Mark P's practice notes

Yesterday PM: rough afternoon and evening. Evidently an unusual prolonged relapse of my overnight migraine. Felt like my nervous system had been roughed up with sand paper. Couldn't drive, talk or open my eyes in sunlight. Verging on an aversion panic attack but used noting to chill a bit.

From PM sitting notes: ..."spongie pressure, aversion, Aversion, Aversion, sad, sad, tender, pride, funny, self-image, hearing, seeing, self-image, stretching, pushing [sensations, not actions], warping, aversion, pain, worry, uncertainty. (Migrain feels like on drugs, sensations seem overblown, histrionic.) Throbbing, pulsing, imaging, that, that, posture, itching, waning, examining waning itch area, gone, tingling, feeling of gratitude oversomething I'd been thinking, retrospectively noting thinking, itch starts, spikes, many itches, (came back from drifting into dreamy thought), awake, irritated " ...

a.m. Woke up at a major down point. Felt like my practice was really on the ropes. Still didn't feel recovered from migraine and worried that I had nervous system damage or something. Perceptual field felt garbaged up with all kinds of gross intermixing of imagery and sensations, thinking it would be too poluted for even 1st Nana. Anticipating much more demanding work schedule for a big project. Worrying that I need to cut back on sitting to get more sleep and exercise. Felt like every prospect was a nail in the coffin for my practice. Then got an unexpected encouraging note from a KFD yogi and read a brief post by Kenneth on a sitting journal that really bucked up my steadfastness. Lost my Sunday a.m notes: about 45 mins. Started with aversion and confusion but ended up more with pleasant, healing energies.

pm notes: 1hr 15 mins. This sitting actually *was* relatively alert, quiet and continuously attentive to detail, so seemed ok to skip writing notes. Didn't feel as drawn to steeping in particular sensations, more to real-time investigating whatever is the current, predominant sensation, including intentions, efforts, images etc. Ended with a Resolve to drop my personal stories and return to noting. Keep bringing it back to the noting. Got up to mow the lawns. Unusually inward-focused and quiet, no stories going. Toward the end of the mowing observed a worrying about my projects at work story trying to start up. It didn't quite get off the ground. Kept trying to bring it back to noting sensations while mowing.

I wonder if it is useful to know whether one is having any of "dark night" phase? Seems like the advice is often just Keep Noting. If that's all there is to it, takes care of that. Having multiple projects with looming deadlines, burning the candle at both ends and eating into my sitting time. Had only 35 min sitting yesterday a.m. and 10 min pm. After work I was cranky and felt trapped. Expected exhausted sleep. Woke up after 2 hours with strange, cloud-burst images and sensations in my head that were kind of interesting. Started getting what I thought were pre-migraine signs. Felt intense anxiety about well being of family members and strong flight or fright in my chest. Sat up. These feelings were happening but I wasn't anxious about them, felt oddly detached, not exactly bystander but more like I just want to sleep, what is this stuff, like it was a pain in my toe. Suddenly the fight/flight switched to crying and felt more heart-felt. My wife comforted me and asked how I was doing, but found that I didn't want to characterize it too much or pin it on anything in particular. It occurred to me that my sorrow, the suffering of my loved ones, is part of a big suffering, not just mine. My wife was stroking my head and each stroke seemed to carry away the symptoms, no migraine started. Wished I could sacrafice a few hours sleep and go sit. Went to sleep. Maybe this is normal existential difficulty of being embedded in circumstances. If anything about it seems like DN nana-esque and that matters for practice in some way, I'd be interested. Other wise, I'm feeling too glum about work eating up my practice time to care. Back to noting: how many seconds until glum changes to pleasure etc.

am sitting 15 mins. Attempted noting whatever was predominant sensation of the moment. Still moved by Owen's accounts yesterday to reflect on embeddedness. See how it feels, hears, has tension and relaxtation of tension .... I doubt dark night is needed to explain anythng. Likely most average people with some embededness in averagely stressful circumstances would have stress-related experiences like mine.

"I wonder if it is useful to know whether one is having any of "dark night" phase? Seems like the advice is often just Keep Noting. If that's all there is to it, takes care of that."

Hi Mark.
Sorry to hear you're going through a rough time. Clearly, part of what is happening is that your actual life circumstances have become more difficult--the clouds have rolled in, in the form of the looming deadlines and your overall crazy work schedule. However, you're also cognizant that (1) at least some of your emotions around all this stuff might be coming from the meditation practice itself as you move through difficult and challenging strata of mind, territory that colors everything in your experience, and (2) that you should just keep noting.
Knowing both of these things, you're less likely to let the dark night, if that's what's going on, wreck your situation. You're at least circumspect about the origin of your suffering right now. Someone truly embedded in and caught by the dark night might, say, quit practicing and start trying to rearrange everything in his life to get rid of the dukkha that's coming up. That seems to be the value here--the knowledge gives you greater freedom.
I'm a freelance writer, and I have to deal with feast-or-famine situations where I might suddenly be totally buried in work. I've definitely noticed the relationship between thinking/worrying about the deadlines, and my own suffering. The less I think about what's going on--"How the hell am I going to get this done in time?" etc.--the better I cope with the situation. Sounds like what's coming up for you is a bit more spontaneous than that, but you might pay closer attention to "worrying thought" or "future thought," if you aren't already doing so.

Also, Mark, I think you will be surprised at how fast things will change from what you are feeling right now. Count on it.

Joel, that is a really cogent and practical view! Thanks so much for offering that. Very useful!

"I think you will be surprised at how fast things will change from what you are feeling right now. Count on it. "

Yes, like several times already just this week!! The issues of Getting lost in thought and Believing in thought I think are much the same. Returning to noting takes care of having been distracted, and takes care of having believed some thoughts. In both cases, evidently, you don't know you're lost until you wake up and note. Sometimes it seems obvious that noting is not just a practice to reach the goal but reflects how things are, while believing in thought is a mistake (the way things are is not what thought thinks). All that should be left, then, is to keep noting and don't keep picking up beliefs. But I keep waking back up from believing in thoughts again! Then it hit me that distraction and belief are practically the same. Noting is a muscle.

Only 15 mins of formal sitting time yesterday (except for the men's room stall!), with current project deadlines, one in 3 hours But had a totally unexpected nearly 2 hour practice opportunity in combination bus ride and long walk to get home. Turned out to be a great noting opportunity, as good as any sitting I can remember for range and precision of noting. Noting fingers on keyboard, seeing the screen. ("I think you will be surprised at how fast things will change from what you are feeling right now. Count on it. ) Today there will be chances to note discouragement and encouragement. May all beings remember to note.

Yesterday, no am sitting. 2 half hour walking meditations during the day. pm sitting: 1/2 hour. Had a sense of mind & body at times during the day, especially during walking & sitting meditations. Images & self image seemed somewhat observable from some quietness.

Today. am sitting 1.5 hours. Settled in immediately and would have been very happy to sit another 1/2 hour. Attempted immediate noting of the changing predominant sensation, including images and self image. This feels kind of like a moment to moment question. Felt like there was some noticable quietness and stillness. 2 or 3 times this week it occurred to me that the quietness, instead of an assumed background, might itself be observed as an object. Seems to work, but not sure.

""... distraction and belief are practically the same...""

That's a very interesting observation, Mark!

"Felt like there was some noticable quietness and stillness. 2 or 3 times this week it occurred to me that the quietness, instead of an assumed background, might itself be observed as an object."-mpavoreal

Nice! Always taking a step back to objectify what was previously seen as subject.

Hi, Jay! I'm interested what your experience is with that. I think I was trying to explain why I keep landing back in really believeing thoughts after finding them unconvincing for awhile. Guess it's part of my process of threatening to wake up. Noticing some poison arrows sticking out of me and then seriously reflecting about how a couple of them look pretty similar to each other!

"Nice! Always taking a step back to objectify what was previously seen as subject."

Kenneth, I stole that from a meditation master I've been reading almost daily for 6 months or so. Sometimes his pointers pop up when they can hopefully be put to good use!

PM sittings last night, 2 hours. Attempting to go back and forth between noting body sensations and images, self-images, & sometimes thoughts (though short verbal thoughts mostly got past me). The first 75 min sitting was threatening to get vague and drift, so used the trick of sitting attentively with the details of coming and going of pain. 2nd 45 mins, same practice but I think more settled and clear, not at all painful. It was engrossing, like 'which sensation is it now -- body, image, self-image or thought?'. Afterwards felt like just watched a very interesting movie, but wondered if I was really meditating very well, since I wasn't precisely characterizing sensations with apt descriptive words.

AM sitting today, 1 hour. Struggled for 1st 10 mins to get into noting but then it was engrossing. I remember thinking, "hmm, this could almost justify being called penetrating the object". Can't remember the details well, but it seemed like I had to quickly switch between penetrating mental or physical because if I only focused on one aspect it became more objectified. But couldn't find a stance from which to just quietly watch them both be penetrated together. A feeling of having a more penetrating perspective lasted until I'd been at work for about 1/2 hour. By then I'd lost it.

Yesterday, PM, 1 hr walking meditation in cemetary: had a hard time concentrating. Would have what seemed like strong practice for a few minutes, then lost in thought for a few minutes, then attempt to return. Towards the end got a bit more settled.

PM sittings: 1 hr. Sorry, I remember it felt plugged in to sit, but can't recall the details. I noticed a few times when waking up that the energy of mindfulness carried over somewhat into the night.

I'm kind of excited, seems like there might be indicators of creeping up the nana range a bit. I haven't grasped much from descriptions of 5th nana thru 1st Path, believing that I've been mostly working on trying to really get 4th nana to get over that hump on the way up to equanimity.

But Kenneth said something in Ron's journal recently that stuck:

"You can always tell the difference between the 3rd nana and the 10th because in the 3rd the itches are clear and bright. As you put your attention on the itch, it gets clearer and brighter. This is the opposite of what happens in the 10th nana, Knowledge of Re-observation, where every time you put your attention on an itch it disappears and pops up somewhere else."

I had been "digging into itches" for awhile after reading Ron's description of doing that while he was working on 1st Path. They always have behaved like 3rd nana ithces. Today, though, they just kept falling apart under my gaze and, in fact, other itches did then seem to arise anemically near by only to prove equally feeble.

That and some other things about today's sit got me really interested to find that line from Kenneth and read up more about nanas after 4.

I'm guessing that nanas have an intensity knob that can be set anywhere between 1 and 11 (as in Spinal Tap)? In my case right now on the low end.

Today, am sitting 1.5 hours. This one fits a pattern I'm starting to recognize that often happens on weekends (maybe because I've had more sleep than usual, can sit longer than usual?? Don't know). It feels like the sitting is really doing something but it's askew and fails to resolve and come together, even if I sit longer than usual.

I've come to expect, for a long time, that the morning sitting is going to get through any unpleasantries and tidy itself up after an hour or so with nice integrative feelings to start the new day. I'm now guessing that's 3rd going into 4th nana. The description of 5th nana has some familiar elements too. Feeling chilled out, very meditative, hard to think and speak clearly. Something like that happens every now and then. I think I was in 4th and 5th predominantly towards the end of this week. 6 and up I think may have been cycling around some for a couple of weeks now.

From 7th Kenneth writes: "Unpleasant sensations arise quickly and pass away before the yogi can focus on them, thus taking away one of the strategies that has served the yogi well until now, that of focusing on unpleasant body sensations in order to become concentrated."

And 10th: "Actually, the yogi is even more concentrated than before, but he is accessing unstable strata of mind that are not conducive to restful mind states or happy thoughts. The yogi obsesses about his progress, is sure that he is back-sliding, and devises all manner of strategies to "get back" what he has lost."

Those sound pretty suspicious. I had the inexplicable sense that I was exceptionally present and investigative, and kept trying to get my bearings by checking the quality of my noting, but couldn't figure out what was going wrong.

Eventually I tried surrendering which briefly makes everything fine. Then just decided, I don't get this but it keeps coming back around and it feels like it needs to happen and it's good. Just keep working and trust. So I had a pretty good attitude about it compared to recently when I've been all over the map.

Unfortunately, my family immediately had a variety of complex needs that I needed to respond to when my brain felt like it just wanted to go somewhere and quietly fall to pieces for awhile and then slowly come back together at some convenient time. I've been really cranky, making an effort to avoind being irritable, and failing, all day.

If I am in the 6 thru 10s I guess I may be in for some rough sailing yet, but I think that's great, actually, because I may have unconsciously screwed this up any number of times over the years. Now there is the opportunity to navigate through it.

Alternatively, I'm jumping the gun and still doing false starts from 3rd nana. I suspect not, but would very much prefer to get expert contradiction that sheds light than to develop wrong interpretations. In any case I believe the bottom light is don't get distracted by it, keep noting.

am sitting 1 hr 20 mins: I was ready to retract some from yesterday's enthusiasm, but this morning still felt like new territory. During the sitting, tried to conscioulsy track objective details for more useful reporting here (than to just announce, "Oh, it was lot like when Kenneth says ..."

It's interesting that adding tracking and recording onto noting doesn't have to be overwhelmingly busy and contrived, probably a common initial objection. Like noting, it seems to be a skill that can be developed that might add to precision and accuracy.

On waking the difficult thoughts and feelings started right up but softer. Grief about the hardships of my loved ones, thoughts and feelings of inadequacy, ineffectiveness, inevitablility of failure, lack of safety, nowhere to stand, nothing to hang on to. Tried to note what was happening. Looked out the window at sparrows contending over food and pecking order and flying away in fright. Noted revulsion at samsaric existence. OK time to get on the cushion.

Immediately I could tell I was plugging back in, and from there it often was somewhat new and different. I recall thinking that I was likely observing "going up" from 3rd to 4th within 1st few minutes. The anguished thoughts and feelings were replaced by more pleasurable sensations that I think had risen up in my head in a familiar way that usually happens more at the end of a sitting. Before long there was a more pronounced energy shift into my head and it felt and looked like expansion with visual light. Nothing cosmic but just entering into an expansive space from within the head. That felt kind of new, so checked out the details. I had pleasant, densely packed pinpricks all down my right arm. Shortly the locus shifted and it was all down my left arm. Noticed that posture felt quite grounded on the cushions. My body was sensitive, alert, relaxed and kind of quiet. Had to look closely to find just soft vibrational sensations, but I didn't have an acute sense of the vibrations, more of a body-wide view. I wondered if this could possibly be early equanimity (have to go read up on that). It seemed more spacious, acquiescent, and calm than what I associate with my usual integrative pleasant feelings that I think may be 4th, and it didn't have that bottoming out feeling that I think might be 5th, it felt "higher".

Skipping ahead, at one point the locus of obvservation seemed to somewhat unhinge and I'd have to say kind of fall off a bit to the left. This was the most striking part of the sitting. It looked like experience could all be objectified from a space of no movement. The body could be seen and simply relaxed in response. Most compelling, the brain energy could be seen it seemed as if it were a finite phenomena, a lit up little energy field, like a light bulb kind of over there (to the right?). This in contrast to being completely in and of the brain light bulb so that nothing can be seen beyond its light. This I've seen briefly before even as long as 7 or 8 years ago (when I had my 1st inspired lets-get-really-serious with daily sitting spell for a 3 year stretch). But it was dimmer before and I didn't have any process awareness around it.

What was new was an objectified seeing of thoughts as a physical process. I've been vaguely aware for months that I haven't been seeing thoughts that well and must be mostly embedded in verbal thoughts. In this peak episode, best as I can recall thoughts seemed like a windy energy coming up through the throat and into the head. With a very attentive stillness that process could be seen from a relatively early point and thinking was objectified. For a short time I felt like the whole thing - body, brain, thoughts, could be objectifed effortlessly, it had to be effortless. It was a little bit like a revelation. Nothing my brain was doing had to be fixed. Just watching it do its thing and seeing how it was not a problem. Then it felt like the locus was physically shifting back over onto the center of the energy channel and settling into the brain again. I could tell I was re-embedding somewhat but it still seemed OK, like I can still just watch this and learn.

Much of the rest of the sitting was like that, kind of a going back down but with a sense of waxing and waning spacious observation. At one point it felt almost like plopping back down to a different level still within the head. What I think of as the familiar 4th and 3rd nana level. The lighting was different, more like sunlight, than white light and things looked more ojbectified. Then I wasn't sure, when I relaxed/allerted more into spacious observation, it seemed like the locus might have shifted around again, maybe back and forth.

Seems like I'm forgetting or taking for granted some good diagnostic details, but this is already a lot of journaling. Oh, at one point 2/3rds through, had the touching feeling, like gentle awe, that I was simply privy to a natural process and there was nothing to do but stay put and let go. Even while appreciating that I knew that within minutes I'd be back on the dance floor trying to find my balance. Oh yeah, when I 1st was checking out whether I might be in some equanimity, noted that I could put attention anywhere in the body where there has been stress or pain and it would dissolve into relaxation and subtle feelings. Later when I came back down, the usual grosser sensations, pains, itches, twitches and energy movements and stretches came back too.

One thing that's always puzzled me is how these adventures in consciousness can lay in wait for the next sitting while I go and writhe and struggle and enmesh all day in gross mind and body states all day?!

Sitting ended with a heartfelt prayer that my practice obsession will cause no harm to my loved ones and bring only benefit.

Had to go without sitting this a.m and without getting more info about what's going on with my practice (and another chance to indulge in amateur diagnostics and nana speculation). Often I feel unimpressed by what seem like pretty cool sittings which seem to have no impact on the rest of my day. Yesterday's didn't turn out like that. I felt somewhat altered all day, not so much more (of my definition of) aware, but more open in a somewhat undefined way.

After not sitting at all this morning, most of the day at work felt noticably different. Like I'm somewhat not operating in the familiar ruts, energetically. At times I could, briefly, be participating in a meeting but experience a vipassana-level of awareness of sensations, even mental. In the men's room stall my mind was perseverating about something and I thought, you can see where this is going, are you ready to start admitting that you're not that mental activity? and start admitting that you are the stillness? The stillness was somewhat available, so it wasn't just a rhetorical question.

Experimenting at times today day with being faintly aware in stillness from the midsection, an awareness that barely was able to objectify the mind, so the awareness wasn't a mental accomplishment.

After the office cleared out, sitting at my desk for just a few minutes I entered into energy that until recently would come only after an hour. It included rush of energy into the head, tight constriction of chest, neck, face and forehead. (Yesterday this constriction extended from hara to forehead.) Grimace and silent scream.

A couple of times today while walking I had upwhellings of energy or inwellings of intimation that said, this is not pretend! Be real, be still. It would be habitual to want to go out with the Affirming energy of that. And I did some, did a little singing in the car with a clarity I haven't had in years. (It felt like my throat chakra opened up some yesterday.) I don't have piano training but learned how to fake playing keyboards for junior high bands and not very good about playing anything complicated in reliable beat with left hand with the flashy little trills I can do with right hand. On a hunch I sat down and could consciously, intentionally track a more complicated pattern with left and right hands at the same time. My daughters seemed impressed.

This is really indulgent. When I start getting *really* impressive states and experiences, with my long years of feeling like I'm never going to get anywhere, I'm going to be vulnerable to getting very drunk with the whole thing. I'm just ungracefully dumping how I'm experiencing it, naively carried away and all, for diagnostic and instruction possibilities.

The embarrasing thing is, it's not really that much, it's just enough to make me think I'm probably not completely fooling myself. Finally getting a chance to sit tonight for a bit, it felt for a little while like I was attached to myself from the umbillical cord, trying to just be down there out of my mental activity. Well a big swing down must be coming up before long. I have a lot more experience with handling that than the upswings.