Kirby's practice journal

20101208 - AM - 30m

Quite tired and a bit of a headache this morning. Sat on the cushion spacing out and wandering again before beginning meditation. Resolved to note whatever phenomena take centre stage and to be with any mind states or emotions that arise. Relaxed the body and began noting. Very scattered to start with, but after a few minutes I settled into it and felt relaxed. Noting lots of physical pain and discomfort (headache, etc) '˜pain - unpleasant, pain - unpleasant, aching - unpleasant, tension - unpleasant'. I briefly felt the space that my head and upper body filled, and perceived this mass as unpleasant and crude, noting '˜crude, unpleasant, contemplating, wanting' then wishing for an imagined lightness and pleasantness to fill the same space.

After about 10 mins I tried to reproduce the '˜now-ness' feeling that I experienced yesterday. At first I couldn't clearly place my mind on the present object and see its '˜presentness', but after about a minute I started to clearly feel my body as a mass of unpleasantness and discomfort, and this sensation was moving forward rapidly through time like a wave, with my awareness perched on the lip (present moment). This lasted about 1 minute then I lost clarity.

Brief feeling of calm and spaciousness at about 20 mins. I started thinking about the donut effect and paid extra attention to what I was noticing. Noticed that it was difficult to note any general, more open phenomena, there was just spaciousness or emptiness, but the occasional specific thought or sensation arose. Shortly after this, attention became quite scattered and lax. For the last few minutes the noting was unclear and less frequent.

20101208 - PM - 40m

Resolved, relaxed, began LK meditation. Realised after a few minutes that my recited loving kindness lines felt hollow and I was wandering a lot, so I just started noting. Felt some clarity and momentum for the first 15-20 mins, then started to lose focus. Once I realised that I'd been fighting the lack of focus for about 5 minutes I intentionally let go of the craving for clarity and immediately felt calm and at ease. Mind was very still, and I recalled the donut thing again. I couldn't pin-point any specific phenomena with the centre of my attention, and was only really aware that I was analysing the situation. The occasional thought or sensation was noted in the stillness, like an object falling into a deep well. Became less and less focused after this, and more agitated. Started analysing my noting speed and clarity, and feeling like I was noting sluggishly and with little effort. On reflection I can see that there was strong effort, but very little energy, so the effort felt inhibited and didn't result in clarity and focus.
Started wishing for the sit to be over and looking forward to playing games. Then noticed feelings of aversion and boredom to the game, then fear that I was losing interest in my hobby and sadness at this possiblity.
Finally checked the timer to see how long was left and the bell had already gone off! I do recall hearing a very very faint ding at one point but thought it was in my mind. Ho hum.

20101209 - AM - 30m

Tired and restless. Feeling lots of anticipation, excitement and nervousness about my upcoming retreat. Sit was very scattered and dull. I didn't really hit any periods of clarity or momentum. Frequent '˜wandering thought, wanting thought, judging thought' as I caught myself wandering and wishing that I was more focused. Noted the wanting, and intentionally allowed the state to exist. Near the end I became very restless and noted '˜planning thought, planning thought, excitement, frustration, visual thought, planning thought, wanting, judging'. Briefly I entertained the idea of stopping the sit because I was too restless, then I thought '˜I'm probably going to experience all sorts of restless or unpleasant mind states on retreat that will make me want to stop sitting. I might as well get used to just being with them now - just noting them and not getting caught in their story'. This helped, and I was able to sit with a bit less anxiety, then the bell went and I was straight up off the cushion! Last day of work for the year, woohoo!

On retreat for the next 9 days. See you on the flip side!

Been busy practicing lots. Interesting stuff just started happening last night....



20110207 - PM - 1hr (30w/30v)

Concentrated from the moment I decided to go down stairs and meditate. Focused clearly on foot movements, losing it a bit half way through, thinking a lot near the end. Sat, watched feelings, thoughts, emotions.
Near the end of the sit, thought itself began to feel agitating. I intentionally stopped thinking, and felt a warm glow that seemed to be in the centre of my head. Strong sense of calmness/stillness in the centre of my experience, but still some observer experiencing it all. Gentle commentary and observance as this continued. Noticed that I was aware of this occurring, and recalling that usually this snaps me out of strange experiences, I tried to just keep sinking into it and letting it continue. This succeeded for about another 30 seconds, then the bell went. Commentary increased a bit, but I thought I'd see if I could get back into this state. I succeeded, for another couple of minutes, with various levels of quietness some times, and more inner chatter and observation at other times.

20110208 - PM - 1hr (30w/30v)

Difficult to concentrate while walking.
Got into the spaced out no (or very little) thought state again almost immediately upon sitting. (I also experimented with entering this state a couple of times during normal daily activities - like walking around at work - and was able to get it to some extent.)
Spent some time worrying that this was just laziness - that I had just given up properly noticing my experience and entered a dull, muted state, but found that I couldn't rouse myself into a louder, sharper more active state like I usually experience. This was it - so I just tried to be with it and notice it.

Some characteristics of this state:
- Dull. No sharp clarity of any particular sensation or thought.
- Kind of pleasant, but still kind of agitating.
- No strong emotions. I experimented with thinking about past experiences that were embarrassing and noticed that no tightness or heat arose in the chest or stomach and nothing that could be described as '˜embarrassment' arose. I also noticed that the mind did not stay on the details of these thoughts for very long and just skipped to other stuff. I wondered if that could be why the emotions weren't arising - attention wasn't with the situation for long enough, but realised that usually the mind would unwillingly cling strongly to these thoughts and provoke strong emotions and physical sensations. The mind was not clinging to these memories. There was no passion.
- Trying to pay attention to present phenomena was definitely possible, as there was a kind of quiet, but the mental impression of the phenomena was not as solid and clear as it usually is. Mind touched on phenomena very briefly and gently.

cont...

...

I felt a physical and mental '˜Zap!' when a large drop of water hit the cement outside the window. This made the mind more alert for a while.

I sat on the cushion for about 5 mins after opening my eyes and contemplated what I had experienced. I thought about whether this was jhana, and decided that it probably wasn't as there was no real clarity or stability or joy or whatever the factors are supposed to be.
Considering the lack of strong emotion (which continued for quite a while after the sit), I thought this resembled what I've read about equanimity. It certainly fits the definition of the word, anyway..