(...) would love some other input.
I also felt like I was a rock - heavy, hardened, compressed. It was slightly unpleasant, a little fearful, but also really fascinating - there was a strong sense of gung ho, lets see where this thing goes. I started noting the sensations and realized quickly that this feeling was intimately familiar, something I had felt before, in a dream or glimpses in the past. I also realized there was a lot of me involved..."I" was this rock orb thing, and I started focusing on no-self, inquiring as to whether this "thing" was "me". After a while I started putting too much emphasis trying to describe the sensation in my mind, trying to think about how I would describe it to others, and then my timer went off and I stopped soon after.
Hi Jason,
So I think you know we're using a template here, that there are not discreet categories of mind causing equanimity and other feelings. But we're using a template to help frame a training experience, just like in a lab we set up an experiment to keep studying conditions of some events and interactions.
Richard Z:
Try to look at all your thoughts as sensations or look at the sensations after the thoughts and let them bubble up and go away on their own. Try not to cling to any of it.
Letting it all come and go. I just try to stay awake, alert, aware and non-commenting on the arising phenomena. Sometimes it is better if I am falling asleep for 40 minutes-- the alertness finally comes, and I've avoiding creating something out just arising and passing stuff.
But seeing how I may be reacting to/elaborating on arising phenomena is as useful to see as any calm, alert, non-elaborating attention to arising phenomena.