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Eric's Practice Thread

Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
1/19/12 8:18 PM
So for a little background, check out this thread. I'd also like to say thank you to TJ for the response. I didn't have anything else meaningful to add, so I opted to refrain from replaying just to say thank you, so thank you TJ. emoticon

The past few days have been interesting. I've begun to do a walking meditation on my way to work. It feels like starting over from scratch. I also have tried to follow some instructions for walking meditations, but I think most of them are directed towards people who don't need to be some place at a set time. I have set aside around 40 minutes for my walk into and from work, and that ends up cutting it fairly close, so I'm walking at a brisk pace. The reason I mention that is because I've only been focusing on the sensations of a single (right) foot. I began by noting "pressure" and "lifting" for the single foot, but really struggle to maintain my attention throughout the whole motion of the stride, including the placing of the foot, rolling through the foot, lifting the foot, and bringing it forward. Stopping to check streets or smile and say hello to strangers in the street (I can't help myself - would anyone suggest keeping my head down and ignoring others?) regularly breaks the concentration. I'd say overall concentration is fairly low, although it's only been 4 days of it, so I won't be discouraged.

Tonight's meditation was 55 minutes of sitting. I'm trying a new sitting posture. Previously I had been sitting Burmese style, but my right need has been ending a fair number (although not all) of my meditations extremely tight and with a dull aching pain. Tonight I sat with the cushion between my legs and I was straddling it such as you would a horse. That seems to have similar pain issues near the end, but none that make me worry of permanent damage. I may switch back and forth during alternating sessions until one proves better than the other.

The sit was overall a middle of the road sit. Two days ago I had one of the best sits so far, but the past two have been back to par.

I'm also going to try and learn and record one new thing I've learned about the breath, which is something Jack Kornfield mentions in A Path with Heart. Tonight I was noticing the temperature of the air contacting my nose, and was realizing part of the reason the in breath is more noticeable than the out breath than the out breath is due to the temperature difference on the way in (whereas on the way out there is no difference, so there's less to notice). Two nights ago I realized that when returning to my breath, I had been only returning to "the breath", however, what I needed to be returning to was "the whole breath". I needed to watch the beginning, middle and end of both the in and out breath, and everything in between. This isn't a new concept, but I just had never made the mental commitment to always return to the entire breath, and not just whatever part is most prominent at the moment. Previously, I would return to the breath only to get lost again quickly. This seemed to help two nights ago, but yesterday and today it seemed to lose its effectiveness.

At the end of my sit tonight, I was experiencing a fair amount of discomfort in the areas where the new sitting posture was applying pressure. I was noting "discomfort" and "aversion" pretty much the last ten minutes or so of the sit. Immediately upon standing after I was done, all the pain and discomfort were gone, unlike my knee tightness from previous sits that lasted 2-3 minutes after the sit and required some limbering up.

Kind regards,

Eric

ETA: If someone knows of a meditation teacher in or around La Crosse, WI I think I would like some direct help from someone.

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
1/21/12 6:27 PM as a reply to Eric O.
Thing learned about the breath yesterday: on my inhale, my belly begins moving before I have any sensations on my nostrils. At the very end of the inhale, it was not clear which started or ended first - the belly movement or the sensations at the nostrils. On the exhale, the nostril sensation and belly movement appear again to be synchronous, but at the very end of the breath the belly seems to stop moving and I get some final air movement at the nostrils. I'd like to continue searching this to see if I can't start to see what precedes what right in the middle of the entire breath.

Today I saw that, for whatever reason, the out breath tends to only be predominant on the very far end of my nostrils (looking down on them, between 11 and 1 o'clock). The in breath seems to be present about everywhere except where the out breath is present, although it's most noticeable at the far sides of my nose (9 o'clock for my left nostril, and 3 o'clock for my right nostril). I'm not sure why they appear at nearly mutually independent locations. More investigation required there too.

Yesterdays sit was so-so. I began by taking the first 10-15 minutes trying to notice the arising of thoughts as Shaila Catherine describes in her excecise "catching thoughts" on page 84 of her book Focused and Fearless. They are quite sneaky. I really had difficulty noticing when they would begin. I was able to fairly quickly identify them and watch them pass away, but couldn't seem to catch a single one arising. For the remainder of the hour sit I followed the breath, trying to stay with it at every moment and see what I could learn about it. I was not noting because it seemed quite difficult for me to note quickly and accurately while at the same time trying to really see something new in regards to the breath. The entire sit was relatively free of pain or negative distractions, and mostly was neutral with thoughts being the primary distraction.

Today's sit was slightly better. I realized this morning that I had been neglecting my metta practice, so I began with 15 minutes of fairly "intense" metta (I set an interval timer for the first 15 minutes). I tried to maintain a smile throughout the whole thing, and really made an effort to mean what I was thinking, rather than get caught up in a non-mindful repetition of the metta dialog. It went really well, and the 15 minutes went by extremely quickly. By the end I was smiling without much forcing, and was branching off my normal metta sequence ("May I be safe. May I be peaceful. May I be heathly. May I be happy.") when I realized I had mentally said something without really meaning it.

For the next 30 minutes (I peaked at my timer at about 47 minutes, for whatever reason), I was noting my breath, with varying degrees of success. It began fairly strong, and I would note my major distractions, but later I began to just note 4 "in" and 4 "out" sensations and get lost mindlessly and realize fairly quickly that I was doing so. But I never really regained my determination to really follow the breath continuously.

The last 15 minutes was spent doing something that I remember reading about 10-15 years ago when I was young and exploring many of the worlds religions. I noticed that I was getting quite a bit of tension in my shoulders and upper back. I had been noting a dull pain around my left shoulder blade, and each time I noted that, I would realize that my shoulders had tensed up, and I would note "intending" and then "relaxing". But I was doing this maybe once per minute. So for the last 15 minutes I was following the in breath and seeing where it seemed to add energy to my body, or trying to direct it to areas. On the out breath, I was consciously relaxing my entire body, trying to avoid having tension build up on every in breath (where I've noticed it does). So I first followed the energy in and watched it vibrating and pulsing in my feet, but then as I stopped forcing it there, I began to watch where it naturally flowed, which was to my hands. I watched it flow there and build steadily, although the relaxation every out breath seemed to diminish it somewhat. For the last few minutes, I sort of lost all mindfulness and found myself a little startled by the ending bells.

Both nights, I was sitting Burmese style, and my right knee felt a little tight throughout both sittings, but was not very painful or distracting. However, standing up both nights it was really really tight and took a minute or two to limber up. Not sure if that's bad or not, but because the pain was low I'll probably continue to sit that way for the time being.

Kind regards,
Eric

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
1/22/12 4:32 AM as a reply to Eric O.
If you're moving too quickly to note foot sensations, you might want to check out Kenneth Folk's walking meditation method: http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Walking+Meditation

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
1/23/12 8:35 PM as a reply to C T W.
Thanks CTW. I haven't had a chance to do a walking meditation, but I think Kenneth's take on walking meditation is great and I look forward to giving it a try. Should get a chance tomorrow morning!

Two days worth of stuff to report. Yesterday I sat twice. Once for an hour, the other for half an hour. Today I had two 45 minute sits.

But first, I just want to say thank you to anyone who's reading this, regardless of what you're doing with it. I know this is really basic stuff that I'm doing, and hopefully it will start picking up steam soon. My own take on it is that I'm kinda all over the place, but starting to find my way, and I'm just going to assume that until someone tells me to do otherwise, I'm going to keep going down the path I'm on.

So the big thing I recognized in my second sit today - although looking for something new in the breath is useful and does help me with concentration by giving my mind something to do, it's taken me away from Daniels suggestion of investigating the 3Cs. I'm going to try to get back on track with that. Another thing I noticed is that in my trying to find something new, I tend to add some extra thought analysis, which is not helping. So while it has its upside, it also seems to drag me down just as frequently as it boosts me up, if not more. I need to be really careful with that style of investigation.

I also started noticing a strange pulsing sensation on the isthmus (for lack of the proper name) of my nostrils. It seems to come and go, but when it's there, it's not consistent with my breath. It seems to run a parallel track. For instance, as I start my inhale, the sensation seems to quicken it's pulse, but then if I stop and hold the breath for a moment, it will continue on. Then as I let the breath out, and hold the pause at the end, it's still there again. My guess is that I'm noticing the pressure of my heart beat in my nose but two things make me question that. First, I don't know how subtle that would be, and if it is as subtle as I would expect, I'm not sure I'd be able to see that at this point. Maybe it's a fairly common place to notice your heartbeat? Second, it seems slightly too fast to be my heart rate, although I haven't been able to find my heartbeat in any other part of my body for comparison. It does make sense in that it speeds up on the in breath and slows down on the out breath. Further investigation needed!

Everything else has been just mediocre. Concentration hasn't been great. I think part of my problem is that I'm bouncing around a little too much and just need to stay with noting (I've been doing noting about every other sit, and trying out a few other things to see how they work - noting seems to increase my mindfulness the most). The knee and back pain seems to be diminishing, which is nice. I still notice it, but it's definitely not as distracting. It's been about a good month of sitting over 30 minutes, so hopefully my back muscles are getting used to it now, and my knee is just giving up its complaints.

Eric

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
2/2/12 2:04 PM as a reply to Eric O.
So, just for the time being, I'm going to stop posting regular updates until I get the concentration up to at least the first nana. I think I have enough direction and self motivation to get there. I've shifted back away from the walking meditation in the morning to a half hour sit in the morning plus an hour sit in the evening. If the morning sits weren't so groggy and unexceptional, I might consider bumping it to an hour on each end of the day. We'll see what happens.

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
3/11/12 2:48 PM as a reply to Eric O.
Alright. So I'm about 3 days out from the 10-day, and wanted to put down some thoughts for the record. I've been sitting for 30 minutes every morning, and between 1-1.5 hours in the afternoons. Last weekend I got to participate in an 8 hour retreat led by Shaila Catherine which really helped me distill my understanding of concentration vs insight. I had a rough road with it because of some back pain (which I'll describe in a minute), but overall it was a really fantastic retreat. I'm a little embarassed to admit that a week or two before the retreat I had still been sitting, but I was doing a lot more daydreaming and was lacking a fair amount of intention and fortitude. That retreat helped to jump start things again.

Since I last posted, my concentration has gotten pretty sharp, and certain sits I feel like I can have a stretch with maybe 15-20 minutes of solid continuous mindfulness/concentration. Maybe a couple lapses that only last a few seconds. I'm fairly confident I'm getting to access concentration when this happens. I don't lose awareness of everything except my breath, but I also only need very gentle goading to keep myself going.

I've been doing breath concentration methods recently and alternate in some noting when the concentration gets difficult. I've started some choice-less awareness sits again recently to get the momentum going for the 10-day, and a few times I have been able to really get going with that. I can note between 2-4 things per second when things are really going well. These are primarily the physical sense doors (5 traditional senses) with the occasional thought/feeling based note thrown in. Many of those thought/feeling based notes feel much more like a "good guess" than they do me clearly seeing them. However, many times this vague impression of a feeling/thought is something I know would have made me move (e.g. scratch an itch or stretch), but because I recognized it, I was able to avoid movement.

BUT. I still don't think I've had any of the major insights or experiences described in MCTB for any of the first four nanas. Part of this may be due to my emphasis on concentration practice, but I do a fair amount of insight practice as well. The closest thing I've been experiencing in those pages is a rather relentless back tension in "the rhomboid and trapezius muscles" (which I had to look up, but Wikipedia's diagram seems to describe the area of tension pretty well). Moving during my sits, including stretching up and bending down, hardly helps at all. The discomfort will last for a while after the sit, but eventually goes away. It's not a sharp pain, just a general widespread dull pain. It isn't throbbing, but tends to come in waves every 1-5 seconds or so. Sometimes I'm able to do a concentration practice and not really let it bother me, sometimes not. Other times I've gotten lost in thought for a few minutes and when I realized it, I was a little surprised the pain didn't pull me back sooner. When I try to watch it, it's fairly difficult to locate a specific area outside a general area of the upper middle of my back. It seems to be almost entirely constrained to the surface, just just under the surface of my skin.

So now I'm going to plow headlong into this thing. My hopes are that I really am in the 3rd nana and can hit the A&P early in the retreat so that I have some time to work with the dark night while I'm there. My intention is to stay focused and mindful for every waking second, and make some serious progress. I'm aiming for stream entry still, but I'm also recognizing that I need to avoid over-efforting (not sure if that's sloth and torpor talking, or me being realistic about the timeframe and what I'm actually trying to accomplish).

I'll report back afterwards.

Regards,
Eric

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
3/11/12 3:37 PM as a reply to Eric O.

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
3/20/12 4:12 AM as a reply to Eric O.
Bad news: left the retreat early (Monday 3/19 was the end, it's now 2am, but I drove home). Good news: 99% sure stream entry. Details following.

Day 1
Breath concentration. Specifically, concentration on the flow of air through the "nostrils". Day full of irritation because I was set on following his instructions, but I couldn't do any of my concentration tricks that helped me get good and deep before. So it was pretty poor all day, with TONS of posture adjustments.

Day 2
Breath concentration with the added emphasis on feeling the touch of the air through the nostrils. I didn't realize he didn't want us to do that the first day, so day 2 very closely resembled day 1.

Night of Day 2 + Day 3
So anyone who's done one of these knows he has you work all day then does a 1-1.5 hour long discourse to explain what is going on and what's coming up. They're pretty entertaining. The night of day 2 he was explaining the new concentration practice we would be using. Basically concentration on any sensation within the "limited area" of the triangle with the base as the upper lip up to the top of the nose.

Here's where things picked up. Finally I was doing something that was like what I was expecting for vipassana (although he pronounces it vipashina, as do the assistant teachers and others experienced with it - not sure what's correct, actually). This took off quite quickly. My nose was awash with sensation. Pressure, tingling, itching, bugs crawling...you name it, I probably had it.

Same thing the next morning of day 3. Tons of sensations. Going strong. However, by the afternoon, I started feeling bored with the same thing. I couldn't really stand the constant moving my legs and just crappy practice much longer, and impulsively I switched over to noting. Things really flew from there. It was basically the last 3 or 4 hour sits of the day, and I hammered the noting hard. After Goenkas discourse, I had sensations all over the body, super prominent, and for the next half an hour or so I began a fateful sit. Things were flying, and about 10 minutes in (this is all by memory, so give or take a little time) I hit what I later realized was the 4th nana. I kinda sorta wasn't sure, and I remember thinking "is this it?", as in "so what". So, I don't think I took more than a few seconds before pounding away at the noting again. Next thing I know, every sensation in my body is lit up and the best way I can describe it is an Eric sensation tornado. They were just spinning around like crazy. This was probably the only time during that whole sit where I took a few minutes just to observe. No noting. But, not knowing what it was, I stopped it consciously so I could continue noting. It probably would have been neat to let it play out and see what would have happened (I didn't get the lights show or anything), but I was deadset on making progress at that point. Looking back at it, I probably only had 10 minutes of actual A&P time before the event. I still think that was a little strange.

Day 4
Morning starts out and I'm feeling a little bit guilty about all the noting I had been doing, but that was short lived. I tried to do the concentration stuff we were still doing (still on the triangular area around the nose), but it sucked all of a sudden. The second sit of the day, all of a sudden I felt my heart beating out of my chest. I could feel my heat beat flowing all the way down both arms. Very interesting. Next thing I know: FEAR. Started out fairly gradual, but for the rest of the day I had fear. Sometimes just anxiety, some times so much tightness in my chest it was painful. Not fun, but I knew what had been done. I started doing body scanning and just waiting for the misery to kick in. Nope, just fear. Goenka's got us doing body scanning in the afternoon, and I have just fear and pain (both knees and my butt). Lots of both. Not fun doing his power hour, or sit of strong determination, or whatever. I had been moving about every 10-20 minutes or so before hand because my aversion to pain was so strong, so this really sucked. Definitely wasn't able to make the full hour, and was pure torture.

Day 5
So, at this point, I should mention that I've been reading/listening to a lot of Thanissaro Bhikkhu. He really drives home the point of building discernment and questioning (I'll try to post some specifics later). So in addition to what I had been discussing in previous posts to this one, I was also developing my questioning and probing skills. I can't explain how helpful that was today. So I'm sitting there with the pain and fear, and finally I get a chance to talk to the assistant teacher (AT). He was actually extremely helpful, and helped me realize that both the pain and the fear had at least one thing in common, and that's the self's projection into the future.

So, while basically sitting there waiting (scanning pretty ruthlessly) for misery to kick in (I had felt just the tiniest bit of sadness, but nothing even close to misery), I started questioning which eventually lead to a practice I'll call "moment capturing". Basically, I stopped scanning and was trying to see exactly the sensations of fear and pain (pain was predominant at the time) exactly as they are, in a single moment, without any of the self's future projections. I can still remember walking up to the meditation hall, across a bridge, basically taking screen captures of all my internal and external sensations.

So I'm sitting there, trying this out while the pain and fear were pretty strong. All of a sudden I'm in equanimity. I don't remember how many times I tried it, but it wasn't many. I really had no idea what had happened. I didn't think I was at re-observation, let alone misery, so I was pretty doggone surprised to find myself in this open, spacious, peaceful environment. I could "see" the pain in my knees, but it wasn't bothering me. Then some bright light, not really strobing that I can remember, but kinda gently moving from side to side. I thought, "well this is nice", just being aware of everything, when it hit me that this could be equanimity. Not missing a beat, I starting asking questions like "who am I?" and "what's the center of all this?". I remember Daniel describing turning the attention to the watcher, and basically turning awareness in on itself. So I tried doing just that. I had no recollection of the discussion of formations, and wasn't really looking for them, so not sure if that made this easier or not. But anyways, I basically contorted the internal watcher to try and see in on itself. I probably stuck with this for half an hour or so, and all of a sudden something happened that I don't really have a good recollection of, but I want to say it was like three bars flashing at me suddenly, accompanied by, or extremely quickly followed by a strong pain of fear.

Rather quickly, I believe, that dropped me out of equanimity. I remember thinking that my sense of self still seemed rather in tact, so I just sat there for a few minutes before Goenka starting singing at me to signal our next break. However, when we walked out into the small break room, I definitely noticed something very different. I'm not sure what it was, but everything seemed very alive, and I couldn't help but look at everyone's faces in the room (which almost everyone was looking down or around). It was very pleasant, but I chalked it up to my first time through equanimity.

So, I went back to my room and grabbed MCTB (I had actually gotten it out of my car a few hours earlier to see if I couldn't get any help with why I seemed so stalled with fear - definitely against the rules). I read enough to that was was fairly convinced that I had just experience equanimity, but needed to reproduce it before I believed it. So I sat there, and tried to do my moment capturing. At that point, I had just sat down, so there was very little pain, but the fear/anxiety was quite predominant. So I tried capturing that, and after a few tries, whooop, back up into equanimity. But then I dropped out pretty quickly because I was so focused on my fear, and that was enough to pull be back down. So I tried again, and a little quicker whooop, back into equanimity. Same thing. I dropped out again fairly fast. Over the next half an hour, I did this over and over and over - maybe 50 times or so.

By the end, it was nearly effortless to jump up into equanimity and sometimes started happening on its own. I also realized that the fear was sucking me out of it, other things would, like the desire to explain this new found ability to people on this forum. The desire to be able to use my knowledge to get me back into equanimity later also sucked me out of it. There was clearly a difference between the smooth background texture of equinimity, and the pulsy, almost flashy texture of the third vipassana jhana. I could see quite clearly the difference between the two as I hopped back and forth. So, wanting to validate that experience, I stopped meditating briefly and opened up MCTB. Then a weird thing happened. I noticed a shift in the background, with my eyes open and reading a book. I had clearly just moved from the 3rd Jhana to the 4th. I hadn't tried that at all. I closed the book and my eyes, and it was clear as could be.

So, after all of this, "break time" was over, and back for a power hour. This was a very interesting power hour for me. When I first sat down, I was immediately in what I thought was equanimity. Knees felt great, no fear. Not a huge surprise after the previous bit of work. But after I sat there for a few minutes, trying to "look into the watcher", I realized I had some weird sensations present, as well as a fair amount of desire, which I thought would just zip me out of equanimity. Then, I consciously tried to pull myself out by developing some fear. No dice.

After a bit of puzzling over what was going on, it struck me that I was back in the A&P. I wasn't sure how or why, and because I had spent so little time in the A&P last time, but this was the first time being in it since the night of day 3. Peculiar, I thought, but I knew how to deal with that. But what happened next shocked me. As soon as I started noting sensations, wham, I moved up into the 3rd Vjhana (I definitely am coining this hilarious, and potentially dangerous term, VJhana - I hope no one takes offense). Almost immediately after that I was into equanimity. The time it took from recognizing the A&P to being in equanimity was less than 15 seconds, and that's being conservative. So then, I opened my eyes, looked around for a little while to make sure this was all real, closed my eyes and was back into A&P. Then right back up to equanimity. I can clearly and distinctly see the vibrating, painless nature of the A&P, jumping up to the buzzing, painful and fearful 3rd VJhana, up to the clear and peaceful 4th Jhana. I'm cycling through them as I write. They may be slowing down slightly, but not much. I had a wave of fear earlier while writing this that put me into a slight panic that I screwed up and came home too early, but then it was gone and back to being pretty wonderful.

It's already long as it is, but I've been up for 24 hours straight (they're just now probably realizing I snuck off in the night - not sure if that was the best decision, but I couldn't sleep out of excitement and didn't want to have to drive home tomorrow exhausted. Either way I was planning on leaving...). I'll explain more tomorrow, particularly if people have questions or need any clarifications. I don't really think I need confirmation, but if you'd like to do so, I suppose that 1% of me wouldn't mind, because I know there's probably been plenty of people who have walked this path for much longer and probably thought similar thoughts that I'm thinking.

Sorry this is so disjointed. I'm not going to edit it, so I'm sure it's garbage writing.

Things to keep in mind
  • Even during breaks, I was still trying to go strong. Not always successful, but outside of a few power naps right after breakfasts, I was doing my best to keep some sort of concentration/awareness going.
  • I got into this more as an intellectual curiosity rather than anything. Never been a
  • I joined the "old" students and did not eat any fruit during the tea break at the end of the day. Basically I only ate at 6:30 and 11am. I first tried this as an experiment, because I figured maybe there was a reason why monks had that requirement. But I would say, with the exception of the last night, almost all my major progress happened at the end of the day, after I hadn't eaten for 5 hours or so.

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
3/20/12 4:46 AM as a reply to Eric O.
Eric O:

It's already long as it is, but I've been up for 24 hours straight (they're just now probably realizing I snuck off in the night - not sure if that was the best decision, but I couldn't sleep out of excitement and didn't want to have to drive home tomorrow exhausted. Either way I was planning on leaving...).


Hi Eric,

Sounds like an interesting fruitful retreat.

On what day of the retreat did you end up leaving?

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
3/20/12 6:17 AM as a reply to Yadid dee.
Hi Yadid,

I left the same day I had the fruition (fruition at ~3:15pm, left at around 11pm), so exactly half way through the 10-day.

Don Loristo,
Thank you very much for your list. I went over it a few times before the retreat, and found it quite helpful.

All,

One thing I'm a little troubled by is leaving when I did. I laid in bed for approximately 2 hours, and knew I was not sleeping at that point. With only a few hours to go until the morning bell, and the fact that I definitely need time to sort through this (and a strictly regimented course seemed suddenly very unattractive in that regard), I felt like I had no choice. It was probably irrational and I'm not sure how the folks at Dhamma Pakãsa will take it, but it is done. I've already sent them an email trying to explain. I really hope to be able to make a donation to them, because it was a really fabulous experience. Any thoughts?

Also, not sure if this is normal, but I'm really having a tough time sleeping, even after being up for 24 hours...I don't feel tired. My standard ways of falling asleep are to watch my breath and control my thoughts, but that seems to put me squarely in a Vjhana...not sure how this aspect of the thing works...

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
3/20/12 7:18 AM as a reply to Eric O.
Eric O:

Also, not sure if this is normal, but I'm really having a tough time sleeping, even after being up for 24 hours...I don't feel tired. My standard ways of falling asleep are to watch my breath and control my thoughts, but that seems to put me squarely in a Vjhana...not sure how this aspect of the thing works...


In regards to your experience - I'm not in a position to judge whether that was SE or not, you will probably get some good diagnosis from other more experienced folk here.
Personally, I rather err on the side of satety before thinking I attained something, because many times we can fool ourselves, very easily. I take Daniel Ingram's advice to heart about waiting a year and a day before coming to any conclusions, seeing what holds up in daily life.

The Goenka folks will definitely not allow you to give a donation unless you completed a 10-day course till the end in the past, but don't worry, its all good, and if you ever do one till the end, you will be able to give a donation. They will definitely not hold it against you.

I also ran away from a Goenka course once (it was my 2nd), and I remember it was not due to rational thinking.. but what's done is done as you said.

After one of my most intense Goenka courses, I also could not sleep for many hours, and had a very intense time.
It will pass soon, and its probably a good idea to try sleeping for a bit and letting things settle down, as coming off intense retreat can be.. well, intense! emoticon

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
3/20/12 7:36 AM as a reply to Yadid dee.
Yadid dee:
Eric O:

Also, not sure if this is normal, but I'm really having a tough time sleeping, even after being up for 24 hours...I don't feel tired. My standard ways of falling asleep are to watch my breath and control my thoughts, but that seems to put me squarely in a Vjhana...not sure how this aspect of the thing works...


In regards to your experience - I'm not in a position to judge whether that was SE or not, you will probably get some good diagnosis from other more experienced folk here.
Personally, I rather err on the side of satety before thinking I attained something, because many times we can fool ourselves, very easily. I take Daniel Ingram's advice to heart about waiting a year and a day before coming to any conclusions, seeing what holds up in daily life.

The Goenka folks will definitely not allow you to give a donation unless you completed a 10-day course till the end in the past, but don't worry, its all good, and if you ever do one till the end, you will be able to give a donation. They will definitely not hold it against you.

I also ran away from a Goenka course once (it was my 2nd), and I remember it was not due to rational thinking.. but what's done is done as you said.

After one of my most intense Goenka courses, I also could not sleep for many hours, and had a very intense time.
It will pass soon, and its probably a good idea to try sleeping for a bit and letting things settle down, as coming off intense retreat can be.. well, intense! emoticon

Good points. Well, I suppose I'll be waiting and seeing. I guess I would like some feedback from the experienced guys then. Should I place a cross post in diagnosis?

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
3/20/12 7:41 AM as a reply to Eric O.
Eric O:

Good points. Well, I suppose I'll be waiting and seeing. I guess I would like some feedback from the experienced guys then. Should I place a cross post in diagnosis?


I think if you do, you could probably get more attention that way, as the thread's title would probably be something like 'is that streamentry' or something :-)

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
Answer
3/20/12 7:51 AM as a reply to Yadid dee.
Well shit. Your post caused a little trigger of fear in me. Hasn't budged in a few minutes. Is this how fast most people come crashing down?

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
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3/20/12 8:07 AM as a reply to Eric O.
Eric O:
Well shit. Your post caused a little trigger of fear in me. Hasn't budged in a few minutes. Is this how fast most people come crashing down?


Sorry bro. whatever happened to you on that retreat, it is definitely great progress, and so you have nothing to fear.

From my own experience with coming from an intense retreat like that, it is best to slowly go back into daily stuff, definitely try to get some sleep, and you will wake up much more refreshed and clear.

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
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3/20/12 8:13 AM as a reply to Yadid dee.
Oh boy. Here comes the misery. Haha, where do I get my stupid card?

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
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4/12/12 9:12 PM as a reply to Eric O.
Just checking back in. After a week off after the retreat, I've been back to sitting at least 30 minutes every morning, with another 30 minutes in the evening if I'm home. I'd say I'm largely normal at the point. I don't feel too terribly dark night-ish, and at this point I'm not sure where I am on the maps, and I'm stopping myself from trying to track them because, as EIS pointed out in my other thread, it was causing a lot of distraction and suffering.

As far as daily life goes, the two main difference before and after the retreat are the ringing in my ears is considerably more noticeable (not sure if it's louder, or I'm just more constantly aware of it) and I have some tightness at the back of my throat, which might otherwise be called a lump in my throat. Sometimes it's high in the throat, almost in my mouth, and other times it drops lower in my neck. For the first few days, I was feeling some general, untargeted sadness, but then as I began to work on my equanimity, it really lost it's power over me and now it's just there and has stopped having much of an effect on my mental life. I notice it every so often, and then I move on.

The mornings I've been primarily doing concentration practice. Slowly but surely it's coming back. Tonight's insight practice consisted of me trying to notice the sensations at any given point on my body. I focused largely on two points of my nose. At first when I watched it, it was subtle and hard to describe, but as I continually brought my attention back to it, I began to feel a repetitive pin-point "tapping" that occured at maybe 5-10 hz. I was noticing this type of sensation almost effortlessly on day 2-3 of the retreat.

Overall, I've learned quite a bit about myself. Although I knew I did it before, I know realize the extent to which I allow my mind to obsess and create scenarios that are not reality, and I'm starting to see those and return myself to the present. I still think I have a long way to go in terms of developing equanimity. To be honest, looking back on what I wrote after the retreat is painful and I obviously had very little equanimity, even during the beginning. While I wish I hadn't left the retreat early, I also think it served as a nice wake-up call for me to figure out my priorities and get myself back on track.

So, as Yadid warned, I'm starting over from scratch after a week break (to some extent I think I needed it to separate myself a little bit and reflect at how far off the path I had strayed), although I've learned quite a bit and I'm determined to keep myself going. I'm also going to try and stop pushing forward as much and really attempt to settle into a sustainable and long term practice habit.

Not sure if regular practice logs at this point would be good for me or not, but I think I'm going to try and start keeping them with some of my general thoughts and attitudes and hopefully some of you experienced guys can set be straight if I start veering too far.

Cheers,
Eric

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
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4/12/12 10:47 PM as a reply to Eric O.
HI Eric:


Overall, I've learned quite a bit about myself. Although I knew I did it before, I know realize the extent to which I allow my mind to obsess and create scenarios that are not reality, and I'm starting to see those and return myself to the present. I still think I have a long way to go in terms of developing equanimity. To be honest, looking back on what I wrote after the retreat is painful and I obviously had very little equanimity, even during the beginning. While I wish I hadn't left the retreat early, I also think it served as a nice wake-up call for me to figure out my priorities and get myself back on track.
This is so useful: equanimity is built by letting all those conditioned and habitual scenarios arise and pass, arise and pass, without going for a full swim in them, in both daily mindfulness and in sitting practice. Concentration will come and advance itself in the new areas of mind where you have let thoughts and feelings arise and pass. This is like training a puppy and teaching a child: kindly witness the arising/passing thoughts/feelings and gently bring the mind back to the practice (e.g., anapanasati, washing dishes, etc), gradually building on the duration of the efforts.

So, as Yadid warned, I'm starting over from scratch after a week break
From scratch is the most useful place I know. As far as I can tell, the practice is the same (decent conduct (sila) and mindfulness invite equanimity, equanimity invites concentration, concentration exposes insights)

(to some extent I think I needed it to separate myself a little bit and reflect at how far off the path I had strayed), although I've learned quite a bit and I'm determined to keep myself going. I'm also going to try and stop pushing forward as much and really attempt to settle into a sustainable and long term practice habit.
I understand. I also want to say that while a "long term practice" is probably accurate (even great masters are in life-long practice), if there is assuming that equanimity and concentration will only occur in some long-term, then there is a temporal fabrication and this assumption of "long time" can delay the sincerity and effort of practice (sometimes this is a self-punitive action and/or a preference to stay in a comfort zone). I don't suspect that you intend this, but I just want to consider meanings of "long term" since you raised it.

"Sustainable" practice is another matter: so true. A sincere, diligent, welcoming, kind practice like the one you mention (30 in the a.m. and 30 in the p.m.) makes each moment productive. Mental dullness is reduced with each sincere attention to the in-breathe and mental sharpness is developing where dullness is abated. Who cares how often the mind wanders? Sincere, gentle, effortful, not-over-exerted practices build upon themselves well, efficiently. Mind will stop wandering so much (and so painfully) with gentle training in arising and passing away, returning to the breath. It sounds like you are in a great "mental" space for diligent, sincere practice. Practice is very simple. Very simple, like one little string. However, it is natural that unsettled minds make that simple thread into a big knot at the outset. Starting from scratch -- forming daily life to cause supportive conditions, being equanimous towards thoughts/feelings, following the breathe -- that simplicity is right there again, right away.

Very simple. Breathing in, breathing out. Arising, passing. Mind is collecting itself, etc. Some weeks pass. Daily events may unsettle a person, then the mind feels too uprooted to practice; one doesn't want to sit. One has a new issue to debate, to fret, maybe sitting and mindfulness are put "on hold". If they are not put "on hold" then the practice is an amazing friend, will prevent silly/risky outflows of mental energy, monies, unskillful behaviour. Anyway, those are some of my mistakes when not having that sustained, gentle practice (mindfulness and meditation); that gentle practice naturally builds on itself.

Not sure if regular practice logs at this point would be good for me or not, but I think I'm going to try and start keeping them with some of my general thoughts and attitudes
great

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
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4/13/12 7:24 PM as a reply to katy steger.
Thanks Kate. It's good to hear just the general reminder to stay with the basics.

Tonight was a decent insight night. 30 minutes. After doing some reading about direct pointing (specifically some of wylo's threads and one of their ebooks gateless gatecrashers), I've recently started an investigation of anatta. I've done plenty of investigation into impermanence, some into suffering, but virtually no investigation of anatta, so that was the primary focus tonight.

Right now, it seems to me that I can pretty clearly distinguish a lot of things that are not me. The "movie projector" that is my sight (even if it's just a big semi-blank screen when my eyes are closed) is definitely the most prominent thing when I try to find a self. But that fades if I look into other sense doors.

Overall, it feels like "the watcher" is more of a flashlight operating in a dark space. As I look at various things, it illuminates them and makes them prominent. But as I search it's not like the other senses completely disappear, they just fade into the background.

I tried to identify how my mind chose what to pay attention to, but in the absense of some really demanding sensation (e.g. pain, or a loud noise), it seems to just drift around and illuminate various things.

I'm not sure if I'm correctly watching the watcher, or just doing more of a choiceless awareness practice. This is a fairly new and interesting approach, so I seem to have little problem with losing mindfulness, but I'm not sure how to pay attention to what's doing the watching.

I think I'll continue giving this a chance for a little while to see where it takes me.

RE: Eric's Practice Thread
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4/24/12 7:31 PM as a reply to Eric O.
Alright. I haven't been very good about posting here.

I've switched to doing almost entirely Vippassana practice with an emphasis on annica. I realized the mornings for me are low energy, yet I've been trying to do a concentration practice which requires more energy. I switched to focusing just on my nose, but noticing any and all sensations in the area. That's forcing my concentration up (more than doing a more choice less awareness, I think) while at the same time giving me something that's a little more interesting for the low energy mornings. That practice has spread into the evening session as well (although I do some candle kasina off and on) I start them off with noting, and then test the waters and if my concentration seems high enough I drop it and just follow sensations.

Right now sensations are primarily itchiness and "bug crawling on the skin" sensations. When I zero in on either of them, they are little flickering sensations. Also, when I do that, they tend to lose their irritating-ness, and just become flickering sensations. The amount of sensation, in total, is way down from where I was on retreat, but is slowly returning.

There is also a general area that has a sensation that I can move just by shifting my attention. The sensation is hard to describe. It's probably best described as a very light pressure. But if I want to sense it at the tip of my nose, I can sense it there. If I want to sense it on my cheek, I can sense it there. Sometimes it takes a few seconds of watching, but eventually I can start sensing it wherever I choose.

I'm currently experiencing very little pain. When I do, it generally does not seem to have a very fixed location. I've been trying to just pay attention to the nose area, so I haven't really honed in on the pain, but generally it's pretty tame and doesn't demand attention.

I also still get the throat tightness throughout the day. But I just watch it for a few minutes and it tends to go away. I've definitely been recognizing the feedback action between my mental and physical "feelings". If I don't catch it, I start feeling a little sad (or just a general sense of unpleasantness, generally without a specific cause I'm aware of), which makes the tension stronger, which makes me more sad. I think this feedback loop was the primary reason for my troubles after retreat. I feel like I'm much more able to cut off the mental activity now and just watch the physical sensation until the whole mess goes away. I'm hopeful that this will translate well into dealing with the dark night once I can break through the A&P again.

Best,
Eric