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Practice Logs

RE: Jehanne's practice log

RE: Jehanne's practice log
Answer
8/17/14 1:21 PM as a reply to Jehanne S Peacock.
Hi Jehanne,

thanks for the update. Keep going!

Cheers,
Florian

RE: Jehanne's practice log
Answer
8/20/14 7:27 AM as a reply to Jehanne S Peacock.
I decided to start keeping a more detailed practice log of my sits. Thought was inspired by Jen Pearly. Feels like something useful to do!

In yesterday's 15 minute sit I observed a similar kind of slow pulsating sensation at the bottom of my field of vision like I reported before. Only difference was that this time it was completely out of sync with the breath! Is this what is meant by "feeling that reality is out of sync" or is this something else entirely?

Also I noticed once again that letting go and not striving too hard just might be something to do. I did noting. It felt a bit forced as I tried to be as fast as possible. Then I decided to just wait and observe until some sensation was banging by doors of perception so hard it would not go unnoticed. After maybe 5 of these "relaxed" notes I began to feel a sort of ZOOM quality in my head, like this was going some where, this was progress, something was changing, I was doing it right.

RE: Jehanne's practice log
Answer
8/27/14 8:54 AM as a reply to Jehanne S Peacock.
Jehanne S Peacock:

I got interested and wanted to explore it more closely. "What the hell is this thing?" I was thinking. Then I apparently broke my concentration a little, and noticed that the pulsating was in the same rythm as my breath. HA! I had noticed my breath in the abstract, continuously-flowing, counterpart-image samadhi -style! Or at least this I how I imagine it goes emoticon

Did some reading and aparently the counterpart image (nimitta) is supposed to be something visual in case of the breath. So never mind what I said before...

In any case the pulsation keeps on coming. Yesterday it began some 5 seconds into my cushion time. I checked that it wasn't my breath and not my heartbeat. It was about 1 Hz, smooth pulsating feeling on the bottom of my "mental canvas", maybe this time it felt a bit more like it was something happenin in my body, on the chest/neck area.
The overall feeling in this sitting was that the mind was somehow extra clear and crisp almost the entire time.

RE: Jehanne's practice log
Answer
9/18/14 3:00 AM as a reply to Jehanne S Peacock.
After my struggle and resolution to keep sitting no matter what, things have improved somewhat. I'm fairly certain I had moved back to EQ, and indeed my sits have become longer in duration. Now I often sit half an hour, whereas it used to be 10 minutes some weeks/moths ago. Even if I'm ofterwise "busy" and set the timer to 15 min, I usually end up doubling that time after the bell. Also sitting is much more comfortable and I can sit the whole time without any discomfort. I observe some involutary body swaying occasionally, but it is just spontaneous and not related to any discomfort. I think I also noticed a few times clearly going through the stages of insight: body discomfort for 3C's, tingling and pleasantness for A&P, then some weird stuff I identified with DN, and then very clear EQ.

What started as EQ-peacefullnes has recently taken another feeling. I'm not sure anymore where I am. I have so much thoughts coming in all the time, and it seems my concentration on the task at hand has gone down. I keep guiding my attention back to noticing stuff as they appear and disappear, the feelings of space and the feelings of being aware, but friggin' 3 seconds later I'm thinking enthusiastically what to do for dinner or work stuff. Regardless, I think I'm doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing and there's not much else for me to do. I don't mean to complain as I have a matter-of-factly attitude towards these interuptions. It seems that this is the way mind works, period. So it's ok.

I have noticed a sort of equanomous attitude towards emotions. Example no. 1 from regular life: I found a dead month in my kitchen and picked it up to throw it away. I sensed strong repulsion several times (those stiff tiny but huge legs ugghh! and the furry sausage-body!!1), but somehow I wasn't repulsed. Like the repulsion didn't have an effect on me, even though it was there. No face flinching or anything. Just some pulses of "there's the repulsion again" but not affected in any way. Except that every time that feeling arose, my ears would go clogged/plugged/temporarily deaf (hope somebody gets what I'm aiming at here, I lack the correct english term), which normally I don't experience when feeling repulsion. That was interesting!
Example no. 2 was when doing formal sitting. I had this sensationof going really really fast, like ultra speed space ship, and I noticed a srong feeling of being afraid that I would get bugs in my mouth while flying (emoticon). But at the same time I wasn't actually afraid at all, I would just feel that a sensation "afraid" was present, but it couldn't get to me.

RE: Jehanne's practice log
Answer
10/7/14 1:48 AM as a reply to Jehanne S Peacock.
I've been comtemplating about cycling through the stages of insight. It seems part of my confusion about "where I am" was due to the fact that I wasn't paying enough attention to the way these stages present themselves. I had started to believe I was in EQ, but then my following experiences didn't quite match up to that, which then led to confusion.

So, I've done some experimenting!

I decided to specifically look for any signs of insight stages and whether I see myself cycling through them. It's only been a couple of times I've tried this, but it seems that looking at the process like this I fall actually pretty easy into equanimity within 15 to 30 minutes.

A typical session is something like this: I start and don't feel anything special, some thoughts here and there, everything is pretty ok and hard to describe. I observe my breath at the nostrils, focusing on that the whole time while looking for anything else that come up. But I always come back to the breath, so I don't get carried away with thoughts. Then I observe what might be called seeing the intention before the act of in/out breath. Again, I can't explain this with much more detail, but there is some part of my experience that seems to be the same before each in and out breath. After this I usually get a few jerks and twiches, nothing major but still I count it as three characteristics because as far as I know, that's what it is! Next follows A&P which consists of some tingling and blissfull sensations around the torso and head, I feel great and everything is clear and wonderful. Then Dark night sets in, I notice it first by the weird sensation like every small sensation is out of harmony, kinda feels like some odd jazz tune. I try to pay attention carefully to fear, misery, disgust etc, and sometimes I sense small traces of these, like a scary rotten image, or a sense of sorrow, slight nausea. Nothing terribly unsetling, but just some small indications that allow me to label this phase as Dark night. Then arises Equanimity with a sense of everything quieting down. I feel tranquil and I start loosing feeling of having a body, or it is lessened a great deal. The feeling is just nice, but I do notice some aspects of it that are stressfull.

Yesterday while at this EQ phase, my alarm clock went off I just coudn't bother turning it off. I was just staying in that state, listening to the alarm for quite some time, observing all the sublte emotions that came up. Eventually I got annoyed and turned the alarm off, but decided to continue the sit. I then observed what I thought was sliding back the stages of insight to DN, A&P and pre-A&P stage. Then I got up.

I'll continue along these lines also next time, since it seemed effective. I was able to sense very subtle feelings and thoughts and aversions throughout the sit, each becoming more subtle as I went up the ladder of insight stages. I came naturally to contemplating space and volume and those sorts of things towards the EQ.

RE: Jehanne's practice log
Answer
10/7/14 10:58 AM as a reply to Jehanne S Peacock.
Hi Jehanne

cool! If you are able to observe the ñanas at this level of clarity, you might also appreciate the Ñana/Jhana correspondences. One possible way to line them up:

1st Jhana - ñana 1
2nd Jhana - ñana 4
3rd Jhana - ñana 5
4th Jhana - ñana 11

Have fun, keep going!

Cheers,
Florian

RE: Jehanne's practice log
Answer
10/8/14 11:54 AM as a reply to Jehanne S Peacock.
Ok, I just had to mention that your corpse dreams sounded very familiar.  Like, they aren't even scary, more like "Really?  This is just a little mellodramatic..."  Haha, good times.

Edit: BTW, I love your name. emoticon 

RE: Jehanne's practice log
Answer
10/13/14 2:29 AM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Hi Florian!

Thanks for the reminder of the ñana/jhana-correspondence. While moving up the ñanas I can see quite clearly how "the atmosphere" changes and I do equate this to moving to different jhanas. It's still a bit difficult for me to remember what all these jhanas or ñanas are supposed to be like, and it does require many many repetitions. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, though! 

RE: Jehanne's practice log
Answer
10/13/14 2:37 AM as a reply to Not Tao.
Not Tao:
Ok, I just had to mention that your corpse dreams sounded very familiar.  Like, they aren't even scary, more like "Really?  This is just a little mellodramatic..."  Haha, good times.


Funny how they seem to be sort of iconic, many people have these quite similar images appear at similar stages of insight... Actually I think that's just very cool!
And even though no fear or disgust was attached to these images, I have experienced fear arise independently. So the mind does have the tendency to display all sorts of shows. It helps a lot to just realize that these things are going on on their own, and not give them any more meaning than that.

Not Tao:
Edit: BTW, I love your name. emoticon 

Haha, thanks emoticon