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RE: Richard's insight practice

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
10/30/13 10:26 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Just continuing the above practice but with completely silent noting but making sure to acknowledge what's happening, including small attention movements and small intentions and small analysis. I'm adding more body relaxation and relaxation of the thoughts. It's greatly helping. I can see that clinging happens just by being conscious. Any little thoughts about practice and stories (even small ones) are just more clinging. It's a challenge to notice when the attention moves around to notice it properly without naming it but I'm getting better at it and more consistent. The result is a very deep relief with no rigid jhanas and a powering down feeling. It's also important to notice feeling tone in sore parts of the body or any physical pain and just let it be. I will have to do this for a long time so the powering down can go all the way. 1 hour went by like nothing. Very delightful nonetheless. Any clinging to progress of any kind will fuck it up.

I'm just reminding myself Ian And's advice on disenchantment with the following:

Sensation, recognition, craving, clinging.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
11/11/13 12:03 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
After about an hour of meditating I finally got to equanimity in a very clear pleasant way that hasn't been felt in a long time. Some power tools used outside were just sounds. Seeing is just seeing, etc. How I usually get stuck here is habitual thoughts appear, including faces of weird people I've never seen before, and weird dream-like scenarios. Along with Ian And's advice and Nick's advice to continue being neutral to all phenomenon (sensation, recognition, craving, clinging) I was able to make the equanimity deeper. That child-like presence is very delightful. Every time a habitual thought or scenario appears I just notice the clinging and go to vedana in the body and just watch it pass away. As I keep doing this the jhana seems to revive again and again and go deeper and deeper. The thoughts versus jhanas are very chunky in that when a thought stream drops the jhana energetically appears from the background. The one hour session seemed to end in a flash and I just continued on. Dependent origination is starting to feel less linear and more like sensation, recognition, craving, and clinging are happening roughly the same time. Clinging happens a lot sooner than I thought it did. In equanimity the mind still wants to wander in thoughts about the practice, views, future and past (though the future and past is more narrow at this point).

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
11/29/13 12:13 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
I've been having more sits and noting much more during life. By focusing on the clinging as the main target for relaxation it zeros in on the problem without manipulating too much of anything else so you feel normal and can be functional while doing work. Self-referencing is the enemy. It's just an extra loop that takes up processing power that can be used elsewhere. It's amazing how many weird loops are there are with fake scenarios/catastrophizing/rehearsal of conversations for a future time. Just relaxing the body and relaxing the thoughts reduces tension because it's a relaxing interruption instead of a mental debate on how that looping shouldn't happen. Just relax and get on with the task. That's a good principle whether you're aiming for jhana or just want to get on with a task.

During difficult situations like dealing with job security or possible meetings with judgemental people noting has been a huge help. Most people believe performance = self-worth which is a trap. Performance should only = performance. Noting just exposes thinking as just thinking.

I'm studying more and find it easier to let go of aversion and following the same patterns. I'm focusing more on realistic ways of studying. Along with the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve I've added some other things that make my studying efforts more like a slow adding to detail and preventing myself from going to new subjects too fast.

Principles of Deep Processing

More chores are getting completed and a key use of noting is improving my beliefs in dealing with the failure schema. The schema creates so much aversion that unless it's interrupted with accurate non-judgemental noting it will create avoidance or procrastination. The simple trick is to notice when you're thinking about the task that you need to do and the aversion starts welling up in your body. There's a fake tiredness that appears that really is aversion and very little tiredness. By applying consistent noting at this point to let go of any aversion or attachment to distracting activities it's easier to stop the conditioning and move on to the necessary task.

It's like creating a space of relief where you can park temporarily and then once the aversion has disappeared I can then go do the task I need to without pushing against aversive thoughts. The reward is still the same as in goal orientation but it's important to like the benefits of what you are doing which then gets the brain to prefer those activities to the short-term gratification that distraction brings.

I'm still in the dark woods with meditation as life improvement and it has to include basic beliefs that failure is okay and a genuine resolve to continue without needing an instant reward or big successes. Mental narratives with failure and success both have to be abandoned. Too much pride and depression fucks everything up. emoticon

My sitting meditation is still a mixture of Shikantaza and noting. Sometimes there is a noticing of how things are gone by understanding that future turns into the past instantly. It's hard to ruminate when everything is past and the present moment is just short-term memory. I also like Cittamatra as a reminder that everything I'm experiencing is just impressions on awareness. Of course awareness is aware of awareness so there's more but even that is good enough to reduce clinging.

Cittamatra

Guided meditation

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
12/14/13 7:28 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
richard, just wanted to chime in that as an amateur mediator, watching your progress is quite illuminating

many times i find myself nodding me head as i read these updates... puts a lot of my not fully grasped insights into words

it's inspired me to start my own practice thread... here's to hoping i update it as frequently as yourself

- rein

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
12/14/13 10:49 AM as a reply to rein drop.
Practice threads can be a good reminder that there's always room for improvement and updates. It takes years for most people to get major insights (if they ever get there) so one has to be patient and keep at it. Also if you forget something you learned you can remind yourself just by going back and re-reading.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
12/16/13 10:38 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Okay here again a tidbit from Daniel for someone else is helping my practice.emoticon

Daniel M. Ingram:
bill was coming from a perspective that when doing insight practices, where you looked at the granular nature of things, very digital, very particle, to do that really well required high dose, consistency, and the like, as any subtle solidification can block the fruits of the practice, this being the classic Mahasi perspective


Throughout the day I've been tuning into the vibrations and granular structure of things and whether it is there or not. When it's not, there's already a tension and clinging that has arisen. The thoughts about practice and any narratives already produce a small tension and solidification. With a marker like "vibrations", and "grain" it's easier to let go sooner. Lots of big issue stuff came up today and it was even easier to recognize the beginning of the fabrications and just let them go sooner. Again the normality is increased but the act of the brain to leap out into different times (future/past) can be seen to be slightly stressful and tuning into the vibrations in the sense doors can relax the tensions before they become fullblown. By noticing more and doing less there is ironically more control. The need for verbal noting seems so archaic now because it's not as fast as noticing small rapid changes that are happening all the time. Even thinking about typing the experience can cause a little solidification but just tuning into the bare attention (without a forceful push to do so) relaxes the tension.

Doing a 1 hour sit I can definitely see how a Shikantaza or Rigpa practice can get into jhanas by accident if the solidification progresses into an absorption. Any mental wandering is being disidentified and now flickering attention and intentions to pay attention is now being disidentified. No-self is becoming clearer now that subtle clinging can be seen. Clinging about the practice creates some of this solidification so it's easier to let go of that as well because the same tension is recognized. The brain feels like it has nowhere to go and nothing to do so the relief is there and muscles (especially the head) are more relaxed. It's like a cocoon of vibrations.

If the mind is thinking about a like there's usually a tension because I don't have what I like now, or I enjoyed it and it's gone. That's why the tension is so pervasive.

When I'm like this it feels like a steady equanimity without a jhana. As the senses started fading it took a while for them to come back and sharpen again. In order to fade my senses into a cessation will take a lot longer than 1 hour. LOL!

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
12/19/13 9:38 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Another nice old Burbea talk on awareness:

The Nature of Awareness

It's another reminder to go deeper. My equanimity is getting so smooth but deceptive. It's also interesting how narrow the equanimity is in the beginning when you first get there and when you're about to give up sometime later it's so wide with less push and pull you think you're done. Yet awareness is aware of awareness.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/1/14 10:43 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Non-duality and the fading of perception

I've listened to this dharma talk a few times. It's helpful in getting me to understand the "dependent" part of dependent origination and how minute you have to go in seeing all kinds of perceptions (short vs tall/likes vs dislikes/beautiful vs ugly/smart vs stupid). It's interesting how there are also limitations that force people who take meditation seriously to just enjoy likes and dislikes in a reasonable manner (otherwise how would there be any preferences?) while at the same time being ready for the reactivity that will show up if you're not paying attention. Adding perception (from the 5 aggregates) between vedana and tanha, in Dependent Origination) is a good idea.

Just listening to it I flipped through some jhanas (though they are nothing like they used to be). It's effortless non-clinging but also less WOW! at the same time. You can see how the meditation practice itself can be prone to these dualisms (good meditation vs. bad meditation) and just thinking about meditating or intending to pay attention creates these very small tensions that could be conceived of as stress but in equanimity don't appear to be. Subtlety, subtlety, subtlety is what it's all about. So many layers.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/7/14 9:39 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Today at work I was at (what should have been a nerve wracking job interview) but I acted strangely non-chalant because of the experience I had just a couple of hours before. For the past few days I've been just enjoying my mindfulness of the body and really feeling what it's like to have a torso, arms, legs, etc. What happened was that I could notice the sensations of thoughts just as effortlessly. Sensing thoughts felt the same way as what sensing an arm feels like. For a brief moment the sense of separation was almost all gone. Even when it returns it's not all that much. After the interview I still did cling a little rehearsing what I could have said different etc and that's where noting can bring you back.

What's allowing this to happen is seeing deeper into perceptions and because I'm self-referencing less about the practice. For a long time I was still self-referencing a lot with practice and when that habit finally starts going is when things get even better.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/14/14 7:17 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Another shift today that brought more relief and more dark night reactions. I used to end sensations with thoughts and now that I don't anymore I noticed that I still push slightly the intention to pay attention when the mind wanders. This is just another form of stress because there's an aversion to the mind wandering. When I notice the mind wandering I don't need to intend to pay attention since I'm already back (otherwise I wouldn't have noticed the mind wandering in the first place). Experience is even more smooth now.

The relief was big but then I got some yucky sensations in my chest that have been appearing here and there throughout the day. Any deeper insight seems to trigger more of these sensations, but since I've experienced these many times before I know it will go away.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/16/14 8:29 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
This morning is more interesting in that I can just stay with the knowing much more easy because everything is included. There are less gaps. All thinking, muscle movements, reactions, intentions to pay attention, are sensations. Everything gets smoother because any mental loop to analyze the practice is just more of the same. The sense of cause and effect being constant and just one thing after another leaves normality as it is and squeezes any "self of the gaps" out. Any rating of the quality of the practice just looks like more thoughts trying to be a controller.

There are deeper levels of stress but it's like you have to bump into these insights before those stress levels can even be seen. I know there's more because of time and how the present moment is an elongation of experiences by short-term memory and subtle thinking but I have to get there when I get there, otherwise it's just more thinking about the practice.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/22/14 6:29 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Boy these withdrawal symptoms have been wicked. Yesterday I felt like I had a hangover + numbness in the jaw and back of neck + burn-out all in one. The numbness doesn't mean I can't feel my hands touching my face but it's the only word I can find. In a few hours it faded and now the numbness and speech impediment is fading but slower. I still feel I can speak well and people understand me but there's a weird mental lack of confidence with speaking now. Not pleasant.

For some context it should be understood that I don't sit much and all this stemmed simply from noticing that aversion after the mind wanders isn't necessary. Just that insight caused all this. It's pretty clear that my brain is adjusting and taking some time to do so. It's pretty shocking that paying attention to reality and just letting go of unnecessary stress can do this.

These kind of experiences are the reason why people will naturally shy away from meditation. Part of me wants to give up now and just focus on changing habits.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/22/14 10:58 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
I just went out and grabbed something to eat and I feel much better now. The numbness is greatly reduced but it seemed to start in the jaw, go to the shoulders and then to the chest/arms/hands. There's a slight headache in the skull but things are better. I hope to be completely normal by tomorrow. The brain seems to have learned not to manipulate attention as before.

That was the worst reobservation I've had since I first had reobservation. At least it was only one week instead of 3 weeks. I have no idea how others could go farther than me in 2 years without even worse headaches and withdrawal symptoms. At least I didn't get nausea like some drug addicts do when they go through rehab.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/23/14 12:18 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
noticing that aversion after the mind wanders isn't necessary


Wow, I was just noticing the same thing this morning. My mind was wandering during meditation and I was getting frustrated, and then I realized that in any given moment, I am only responsible for that moment - not past moments when my mind was wandering - hence no reason to be frustrated.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/25/14 8:39 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Hey, I've been reading through some of your posts and also I have an interest in shikantaza. I am wondering what your take is on the difference between Shinzen's description of shikantaza and other descriptions that emphasize more effort.

In addition to Shinzen's style, I have seen the practice taught as simply setting the intention to be here and avoid getting lost in thoughts, but adding no more structure. In my own experience this can actually be a lot higher effort than "doing nothing" but letting going of effort when it is noticed. Alternatively, the way I often have practiced is to apply effort to continuously notice some sensation that is occuring in my awareness, sort of like noting but without the notes. This can be even higher effort.

For some reason, even though I have obtained higher states of awareness using Shinzen's technique in the past, I naturally incline towards the practice styles that are higher effort because I am worried that I am not getting anywhere when I just "do nothing," which is likely a flawed reasoning but hard to get around. In my own experience with Shinzen's technique, a large part of its power is the fact that it goes completely against the grain of the desire to "get somewhere" in the first place. Another issue I run into with it is I haven't really seen any other teacher talk about his style of shinkantaza, as it seems like other sources do advocate more effort.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/25/14 6:03 PM as a reply to Elijah Smith.
It is less effort than noting but sometimes the noting is too conceptual and doing a Shikantaza practice can show a concentration that seems effortless. There's always a doing but I find my jhanas are weak but more pleasant because there's so much less effort. I just wait for them to happen. It's like tuning a radio but effort I think will still be needed. No matter what practice you do there's always a need for consistency of attention to gain clarity. Perception is really difficult because we construct solidity from pointillist experience and seeing the fabricating/building/mountains out of molehills emoticon has to be seen over and over again.

Samatha, Nibbana and the emptiness of perception

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/26/14 11:12 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
2 hour meditation: I just put on some meditation music and relaxed my body and maintained equanimity with anything and focused mainly on perception. To see the mind notice sensations and to objectify them as unpleasant you can see the story appear just after. I just relaxed the perception and came back to the vibrations. I find meditation to be weirdly normal and non-explosive. Paying attention to thoughts as sensations is very easy. Many thoughts appeared with images of annoying co-workers and bosses and just relaxing the body and relaxing the thoughts creates relief. Noting to me is just bare sensation. Perceptions really feel like something. Even the attention to see perceptions is a sensation as well and can create a small bit of tightness.

Towards the end it appears clearly that certain preoccupations of the mind are very habitual and have to be relaxed again and again. Yet this knowledge makes you less aversive and fearful of those thoughts coming up. After letting go of aversion to a mind wandering all there is, is noticing that it's wandered and just relaxing it. I went and made a cup of tea and just watched how the mind went quickly back to the thoughts and I just keep relaxing it. It's a relief to know that rehearsing Buddhist practice in the mind is waning.

It's very easy to get caught up with enemies and fantasizing revenge and it is so useless. I don't want to be the customer in Minority Report wishing to imagine killing my boss. It's so easy to let the approval of others be a reason why you like or dislike yourself. It's best to just let go over and over again.

Looking at enemies in your mind as attachments is a good thing. It's possible to remember how other people were in your mind for so long and how the brain just picks up new people to do the same thing and create the same feelings to new faces. The brain is accurate in finding people trying to stop you because those people usually have the power to stop you. As in the book "Meet your happy chemicals", it's true that if you bring mammals together they try and dominate each other for serotonin.

The brain also likes to pick up possible romantic partners and fantasize in a similarly useless way that has no reality whatsoever. Remembering other past environments you were in and how infatuated you got and how easily the brain can replace one face for another and still add gravitas via the emotions towards the next person as if it was "new" and "amazing" shows how quickly the brain shifts allegiances.

I really am developing a desire to wean these mental habits further. Thinking needs to be useful yet some of the wandering mind needs to happen to condition what are useful fabrications and perceptions. Weeding the garden and planting flowers.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
1/27/14 9:50 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
I'm finding I'm getting into a habit of talking to myself. It's like I'm trying to get my speech situation under control and it's starting to feel completely normal again. Thank God!

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
2/1/14 1:34 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Now that I have recovered fully from the latest dark night my sense of self is being seen through. Strategizing and analyzing just appear to be things that just happened as opposed to a self that is thinking. When the mind wanders it's just what happened. Most of it is conditioned. If I do something different than what I expected or thought I should do it's just more stuff that happens. This of course could be a trap as it's obvious that habits need to be worked on relentlessly to prevent indifference. One thing to remove the aversion is to mentally dwell on the benefits of a said action to make it desirable (no different than what advertising does). By paying attention to ONLY the pleasant benefits it motivates the brain to move forward. The result is that I'm enjoying to clean the apartment. The habitual aversion does come through but consistently bringing the brain to how enjoyable it is when dishes are clean, the car is clean and the apartment is clean can counter it.

What people like to coin as an "attention bounce" is very clear now. For example, going shopping today my mind, out of habit, wanted to go the same route as going to work but because I'm clearly present I could feel the tug but keep on the correct lane to my true destination. This bounce is from a habit. Another kind of bounce happens when you want to do something you should do but the brain moves away in aversion towards some other option that is less aversive (which is often habit again). You can feel the tug and the lack of motivation afterwards. When you've meditated for so many years this kind of thing is now easy to see, and less powerful but these mental tugs are still dangerous and sneaky. They can control your life because they work so quickly.

The key is noticing how quickly and sapped the desire to do the right thing is when aversion happens. Let go of the thoughts related to it and implant positive beneficial reasoning until the motivation returns. There's something dry and dead when you're forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
2/10/14 11:25 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
I'm getting much better at catching mind states. When you purposefully quiet your mind (also out of enjoyment) you can compare the thinking patterns that appear and see clearly how they affect you and create moods (sometimes involving music). The future possibilities that my mind thinks are often completely inaccurate and totally catastrophic. It can be worse when my perceptions are negative but things are actually slightly more negative than I perceived emoticon They move so quickly but because I'm in equanimity (and it's getting deeper) they don't hurt much but still create enough hindrances to repeat old habits. By interrupting it faster and faster by letting go faster and faster it's very clear these unhelpful mindstates are very conditioned and need to be weakened as much as possible and replaced with healthy ones. By relishing a quiet mind (which may be an attachment, who cares?) there's a natural pull to just enjoy ambient sensation and no more.