Hello everyone,
after asking
some questions over at the Dhama Diagnostic Clinic I found that it might be helpful to track my progress more thouroughly.
Where I come fromI started meditating about 10 years ago. Back in the days I did mostly zazen. Then I stumbled upon Shinzen Young, followed his method for 2-3 years. Then stumbled upon Ayya Khema and focused on awareness of the breath. Then I found Ajahn Brahm and through his advice I got deeper, less forceful meditation. Somewhere along the line I read Daniel's book and was fascinated but not yet hooked.
At about October last year I got kriyas while meditating and afterwards (mainly facial and upper body involuntary movements). I could even produce them deliberately by loosening the urge to control and tell some until then unknown part in me: 'I allow you to take over and do whatever needs to be done.' When I first experienced them there was a strong feeling of me being controlled or something else doing its thing through me. This felt not scary but rather interesting.
I also had an increased need for sleep and felt pretty tired during the day. Whereas I usually needed 7-8 hours of sleep and jumped out of bed in the morning, I now need 10. Sometimes never being able to shake off the tiredness during the day. There also was some crisis I went through. I was seriously considering to become a monk which was not very healthy for my marriage as you could imagine. This wish has weakened and I feel now that my spiritual goals can be achieved in a more mundane setting (kudos to Daniel and Yogani!). It also had a lot to do with running away from responsibilities and the fear to get too close to things and people.
This phase also coincided with some serious back pain,which I thought at the time came from wrong exercising, and some tension in the jaw. Now this all sounds a lot like what Daniel wrote about the 3rd nana (The Three Characteristics): "a sense of wanting to renounce the world... odd bodily twistings... painful tensions, particularly in the back, neck, jaw and shoulders..."
My current spiritual pracitceAt the start of my meditation sessions I do some spinal breathing (pranajama) as described on the
AYPsite. Then I focus on present moment awareness and change over to breath awareness once my mind is calm and pretty stable. That's basically what Ajahn Brahm teaches. I seem now to be able to let go of the doing part and put most of my energy into the observing. Through this I find that the calming of the mind takes care of its own and by the end of my 20-30 minute meditation I'm usually very calm and focused. After all those years of trial & error I now seem to have come to the point where the meditative process is pretty reliable and becomes increasingly stable.
Now I will put also more focus on investigating the 3Cs after my breath meditation. I am very curious about what's to come next...
Aside from that I have an increased interest in (lucid) dreaming recently. Ideas seem to come up out of nowhere. Recently I put down a story for a children's book. Yesterday while lying in bed beautiful melodies struck mind and I even dreamed about flying through a church singing a wonderful anthem, which I could remember quite vividly after waking up. LOL.
Apart from the kriyas, which still happen at least once a week, there's sometimes an involuntary urge to breath out deeply. Sometimes to the point where breathing in becomes a slight burden.
I do psychotherapy and trauma release exercises (TRE). There are indications that some childhood trauma might surface in the weeks to come. And there's also a feeling of something "big" about to happen... hopefully with some bearable progress through the stages. Another thing I do which helps a lot to balance me out and get more calm and focused is
fletcherizing/mindful eating.
Writing this it becomes more and more clear to me that I am probably somewhere at the end of the 3rd or beginning of the 4th nana. Which excites me, to be honest. Until two days ago I did not even consider myself to be anywhere on the map...
That's it. I hope that this log will help me to better identify and navigate through the stages. Comments are always welcome!