Yadid Bee:
How do you find this affects your everyday life, interactions with people, mental states, etc?
My everyday life feels considerably lighter in substance. Some things seem to not happen anymore. For instance, Papanca or compulsive proliferating mind seems gone. The mind can and still does wander, but I am no longer trapped in mind loops or proliferation. If I set intention to drop the content, it falls away effortlessly. That's new to the latest path.
I went on a job interview the other day, overall went well but had at least one technical person grill me with a chip on his shoulder. I took his grilling and his attitude with a sense of ease. I still hope I get the job, but am not worried if I don't. In the past situations like this would be the source of a bit more anxiety.
There is a sense that everyone is really free to be themselves. The need for me to make myself right and people wrong is significantly reduced. This attitude started growing shortly after I started practicing and got a nice boost on the last path.
Most of my life, I have struggled with addictive tendencies which seem to be reducing day by day. The old staples are still there but are gradually softening and new addictive patterns don't seem to be forming. I don't try to interfere or impose my will, I just watch these patterns play themselves out.
When I meet a new person (or old friend), my capacity to engage, listen and not compulsively inject myself into the conversation seems increased. When people complain or express pain, compassion naturally arises most of the time. Previously it would be indifference or annoyance or occasionally compassion. Compassion is more the norm. My capacity to share in another's joy (Mudita) is much much higher. In fact, I would say my ability to tap into feelings of any of the Brahma Viharas simply requires inclining the mind.
I still get angry, upset, annoyed, impatient scared and every other negative human emotion imaginable. However if one has me in it's grips, it only takes a certain kind of remembering to regain a sense of wholeness and freedom as the context for the negative emotion.
Yadid Bee:
How's the feeling of self, ego and so on.
The feeling of self is significantly diminished. I wont say I have a profound sense of centerlessness, but I do have a fairly regular perception of the insubstantial nature of other and can incline the mind this way when I want. Impermanence is generally fairly effortless to see in all phenomena as well. One direct insight I got prior to this last path was that selfing/othering is in fact the same as clinging/aversion. And the sensations involved in selfing, othering, clinging, aversion are all quite similar and all of those activities produce the same effect. Selfing and clinging solidify and strengthen sense of self through expanding identification. Othering and aversion create an enemy that can self can be contrasted with and polarized against thereby solidifying and strengthening it.
Ego is there and fully functioning, but generally I don't take it to seriously or get nearly as invested in perpetuating.
Another interesting side effect is the difference between being mindful and not being mindful doesn't seem all that significant. If I am making an effort to be mindful, then I forget a while, then I remember, I don't feel much of a shift. It's like a part of me never left or forgot. This point feels a bit harder to explain beyond that. This is also new since my last retreat.
The way I practice has changed as well. Mostly I'll relax, allow my concentration to gather naturally and drop an occasional question or mantra. My current favorites include: "allowing everything to be as it is...", "who am I?", "what (in my current experience) isn't empty?", "what is awareness?", "what is simple awareness?".