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RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
9/24/14 4:25 AM as a reply to _.
Power

To hold a view, to hold the viewless view, to stake a claim, to stand this ground, to classify and contain, to include, to exclude, to ascend the throne, to scale the trench, to transcend the sky, to renounce all this, to surrender renunciation, to wield even this, to apologize and exalt oneself, to forgive and dissolve oneself . . . 

As if bestowing a scepter, he said, “Use it well.”
She thought, “Its form keeps passing away, so by what handle do I grasp this transfer?”

Its other name is intention. But it isn’t quite itself.

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
9/25/14 2:05 AM as a reply to _.
Wrote out my fire kasina experiment. But site ate it for midnight snack. Impermanence. . . . emoticon

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/1/14 12:57 AM as a reply to _.
Fire Kasina, Sort Of (1 Hour)

Much in the way of interpersonal emotional volatility is going on. I guess it is my fault, yet even all this feels like it is happening of its own accord, no matter what I resolve to do to avoid it. Daniel has said that the middle paths can predominantly involve psychological stuff, that lessons have to be learned over and over and over again. This seems to be what is happening. I never dream about my father, but now he visits me in my dreams and tells me he is not dead. My abandonment issues roil up out of nowhere during sits. I can be irritable and literally have to seek solitude so as not to bite creatures’ heads quite off. I'm not usually like this--anxious, but not angry or irritable. Now my anxiety is gone but I'm crabby.

Through all this, there remains this new calm substratum that has a jhana feel to it, 24/7. This and sudden access to hard formless jhanas during sits are what convince me that stream entry did occur. No more fruitions, though. I’ve not really tried hard to call them up.

I think that this was the fourth night that I’ve tried the fire kasina. Previous times led to my seeing a purple disc when I closed my eyes, but this time I never saw the purple disc. Almost as soon as I closed my eyes I seemed to be in the Boundless Space jhana. This is how incoherent and nuts my sits are now.

At any rate, I kept it up with the candle flame. Time passes amazingly fast during this kind of meditation! I was supposed to keep with the color of the flame, but I started noticing all these rays, like hard, uncooked vermicelli spikes, shooting out from the flame. Once I noticed these rays, they were hard to ignore, so I decided to explore this effect. It just felt right. It is funny that I’ve never noticed these rays before, although I guess they are always a part of fire.

I added a mantra, and these rays started pulsing out in rhythm with the manta. When I would sound the deeper vowel sounds, like OM, the rays would pulse ridiculously far out from the flame. I was also able to make the very long ray lines stabilize in their very elongated form by keeping with the mantra. Pretty cool! And really rather surprising, yes.

This session was interesting, but officially I wasn’t on task, because I wasn’t fully focused on color, and I didn’t see the purple discs when I closed my eyes—just fell out to Boundless Space whenever I closed my eyes.

It is funny how automatically I’m drawn into the Boundless Space jhana. In fact, usually when I wake up in the morning from sleep, I’m in the dang Boundless Space thingy! I cannot feel my body at all, and it takes some long moments to inhabit my body again. In fact, while I’m literally trying to regroup, it is as though I have several bodies that are floating some few feet above the bed, and they are vibrating into a shuffle, as if they were a deck of cards. They vibrate together, sync up, become one, and then descend into becoming my usual body. This sort of thing started happening after stream entry, never happened ever before.

I think I will try to find the 10-hour time to explore this kasina method. I also want to explore the jhanas more. When I sit, I never know what I’m supposed to be focusing on. Some sits are shit; others are sublime. I don’t seem to be able to predict which will go which way. It is as if I’m not driving this vehicle anymore at all.

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/1/14 8:13 AM as a reply to _.
Wow Jenny, you are a jhana natural! How cool. Things might feel even more out of control as a result, but you might be on a faster conveyer belt too.

Don't worry with what to focus on, just fully be with whatever is dominant. When you have doubts, ask "am I with what is happening?" If the answer is yes, even if it seems "wrong" or "confusing" or "unclear" or "yes, but what I'm being full with is the experience of not feeling like I'm really with anything much at all", then paradoxically you are still on the conveyer belt. It will pull you into whatever experiences you need, maybe full experience of abandonment, maybe being a witness, maybe more fruitions, maybe new jhanas, maybe seeing new cause and effects, etc. 

Keep the reins of the horse in your hands, but let the horse run. This is the natural intelligence of the mind: exploring, finding corners, looking around corners and finding something new, as well as slowing down and resting when it needs to.   

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/1/14 8:27 AM as a reply to _.
Hey Jen, glad you are posting here again! emoticon

I cannot feel my body at all, and it takes some long moments to inhabit my body again. In fact, while I’m literally trying to regroup, it is as though I have several bodies that are floating some few feet above the bed, and they are vibrating into a shuffle, as if they were a deck of cards. They vibrate together, sync up, become one, and then descend into becoming my usual body. This sort of thing started happening after stream entry, never happened ever before.

Do you remember the author I recommended to you, Robert Monroe? In one of his books, his second one I think, he mentions having to travel out of several bodies depending on how "far" he wanted to go. He would get out of his physical, but then get out of a second body if he wanted to go farther out. Getting back to his body meant getting back into one body, then into another, then back into his physical in bed. It sounds very similar to what you are describing.

I had a spontaneous OBE yesterday morning because of my disrupted sleep patterns. It didn't last very long. It's a shame I'm not more talented at this sort of thing\

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/2/14 12:17 AM as a reply to x x.
XX,

Thank you so much for your hints and words of encouragement. Truly, you are always so helpful! I'm feeling a little nuttier than usual--simultaneouly with a deep calm "bottom" and turmoil and discursive analysis on top. In general, I spend almost a whole 20 minutes of my sits in discursive thought, with "calm abiding" on some other separate level. Then I may change my mind several times about what kind of meditation I'm going to do. 

As for being a natural with jhana--oddly, before that cessation on August 8, I usually had a hard time with samatha because I couldn't help but see the Three Characteristics. Now it is opposite. 

I think that you are correct: that I'm now in my second Progress of Insight. And I really do have the strong sense that the dharma is "doing" me, in all senses of the word. emoticon

Tonight, while watching a film with my spouse, I experienced very distinctly 2 hours of FEAR--not related to anything that is going on. I suspect that I've wandering into the Dark Night, and I had a month of what felt like A&P after SE, but I've not had any particular A&P standout "event" like I did on first path. I'm on the ride, so I'm not going to worry too much that I'm not sure I can map where I am. I am suddenly starting to see the utility of the Dark Night.

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/2/14 12:36 AM as a reply to Eric M W.
Dude! Hmmm, not finding books by him for Kindle. I'll dig around some more on the Web. Interesting that something like that occurs for others. I really need to research this, for I would like to know what the heck is going on. My husband says it probably sleep paralysis, but oddly, I can move and even open my eyes and see my real body move, but it is an effort to move, and don't feel my body itself. The bodily field is above the bed, and there is some strange sense of "copies" of my body there. 

I don't know why everyone is not into these things!

Oh--congratulations for getting that OBE you've always wanted! And all it took was a week without sleep and therefore with hallucinations, eh? I'll check your journal to see if you described what happened. emoticon

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/2/14 5:50 AM as a reply to _.
No worries, thanks for your practice!

Jenny:
....Tonight, while watching a film with my spouse, I experienced very distinctly 2 hours of FEAR--not related to anything that is going on. I suspect that I've wandering into the Dark Night, and I had a month of what felt like A&P after SE, but I've not had any particular A&P standout "event" like I did on first path. I'm on the ride, so I'm not going to worry too much that I'm not sure I can map where I am. I am suddenly starting to see the utility of the Dark Night.


The A&P after SE probably was just Review, in theory starting at A&P without effort and then going through to EQ with a new, higher level of concentration, I agree it feels more like A&P: basically a sense of momentum, juiciness, and wow-ness. I never had clear repeat fruitions after 1st path SE, but I did find everything luxurious and easy and expansive and interesting... and jhanas became much more accessible.

Ironically, it is great that you are now seeing the nanas very clearly. When meditation isn't jhanic, it's going to be psychological... but basically it's like meditation is serving up completely fabricated situations for you to look at in the safety of a non-critical life situation. So Fear might arise more clearly, but it isn't tied to a dire situation --- now is your chance to really look at, feel, and be in Fear. It's all sensations linked with thoughts. Now you have the opportunity to really see how it is constructed. What a great opportunity! And don't forget, if you are looking at it, then you are not it. You are not fear. You are looking at fear.

When things get psychological/physiological, you job is to see how the self gets caught up in thoughts and sensations and makes it seem worse than it is. Unpleasant might still remain unpleasant, but you eventually have less of the "... and I'm going to DIE!" feeling. It can be tough to do this and it's tempting to lash out and act out the feelings of unpleasantness. That's when you have to remind yourself: keep the meditation domain in the meditation domain, no bleed through to "real" life. Easier said than done, but that's the ideal.

edit: and please be patient, when building the capacity to see difficult mind states and mental constucts it isn't going to always be within current capacity... so do what you can, then take a break, air things out, go for a walk, etc. You can't get strong in a day, you gotta just keep going to the gym, do your thing, and the muscles will build themselves. Do too much and you just get weaker and worn out. You know the old expression: Go slow, it's faster.

Second path is about getting good at all of this, not perfect but pretty good, and finding a new level of EQ that is even more resilient. Third path is getting really good at seeing how moments are fabricated by thoughts and sensations, including all the jhanas and nanas themselves. Pretty simple really. Basically meditation picks up where conventional psychology ends and really investigates the pieces of how things are experienced, even before thinking gets involved. Basically base of the brainstem kind of work, not intellectual at all.

Hope this helps!

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/2/14 7:25 AM as a reply to _.
Hey Jenny,
My experience has been that hypnogogic (and hypnopompic) stuff happens on a spectrum so you could be having 'partial' sleep paralasys for instance. Throughout childhood and adolescence I had a TON of sleep paralasys and other peri-sleep wierdness on a regular basis. The sleep paralasys stuff was often accompanied by terror and the sense there was a presence in the room out of eyeshot moving towards me.

In my twenties I met a guy who became a bit of a mentor to me who introduced me to Namkhai Norbu's Dzogchen teachings. Prior to being into Dzogchen this fellow had studied Zen intensively during the 70's alongside ritual magick and he had lots of experience with lucid dreaming, obes, and astral work.

When I described my symptoms he gave me some books by  a guy named Robert Bruce who is a master of Astral Projection. According to Bruce (and my friend) what I was experiencing with the waking sleep paralasys was a failed projection in which my astral double remained in the room but my consciousness staid in my body.

Then the presence of the double felt like an alien presence in the room. There were concrete methods and attitudes recommended to train in and then utilize in that situation and sure enough, when I applied these, I started having all kinds of wild Astral and Dream projections which were quite fascinating and fun.

I recommend Bruce's stuff wholeheartedly as it has a wide range of applicability as a mode of energy work. I've incorporated a lot of the basics of his energy work system in my tool box of regular practices because they seem so effective at developing the energy system in a balanced, rich, well rounded way. My experience is astral projection is extremely costly to chi/prana/energy whatever so it helps to have a robust energy system and to have some reserves if you want to be able to project without being burnt out afterwards. For whatever reason I seem prone to such experiences but if I don't keep my prana cultivation up and my energy system healthy it just means a lot of aborted projections (waking sleep paralasys, lots of hypno-gogic and -pompic activity, etc.)

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/2/14 10:55 PM as a reply to x x.
X X:
The A&P after SE probably was just Review, in theory starting at A&P without effort and then going through to EQ with a new, higher level of concentration, I agree it feels more like A&P: basically a sense of momentum, juiciness, and wow-ness. I never had clear repeat fruitions after 1st path SE, but I did find everything luxurious and easy and expansive and interesting... and jhanas became much more accessible.

Yes! I didn't realize that Review felt so much like A&P, but your description nails it. Oddly, too, hmm . . . there is this really bizarre mixture of spiritual high with sexual energy, some kind of ecstatic something or other, but I guess that fits some descriptions of A&P, too. There is that sexual energy aspect even though I guess I'm past Review and going into DN. Yet that substratum of okay-ness is there, too, the minute I pause and tune into it. Everything--all mixed up!

Now would indeed be a good time to do that "no bleed-through" resolution formally. . . . 

Another odd coicidence regarding all the issues with my father that have been coming through--long lost (never met) cousin on my father's side asked me to come up and visit her in Virginia, so I am. This is where my father grew up, and I've never known anything about his family or childhood. She, my cousin, wants to take me around and tell me all the old stories. A lot of my psychology and compensations and codepedence grew up around my father, who basically drank himself to death by the time I was 12. Just odd that he is popping up everywhere now--sits, dreams, long-lost cousins. . . . 

The Fear last night . . . yeah, I started to feel a little panicky, but then I realized, "Oh, this is a nana." So I just noticed it, as you say, and I noticed its passing, too. . . . So I didn't make things worse that time. I definitely made scenes worse last week on the DhO, but I was surrounded by people here who I think knew what was going on with me and patiently supported me through it, for which I feel grateful. How rare and wonderful that any of this can happen and does--these shifts, and this community to support us through them!

I've been so good at work, too, lately. I literally bite my tongue or go out for a walk around the building when I need to. I go out of my way to say kind things to my boss, meaning them, and everyone, even people who've been testy with me. So this also is "practice," and it gets easier, more direct, with more of it. 
Pretty simple really. Basically meditation picks up where conventional psychology ends and really investigates the pieces of how things are experienced, even before thinking gets involved. Basically base of the brainstem kind of work, not intellectual at all.

Yes, brainstem work--this really makes sense. Thanks!

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/2/14 11:46 PM as a reply to . Jake ..
Thanks, Jake. I'll track down Bruce's work. I'm glad that worked for you. Thankfully, these things I'm experiencing are not frightening, just interesting, warm, buzzy, expansive, and kind of magical feeling. I started getting them immediately after stream entry, but they do seem to be less frequent now than a few weeks ago. Nonetheless, I'll check out Bruce.

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/7/14 1:21 AM as a reply to _.
Fire Kasina Gone Wild (October 6, 2014, Only 33 Minutes)

Last night I intended to try the fire kasina practice for at least an hour; however, I abruptly cut the session short because what happened startled me.

As with the last time, I added a mantra and observed the rays elongating. But then I decided to focus on the color and after a few alternations between having eyes open and having them closed, I started seeing the purple disc behind closed eyes. The second time I saw it, I had a few moments of confusion wherein I couldn't tell the difference between imagining purple and seeing it. Then it became clearly seen with my eyes closed.

About the fourth time that I closed my eyes, something weird happened. The disc started growing bigger and showing these brighter purple sparkling spots within the main disc. I was letting this develop and just watching it rapidly grow to fill all of the visual field when suddenly my vision popped up bright and became completely bright orange, the color of flame. I opened my eyes to see the actual flame leaping up high, and then quickly returning to normal and staying normal height.

This happening shook me up, set me a-trembling, and I ended the session early.


RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/7/14 1:05 PM as a reply to _.
That's interesting, it sounds like you didn't actively intend to make it jump. Sounds like you are a natural at this sort of thing! 

If you want to get the hang of psychokinesis, bending spoons is safer than fire. Start by coating a sewing needle in butter or lard and letting it float completely suspended in a glass of water. Concentrate and use your intent to tilt it to the left or the right. When you become proficient with that, you can apply the same principle to spoons.

I used to know a guy who could bend them. He couldn't actually just bend them with his mind, he had to give it a nudge with his finger. It was still impressive, because it bent like hot wax. Oh, and it really was HOT to the touch, so don't burn yourself...

Maybe back off the fire kasina until you figure out what exactly is going on.

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/7/14 2:10 PM as a reply to Eric M W.
Eric M W:
I used to know a guy who could bend them. He couldn't actually just bend them with his mind, he had to give it a nudge with his finger. It was still impressive, because it bent like hot wax. Oh, and it really was HOT to the touch, so don't burn yourself...
Q & A with Michael Crichton: Travels- Re:spoon bending
Eric M W:
Maybe back off the fire kasina until you figure out what exactly is going on.
The rational mind will not "figure" it out. It is experiential.
No fear.....but if you are doing it inside/ near flammable stuff...get a fire extinguisher.

Have fun,
~D

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/7/14 6:49 PM as a reply to _.
When getting into the wierd realm of not-quite-normal-reality stuff, it can be really helpful to do a bunch of metta practice for yourself and all beings who may be near by, seen or unseen... as well as all being who may be at the farthest corner of the cosmos, seen or unseen. Really, you don't want to hurt or bother anyone when you practice, not even a candle flame. If you spend some time on this, you'll have no ill will or regret, even when things seem to go wrong. One of the sweetest things in the world is to be blameless. No necessary always "right", but rather pure of heart, without ill will, and so therefore blameless. It seem like this is especially important when you get into power-sy stuff.

Maybe wish your father well, wish the woman spirit well, wish all beings well, even wish the candle flame well. It's time well spent. When the heart is clean, do your practice for the benefit of all beings, known and unknown. May we all awaken, may we all be free from suffering, may we all be happy.

It can be good to even take a bath before practice.

Just some things that might help. emoticon

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/7/14 8:32 PM as a reply to x x.
Yes, metta would temper the weirdnesses, agreed.  And I can see how some body work would keep one grounded -- both before and after.

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/7/14 10:36 PM as a reply to x x.
X X:
One of the sweetest things in the world is to be blameless. . . .  It can be good to even take a bath before practice. 

Yes, good reminder. I'll amp up the metta practice before diving into fire again. I do almost always take a hot Epsom salt bath at night before I meditate. It is part of my regular clean routine.

I was more startled than frightened. And then I was excited. Dream Walker reminded me . . . approach this stuff with equanimity. So equanimity and metta . . . and I need to order more Epsom salts. I buy 20 lbs. bags and go through one every 3 weeks.

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/7/14 10:38 PM as a reply to Colleen Karalee Peltomaa.
What kind of bodywork, are you thinking of, Colleen? The only bodywork I have engaged in has been restorative yoga and deep tissue massage. I need to start going for massage regularly again. 

There is just so much to learn. 

RE: Jen Pearly's Practice Journal
Answer
10/10/14 2:00 AM as a reply to . Jake ..
Jake,

I found Robert Bruce's work on Kindle and am downloading. Thanks so much. You guys are the best! xxxxx