John's practice

Friday: 1 hour
Saturday: 1 hour
Sunday: 1 hour

Smooth as glass. Time passes quickly. Nothing new.

Monday: 30 minutes

My busy day, but the little time I had was very solid. Nothing new.

Tuesday: 1 hour.
Today: 1 hour.

I keep logging the hours. Tuesday was probably the deepest focus I've ever had, with the least wandering thoughts. Today there were more wandering thoughts, but still it was good. Nothing new to report.

1 hour. Almost total silence, hardly any wondering thoughts or any thoughts at all. Nothing new coming up.

Friday I didn't sit. Saturday 1 hour. One of the longest hours I can remember. The time was going so slowly that I actually became angry. I noted all of my anger and extreme dissatisfaction. Sunday I didn't sit. I'll get back to it today, but the aversion I feel makes it difficult. At least I have a lot to note: anger, frustration, self-pity, boredom, impatience, intolerance, etc ...

Monday, 1 hour. Good focus in the beginning, very smooth. Halfway through I remembered something irritating that I needed to do and had trouble focusing from that point on. Time seemed to pass normally. Nothing new came up.

Tuesday, 1 hour. Today, 1 hour. Nothing has changed, nothing new. I sit, I look at the kasina, there is space, sometimes wandering thoughts, sometimes I note, sometimes I do a little metta, sometimes I have negative thoughts about nothing happening and so on, and I note those, sometimes I surrender ... it all feels neutral most of the time.

Thursday 1 hour, Friday 30 minutes, and 1:45 today. Noted a lot of dissatisfaction and frustration Thursday and Friday. Talked to Ron Crouch today, and spent some time very absorbed, trying to see if I can reach the Pure Land Jhanas and a few other things. I'm not really quite sure if I did or not. The time Thursday and Friday dragged, but today it flew by as I tried to disembed from everything that came up. It all led to some very unusual states. I also tried the exercise where one focuses attention on a spot that causes a slowing, leading to a cessation. I seemed to hit the slowing spot, but I didn't have a fruition if that was the point.

Trying to reach Pure Land and/or Nirodha makes the time fly. Another hour on Sunday. My focus is exceptionally good again. I did some more reading on the PL jhanas and it sounds like I have reached them before, at least once. It just didn't occur to me at the time that I could reach them, so I wrote it off as just another experience, a rush of gratitude followed by a half-hour of peace and joy.

Another hour yesterday. If the Pure Land jhanas are an "upward" shift, waves of gratitude, and resting in an extremely pleasant space, then I accessed them repeatedly. I can't say for sure that I reached PL2, but that wasn't the point -- I was just trying to see if I could access them at all. I certainly can't distinguish between all the other jhanic states, so I doubt if I could tell PL1 from PL2 anyway. I have entered this state before, but I didn't know what it was. I only knew that it was a lot better than the other jhanic states, though not to the level of a PCE. Speaking of which, my session was so intense that later I did have a PCE-like experience. Not full blown, but pretty much like after I followed some advice from Nicholai on how to induce a PCE -- the flavor is unmistakable, the lack of identity, the heightened perception, the timeless flow. I don't know how these things are related.

Of course I could be wrong, and it might not be PL at all.

I'll work on Nirodha. I'm sure I've never experienced that before. There seems to be a spot I can focus on where I sense a slowing down, but I can't bring everything to a complete halt.

I tried what cmarti said in an old thread about entering Nirodha, by "pressing" down from the third eye area. I sat for an hour today and when I was to the highest point of my concentration, I tried it. I did get a rather alarming sense of free falling into a dark abyss the first time, but I didn't pull back ... however it didn't end in any kind of cessation. The sense of falling passed, a there was just a kind of weird blackness. I tried it a few more times, and it was certainly strange, but I didn't get the true sense of falling again.

Since I was already focused, I decided to go up instead of down. I don't know if this is Pure Land or not, but if I incline my mind towards reverence while focusing up like I get some huge rushes of gratitude that seem to move upward through my body and out the top of my head. Maybe that's all it is: rushes of gratitude, induced by reverence. It feels more like prayer than meditation. Whatever it is, it is extremely pleasant, a little rapturous.

It would be ever so helpful if I would move distinctly through each jhana, instead of just zipping right to spaciousness, then to detached spaciousness, then to emptiness, then to states that I can't explain at all.

Still focused, I decided to spend some time on the three characteristics in all of these different states. Nothing arose from the first two characteristics, as they seemed obvious, but the third, no-self, was sticky, so I focused on that for the rest of the hour.

I did an hour and a half today. For some reason, for the first hour I couldn't go farther than just the spaciousness, which is sort of the default that comes up within minutes, often seconds, of sitting down. It didn't expand. I didn't feel my awareness detaching or expanding. In the last thirty minutes I moved briefly into these other states, but I didn't reach the emptiness, and so when I tried moving up for Pure Land or pressing down for Nirodha, nothing at all happened. I have to get to the emptiness first.

Realizing that I wasn't going to get anywhere, I just fell back to noting. Fortunately, for a change, I had a lot to note. Some emotionally upsetting things happened earlier in the day, and all of the negative emotions boiled up for me to note. I focused on the three characteristics, particularly no-self. Over time the negative emotions slowed down, and then stopped. But then my mind started to wander. It was just one of those days. I did the extra thirty minutes because I hoped to get back to the states of the last few days, but no, my mind just wandered and I became completely caught up in planning thoughts and ruminations.

Also, I tried really hard to be aware of any movement through any stages of the cycle, or jhanas, or anything. Except for finally moving from spaciousness to expansion, I didn't feel any shifts at all. Even the negative emotions weren't like cycling through misery, disgust, etc... They were more like just pent up energy dissipating. I just let them boil away until they were gone. So I think it was still all EQ. And yes, at times it was boring and I became frustrated with it, despite it being easy and pleasant, if that makes any sense.

Only a half hour yesterday. Felt fine. The usual. I look at the kasina, it splits in two, I enter a state of spaciousness, sometime I move into a state where instead of being in the center of the spaciousness looking out, awareness becomes detached and no longer centralized. Didn't reach the state of emptiness, where even the feeling of detachment goes away and noting isn't possible, but that usually takes a while for me to reach. Mind wandered a little, and I redirected it back to the kasina. For many weeks, the two images of the kasina that I almost always see have been a lot more stable than in the past, with only a little space between them, but one or both still disappear on occasion. One thing that seems to be picking up is my eyes fluttering a lot. Don't know what that's about, but I just let it happen. My eyes flutter and my vision vibrates around for a while. The impatience and even anger at my inability to progress seems to have passed, as well as the feelings of irritation and boredom.

If you are feeling pretty simple/plain when the eyelids start to flutter, you might want to try "sensing" both the sensations of the flutter and the overlooked sensation of the gap in between. Sensations, the endings of sensations, and gaps between sensations can be gateways into insight if you don't add energy into the investigation, just simply be aware of how it all appears within the moment.

Wait...John, are you 3rd path? I see talk of PL Jhana's and NS. Cool stuff.

@betawave -- I do usually just go with the flow and just watch the fluttering, and sometimes the gaps are more pronounced than the fluttering, if you know what I mean. I'll pay attention for beginning and ending as well as gaps.

@Aquanin -- it isn't certain what path I am on. I have been doing various practices on and off for 30 years, and I've had many strange experiences, so it is really hard to tell. That is part of what attracted me to this place -- the stages, the paths, knowing where we are. The trouble is that my past experiences do not fit in nicely, so we are looking at my current practice for clues. It was thought that perhaps because have been hanging around in EQ for a long time and was becoming aggravated with it, that this was more in line with 3rd path. So a way of testing would be to see if I can access the PL jhanas and NS. Unfortunately I'm still not really sure. Any help would be appreciated.

1:20 session. Again with the spaciousness, and no more. This time it seemed hazy and unfocused. The time passed fairly quickly, no disturbances. It's all pleasant enough. Again, I didn't get to the state where I might reach PL or NS. When I tried to go up, nothing. Down, nothing. It just doesn't happen at the spaciousness level. I don't know why I'm not getting to the more focused states. Guess I'll just have to wait.

Very cool. I hope you get some more clarity soon. I can't help with the PL and NS stuff as I am not 3rd path yet but good luck!

OK, now I know what is going on. Every few weeks I seem to cycle through a bad period of a few days. Six months ago it was like descending into hell, and then it eased up to mere despair, and then emotional pain, then only sadness, and today it was just some sadness and negativity. Does this happen to anyone else?

I should have realized that when I could no longer reach the upper edge of my practice I was falling back into this again. But overall, the trend is good. The high keeps getting higher, and the low isn't so painful anymore.

So, I sat for an hour today. I thought I was having wandering thoughts, but then I realized it was fear, misery, and disgust marching by, very clearly for a change. It still surprises me when they go by in the exact order. I have a lot of doubts about my practice. Anyway, I settled in for an hour of negative thoughts and images floating by, sadness, wishing it were over, frustration, etc ... In the last 15 minutes I tried switching from noting to metta, but it didn't help.

I was going to sit for two hours but one was all I could stand.

Yes, like I thought, yesterday was better. There was no sadness or emotional content at all. The focus was better, definitely coming back, but I still didn't get much past my usual spaciousness, even after an hour. Again I tried to do PL or NS, but nothing at all happened, because I think I have to start from a high jhana, the one that is emptiness. I never made it that far.

I spent most of the session noting and sometimes asking "Who am I?" which seemed to bring up a few strange insights, like how mechanical and fake the self is that puts the question, and what is it that really puts the question, since it can't be an imaginary self ... and so on.

And back up the hill I go. Even as I sat, I could feel my focus getting stronger. Early in the sit, it wasn't there, but after a half hour or so I moved from spaciousness to a detached, or decentralized awareness, and eventually I began to enter emptiness. I didn't really get anywhere with PL, but when I tried NS everything became very dark. I kept focusing down and it was like a void. My breathing became very, very slow. However, I didn't notice anything like a fruition, blip, or interruption. I tried for a while to let go of anything that could still be clinging, but it just stayed black and void.

My concentration was very hard, so I delved into the three characteristics, and when I switched terminology from "no-self" to "not personal" and observed how everything was just happening on its own, I had some significant insights. Just in the last few days I've started having insights. Another thing worth mentioning are the visual vibrations. Sometimes I can kind of hear and feel them. Visually, it is like bad TV reception. I can still see everything, but there is flickering and snow, or a quick pulsing, sometimes just around the edges of objects, sometimes the whole field.

1:30 kasina. It has been six months now of steady practice, at least an hour a day. I expected a great sit, but instead I had a lot of emotional pain and my mind wandered off constantly. I tried just noting it all. I seemed to be getting some focus at the end of the hour, so I put 30 more minutes on the timer. For not particular reason I tried what was more like prayer than meditation. Maybe it was the desire for deliverance. I felt several rushes going up my spine and out of the crown. I kept at this for a while, and then decided the pleasant feelings were doing me some good, so I moved on to mahamudra noting, which is always good.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that I think I actually had a blip-out moment. It was like blinking, only I didn't blink. Then I thought it was the lights, but the sun from outside was stronger than the inside light. There was nothing afterward though, so I guess it was nothing. It's just that I don't usually experience anything like that.

There were no deep focus states or vibrations this time. It definitely was a step back from yesterday.

Describe the blip out more if you can? I know you said not much happened afterwards, but what happened before?

"Describe the blip out more if you can? I know you said not much happened afterwards, but what happened before? "

I was looking at the kasina and my mind was blank, just floating along, and it was like when the power goes out for a split second and everything goes dark and then comes back. I thought "What the hell was that?" Then I assumed the lights flickered, only then I realized that sun was streaming through the window. So then I thought that maybe a plane passed overhead, but that wouldn't have made everything go black. Then I thought maybe I just blinked or something, but that doesn't really make things go black either. I scanned and didn't feel in any way different, so I assumed maybe it was my imagination or a visual glitch.

Have you tried to since then?

"Have you tried to since then?"

I did sit for another hour today. I had unusually good focus. It was a strange sit. At one point when I had reached my usual high point of focus, the kasina seemed to get smaller and then everything moved up. It was odd, like being on top of a flagpole or something, with a cone of awareness overhead, and very wide and panoramic downward. I've sat in the same room for six months, and I only felt cool air on my skin once before, and that came with bliss waves. No bliss waves this time, but the feeling of cool air on my skin went on for quite a while. Other than that, it was just a very good sit. Oh, and my mind was unusually silent today. Usually I'm always thinking of something, but I noticed today that a lot of the time my mind was still and silent. There wasn't the usual chattering.