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Seamus' Log

Seamus' Log
Answer
9/2/13 7:41 PM
Hi all!

I've been meditating for about ten years now, but not really with any consistency. The longest stretch of intense practice was four years ago when I lived in a Zen monastery. I kind of floundered there for a year, to be honest.

Recently, I had the first major depressive episode of my life, and it was bad enough that I decided to do anything I could to prevent it from happening again. Step one: meditate a lot. In thinking about this again, I landed here, and my goals have gotten more concrete. First goal: Hit the first Samatha jhana.

I wish someone would have told me about useful concepts like access concentration back at the monastery. I might have actually made some real progress instead of being an emotional wreck half the time.

So, I've been meditating like crazy for the past week. At least for me. At least two hours a day. Sometimes a lot more. One time I stayed up all night to get another six hours or so in.

I keep feeling like I'm on the brink of hitting the first jhana, but I keep grasping for it as soon as the piti starts ramping up, and so of course I drop out of it. I've followed alternate instructions that go more like this: 1) Get access concentration, 2) Begin very gentle progressive relaxation exercises, 3) Jhana?

But I seem to have trouble relaxing enough, or maintaining access concentration. It feels a little too finicky.

I like having this solid goal, but perhaps I need to just chill out and focus on the tip of my nostrils for four hours a day instead. I wish I knew how long it'd take, though. Days? Weeks? Months?

During the day, I've been trying out noting. For a while I was doing the rapid-fire noting, but I'm settling into picking a sense (usually sound), and noting 1-2 times a second. And sometimes I try and relax into a more general mindfulness.

In short, I feel like I'm just getting started on a real set of practices that might actually lead to insights in a reasonable timeframe. I'm hoping to understand the map more concretely soon; this level of detail is thrilling but completely alien to me.

Anyway, that's where I'm at! Back to sitting.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/2/13 8:14 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
I wish someone would have told me about useful concepts like access concentration back at the monastery. I might have actually made some real progress instead of being an emotional wreck half the time.


Yea... sometimes I wish I didn't know all the maps and stuff like that and instead was just interacting with a teacher and following instructions. Benefits and drawbacks on both sides. In any case you probably learned some things during that period, and you probably learned from your depressive episode as well, I mean, look where these things have got you... to a pretty good place. You are willing to do anything to figure out and move beyond your depression, as am I. Good luck to both of us i guess :}

So, I've been meditating like crazy for the past week. At least for me. At least two hours a day. Sometimes a lot more. One time I stayed up all night to get another six hours or so in.


Can this be sustained? Don't get down on yourself if your determination flags.

I keep feeling like I'm on the brink of hitting the first jhana, but I keep grasping for it as soon as the piti starts ramping up, and so of course I drop out of it. I've followed alternate instructions that go more like this: 1) Get access concentration, 2) Begin very gentle progressive relaxation exercises, 3) Jhana?


This very instruction has worked for me in the past. As has straight up concentrating on my breath without trying to do anything else. As has paying attention to the breath then focusing attention on the pleasant feelings that arise. I would work with the method you mentioned above as for me that was the clearest and easiest.

During the day, I've been trying out noting. For a while I was doing the rapid-fire noting, but I'm settling into picking a sense (usually sound), and noting 1-2 times a second. And sometimes I try and relax into a more general mindfulness.


sounds good

In short, I feel like I'm just getting started on a real set of practices that might actually lead to insights in a reasonable timeframe. I'm hoping to understand the map more concretely soon; this level of detail is thrilling but completely alien to me.


Being thrilled and hopeful is a way that will lead to being afraid and in despair. This sounds very dark and possibly even like intentional discouraging... but you have to learn to be equally cautious about entering into hope as into despair, equally cautious about entering into excitement as into fear etc. This understanding, the understanding to not to attach to either 'good moods' or 'bad moods' is more important than jhanas and maps. So keep practicing, you can keep working at attaining jhana, but more than anything else work to stay in the present rather than being hopeful, excited, afraid, depressed. When neither depression nor hope have meaning to you then you can really start moving beyond depression. Likewise when you see no ultimate meaning in fear and excitement you will be able to move beyond fear.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/3/13 5:36 PM as a reply to Adam . ..
I very much appreciate your comments, Adam.

I won't be hard on myself if my practice drops down to something more sustainable, and I'll keep in mind your comments about being too excited and future-oriented.

Thanks!

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/3/13 8:38 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
Whoa,

Don't know where that came from.

Just sat for 2 hours and 45 minutes straight. Shifted positions from lying down to sitting twice, but with no concentration break. About halfway through I decided to switch from concentration to fast-noting, mostly focusing on sound and pain.

Whenever I had a desire to stop, I saw the desire so clearly, and it was always accompanied by a mild sense of disgust or nausea, all of which I noted. And then I'd just keep sitting there. The final time, it felt a little like I was trapped; like I would just see "desire to stop" clearly over and over without ever stopping.

Then I coughed :-) And I kind of used this to snap out of it. My final thought before getting up was something like, "back to being Seamus."

That was by far the longest I've ever continuously sat. I feel...altered.

Noting pain rapid-fire was extremely interesting. I think I was sharply "in pain" for an hour, and it was no problem.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/4/13 7:26 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
Didn't sit as much today; maybe two hours total.

After a blissful morning, I got myself completely frustrated. I think my goal of getting the first jhana is totally counterproductive. I see clearly that it requires some skill at relaxing and not-grasping that I simply don't have yet. I'm going to just drop the idea of getting it, work on developing the less dramatic kind of concentration I'm accustomed to, and continue integrating noting into my sits.

I feel like I'm bottling something up! I mean, I am coming out of depression, but ever since I started intensively practicing again, I've been getting all these little knots of tension that I can't release. Yesterday there was a horrible knot in the center of my chest during sits; I spent a long time noting it, letting it relax. Today the side of my throat is tight. And my head feels like it's being slightly squished.

Is this from practice, or am I sick or something? :-P

Regular relaxing things don't sound very relaxing. I need something powerful. I want to, like, take MDMA and get a three hour massage.

I'm going to watch some horrifically sad movie tonight so I at least have some sense of catharsis.

It's not as bad as it sounds, but still, I hope whatever is in me works its way out.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/6/13 3:42 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
Things much better since I stopped grasping for the first jhana. Trying to be intense about noting practice.

Was in town today going for a walk before having lunch with a friend, and there was a subtle shift that took place after noting an intention, like I became a spectator of this body and mind that was moving around in the world on its own. I had this sense of calm anticipation of the next events that would arise, and they smoothly went from anticipation to action to sensing the results of the action.

Also accompanying this was a clear sense of dis-identification with most thoughts. Often when I note "planning" or "mental narrative" or something similar, I do it after the fact, because the thoughts pull me along until they finish. But after this little shift, they were almost like another sensation -- sound-based thoughts still had more of a pull than perception of sound, but nowhere near as much as usual. It was pleasant and exciting and I took it all as a sign that noting all the goddamn time and sitting a lot is making a difference.

I still feel like there's some tremendous thing inside of me trying to get out. I feel tense all the time. I've decided I'm definitely not sick, so I'm blaming practice.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/8/13 11:45 AM as a reply to Seamus O.
After reading this thread about how the insight map works, I've been able to clearly witness perceptual shifts throughout the day as I practice.

Until today, my sits tended to begin with a lot of mental noise. In the morning, I would plow my way into access concentration and then begin intense noting, keeping it up throughout the day as best I could. At some point, noting thoughts and intentions becomes easy, and I'm like, "Sweet. Mind and Body?" And then at some point, I'll be rapid-fire noting, usually looking downwards, and I'll suddenly look up into the distance and feel a kind of lightness and vastness and dissociation from my usual willing of this and that. I'm able to watch as I label "commentary" or "intention" or "rehearsing" without getting pulled into the thoughts and losing my mindfulness, and I usually feel a sense of being along for the ride, like my body is moving itself. At that point one of a mental commentaries arises and goes: "Cause and Effect? Neat."

I think my self-diagnosis of these insight stages is correct, but I'm up for being corrected :-)

It's also interesting to watch myself lose cause and effect. I tend to at least stay in Mind and Body territory unless something very emotionally jarring happens. Having a clear sense of what the next stage feels like seems to give me extra motivation to be diligent in my noting.

I find I'm going out for walks a lot more and sitting less. My body is still achy and stressed and breathing feels awkward after a bit if I focus on it. I've had a few nights in a row now where I've been like, "okay! This is it! This walk! Pass through the three characteristics!" Because this pain definitely seems to be arising related to practice, and not from any muscle soreness or sickness or anything. I try and just note it and keep going, but damn, it's annoying.

I wish I knew a rough timeframe for how long it took to go from where I am to the A&P. The first three stages have come up quick.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/10/13 8:20 AM as a reply to Seamus O.
Still plugging away. Multiple hours a day on the cushion. Noting all day. I begin each sit thinking I'm about to come crashing through the A&P. (I wouldn't say I'm hung up on this; it doesn't interfere in a way that I can tell -- it just seems to be the next stage).

Phenomenological observations: I quickly get to a point in the day where I can note intentions, verbal commentary, and other mental phenomena and watch then occur without getting drawn into them. This is neat. However, three related labels I use, "planning", "reasoning", and "rehearsing" always happen after-the-fact. I'm never able to dissociate from them; I'm always drawn in. As soon as I label, the discursive thought ceases. Sometimes this happens in the middle of the process, often at the end.

I assume that it's near-impossible to dissociate from discursive thoughts, especially at this stage of the game. Do advanced practitioners find it possible to, say, read a work of philosophy without losing one's train of mindfulness? I'd be impressed.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/11/13 4:55 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
Sat about three hours so far today.

Having really intense, slow-moving tension in my head. At first, it felt like something trying to drill in. Then it felt like a snake slithering around looking for an opening. I just watched it, noting slowly, trying to feel every bit of it.

My visual field routinely has a subtle vibration to it that I note during sits.

I'm trying to work on times during the day when my mindfulness drops. It seems like painful physical work is the toughest (I work on a farm). My mind wants to focus on something else, anything else. But during other physical work, like cleaning, I'm very able to keep mindfulness going, and am being very careful about noting intentions. "intention to lift" "lifting" "intention to place" "placing" etc.

I had a conversation with someone yesterday about my practice, and I first said "I don't really daydream anymore -- like, no extended rehearsings of conversations, no re-living past moments." And this isn't totally true, and I tried to tone it down a little. I still slip into rehearsals and reliving, as I've noted in earlier posts, but they're really short-lived; I note them very fast and they go away. The fruit of my practice so far definitely has felt like the gradual shift of daydream content from being totally absorbing to being just another sensation that I watch go by.

That and intense weird throbbing tensions that increase throughout the day, as mentioned :-P

Come on, A&P. Release me.

Edit: Oh, I just remembered. Last night's meditation was incredibly overwhelming and intense, like my head was about to explode. Everything was vibrating, some things were painful, and it ended with this extremely intense sexual fantasy once I kind of collapsed and gave up. I think I legitimately almost orgasmed without masturbating. However, no sense of release or anything. And I still feel in head-pain 3rd nana territory today, so I'm assuming that wasn't the A&P.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/12/13 8:42 AM as a reply to Seamus O.
This is just for the record: I seem to have hit the A&P last night.

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4693002

I feel so goddamn charismatic today! Do I get to be this charismatic more permanently later on? Because I like making people happy. Also oh my god, my self-aggrandizing fantasies about being a teacher (the usual academic kind) are so silly and nonstop today. I'm glad I know all this to be path-related so I can take it less seriously.

Onwards to a fun day.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/12/13 10:52 AM as a reply to Seamus O.
Err. Something started feeling off while I was out working. I figured it could be me projecting worries about DN stuff onto the present.

Everything is still sharp. Just, my mood is less elated. A little sensitive, one might say.

Did an hourlong sit and quickly got up to feeling similar to 3rd nana territory. Not sure how passing through A&P feels each sit, but there were some bright pulsing lights and brief bliss feelings that happened. Maybe that was it? Head feels pressured somewhat like in the 3rd nana.

I still have a strong desire to practice my ass off in hopes that my momentum will carry me through DN without much of a blip. Still nervous, though.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/12/13 8:29 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
Sitting tonight both easy and frustrating. I thought it was much longer than it was (It was only 40 minutes, which is short by recent standards).

My new ability today is to sink into a concentrated state really, really quickly. I barely have to try. There can even be a string of thoughts going on as I start attending to the breath. I feel this quick darkening of the mind, and then the first stirrings of jhana territory within 30 seconds, conservatively.

But the jhana, if that's what it is, feels weird. Feels annoying. It never ramped up into full-on bliss, but I didn't push it. It did feel way more effortless than usual. There was just this brightness in the center of my mind that would not go away. Not blinding, but, I dunno -- hollow, present.

Pain arose in my mind, as per usual. I watched it. The strongest pain arose right on my third eye. It felt like a tiny, dense ball pressing extremely hard against my skull. Eventually it released a bit and kind of melted to the left side of my head, where it now still resides. A few minutes later I had a similar feeling to last night's possible A&P event: there was an intense brightness and a feeling of being pulled upward, and I began looking up slowly. Intense strobing.

But then it had a falseness to it and I immediately opened my eyes. My head was clear and breezier than I can ever remember. Still the weird painful splat on the left side, though. I couldn't imagine sitting again, so I got up and went for a walk, and had various moments of feeling totally spacious and panoramic, usually accompanied by a shift in my sense of being the observer. I was still there, but not. Hard to describe.

For about half the walk I had that very clear sense of being pulled along again, and it felt almost comical this time.

Also a cat jumped out and followed me around and I felt pleasantly bonded with it.

Anyway, I think the most prominent dissatisfying thing about the sit today was that it lacked a sense of purpose. Yesterday, I had this sense of impending explosion -- every throbbing pain held this incredible potential within it. And now I know that one of these throbbing pains is going to melt away and leave me a wreck for a while. But more than that, I just, like, didn't know what to give attention to. The hollowness of that jhanic attention was bothering me a lot. I tried to attend to those feelings of being bothered, but that was too imprecise.

I did just try and stick with the feelings of breathing, but meh.

Sorry for the word-explosion. This is way too long of a post for a day of few sits.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/13/13 4:04 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
Noticing the shift of my attentional field from the center to the periphery, as detailed in MCTB.

I think it first shifted last night while I was looking down at my desk, and I said, "Oh fuck."

It didn't hit again until this afternoon. This morning I was all sunshine and charm. So far it hasn't been accompanied by anything too unpleasant. It's a little annoying. Like, I try and focus on my breath, and my mind is like, "ow. ow. Stop it." So I relax and focus more broadly. It just takes some getting used to. Again, as advertised. I'm really enjoying how predictable this all is.

Some minor spooky imagery and sounds from time to time, but I could be manufacturing those due to reading about them. We'll see if they get more pronounced.

Also, my head feels completely vacant, which is bizarre, since a recurring feeling I had the past two weeks was of my head being a solid impenetrable mass with knots of tightness everywhere.

Pain is the thing I concentrate on the most. I have this weird sense of progress being made when the pain moves around.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/14/13 4:39 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
Drank three beers last night, convinced myself this dragged me back, and decided to practice hard today to move things forward again. So far I've done two hourlong sits, two shorter ones, and a nice 45 minute walk.

Didn't notice the attentional shift away from center until the past half hour or so. The sit was super-annoying, but I mustered a seemingly useful aggressive mantra towards it: "Fuck you, possible dark night symptoms! This weird off-center vacant sit rules! Bring on some scary fucking imagery!"

Whenever I felt like I should stop, I pretended some evil entity really wanted me to stop, and made fun of its efforts.

Otherwise, pretty typical sit. Some slightly different hard-to-describe feelings, some slightly disturbing sensations/flickering images, but again, I could be manufacturing them since I'm expecting them. I try and just relax-and-note, relax-and-note. Sometimes I forget and try and attend aggressively to something, and this hurts, and I have to shift back.

Hopefully I'll get in at least another hour tonight.

Edit: Oh, and I had really bad dreams last night, and it took me forever to get the fuck out of bed. I drank tons of water and wasn't hung over, so I doubt it was that. I kept hitting snooze for an hour. Every five minutes. I never do that.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/15/13 6:48 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
Another for-the-record post. I may have gotten stream entry: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4712561

At the very least, that was an amazing day of sitting. The full range from out-of-control DN stuff through blissful EQ stuff to this. Hope I'm not being completely silly :-)

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/16/13 6:41 AM as a reply to Seamus O.
Woke up today, had some tea, sat an hour.

Decided to maintain a relaxed sense of curiosity about my current stage. Especially decided to observe how a "normal" day goes -- I have a full day of work today.

My sit this morning felt like a swift but not rushed movement along a series of stages again. Did not hit the same endpoint as last night, but got to a broad, easy, empty place. The same thoughts as usual tend to arise -- rehearsals of future conversations being the most prominent. I would say they were dimmer than usual.

Richard Zen's comment on my last post got me considering whether or not last night was an A&P event, not SE. But it wasn't preceded by the sort of pain and discomfort that seems characteristic of the third nana. It was preceded by an easy bliss.

Anyway, I'm "committed" to not getting hung up on it. This feeling is funny, because neither the hung-upedness nor the commitment have a lot of force to them. I'm hung up on it in a recognizable way, but it's almost...cute? Like, it doesn't have any real potency. And so my commitment doesn't feel like it needs potency.

Anyway. This post feels silly. Off to work. Feeling relaxed.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/16/13 8:11 AM as a reply to Seamus O.
These videos might help.

Daniel's Nana videos

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/16/13 8:58 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
I've watched them already. :-)

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/16/13 9:23 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
After my sit this morning, I went off to work. The world was poignantly fresh and beautiful. I sang for the first time since starting this practice, and they were the most pleasant songs I ever sang.

By mid-afternoon, I felt like my (old) self. A little tired. Good mood. Perception not super-sharp. Began to doubt my current stage. Alternate thesis: sleep deprivation.

Did another sit, and was very attentive to the progression of stages. It seems pretty undeniable to me that I'm moving up through all the nanas in a single sit. At first, attention is slack, then I start noting intensely. Then there's a shift (usually in brightness and spaciousness and ease of attention), then another. Then there's a longer period involving some struggle. Then a release and subtle blissfulness. Then a kind of in-between period -- attention is good, no major pain, but things are shifting. Then there's a short period where I can't place my attention centrally. Maybe a weird image or two will arise (usually metal objects impaling me) and an odd unnerving "vibration" or sound at the periphery. Then some other somewhat lengthy period of time passes, then there's a release, and a sense of expanse.

Today that was the end of the line. Last night, in the same place, I was getting those pulled-along sensations, "thuds" (though subtle), followed by tingles. I tried playing around with the sense of the observer once I got there today, and got to a very overwhelming place, but then the alarm went off. I'll try again tonight before bed.

The whole process took about 45 minutes, I think.

Afterwards I spent the remainder of the day like an excitable kid in a candy store. Lightness and ease. A friend wanted me to talk about practice stuff, and my dharma chops were pretty incredible. I felt, like, dangerously convincing, and I kept trying to check myself and hedge my statements.

I still have a sense of something having been lost. Something that I didn't want. I can't remember what it was like to have it.

RE: Seamus' Log
Answer
9/16/13 10:06 PM as a reply to Seamus O.
Okay, shit, I tried again.

Cycled up very quickly. Maybe twice as fast as earlier today.

At the end of the line, I began chasing the observer in addition to the usual noting, whenever it felt most present.

This seemed to trigger something, and my heart started racing, then I kept chasing the observer, and reality fucking crashed. Clear as day. Popped back in, head dropped back down, a few seconds of pause, and then a wave of bliss rolling down from head to foot.

Was able to do this again. Maybe twice more. The third time was less clearly a cessation.