TMN Dharma - A Practice Thread

Hey folks, this is my first KFD practice thread. I'm a 30 yr old guy from Scotland who lives with my girlfriend and daughter, three cats and a dog. I work an average office job and also do freelance design and video production in my spare time. I'm also a vocalist/instrumentalist, and I produce music in a variety of genres from ambient electronica to experimental noise.

Practice-wise, I sit formally "on the cushion" for one-hour each night and practice alternate nights of vipassana and samatha. I also spend at least 15 minutes doing (standing) samatha moving into vipassana in my garden before my seated practice as a "warm-up". I commit 10 minutes of each hour in work focussing on resting in awareness, note informally throughout my day, and generally maintain mindfulness through focus on the breath at the abdomen at every opportunity.

This thread will be my attempt at communicating what occurs during practice and I understand that things I say may require clarification so feel free to question whatever I don't make clear. I appreciate you taking the time to read this and hope you'll at least get a laugh as I progress! In the words of Nick H, onwards and upwards!

03/02/11 - Practice = Vipassana - 60mins.

Began noting touch, the seat beneath the body, the mental image of it, following the inhale/exhale/rising/falling as awareness flitted between them, I relaxed into the breath which brought about the sense of time slowing down. I played with this for a moment and saw my experience of time change depending on where I placed my awareness before returning to the breath as the focus again. Pleasant tingling across the face, like warm sand running downwards under the skin, and a sense of stabilising on the sensations.

There was bodily movement, something which occurs in every sitting for me, a shaking and jolting which I note as "movement". I've come to accept it and this makes it pass quicker than fighting it does, which leads to sweating and laboured breathing that becomes quite tiring. There's feelings of uncertainty, self-doubt, but these are noted and seen through as the occur.

I focus awareness on the body, I feel it as another set of sensations which is not the thing doing the noting, this leads me to note the noting mind and awareness becomes very wide and shows the noting mind as this jagged cloud of movement. I felt very steady at this point in contrast to the shaking, small energetic "flares" zip up and down the spine but stop at the base of the skull.

[cont]

[cont]

(Still getting the hang of the character limit on here so excuse the breaks)

Focussing on this apparent block at the base of the skull, I get tension and a sense of "refusal" (can't think of a better way to describe it, kinda like aversion but not as deeply rooted if that makes any sense?) so I gently note this and feel the movement of energy up into my head which creates the sensation of something spiralling 'round my 3rd eye and an increase in tension. Perceptually, there was a peculiar sense of the right and left sides of my brain matching up but it was as it the right brain wasn't on par with the left. This manifested as sensations of my brain being in two halves, the right side felt like it was being "topped up" like petrol into a car. Physically, I had little, if any sense of the body. Whatever I focussed on was all there was for that moment which moved, quite freely and easy to see it happen, from being the breath, to these mental images of the brain, to the sound of a cat running up the hall and back to the breath.

This "energy" felt like it was circulating my entire body, from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, in a vesica piscis-style shape. I noted "clarity", "peace", "equanimity" and began examining these. I noticed an itch on my nose and immediately watched it leave, this led me to note pain in my back again which also vanished upon noting, various bodily sensations arose in quick succession and were seen as impermanent in a very clear way.

[cont]

[cont]

As I focussed on the impermanence of the breath I saw flashes of visual images, which felt related to some sort of "past life" memory (I remain very skeptical of this, the words fit with the experience which is why I've chosen to use them) very vivid and real but, again, seen to vanish with each noting. I was struck with the idea that we die at the end of each exhalation, this is what we've always done, what we'll always do so long as we occupy this physical world. But I see that we are also born with every breath too, and the cycles continue. At this point I appear to have lost any sense of awareness, much as I want to abide by the rules of the community here, I can only use the term Fruition as anything else seems too unspecific and I've found that Fruition is something very definite and definable.

I came to awareness of the breath once again and followed it slowly, bodily there was a glow and a warmth but with a focus, not just a bliss-out, a purpose. I maintained awareness as I felt my body become more solid again, the breath was felt through the nose and lungs as normal. Mentally I was still very focussed but peaceful, quietly content. My alarm went off to indicate the hour was up and I slowly returned to baseline consciousness, mindfully stood up and left the room.

I'm still learning how to report this properly so excuse any wandering, rambling or speculation which may be considered contrary to the conduct on here.

Thanks for reading.

I like the way you describe your practice Tommy. I get a good feel for it. I often got thsoe visual flashes of imagery that spin me out and get me thinking as to what triggered such weirness. They occur when getting highly concentrated by observing the breath. I also remain skeptical but also extremely curious as to what they were. Awesome!

Nice descriptions. I have no advice but to say keep doing what you are doing becasue it sounds like you are intuitively doing what you gotta be doing.

Mudita!



Nick

05/02/11 - Samatha - 60mins.
(Reporting this the day after while sitting in work at 0630. Ha!)

Started out by using a small candle as a kasina object and maintained open-eyed focus until an 'aura' appeared and vision shifted to the space surrounding the candle. This occurs over one to two minutes before I close my eyes and bring up the after-image which is seen to flit and jump around the visual field. Brought the flame into focus more solidly and sank into the physical 'niceness' which manifests in a similar way each time i.e. the feeling of something like warm sand or sherbert running below the skin, and is accompanied by a visual and kinesthetic 'shift'.

Focussing on bodily tingling causes a shift to less bodily awareness, not formless but the edges of the body become clearer while perception of weight and form are reduced. This then leads to a shift to a more spacious mental state which forms gradually before a sudden shift (this feels like being pulled up and forwards from the face/head area) into a more subtle, but equally stable state, which is observed to change again if these mental sensations are focussed on and become more dense, deeper and more pleasant. I sat in this state for a few minutes before noting that the mental 'noise' was distracting and drawing focus away from concentration itself.

(cont)

(cont)

From this point, awareness becomes more diffuse and less centralised compared to before and the focus becomes very broad. Bodily sensation is minimal by this point, concentration feels very solid and directed which makes it easy to just allow these strata to rise. I feel compelled to gently note what's going on here but sensation is very subtle, I'm able to note space, distance and what I note as 'dimensions' ie. XYZ axis in a 3D sense. It's around this stage when visual imagery comes up like in a lucid dream, I know it's not 'real' but it's possible to experience sensations as if they are if I mentally enter the image. This state, while being very deep and wide, is also quite distracting when bodily sensation appears again so I shift the focus to the space above the head and slowly expand awareness until the body vanishes, or at least only shows up as flickering when noticed.

After this point there's very little by way of visual or auditory activity, awareness predominates and is felt as constantly expanding although subtle noting reveals a definable edge to this which causes another shift to an even wider perspective which feels very calm and still. I find it difficult to describe very much about what happens from here as there's very little going on which could actually be described other than spaciousness, a visual field which feels like black velvet, and flickering of the eyes which, at times, seem to draw focus to the 3rd eye area with a similar tension to that experienced during vipassana.

I notice that I've become lost in the blissful loveliness which bring awareness back to the expansive space in a very quick 1-2 movement, not in a cessation sense as I'm aware of it occuring but it's like having perception jump out on you from behind a corner, a perceptual ambush I suppose....Ha!

(Cont)

(Cont)

From this point, awareness of sound outside the room becomes more clear which brings attention to more crude bodily sensation. There's a clear sensation of going back through these states in reverse but it occurs much more quickly, or more likely my concentration slipped as I allowed myself to become distracted and I've begun emerging from such a deep absorption more abruptly that I would have liked. Either way, there's the sense of leaving this state and returning to baseline awareness but with a nice little afterglow, very peaceful and "mentally" stable with some blissful wee vibrations coarsing across the skin intermittently which remains for an hour or so after I stand up.

Still refining my notes so feel free to question or ask me to clarify anything which you consider unclear.

Cheers again folks!

Nice Tommy!

I really like your reporting style, especially the lucid description of 4th jhana and the shift to Arupa Jhanas in the post #6. Welcome and keep up the good work!

Mudita,
Antero.

05/02/11 - Vipassana - 60 mins.

Trying a different approach to reporting tonight, I'll experiment with various styles and see which allows for the most accuracy and minimal miscommunication as I go. This report is based on notes written down about 15 mins. after practice.

Focus on breath noting standard 'rising/falling' until concentration is stabilised. Remained at body level noting occasional twitches just below the threshold of normal awareness, similar to the coarser vibrations I usually get later in practice interestingly.

I noted the heat of the room, the presence of air, moisture and space which brought about a sort of "elemental" awareness. By this I mean that I was noting clusters of sensation as one of the four elements, in the symbolic sense, e.g. I followed a bead of sweat as it appeared on my forehead, noted how it moved, what it felt like, broke it down with the 3C's and saw how water, air, fire and earth are what makes up this reality, the addition of spirit is what we explore in vipassana. I express this in terms which make sense to me but may mean less to another so question this if necessary.

This led me to recall an insight while meditating outside the previous night. With very narrow focus of concentration I could feel the sensation of the skin coming into contact with this invisible force (the wind), which was made up of a speed, a direction, a spatial, albeit enormous, dimension, temperature etc etc. This brought up a mental image of each of these things being experienced in turn and all at once, the fact that we can only experience one thing at a time means we tie it all together as a unit of information labelled "the wind". This led to what I understand as seeing in formations, I could clearly see that each unit of information contained the whole of the experience and how only consciousness makes us see it as continuous.

(cont)

(cont)

By this point noting had become impossible to maintain and I adopted a more open awareness of the sensory field. This was experienced as being like going from standing in a hospital corridor to, in an instant, finding yourself in the middle of some huge arena. The size is implied by sensations of space, distance to the 'edge' or the gradual fade-out of the sensation (there's been a lot of emphasis on seeing the edges lately) which can be perceived quite clearly.

There's a point when a visual image appeared of entering Re-Observation (I use this term based on my understanding of the sensations noted going from Dark Night, these nana I can confidently claim to have plenty of experience with) and being kicked back out by a big comedy foot, like something out of Monty Python, and feeling myself smile my way into a very still, peaceful calm. This isn't something I've observed before which is why I've mentioned it.

After the expansion of awareness there was a sense, a combined visual image and kinesthetic feeling, of a shallow bubble forming at the crown of the head. This was accompanied by feeling of calm, equanimity in the purest sense, I began to gently note these sensation but noticed that I was regularly on the verge of trying to solidify this as a state, a light 'pulling' towards it if you get my meaning. This was also noted as was silence, the phrase "everything as it is" cycled quietly like a mantra and was seen as being a distraction. For a split second, there was absolute silence and then nothing. On the instant that awareness came back "online", so to speak, I could see reality appear like a flap in a rug, a waveform or some similar analogy. I wrote down the phrase "The Eye of Horus" based on my old magickal background which may prove interesting to investigate in future.

(cont)

(cont)

I tried to re-enter the previous stage but failed to do so. Noted disappointment and it's parts, laughed at the absurdity of it and resigned myself to return to base and write down what I could.

I would list more of the specific noted sensations if it would clarify anything, I only left the majority out as they didn't provide any insight. Again, I'm experimenting with recording the experience in an effort to maximise accuracy so if anyone wants to suggest anything I'll give it a try!

All in all, tonight was a solid session and provided some interesting afterthoughts which I've also written down. They're all very speculative which is why I've left them out, but the gist of it was about the dukkha nanas, an odd obsession of mine due to the amount of time I've spent there before vipassana changed it all around.

The whole bit about re-entry to reality was inspired by Dan Ingram's advice and is something I feel the urge to examine more closely. Practice, practice, practice I suppose and it'll all unravel soon enough.

Thank for reading again and for the comments left previously, the feedback is appreciated, both positive and negative, and neither.....Ha!

07/02/11 - Vipassana - (Seated) 45 mins. - (Standing) 15 mins.

[Note: Did not post practice report last night due to back pain (work-related injury sustained a few years ago) and the inability to sit for any length of time. Did some samatha while lying down but no more development. Back pain distracting but noted consistently.]

Approach No. 3 - Bare Sensation

Stood outside in my garden, it's moderately secluded with a small river running through it and lies separate to the houses on the street. Noted standing, posture, tension (shoulder, chest), hearing, direction (sound of the stream, perceived distance of sounds such as cars, train and planes relative to the sense of hearing itself), speed (implied by "movement" and "sound", again relative to the position of the body), "touch" of the feet on the ground, clothes on the body, fingers on each other, wind on the face. Also noted temperature (generalised noting but, when broken down to the 3C's, I noted variations in "warm" and "cold" e.g. Cold - unpleasant - indifferent - cold - vibration - dense waves - pleasant etc)

Eyes were closed but noted visual imagery, thoughts, diffuse lights which shifted continually, noted colour, desire to solidify pleasant feelings, aversion to holding awareness at the sensory level which is a tension overcome, for me at least, by moving from interal noting to an open awareness. Noted a shift to a less concentrated state, noted a thought about access concentration being "the enemy of jhana" and laughed to myself, noted a smile on the face and released the tension, noted it loosen and concentration deepened to a wide, spacious open feeling.

Ended meditation in a pleasantly contented state and went back to the house with the dog.

(Cont)

Felt mindful and aware of what was happening at the sensate level as I picked up the cushion and went into the bathroom to sit. (I said SIT, you dirty minded beggars!)

Set my timer and sat down with the resolution to complete a cycle of insight and remain at a sensate level throughout. Noted the act of sitting, the intent and motion itself, bending, moving, correcting, thinking about correct posture, momentary analysis of body position, shifting, movement, feeling solid in the posture and then the move to focus on the breath.

Established solid concentration, I believe, throughout the day and during standing practice. I'd spent a considerable part of the day observing the breath, in the manner recommended by Kenneth, for as many cycles as possible. I had also spent the day informally noting as I felt a tightness and discomfort in the back and chest areas, a general irritability, sluggishness (mentally and physically), and replaying unhelpful thought-loops which, when noted, could be seen through with neither aversion nor attraction.

Noted posture, relaxing of the thighs, the intent to facilitate the posture, the desire for comfort, realizing pain is inevitable in this, acceptance, touching (buttocks on cushion, clothing, fingers in mudra), breath on the rise and fall, noting inhale and exhale at the nostrils like: Rise, inhale, pause, inhale, rise, pause, inhale, pause, rise, inhale, while noting the mental image an instant after the sense experience. Breath "feels" like pure vibration, moderate sine-wave sort of frequency feeling but couldn't accurately guess the figures, so I can note a slight pause, or a dip at least, repeatedly during each breath, in and out.

Released the idea of controlling the breath and left it with the feeling of the heartbeat in the body (Advice given by tarin greco over at the DhO), noted the breath follow the heartbeat.

(Cont)

(Cont)

Releasing the breath allowed for a deepening of concentration to a spacious and blissful state, more subtle with much less "body" happening than the previous state. Continued to note these sensations, state solidified into a more three-dimensional, clear and seemingly infinite space which, when examined, held more equanimity and balance than the fizzling bliss of earlier concentration states. Noted visual field more due to lack of bodily sensation, focus on any apparent sensation led to a very non-dual vibe, locked into the breath and noted it's rise and fall through the space, noted what was still sensing this and felt a powerful shudder run right through my body.

Remained focused on the breath again, felt more of this movement over my body, not ecstatic feeling, just a distraction which had to be noted so that I could focus on the breath. As happened before, visuals of some sort of "past life" popped up quite vividly here, if I were to believe that this sort of thing was literal and true then I was apparently an African shaman! I laughed at the idea and noted it as it passed, returned to the breath and noted the visual field expand, no sense of sound at this point, noted silence, noted sound within it, noted the interplay between the two, how it's not a self, it's observable, notable and empty.

Still with the breath, there was a split second of realizing something had been missed, looked to the breath again and saw I'd missed the opportunity to examine re-entry. Resolved to attain a Fruition with high concentration and returned to noting breath, thought, rising, falling, staying with this expansive space and not allowing myself to get absorbed, just staying with the senses.

At that moment, someone came to the door and my dog started barking, as did their dog who they'd brought over too apparently, but I resolved to remain equanimous and accurate.

(Cont)

(Cont)

I quickly re-entered concentration, deepening it while still being able to feel the body itself. The less subtle factors to note made quick, accurate but silent noting much cleaner and I quickly felt a sense of expanding. Bodily sensation could be shifted around in the mind, made larger, sensations examined as if under a microscope e.g. an itch on my cheek was noted as it appeared, beginning with miniscule pin-pricks, quickly onto the feeling covering a wider area, a deeper tingling which leads to irritation, noting irritation, staying with the itch as it begins to sting, almost like a minor burn but more superficial feeling, the compulsion to action, the desire to scratch and on and on, all in less than a second and all gone in just the same way.

Began decreasing the number of sensations noted and examining them more accurately with the 3C's, from the breath to the touch of the foot on the floor. Noted pain, noted this as tightness on the skin between the floor and the foot, noted the space between these two, noted the pain itself, what was experiencing it.

Noting "not self" with each sensation quickly cut through sensations of excitement, paranoia, pain in the chest leading to fear of death leading to noting fear, breaking it down to survival and attachment to a self, the objects surrounding it, emotions of anger which was seen as an empty burst of various feelings, irritation and self-doubt manifesting as thoughts of "you're just making this all up". These were noted cleanly and observed as being nothing to do with "me", doubts about this "thing" seen as distractions to be noted, just like an itch on the nose, just another sensation.

At this point I appear to have lost the thread entirely and either slipped into the higher arupa jhanas for a moment or got a Fruition. Either way, noted reality warping back almost like...

(Cont)

(Cont)

I'm trying to find a visual image to write down here which makes sense, it seems clear enough from here but expressing it may not be very accurate so call me out on this one if you want more explanation. Right now I would describe it as seeming like having everything that can be experienced stretched up from this absolute emptiness (Just realized that I didn't note what this actually was). If you grabbed reality like a film-strip, stretched it till it was too thin to be perceived, and let it spring back into shape. Or something like that anyway. Again, it's not very accurate but perhaps someone can offer a better analogy from their own experience? Words are clumsy and human interpretation, well for me at least, is prone to inaccuracy.

Anyway. On the assumption that this was indeed a Fruition, the consideration of the arupa jhanas is just a possibility I'd consider in case I'm mixing myself up, I noted peacefulness, calmness and a flow of the breath, noting a lovely shimmer of blissfulness across the head, neck and down the spine as I returned to baseline.

I sat enjoying the silence for a few minutes until my alarm went off. I stood up, noted pains in the feet and observed them closely till they passed, then returned to setting up the new PC.

The style of reporting tonight was based on trying to communicate the more "important" chains of sensation noted i.e. those which led to a state shift, or apparently new stage in the progress of insight, although all sensations were noted as I was able to. I don't know how this comes across when reading for someone else so I appreciate the feedback, if you take the time to do so.

Still maintaining noting through the day while experimenting with entering concentrations states at will. Thanks again for reading!

Tommy

08/02/11 - Practice Notes
1. Samatha - 30 mins.
2. Vipassana (Outside) - 30 mins

1. Writing this report while still in the equanimous afterglow of a solid samatha session. At present I can note no conflict or duality in the sense-field, a very still mind and feeling the benefits of balancing samatha with vipassana as the former has left me feeling rather raw during the day.

Maintained mindfulness throughout the day to some degree, also previous vipassana practice outside had sharpened up awareness at the sensory level. Sat down in asana and fixed the breath before entering access within two breath cycles, and 1st samatha jhana (I'm confident in my assertion that I attained this state) within eight cycles. Solidified first jhana fairly quickly by focussing on the shimmering, tingling sensations on the face, predominantly cheeks and nose, and the neck. Noted a deep wave of bliss, very uneven and not experienced as a solid "flow" of energy, passing from the front to the back of the body.

Stayed with the waves and relaxed into the state, solidifying it further which was gently noted. Moved the attention to the more mental aspect of this state and felt a subtle shift, like sinking slightly but knowing it's possible to go deeper. Investigated this sensation and shifted again into a much higher level of clarity, the visual field opened up more and became quite active with colour and light, very diffuse and blurred, full of motion and activity.

Returned to the breath, remained at the nostrils with high awareness of the chains of sensation, at a physical level only, involved in the breath and felt a distinctive movement, a sort of opening up at the centre of the visual field and a sense of fixing quite solidly in this state. Bodily sensation was limited to the head and shoulder area, other sensation was still present at times but the focus was above the chest.

(Cont)

(Cont)

Explored the lack of sensation below the shoulders and noticed the lower body felt very two-dimensional, no sense of actually being "there", just like a cardboard cut-out. Returned to the breath and remained with it, noting the sense of space becoming more definite, more tangible and solid which, when examined rationally, doesn't make much sense but the sensation defining "space" became very clear.

Noted a calm warmth, I dislike the word "bliss" as a being descriptive of these pleasurable sensations, and a softness to the sensations of the face. Payed attention to this and felt awareness expand to the point where the sound of a car outside was experienced as being almost right next to where I sat. Ceased noting at this point and simply concentrated on concentration as an object which expanded the space further, there's a stillness, no movement or direction. Noted that the body essentially vanished from awareness by this point, occasionally felt my fingers in a mudra which I stopped to prevent any further bodily activity being sensed.

Visually, the field of awareness remained still and black with very occasional flickering of mental images, seen like electrical interference particularly when the body was involved. Remained with this state and noted noting itself as another process, felt a feeling which I can best describe as like having my head pulled through a tiny gap in space and coming up with a "POP!" on the other side. This was followed by the sense, like a pulling inwards (implosive perhaps?) that everything which could be sensed was now on this side of.....well....whatever the hell awareness had just been pulled through.

The next thing I can recall is noticing my hands touching again, my posture had shifted into a slouch which I noted the urge to correct. I took a breath, slow and full, and felt another wash of warmth and acceptance.

(Cont)

(Cont)

Watched thought return, which led to me to notice it's absence, or more accurately, the absorption state just experienced beforehand. I had images of alchemical symbols and correlation with the Three Characteristics as I drifted down to noticing, as always, hearing and the physical sensation. The initial afterglow with which I began writing this report has now subsided but elements of the mindfulness remain as a pleasant background to normal thinking.
I'm still unsure how to identify the arupa jhanas correctly, hence why I avoid naming anything past the easily identified 1st and 2nd jhanas, but there's clear formlessness and equanimity in these states. Solidification seems less about being "solid" and more about being "present".

I'm going to look at the Taoist alchemy models against the Western models and see if I can understand these correspondences further. I think it could be useful in integration of previous studies before I moved to Buddhist techniques.

2. I practice vipassana for at least 15 minutes in the garden each night, tonight I doubled up due to not practicing further the other night. I stood in the garden, noted standing, tension (the muscles maintaining the act of standing), balance, correcting this noting the sensation of the feet, noted "hard" of the ground beneath them, noted hollow beneath that as an implied, or mental sense. Quick visual flash of light and noted light, movement, depth, more and more subtle as the visual field became very deep and empty with the light being held clearly for a second before fading away and taking awareness with it.

Noted that noting still occurred, there's a pulling at the eyes to go upwards, flickering and noted tiny shards of bodily sensation flickering. Hearing the river going past and noted what implied "front" and "back"...(cont)

(Cont)

...noted these two sets as being the same, or at least unified with the rest of the sensations of that moment. Stayed at sensory level and avoided the visual field due to previous distractions in practice, remained noting the breath rise and fall with hearing, smell, touch/feel, thought, emotion all noted as they appeared. Temperature was very cold with a cutting wind blowing, this made for plenty of aversion being noted with sensations in the face, space above the head, shivering and the desire to get back inside out of the cold. Each aversion was seen as it occurred and not permitted to have any affect, just watched as another sensation. Noted itching, pain, discomfort, avoiding, multiple types of though which appeared to shift to another type (e.g. thinking-thought moved to future-thought to remembering to recalling to imagining to planning etc) each time they were noted, each seen to do it's thing but having nothing to affect if that makes sense?

I voluntarily stopped at this point as I felt in high mindfulness, quietly balanced and prepared for further practice. It had also gotten too cold and my dog was giving me all too obvious signs that he'd had enough of waiting for me to get back inside!

09/02/11
Vipassana (Standing outdoors) - 15 mins
Vipassana (Seated) - 45 mins.

Stood in the garden with the rain falling lightly across my face, I felt the moisture on my hands behind me as I stood and focused on the rise & fall of the breath. Noted cold, wet, unpleasant as I got into first jhana before turning to emotions as the target for noting. I've noticed my previous posts don't make much mention of emotions being noted and intend to change this with the hope of being able to express a more holistic representation of what's happening. At first, thought was more noticeable with the emotional reaction being quite clouded due to the mental noise so I sat with these sensations for a while and observed thoughts come and go, and as long as I didn't allow myself to get caught up in the content they passed like the breath which allowed a clearer perspective on how those thoughts influence the emotion.

When I felt focus move to the periphery of these sensations I made the choice to increase the width of concentration with the intention of getting a "wide-angle" view of what was going on. Abandoned the centre of the field and just sat with the sounds of the river, the feeling of breath, the smell of the fern trees, thought just flowed in it's usual way with nothing for it to "stick" to which made it easy to just accept and see as it passed. I noted that I had shifted to feelings of "being" the river, the movement, power, sound and direction all changing constantly and flowing which, when noticed fully, brought me back to feeling the body again and prompted me to end the meditation.

(Cont)

(Cont)

Returned inside, showered and prepared to sit. Sat down and very quickly focused on the breath, noted discomfort and mild pain in my legs. feet and back which were observed in turn. Turned to noting the emotions of discomfort, impatience, wanting to move and the way I would normally react to this, instead I remained present with these feelings and the breath, watching each pain appear to move, turn to a "jagged" warmth, spreading out and contracting like it's taking a bite out of my attention but I could remain unaffected by just being there with each sensation. I noted anxiety, examined its' cause and noted some issues with work which were concerning me, these were felt in the lower right of my abdomen as a tension, noticeable but not painful, I recalled having previously addressed these issues in the 'real world' the other day and felt the tension, anxiety and feelings of being quite on-edge dissolved like sandcastles by the waves.

I stayed with the emotions and purposely built up feelings of anger and irritability to examine them more closely, this was an exercise I started doing a while ago due to the number of times my dog, or the cats, bound through the hall while I practice and distracted me which led to me getting quite reactive and annoyed. Just noting how the energy is actually useful to push oneself deeper into practice, this led to a sensation at the solar plexus of expansion and a push/pull which started more clearly at the back of the body before moving through to the front and remaining there.

Found myself getting caught up in thoughts a bit too regularly which led me to return to bringing up my level of concentration. I stayed with the breath again, moved into a more spacious and focused state and noted self-critical dialogue, berating myself for losing concentration before and questioning whether or not I was actually doing anything other than...

(Cont)

(cont)

...questioning whether I was actually doing anything other than sitting in the bathroom and watching myself breathe. I became aware of being aware of this happening, like noting the noting again only this occurred with a more, felt as kinesthetic rather than just solely mental, shift to being very, very focused across a massive dimension of awareness so that I was noting chains of sensations as noting flitted between touch, rising, vibration, depth, movement, touch etc etc. I moved to noting physical pain in my foot and back, I followed sensation to the edge of where it was seen to cease to be perceivable, every sensation becomes an object it itself at this point, chaotic and beautiful storms which no longer require directed awareness, they just happen and "I" just perceive them.

Noted this "I" and what was still observing sensation which caused, what I can only describe as, a perceptual flip which made that "I" the same as it's breath and was accompanied by a deep sense of compassion, caring and openness I find difficult to express in words. I can recall little bodily sensation here, just a pure awareness, peaceful and profoundly silent......and then my goddamned alarm went off. Ha!

I was unmoved, I noted the sound and it's constituent parts from the wave of the tone to the sense of it in the ear, being processed and understood by the mind as "alarm", so I reconnected with the breath and returned to baseline. I noticed extraordinary pain in my ankles which was due to slipping into a bad posture while having no sense of it happening, this was noted while I stood up and had the quite entertaining, if mildly annoying, effect of making the entire right-leg below the knee vanish from perception completely as I walked up the hall.

10/02/11
Samatha - 30 mins (Outside & Standing)

Stood in the garden and focused on the breath, it was very difficult to remain with it for any more than two of three cycles so I noted this and tried to introduce vipassana into the practice, if only to note distraction, annoyance, and the seemingly chaotic blur of thoughts taking center stage. This did little to help and I found myself being very easily distracted by sound, the sound of the river was very 'solid' and, as my house is under a fairly busy flight path, airplanes overhead also seemed very loud. It became quite frustrating, I noted that I couldn't just let go and concentrate, examining this I noted that I still had some things to do that night after practice (I usually make sure I've taken care of anything important through the day so that this doesn't happen) which I hadn't resolved to set aside for the duration of the practice. Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.

After about ten minutes of continuously leading attention back to the breath at the abdomen rather than the nose, gently and, a very accurate analogy I've seen on here, like training a puppy. I had to laugh at myself, I was getting a bit overly confident about my ability to lock solidly into jhana quickly and now it bites me in the ass and I realize what's still to be worked on! So be it, I accept it and continue staying with the breath and feel the pleasant tingles over my face and body as I just allow whatever's happening to happen, gently noting anything which becomes predominant in awareness, and gradually solidifying the state until there's something which, when examined closer, feels like seeing through glass, clear at the center but frosted from the periphery outwards.

(Cont)