throughline Practice Journal

Starting a practice journal here. Enjoy the engaging, supportive and courteous dialogue in this forum -- seems like a nice sangha.

Tomorrow, I begin a five/six day solo retreat -- got a little cabin at a retreat center where they bring me meals each day, nice setup, lots of redwoods, next to a state park. Then come back home for a day or two and head off for a big-group retreat for a week. So, almost two total weeks of retreat time coming up. Am interested and curious in continuity of practice between the two retreats.

Practice for me tends to be insight oriented with occasional samatha practice. I have some practice notes/reminders from my last long retreat, which I may type up too to remind myself what was skillful and not so skillful in my practice as I get re-started.

Welcome and good luck on your retreat(s)! The solo retreat setup sounds great - mind sharing the location?
What technique do you use for insight practice?

Thanks for the welcome nadavspi. The location for the solo retreat is Vajrapani Institute, in Boulder Creek, California, between Santa Cruz and San Jose. They've got a handful of cabins on top of a ridge in addition to meditation hall/dorm setup. Beautiful setting; been there for a couple of nine day group retreats, but first solo.

In terms of broad insight technique, I'm influenced by Mahasi Sayadaw, Ajahn Chah and U Ba Khin as those are some of the main lineages in which my teachers have practiced. Three Gear practice seems useful. MCTB has also been important as far as crystalizing technique. Also, I've enjoyed playing with the mahamudra practice that people here have been posting about recently. I guess my technique is somewhat improvisational.

Welcome throughline, wish you well on your retreat and after. I've got a pretty improv based practice as well, whatever works seems like a good idea to me.

Got checked in to center this evening, unpacked and settled in cabin.

45 min sit: Dream images, sloth and torpor, low energy. Tingling in the body.

60 min sit: Choiceless awareness. Primary object: Whole body field. Tingling, pulsing and vibrations through the body. Space open with permeability of body/space. Pulled to:Some pain in hip, neck, shoulders and back. Pain turned to tingling, pulsing when focused upon. Some gentle focusing and some microscopic focusing. At times, areas of pain or all the various pains simply became objects in space, when letting go, so that sensations are not taken as being of a specific part of the body or my body. Large field of sensations coming and going. Some wandering mind, thinking -- planning, comparing.

A day for getting settled... Slept in some. Coming into this with some erratic and poor quality sleep over the last weeks.

Sittings. Choiceless awareness. Primary object: Whole body field. Tingling, pulsing, bubbling, buzzing through the whole body. Struck by buzzing through center of the body. Pulled by thinking, anticipating, pain in shoulders, leg, neck. More pain than I've sat with in a while and more frequently and in more parts of the body. Noting vedana. Pain turns into pressure, tingling, pulling, pulsing when investigated. Then later free flowing energy when aware of whole body. The ringing frequency/tone being heard changed as the energy became free flowing and pain dissipated.

Walking.Gently being with awareness. Pulled by thoughts, sights, looking for poison oak on trail, thoughts and feelings about poison oak... Investigated seeing. Noticing visual field strobing, then pixelated, then strobing, then pixelated again... at times, pixelation rapidly moving from center of visual field to periphery of visual field giving a sort-of flowing effect. Also, noticing the intention to focus the eyes when focus is lost... focus repeatedly being lost: closer-in blurry, farther-out blurry, clear/focused, back and forth. Allowing focus to be whatever it is, blurry or clear -- it is what it is.

Welcome on board! These notes are excellent and it'll be great to see how things go.
Good luck with everything!

At times, practice seemed like a big hindrance attack today, lots of restless, depressed, squirmy mind.

Woke to light buzzing sensation through the body... low-level quality of being meditated.

Choiceless awareness. Primary object: Whole body field. Energy coursing through the body. Pulled away by a little pain and sound (woodpecker). Later, return to whole body field as primary object of meditation. Tingling, strobing, flickering. Pulled away by pain and thinking. Pain mostly turns into stiffness, pressure, tension, pulsing under investigation. Return to whole body field. Remaining pain, little droplets of pain, slide up the body into space. Field gets dark. Background becomes dark and body image becomes dark, as though foreground body is transparent (who turned out the lights quality). So, some sense of merging with space, can feel the arising and passing of objects but they aren't clearly visibile in the field of awareness. Left feeling a little depleted or spacey after this.

Later, noticing of suffering or unsatisfactoriness in each pixel of sensation -- the never ceasing arrivals at the sense doors. Who left all the channels turned to incessant static for my whole life? ; ) Letting go of identification with the body, with mental processes, with awareness. Pain turns into energy. Body and background/space blend in luminosity. The visual field objects are quite fine, more like the consistency of flour than the consistency of sand. Awareness starts to take a step back, seemingly, to take in the whole sensate situation.

Thanks for these great reports, throughline. Best of luck on the rest of your retreat!

Some serious aversion to sitting today. Also, some guilty mind about not keeping up noting practice throughout the day.

Choiceless awareness with the whole body field as primary object. Pixelation, strobing. Later, sprinkled in some concentration practice, which seemed to get factors and faculties more balanced or engaged or energized as the case might be. Returned to whole body field. Buzzing and vibrating through the body, expanding beyond the body to include space, such that the differentiation fell away. Objects arising and passing quickly. Along the way, noting dropped. Brought noting back to the vibrating; noting mind was observed vibrating and falling away as the note was being made, so the noting mind/notes were falling apart into little chunks -- the appearance of it was kind of like writing on water, mirroring or emulating the vibrating that was being noted... all very ephemeral and somewhat amusing. Relaxing of identification with awareness, awareness spreading and open rather than tight and localized. Realizing how stressful it is for the awareness to be tight and localized. Some spontaneous eye fluttering.

It has gotten late, so will just note that Wednesday's session had many common themes with Tuesday. Plus, some interest in self-referential process. Anyway, tomorrow is the last full day of this phase of retreat.

Awoke to assault on the senses: Zooming, loud, unhappy thoughts; incessant buzzing, tingling on the skin; loud, unstoppable ringing in ear; etc. The word that came to mind was miserable. Never been through the territory quite so sensitive or raw as this morning. Usually meditation is more about impermanence and the uncontrollable, this was an unusual intensity of suffering.

Played with walking meditation objects, feeling the energy in the body, the whole body form, the soles of the feet or the whole foot, second gear practice while walking, noting the pressures, movements, etc. More experimenting to do with walking practice.

Primary sitting meditation object was the rising and falling of the breath in the abdomen, paying close attention to the passings away of nama/rupa. An oldie but a goodie. Word for the day: Annicanupassana. Sometimes the 'same thing' must be learned over and over again. Why I forget and move on to other things is beyond me.

Heading back out -- week 2 of the retreat. Week 2 is a silent group retreat, but I'm residing off campus at a private residence (not my own and within walking distance), so hopefully that doesn't prove to be too distracting or unsettling. With some momentum in my practice, I believe it will be fine... and hard to imagine it will be worse than my roommate snoring like a freight train on last retreat when I stayed on campus ; )

Quite a bit of joy or bliss in the 48 hours I've been home. Waves of it just keep coming up in the body, sometimes surprisingly spontaneous, other times 'called' up... Sometimes I blissed out and just enjoyed it, and sometimes I noted the three characteristics. Was sometimes spreading it as I walked through the city -- kind of like a metta practice for neutral people. At a store, it was irrepressible, and the cashier started smiling too. Infectious happiness is nice.

Some forehead discomfort, especially if perspective on things gets sufficiently narrow -- sensations/attention tending to concentrate, as it were, in the forehead when identification reaches a level of intensity. Pull back to a wider perspective and contentment tends to arise as the forehead tension dissipates.

Got checked in. Some talking with teachers and yogis, drawing up memories, expressing a personality and that sort of thing. Some apprehension and fear; headache. Some things that triggered wild thought trains and unhappiness -- not a big deal in and of themselves... figure it's heightened sensitivity. Sat with it, alternating between awareness of the whole body field and rising and falling of breath in the abdomen. Sense of groundedness and free flow of energy developed pretty easily. Some pain in shoulders. Tingling and vibrations and fine buzzing felt. Sense of large spaciousness. Some general luminosity in the visual field at times. Sounds turning to vibrations in a way -- this has been happening in a fairly regular way for the last couple of months (since I made a really concentrated effort on hearing sense door), but I'm still figuring out a satisfying way of describing it; suffice it to say that it's as if the sound loses some quality, but I'm not sure what the quality is yet. More study/precison required.

Taken refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha and accepted the precepts; I'm figuring that this journal is not a violation of noble silence.

During the refuge taking, luminosity really built and objects got really fast and joy/contentment grew too. Wow! Faith building. Even though I'm not especially keen on Buddhism as religion or religious identity -- not exactly for or against; I consider myself more of a Buddhist-inspired meditator than a Buddhist. Still, it's interesting. The mind (or 'something') is powerful, whatever the mind (or 'something') is.

First full day of the retreat. Primary object of meditation while sitting: Rising and falling of breath in the abdomen; however, I did switch out to whole body field a fraction of the time. Tingling, strobing, flickering, sparkling, vibrating. Some pain -- disintegrating into tingling and vibration when focused upon. Some eye fluttering. Some moderately strong rapture during the dharma talk -- energizing; tried to moderate it, so it wouldn't get too speedy and foster restlessness. Played with jhanic arc this evening... interesting results but will explore some more before writing about it. Worked on relaxing and disidentification, lots of openness of space developing, objects moving quickly, big vibration burst in forehead, bliss...

"Even though I'm not especially keen on Buddhism as religion or religious identity -- not exactly for or against; I consider myself more of a Buddhist-inspired meditator than a Buddhist."

I'm with you 100% on that one.

These notes are outstanding and your skills are exemplary.

Thanks Tommy.

This entry may be a little more interpretive than usual, as I'd like to go to sleep, though feeling pretty wired and buzzy and a lot of different frequencies in my ears. While I feel good in one way, I feel spent in another; I feel like I've been through the proverbial wringer.

First sit, didn't notice anything out of the usual versus what I've been reporting, continuing to use the rising and falling of breath in the abdomen as primary object. During walking had unusual but not unheard of focus/reflection on nama/rupa and cause and effect -- a lot of strobing and pixelation in the visual field set the stage for the reflection/investigation... Around mid-day was sitting with pain, tingling and then visual field shifted from vague objects into bright, luminous objects arising super quicky and pain in the whole body just dissolved into little currents of energy (hadn't had that happen quite so profoundly in a while), and then boom, things went dark and only saw the endings of the objects... Then, a stretch of more pain and discomfort and restlessness. Last sit of the night went to equanimity, then bliss, smiling, feeling great.

The thing that really blew me away was the A&P-like phase. When it came up, it was so vivid, and I was thinking to myself: What's this doing here? What's happening? Did I miss something? It set off a lot of thinking about maps. The quality of the whole day was more about territory covered than covering new territory... Well, that was Day 2, four full days to go... I'm curious to see what happens next.

And tomorrow, I have my first interview of the retreat (last week or this week), and it's a group interview. I have no idea what I'm going to say. I will seek out one of my teachers for a one-on-one interview in the afternoon, since I'm probably not going to relay 90% of this stuff in the group meeting.

Keep it brief tonight: Primary object of meditation was again the rising and falling of the abdomen with the breathing, paying close attention to the cessation of both the physical movement and the mind that notes it. Nothing out of the ordinary to report based on previous journal entries. This has pretty consistently, though not always, brightened the mind and transitioned into a much more spacious, some might say, panoramic awareness. The edge of my practice is now to dwell in awareness/the witness that stands or floats apart from all the goings on of mind/body. Mostly just letting go or letting be. Curious to see how this unfolds. Some bliss states forming, along with a lot of buzzing, ringing

I could tell there was a part of the Dharma talk that went way over my head; it's exciting when your insight level builds so that you can understand more, but it's also exciting when there's some mystery I'm clueless about.

Group interview went fine... I had no desire to make anything up or skirt too much, so I mostly followed the standard Pandita interview format as best as I can recall. Teacher who sat retreat with Pandita for at least eight months in Burma, if I recall correctly, suggested that I could temper down the search for the three characteristics -- more like they could present themselves if I was in a position to be receptive. Speaks to my striving habits.

I think the spontaneous review from the previous day may have been some sort of maturation of insight knowledge process. Mahasi indicates that the knowledges mature, but I'm not sure I recally him giving any examples. Anybody know of any?

Speaking of feeling good, I do feel good. I feel kind of mentally cleaned out or simplified somehow. It's a nice, 'normal' feeling -- unlike the usual insight path wringer which can produce anywhere between heaven and hell.

Meet main teacher in the morning for 1x1.

Lesson for the day: Stay with the arising and passing away and remember to disidentify.

Primary object of meditation: Rising and falling of breath in the abdomen. Noting sensations that seem to be privileged as separate self, relaxing them, like pulling back a Saran Wrap layer of sensations. Staying with awareness... Pain in the body goes to pulsing, vibrations then. Pain is pain when there is an identity of I, me or mine layered on top of the tingling, pressure, heat, etc... Equanimity develops. Pulsing, vibrations in the body, in space, leading to no distinction. Things got day dreamy -- pulled away several times and then snapped back. Some sleepiness developed during the course of the day. Access to equanimity was strongest in the morning and decreased in availability/intensity in the afternoon.

Second to the last full day of retreat: Woke up in the middle of the night to basically identical dream. Stars appear in a dark sky, flashing like objects and when they finish their flashing, they go away and awareness or what have you 'makes contact' with me... and it feels totally profound, brings me straight from deep sleep to consciousness. This dream happened twice in a row, so I got up to go the meditation hall at 5am -- early for me.

Morning consisted of some similar themes to the journal entries above. Teacher provided some guideance on how to handle mind states using seven factors of awakening as a model, for instance.

Late morning and all afternoon were sloth and torpor swamps as far as the eye could see. I just couldn't figure out how to get those factors back into balance. Finally, by chancee, I started doing a private mudita practice for one of the teachers, which brought a flood of joy or rapture... and that meant energy. Some high quality energy to sink that nasty sloth and torpor. I pretty regularly use dharma talks as a refueling station for rapture, but mudita opens up some new possibilities ; )

During the sloth and torpor, practice really ground down to a stand still. I finally opened my eyes all the way and practiced that way, paying close attention to the pixelation of reality/everyday objects to understand the work the mind has to do...

The end of the night sit lasted about 1.5 hours. Seemed longer. Was jam packed with objects and I'm not sure I can say anything more than that it was intense. There was a blue lotus in it. For now, I'm calling the event the Magical Mystery Tour until it can be better broken down--if that's ever possible.

The last full day of the retreat. This is the day for surrender. It used to be the day that I prepared or even braced myself to re-enter the mundane world or whatever you want to call it. As I've come to realize that expectation, striving or a critical mass of effort is a hindrance to progress in meditation, I now practice up until the end of the last night... but somehow I have less expectation on the last day or two, which can make those days quite productive. I sometimes say to myself in the middle of a retreat: Practice like it's the end of the retreat but easier said than done.

So, I went for a hike and reflected on recent experiences. One such experience was the open-eyed sitting meditation, which I didn't fully detail yesterday. One aspect of that was watching an image of the object from one eye, then watching an image of the object from the other eye. Each image was 2-D, slightly different, some weird effects of shadow, then seeing the 3-D outcome. The mind taking the two different images and combining them into what I take for normal vision. Something related that I'm less clear on had been happening in close-eyed meditation -- the objects in each eye were becoming separate, so that there were two visual fields instead of one, at times. Trippy.

Went back for a sitting meditation. Primary object started as rising and falling of breath in the abdomen. Was getting drop outs at the ceasing of the noting mind, so switched to the sensations of butt on the cushion to get more/stronger contact and resolved to increase investigation at the passing away moment. That seemed to do the trick. Rode the ceasing moments 'down.' Things got darker, more vibratory at a very fine level. Played with letting go of noting, then bringing back, then letting it go. Mind getting really quiet. Releasing. Letting go, letting go (or letting be, if you prefer).