edge, followed by grimacing and disgust. This time disgust was rather mild and was limited to an uncomfortableness with the sensations on my skin. The desire for deliverance kicked in and it seemed as if I was crying a little bit as I breathed out, like a pitiful little pouting whine. This was pretty subtle and happened all by itself, this time I didn't have any big thoughts pop into my mind for it to stop. Then I got beyond that, and though there was no pulsing this time, it felt like there were hundreds of little uncomfortable sensations happening that were too fast for me to catch. Everything seemed to be happening very quickly all of a sudden. I did notice little aches and sharp pains around my body. The whole field of attention seemed suddenly very active.

Two new things to report here.

First, Kenneth described this as a bit of a "bipolar" type of experience and now I see why. The past two sittings whenever I go through A&P and Dissolution the experience is far more pronounced. This is especially true when it comes to the sensation of light. I experienced the brightness of light so intensely that I opened my eyes for a moment to see if anything had changed in the room. Also, the flow of energy is much coarser and I end up shaking because of it.

A second interesting thing is that I'm finally getting why this stage is called re-observation. Yesterday I stayed in it for quite a while and noticed that I was rapidly cycling through fear, misery, disgust and desire for deliverance, as if they were just getting piled up onto one another. In addition to those three though, this stage has an added high energy that the others don't. It is like there is so much going on at once that it is difficult to really follow it. Lots of little unpleasant sensations flitting in and out of existence all over the field of attention.

I see why this is called the "rolling up of the mat" phase of the journey.

I've been slacking off and found out just a few minutes ago that it takes a toll. I skipped a day of meditating (rationalized for all sorts of reasons, but mostly because I'm averse to DN). Today I got back on the cushion and sat for half an hour and didn't get beyond Dissolution.

It seems that if you don't keep up the practice, you lose ground on the path. A valuable lesson. From now on I'll need to keep the mat firmly unrolled and stick with it.

Yes, momentum is wickedly easy to lose and annoyingly hard to regain. If you can just keep it rolling, it pays snowball dividends.

edit: typo

Thanks for the encouragement Kenneth, I'm keeping things moving and keeping my eye on the dividends.

The last two sittings I was able to get back into DN territory. Similar to previous sessions, I find myself feeling nervous and edgy, then notice a grimacing and overall wish for the unpleasantness to stop. This isn't lasting very long now (less than a minute) and then I get into what I think is reobservation. It feels more stable than the previous nanas, and the main characteristic of it is that it seems as if there is a lot of sped up activity going on that is just unpleasant by nature. I also notice lots of aching and sharp prickling type pains at weird spots all over my body. These sensations sometimes fire off one right after the other and overlap a bit.

No sense of equanimity yet. I'm keeping the mat unrolled.

Re-observation is Whac-A-Mole.

"The connotation of "Whac-a-mole" or "Whack-a-mole" in colloquial usage is that of a repetitious and futile task: each time the attacker is "whacked" or kicked off a service, he only pops up again from another direction."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whac-A-Mole

Keep at it Ron!
metta, Peony

Thanks Peony, I appreciate the encouragement!

The whac-a-mole analogy makes a lot of sense. Today I sat for about 50 minutes and when I was in reobservation it felt as if all the sharp little sensations disappeared before I even had a chance to notice them. The whole field of attention was active with what I'll call "static," hundreds of little unpleasant sensations overlapping and zipping in and out of being. There were two other layers to this as well. A physical layer: painful aches, tingles, itches and sharp pains, and a mental layer: noting thoughts of regrets and self-criticism.

An interesting thing about this whole experience which I've noticed before: you don't go to your cutting edge on the path right away, but go up and down the arc a few times before going into the new territory. However, what I didn't account for is that as you go farther along the path, that means you need longer and longer sits to get to where you left off and get down to work.

35 minute sit tonight and this time I got into DN territory much sooner, perhaps 20 minutes in. As usual it started with edgy anxiety, followed by grimacing and tensing around the eyes. When I got to reobservation it seemed much less distressing or rather, it felt less harsh than in prior sits. Though there were myriad unpleasant sensations they were less difficult for some reason. Then I think I got into a new place and at first I wondered if I were back in dissolution, but it felt different. There wasn't the slow spaciness that I feel in dissolution and rather than difficulty noting, noting became easier. It was almost as if I had suddenly slipped all the way back down to A&P but without all the excitement. it was very comfortable but Alert.

Afterwards my mood was great and not at all cranky or irritable. I think this might be a taste of the next stage but am not sure if it isn't just wishful thinking. I'll keep it up and see what happens next.

Hi Ron.
Thanks for these posts. It's very inspiring to see how you're making progress with the noting practice!
Keep on posting!
Joel