Rob's Practice Notes

Hi Rob.

I leave the nana to the nana experts. In terms of noting, I would ultimately go with what Kenneth individually recommends for you since you are starting this somewhat fresh.

But to offer a little grist for the mill, I almost always do exactly what you are saying here, which is note and then follow this up with a concentrated or quiet approach. I do this according to a subtle energetic or emotional sense that I should shift things, that it is "time" to stop noting (or, in previous phases of my practice, when I wasn't noting, to stop focusing on the breath or mantra). I find the quiet time allows more depth in some ways. However, if I don't note--or if I am forcing the quiet approach too soon--that doesn't work well either. Too much inner turmoil.

One tip if you ultimately follow this tact: Don't be afraid to shift back to noting (or mantra or whatever). This is something I am re-learning. Lately I've been finding myself noting just a few minutes in the middle, and then will be pulled back to the quiet approach. Kenneth recently suggested frustration was a good internal gauge (when frustrated, go more basic). I think this works very well.

Yours,
Mark

Thanks very much, Mark. You've put it well- lately, I do feel a sense that, after a certain point in the session, I'd be ploughing some subtle and valuable stuff over, if I doggedly stuck to verbal noting, possibly closing off the development of what feels like a new, wider field of attention with quicker observation. But I will check in with Kenneth. I'm not immune to fooling myself!

On the other hand, I connected with what you said about "going basic" - just last night, I found myself assaulted by sleepiness after shifting to that quiet/"concentration", and I returned to verbal noting to revive the energy.

My journal for today: Last night, there was, at first, a similar succession of experiences to what I described before- itchy-achy followed by exhiliration and shaking, although it then went to drowsiness (possibly due to recent large Indian meal!), wherein I switched the verbal-noting machine back on. This propelled me back to wakefulness and a spacious place where I could track the buzzing a number of bodily discomforts from a very very very peaceful place. I was slow and gentle to pull myself up after the bell rang, doing a short "metta" exercise to invite reality back in, step by step!

Again, there were waves of anxiety that struck me during and after the sitting- in fact, I would say there were a rich variety of emotions that crisscrossed in the late part of the sitting, but they are hard to describe when they are all just 'there', shifting, and objectless. After the sitting, it settled into a low level of anticipation-flavoured anxiety with periodic spikes, for an hour or so after.

Also, I find that trickles of all of these practice sensations- elation, objectless anxiety, hyper-clarity, physical tingles- arise at unscheduled moments. I don't find them disruptive; although I'm still curious to hear from anyone who can speak about different kinds of "nyana" experiences about how and whether to keep them from becoming disruptive. This is all very novel to me.

In the late part of yesterday, the objectless anxiety was present more or less continuously- to the extent that I was considering temporarily abandoning or slowing down practice. This is the most that I have ever felt that a meditation-related state of mind was persisting so far into my daily activities. I know that that's "a feature, not a bug", as they say in software.

However, I am wasting a certain amount of obsessive energy worrying about where it can go if it gets worse. Since reading MCTB, I've always been a bit obsessed with dread about the dukkha nanas, particularly its capacity to have an impact for my wife- I've always tried (and occasionally failed) to respect the fact that my practice shouldn't be her problem. So I'm reluctant to plunge ahead into strange emotional territory without an understanding with her. We talked a bit about that last night, and she at least felt that it would be silly to backtrack at this point. I don't know if it's a comprehensive understanding, but it's a great relief to me, and has lifted a bit of the obsessive quality in my anxiety this morning. It's in my nature to have to be reminded, about every week or so, to just chill.

Last night, I did a 45-minute sit, with a resolution to note consistently but to not bear down too hard. I went in with that anxiety, and travelled through the usual (for the past 3 or 4 days!) progression of states (itch/ache - exhiliration - open calm - anxiety), but the sit was among the *physically* easiest I've ever had- as if every bone was just in the right place.

Rob, this is good progress, clearly documented. At this point, momentum is as important as ever. See if you can maintain the gentle pressure of mindfulness throughout the day, on and off the cushion. You can concentrate or note; just do some kind of practice as continuously as possible. This will keep the difficult mind states somewhat at bay while you learn to stabilize in equanimity. Don't be discouraged if you have some tough days; you are not backsliding, you are just moving your baseline up the ladder. At some point, your baseline must inevitably be the dukkha nanas. So be it. It doesn't last forever, and you couldn't turn back now even if you wanted to. It's great that you have your wife's support for the difficult times and she will among the first to benefit from your enlightenment, so it all works out in the wash.

(Je vais répondre à votre lettre cet après-midi et nous pouvons organiser une réunion pour la semaine prochaine.)

I've had several occasions in the last 24 hours to appreciate the value of keeping up a constant pressure of mindfulness- notably a moment last night about 3am when I woke up, and was suddenly seized with a powerful wave of anxiety. I started to note the sensations- anxiety, tingling, tingling, hearing, pulsing, pressure, etc..., and over the next couple of minutes, the feeling resolved into a buzz with a distinct rhythm, at the speed of a jackhammer - dadadadadadadadadadadadadada - which then receded into the background, with the foreground experience eerily similar to eating "Pop Rocks", if anyone remembers what those are, except in my whole body, rather than just my tongue. Pop - poppop - pop - - - pop - poppoppop. Noting (plus answering a call from the bladder!) took me to a more spacious place, where I was mercifully able to fall promptly back to sleep.

Other phenomena include periodic, spontaneous moments of hyper-clarity, like suddenly seeing my surroundings for the first time, over and over.

Kenneth, I'm really feeling this momentum. I previously saw the practice as a formal process of moving through a progression of states during a defined sit. At the end, I'd gradually remove myself from that headspace, but then have periodic "hangovers" off the cushion. That image has changed. Now I feel that even just a short application of attention, wherever and whenever, seems to unleash a whole little arc by itself. It's momentum in the most literal way- movement continues, even after effort stops. Formal practice versus non-practice is a difference of degree at most, maybe not even that. Everything is very fluid at the moment, and I'm just trying to let it all in. I am working on the continuity.

I had a Skype session with Kenneth this morning, and I am really getting to appreciate what good teaching can do. In the 2 sessions I've had with Kenneth, he's helped me realize the resources I already have at hand to make progress. I've gone away from this session with a toolbox full of more precise tools and a lot of motivation.

I certainly got to see just how dynamic this process is- while Kenneth was taking me through techniques for accessing jhanas, I feel pretty sure that I saw nanas 3, 4, 5, and 6 go by in a matter of seconds. I've been cycling through all these in the hours since the session, which is kind of exhilirating. It certainly livens up a workday!

I sat down to formal practice last night using some of the technical advice from Kenneth, regarding the eye-posture, and the wheeling between noting and concentration. As is often the case when first adopting a new technique, I kinda got lost- although I think that is also because the eye-posture is bringing about a new set of experiences. There was a mild sense of the movement between states that's been characteristic of the last few days, but I think I need a little practice "observing" this state, rather than just going "wow! lights!" like I was at a Pink Floyd concert.

I'm finding more and more of the "work" is happening in the hours following a long or short sit, though. This sense- that an hours-long domino-chain of phenomena gets triggered by any period of intensive attention, no matter how long or short- is getting more distinct each day. I was at an almost constant boil after my session with Kenneth. Later, after my formal evening sitting, there was a more orderly roll-out of exhiliration / clarity / anxiety- an anxiety that was briefly quite intense and disorienting (although I was still able to keep up a pleasant conversation while it played out).

A new thing yesterday was three distinct moments of complete relief, just a wonderful, cloudless okay-ness. They lasted only maybe a minute each, but were really refreshing after the last few days of feeling a little bit slippery, tender and anxious almost all of the time (I wouldn't have really put it that way before, except now that I've seen its opposite!). Meanwhile, I'm trying to integrate some kind of base level of noting into my day. (continued...)

(... cont'd from above) I'm feeling really grateful lately, not just for the jump-start in my practice that I'm getting from Kenneth and this community, but also for the years of (often aimless and confused) practice that I put in before- there may have been many mistakes and obstacles, but there was no wasted time. Some of the stuff that's gone on in the last few days might have really gotten its hooks into me and freaked me out, had it not been for that. I'm beginning to appreciate why the Tibetans want you to do 100,000 prostrations as your first practice. That really put me off Tibetan Buddhism years ago, but I suspect you gotta pay those dues somewhere.

Kenneth talked about wheeling in practice between gross and subtle so that there's "no down-time", and last night I got that down pretty good, I think. However, the session felt too full and varied to describe it in a useful way, now that it's the next day. I've gotta re-schedule so that I can report more "live" than I do- I recognize that my journal is short on details, and long on revolving my questions and worries. I may post less often for a bit, and focus on doing rather than worrying. (Thanks RevElev: "A little less conversation" indeed).

What I do recall from last night that is new and different was the arising of sharp, but clearly psychosomatic, pains in 2 spots (armpit and side of head, on the right side) along with a lot of subtler and transient physical sensations. As well, the sense of exhilirated shuddering recurred multiple times, rather than passing by just once. Overall, it was a very busy, buzzy session with lots of stuff going on and no sense of relaxation.

I'm still kind of fascinated with the onward rolling of phenomena in the hours following a session. A 20-minute lunch-hour-in-the-park sit yesterday triggered a chain where, about every hour, a rather painful (emotionally) sensation
arose, first that objectless anxiety a couple of times, then an equally objectless sadness, but underlying it the whole time, a rather abrasive anxiety in the gut, and a tingle above the eyes accompanied by a slightly flushed hot feeling in the face.

Oddly, my much more intensive hour-long evening sitting only triggered one later "attack", which was, relatively, milder than the afternoon one.

Sitting last night was just plain annoying- noting brought on heavy sleepiness. If I stopped, I stopped being pulled to sleepiness, but it seems like I felt nothing but agitation, and frequent thoughts of, "Hey, this sucks, maybe I should get up and do walking meditation instead". I actually tried to do this, but a sudden, probably psychosomatic, ache through my gut revived my interest in investigating, and I finished the timed sit (the ache didn't recur). I'm trying to remember now that disappointment and dissatisfaction are probably a part of the lesson- I'm suddenly quite aware of how I am looking for satisfaction, some kind of reward, for my sitting.

I followed Kenneth's advice to make a formal resolve, before going to sleep, to note in or out breath upon awakening. This actually did pop right into my mind on the several occasions in the night and morning when I woke. I got a nice 5 minutes of clear, undistracted noting, lying there in bed at the start of today.

"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." Kenneth, Progress of Insight part 2. That about describes my hobbies these days. Add in periodic thoughts of "What the hell am I doing? This is all such b******t!"; waking up last night and feeling irregular pulsing and whirring sensations coming from different parts my body, and moments of unaccountable upwellings of emotion. Picking up the noting helps A LOT, and carries me through these transient weirdnesses.

A weekend of family business kept me off the cushion for two days, at the height (up to this point, anyways) of the mood disruption and turbulence I've been experiencing. All the mood phenomena seemed to back off during this time, and when I came back to regular practice, I felt like I was coming back to a smoother place- I'm not sure if this is any kind of genuine change, or just a backsliding or "re-embedding" resulting from being away from formal practice. I don't feel like it is, though- I've started to get pretty good at keeping the noting pressure up throughout the day, and I frequently get a glimpse of what people are talking about when they talk about "vibrations"- ordinary physical or thought experiences stuttering like old 16mm film projectors, or manifesting in skin tingling / crawling / warmth sensations..

Yesterday I had three opportunities to do some formal practice, and I felt like it was "third jhana" day- most of the time, it was easy to keep attention wide, very much residing in the periphery of things, yet I wouldn't call it equanimous- it was periodically painful and frightening, but in a way that was easier to bear and observe than last week. It also didn't unleash the sort of hourly serial roll-out of painful emotional states that I kept having last week, although there is definitely a lower-key residual tension in the gut.

Again, sorry to spend so much time journalling vague results rather than practice, but I want to keep recording this process, however imperfectly.

As an appendix to that last line-- some notes on what practice is for me these days:

1) A daily 1-hour formal sit; begin with 3 x count exhalations to 10 to settle in, then start noting. I feel that there is a point when verbal noting becomes too gross-level, perhaps 15 to 20 minutes in, and I go to silent noting, reverting to verbal noting when the sense that there is something subtle going on passes away. I have also tried the "sweet-spot" eye posture during the "subtle" intervals, which sometimes feels right and I keep it up, and sometimes feels like forcing the issue, so I stop.

2) Every couple of days, I take a 20-minute lunch-hour sit in the park near work. I don't really set rules for this- I just start in with noting silently, and sometimes I pick a spot in the visual field to still the eyes, and not try to accomplish anything but watching what arises. I lately feel like I see the boundaries of jhanas and knowledges most sharply at these times- more so than in a formal sit. Possibly the low-pressure context helps; or possibly the subtlety of formal sits is finer, and so harder to perceive boundaries in.

3) I enjoy walking, so whenever I walk somewhere, I take a route with the least likelihood of being hit by cars or bikes, kick up the sand in my head with a bit of silent noting, then just kind of see where I am. It's here that I began to see yesterday that there's a natural pull towards peripheral awareness- that that is becoming my "rest state". Don't know if this is a passing sense or an enduring change. Things continue to look different daily, if not hourly.

Last night's sitting- 3x10 exhalations, then noted for about 20 minutes, then silent noting for the remainder of the hour. Phenomena that indicated "strata" (itches / shaking / exhiliration / fear / sadness) were experienced, but very mildly. The silent-noting period was tight, with the sense of tense focus on subtle physiological changes on or in my head. Pressure/heat on the sides of my head predominated, plus a new experience of sensation "inside" my head associated with the rising of thought and images. That subtlety made me reluctant to return to out-loud noting, and I kept it up, even if I felt like I'd wrapped myself up into a ball about 2 inches across. I will go in with a more open and receptive attitude today, as I think I was a bit caught in "wanting" last night. I seized on a bit of a fancy that I might get stream-entry that very sitting. I'm pretty darn sure I didn't, though!

The serial emotional hangovers seem to be entirely gone. Aside from a kind of vague tenseness that may just have been a byproduct of the rather over-tight attitude in sitting, life off the cushion seems normal again.

Seems like there's not much to report the last couple of days, other than a vague sense of disappointment that nothing "dramatic" is happening in practice (it's actually quite peaceful), and a slight worry that, once things move again, I will pass again through the abrasive, painful and unpredictable stuff that was happening before. Trying to note, along with all else, the mass of dangling expectations, wants, and hopes that I seem to have acquired; trying to note the recurring narratives of "I have slid back"; "this was all self-delusion". Trying to use the opportunity to learn to note in a more disciplined way, and not have my attentiveness swing around with my expectations.

I can really relate to that self-delusion fear, it builds and builds then something new happens and I have faith in my practice again. I'm starting to recognize the pattern. Hang in there! it's not self-delusion(I hope,lol).

Thanks! I guess we'll both find out soon enough, or not I relate to that pattern, definitely.

In fact, I did have that reviving experience this last 48 hrs, with two very intense sittings.

I tried to really go back to basics on the noting, and kept it rigourous and constant. Since I sometimes kind of freeze up in the noting, I gave myself the mission to track intensity, disappearance, and whether aversion or liking arose alongside noted phenomena. I was never without a subject to inquire about. This investigation of phenomena and sub-phenomena kept me deeply engaged and busy.

Unlike a few days ago, I did not move through such distinct stages. I got fairly quickly into a nicely concentrated state, beginning with powerful itches that were the first notable opportunity to track phenomena,as I watched itches evolve from acute pricks with strong aversion, to diffuse patches that did not arouse aversion, finally to disappearance OR sudden reversion to acuteness. With one exception mentioned below, it's hard to single out noted experiences. Things just grew one from another- washes of purple snow in the visual field, fingers and arms felt first as heavy weights then millions of pinprick sensations...

There was one really startling new experience in one sitting - a flickering of all vision, as if someone were flicking the lightswitch on and off. This happened twice- once at a steady rhytm for about 5 seconds, and again a few minutes later, with just about 5 "switch offs" at an accelerating pace - thup

---

thup --- thup -- thup - thup.

Is this what people mean when they say "strobing" in reports? I'd previously thought of that as the pulsing of lights in the visual field, but this was the actual rhythmic disappearance of vision. Very weird.

I wrote a post yesterday, but shied away from putting it up- basically, I wrote a post wondering if I've had a "stream-entry" experience, and I backed out putting the question out there. Today, I'm thinking, "Whatever. I might be wrong." If so, great; if not, the sooner I'm disabused of the notion, the sooner I can get back to work Here's what I'd written:

"It's getting increasingly absurd to journal my practice the morning after my formal sessions- it's just not possible to retain a useful description of the sequence of events. My only defense is that I'm burning up all my available evening time actually doing the practice

Things have evolved fast in the last few days. At the root of it, there's been an attitude change. Last week, I was disheartened by the seeming dullness of my practice in contrast to the drama of the weeks prior. Now I'm finding inspiration in the idea that I have no goal to attain, no job left to do but watch. (I'm using the unverified working assumption that my baseline is Equanimity).

In formal sitting, I'm finding endless interest in the recursive, fractal, infinite depth of each "thing" that arises in the mind. I have a clear sense that a somatic experience or thought, my opinions about it, and my aversion or liking toward it, are all distinct phenomena, and that each of those also branch out into distinct phenomena. It never stops, except that there is a frequent perceptual "reset" where the whole complex that I'm tracing collapses, and the watching starts again,
accompanied by a feeling of lightness, and a brightening in the field of vision. [continued in next post]

[continued from last]
All this is accompanied by numerous physical phenomena, particularly tightness or burning around the eyes or temples, swirling purple snow in the visual field that sometimes resolves into a very calm sort of grey cast; flickers around the edges of the visual field; low, constant sounds that may or may not really be from an external source; a sense of sounds and other external sensory information gradually fading. I'm tracing those and their sub-phenomena, too- it's all there for the taking. Toward the end of each session, I often have a soreness that rises up in my lower legs which is undoubtedly painful, but it's now kinda fun to sit there untying and unpacking every sensation in that pain, and embracing them in the knowledge that they are all just surges and waves with no sense of accumulation or increase (or at least, the sense that they do accumulate and increase is just another feeling to watch).

Last night while sitting, I had an experience of drifting followed by a sudden and startling jump, as if I was about to fall over or trip up in a dream. I think that I probably had, in fact, been on the verge of falling asleep; but the rest of the session was spent in a very awake and alert state in which I felt that the painful, seizing aspect of absolutely every little thing that passed through my mind could be released at will like a helium balloon.

[still continued!!]
Later on, at bedtime, I had a similar experience of being startled wide awake, that was immediately preceded in my pre-sleep semi-conscious state by a kind of disorienting "wobble", like all of my field of vision and experience momentarily shook like a bad TV image. After that second "jump", I spent the next who-knows-how-long kind of half-asleep half-awake, but not minding, just watching. There were occasional moments of disorientation that induced slight stabs of panic, but they passed quickly. I remember attempting to track feelings that I associate with the rollout of "stages" that I experienced a couple of weeks ago, but being half-asleep, I can't really account for whether there was any distinct progression. After, I fell into a dream that was set in some kind of retreat, in which I continued to meditate throughout the dream- what an efficient use of sleep time!"

That was the post; subsequently, I had one more quasi-sleepy "jump" in my sitting last night, that was followed by a fresh, cool relaxation. So I'm feeling I may have some basis for my speculation about stream-entry; or else I have become very jumpy! One way or the other, the work is going well, and all this is very encouraging on its own.

Hmmmm, Eyes glued to this thread. Have you talked with Kenneth? If not, you should. Sounds promising.

Edited to include: See if it happens again what is happening directly before the "wobble", and directly after it. Try and explain the state of mind comparing to before and after; Energy surges? Subtle bliss? Shift in vibrational phenomena? Are you aware of any automatic cycling? When you sit down to mediate, what is the state you are in? Look to see if it occurs again and again. Could be, could be not. But it all smells like progress!
Oh, what happens when youlook upwards and flutter your eyelids quickly and watch the flickering of them, and as you watch the last flickering end? Anything?

"That was the post; subsequently, I had one more quasi-sleepy "jump" in my sitting last night, that was followed by a fresh, cool relaxation."
Nick

Rob, I'm curious as to what led you to wonder if it might be stream entry. That's because one of the factors to consider when diagnosing stream entry is whether the yogi in question thinks he or she got it. It's by no means conclusive, but it is important as part of a whole constellation of changes that usually accompany SE.

Also, does your practice feel markedly different than before? This would be an abrupt shift; you would say that before the moment of stream entry things looked a certain way overall and since that moment your experience of your life and practice are distinctly different in some subtle, difficult to explain way.

Have you felt happier, lighter, and more enlightened over the last few days?

Are you able to attain jhanas now by simply "inclining your mind" toward them? That is one common change. In short, stream entry is marked by a whole constellation of changes and events, so while a couple of experiences in isolation don't tell us much, a whole package of changes would allow us to triangulate and tentatively come to a conclusion.

In any case, as Nick said, this definitely "smells like progress."

The fact is, the "after" state is so different from the "before" state that it's hard to then recall the "before" state, except that it was very very inward, if that makes sense.

The "wobble" happened only the second of the 3 instances. The third time (last night), it was like a very startling blow upward from (well, gotta say it) the crotch area. I think it was immediately preceded by a noise elsewhere in the house or outside, although not one I would have regarded as startling, normally.

The first time, as I said, it wasn't exactly bliss, but it was like the meditation went to a fineness I'd never experienced- as I described above, it became oh-so-easy to just unclench the brain every time an image came into the mind. The second time, I was half-asleep, woke up startled, but then settled into that semi-meditative doze (unlike most of the time when I wake up like that, where my usual reaction is to lie there wondering when the hell I'll get back to sleep!) The third time was more like bliss and new energy- like I just suddenly dumped the weight of everything I brought with me into the session.

Today, I just kind of feel very close to myself- my face is feeling a little flushed on a constant basis, there are tingles all over, and I can focus very quickly on anything I look at, and that brings up a powerful tingle along the sides of my nose. I had a 20-minute sit in the park at lunchtime, and there may have been stages going by- definitely easy to believe that I sat down in 4th and experienced a bit of anxiety then clarity- but it was oh so subtle, and was not followed by a jump (well, not strictly true- I have a meditation timer on my new mobile phone, and this was the first time I used it, so the "Vibrate" made me jump out of my skin. I can easily attribute that to straight-up startling- but hey, maybe I've found the Google Android "Fruition" app!)

Hi Kenneth, that last bit was responding to Nick- here's the reply to you:

Yes, I feel happier, but it is not a "clean break" starting with the moment I identify as my first experience. It's been growing on me for the last few days, and it isn't absolutely wall-to-wall ecstasy, either- I've had the same kinds of momentary crankies I've always had, too. But today particularly I have carried a warm glow. As for my feelings about stream-entry- it's like it's my curious / Buddhist-fanboy nature just wants to know because it's been a "thing" I've thought about for so many years; but more than anything, the practice is very rewarding lately and drives the curiosity all by itself.

As I mentioned above, there is a difference in practice- I settle in pretty much instantly, in fact, I never quite leave the on-the-cushion feeling- lots of vibrations and skin-tingles. And as I also mentioned, I find myself falling into a kind of concentration wherever I look.

I say all this, but it's not like it's that dramatic, either. And I have read so many descriptions of what it's like that I can't convince myself completely that I'm just overlaying my hopes on various unconnected phenomena. I'm the kind of guy who knocks on wood a lot.