Well, I didn't make it. Though there was progress.
I went a bit overboard and probably did myself in a bit and am still recovering. I was doing 5hr meditations between the hall and my bed for most of the course. I didn't even take a walk till day 4, then I tried to keep some mindfulness on the breath while doing so even then. After the last sit, I was getting another hour in before sleep (which i had trouble with even being exhausted..).
I realised in day 1 that I had taken a step backward (probably new souroundings/routine etc) and had just made it out of the 3C's into A&P. In day 2, I hit the DN hard. The 2 or 3 times I'd scaled the DN up into EQ at home were a breeze compared to this. Full on nightmare sits -- I went through Dissolution a few times through day 2 and part of day 3 before I hit the real baddies. Then pretty much went through them all each time I sat. They presented like this (with some variation):
- Dissolution: A&P disappears, no focus, wandering mind. Can't feel the breath, a few annoying/nasty sensations around nose.mouth.
- Fear: Heart pounding in throat, prickly sensations as I sweat. Woke up from quite a ghastly nightmare that evening.
- Misery: Well it's just shit. Hating it, hating it, hating it
- Disgust: More hating, coupled with nausea
- Desire: Hard to tell difference, guess this was when misery was at it's peak
- Re-observation: Holy mother of god, WTF!?!
Once I hit re-observation fully (late day 4 I think, could be day 5) I seemed to have to relearn it and relearn it and relearn it over and over again. I must have been through it 12-15times on retreat. And it was truly awful. Here's a brief description:
Re-observationFeels like someone has your head in a vice, and every in breath and outbreath turns the handle just a tiny bit more. Massive grapefruit sized swelling, pulsating ball of nastiness on right side of my head, feeling of utter despair and depression and a pretty strong urge to just go punch someone.
EQThe first few times I made it out of re-observation into EQ I never really noticed the transition. I would get up from the sit, walk to my room and lay down to meditate and would "blip over" Re-ob straight into what I will later describe as EQ. Later in the course, i experienced the shift full on in the sit, but only once: It was like the clouds parting to reveal the sun. Sounds a bit airy-fairy but it's an accurate description. It doesn't happen immediately, but it's pretty fast. 5-10seconds maybe. Everything still hurts, but it's okay, removed or at a distance kind of.
While i was on retreat I had a kind of working theory that sitting made re-ob more likely to happen. I had massive upper back pain and elsewhere and could not sit for toffee in the mornings. If I lied on my bed, I would "blip over" re-ob and straight into EQ. It was only later in the day, 2pm+ that I could sit and get into EQ in the hall. When the mind had sped up, the body warmed up a bit etc.
Friday was the high point (day 7). EQ was very cool (i will describe this in another thread, as it could do with some verification and comment outside of this context) and I made it 2x into what I thought at the time was 4th jhana, but now have some doubts over. After this it went downhill though. I put it down to exhaustion. Im not as robust as I once was and the lack of sleep really began to take it's toll. I pretty much sat the last 2 days back in re-ob, albeit a slightly tamed down version. It seemed I could avoid it a little by really concentrating, but it was just so depressing to slip back.
Right nowMy hope is that in a week or two when I've recovered (i heal slow!) my meditation will have improved greatly. This was the case on my previous 2 retreats. But right now, I'm finding it hard to feel anything, and am clearly in the DN again. I will just have to give it a little time to get sleep back up to normal level and feel well again.
I will post about EQ separately, though I'd welcome any thoughts on any of this stuff at all.
Thanks all,