Okay, so I will give this a try to help myself be more grounded and aware and maybe see patterns that I might otherwise ignore, running around in circles. I will allow myself to do this in a playful and not necessarily systematic way, to take away some pressure. These notes may include reflections outside of my formal practice as well, and even outside my informal practice, as long as I’m explicit about it. After all, I want my practice to benefit my off cushion life, which is not necessarily all about awakening. I do have other responsibilities.

So, today I tried a guided meditation by Rob Burbea on connecting with one’s energy body. It is part of a recorded reatreat material on the path to the imaginal. This is exactly the sort of thing that I had decided to avoid because that door seemed to be closed to me. Oddly enough, my practice kept pointing to it, and people in another community kept pointing it out to me. Yesterday I realized that I have been repressing my imagination for the sake of survival, but that is no longer necessary, and it’s still alive somewhere beneath all these layers of adjustement. This is a link to the talk in which the guided meditation is embedded:

https://media.dharmaseed.org/cache/DS/20150807-Rob_Burbea-GAIA-energy_body_instructions_1-31525.mp3

I sat down on the cushion and followed the instructions. I have had a few days with some disconnection with my body making my practice more superficial and my yoga less in synch. On the other hand I have come into some other kind of synch, with solutions to problems being dropped at my feet, more or less. The advice to check out this recorded retreat was one example of that, because this was exactly what I needed right now: a way to get back in my body while simultaneously opening up to a more imaginative realm.

First I had some trouble finding the right posture. I took some time to adjust it, because that was recommended in the directions. I accepted that I had that level of distraction and didn’t feel particularly bothered by it. Soon enough, the posture adjusted itself as I found concentration in the imagining practice. It does that from time to time, kind of falls into place on its own volition when I surrender to the buzzing feelings in my hands or other body parts.

I missed a few details in the beginning of the instructions because of my distraction, but I came back to it and felt that I knew what he was talking about, roughly, so I just went with what felt right at the time. He repeated them shortly thereafter and they corresponded with what I had been doing: trying to shift my attention not to parts of my body, but to the whole of it and some space around it. I don’t know how this is supposed to be done, but I have had perceptions of dropping into such a state before, so I went with that. It’s not a very centered attention, more like a widening, and more of letting go than intentional effort. I noticed that the feet were most difficult to include in that notion of the energy body (they are also very stiff, physically; I’m working on that), but at some point I also noticed my right foot heating up.

I think it was somewhere in the beginning of this imagining part that I felt resistence. My body was signalling that there wasn’t enough air. I instantly knew that was resistence. I check my lungs every week because I’m undergoing a hyposensibilization treatment, and my breathing is fine, and I know from experience that my breathing can be very light for a long time and even stop for a moment without any problem. I also recently read a paper where Leigh Brasington said that the breath gets very light before one enters the jhanas. Therefore I just noted the heart raising and the impulse to grasp for air and trusted that it would be OK. I think that was when the first shift in posture came about by itself. That actually made the breathing easier, and I felt a lightness.

There were breathing exercises. I was supposed to imagine the breath coming in and out from different points of departure. First it was in the belly. That was easy in the posture I had come into, and I felt calm. I don’t remember the details very well now (I had to go to the hospital before I was finished making these notes), but I remember that the different points of departure for the breathing made a noticable difference. Whereas the belly was calm, the crown of the head had an energetic feeling to it. There were some blockages resulting in resistence, don’t remember where. I think one of them was in my head, manifesting as a a slight pressure. When I let go of it, the posture adjusted itself on its own volition again. It felt like layers of blockages being released. Breathing along the spine was flowing energy throughout the body. Somewhere along the line my eyelids started flickering and the left part of my upper lip started twitching. These are familiar movements to me. It happens when I get into a more trans like state. I had shiverings all over my body and felt blissful.

There was one exercise involving color. That was difficult for me. Visualization is difficult for me. Most of these exercises could be done by way of kinestetic imagining, but the color exercise wasn’t my thing at this point in time.

At one point I was supposed to make a decicion as to what exercise to return to. That made me hesitate. I don’t remember now what I chose. I know that I picked one of the breathing exercises. I think it was the one departing from the crown of the head. I was able to maintain the concentration despite the hesitation. In the end of the session the instructions told me to open my eyes, and so I did. The flavour of concentration remained. When the guided meditation stopped and the talk continued, I decided to stay in this mode while listening. In doing so, the words and the sounds were more immediate and gave shivering and other energetic sensations. The phone rang in the middle of that. For a brief moment I was annoyed, but then I thought that it is quite possible, after all, to remain concentration while interacting. So I took the phone call. It was from the Swedish Medical Products Agency. I had reported adverse effects of a birth control product and they needed to ask a few questions. I answered the questions and we wished each other a merry christmas. After the call I sat down on the cushion again and continued listening. The shiverings were still there and I felt very relaxed and almost a bit tipsy. I felt the need to start swaying back and forth a bit, so I did. After a while I noticed that my head was also tilting back and forth in a way that together with the swaying of my upper body back and forth made my chin make circles in the air. My breathing was synchronized with this movement. I continued with this for a while. Then I lay down in baby pose and breathed into my lower back. I felt safe.

Afterwards I felt a bit shaky, but in a good way. Something had been released.

I've heard such good things about Rob Burbea's The Seeing That Frees and so it's been sitting on my coffee table for months along with piles of other unread books. I'll get to it eventually...

There are recordings and/or transcripts from retreats as well. Lots of lots of resources.

I recommend a thorough reading of "The Seeing That Frees" first so that you can get some idea of the objectives Rob is aiming you at. This is like looking at a map before you start a long journey. Then go back and do his recommended practice exercises.

JMHO.

By the way, I'm really happy to see you've started your own topic/practice log. This will anchor you here and allow you to express your views and for you and the rest of us to follow your progress more coherently!

I started with listening to a long introductory talk where he explained his aims quite thoroughly. Then I listened to the talk that introduced this guided meditation. After that I did the meditation.

I will read the book, though.

Thank you! I hope I will be able to maintain this log. It took quite some time to find the words. I appreciate the opportunity to get some feedback and correction when needed from meditators with more experience.

I have decided that if I experiment with other traditions than the kind of insight meditation I usually practice, that is outside the curriculum and thus doesn’t count on its own. I have set up a minimum for my ordinary practice to 20 minutes per day. I usually do more than that, but I find that it is good to have a minimum that allows me to succeed even when conditions are less favorable. Earlier today I have already done the Rob Burbea meditation and 75 minutes of Hatha Yoga and I’m tired, so I chose to do 20 minutes.

I decided to do only one technique for the whole session, namely ”note everything” according to Shinzen Young’s system but with a slight modification that fits my way of perceicing and processing things better. This was the first time I tried that solution. It worked. It solved the problems that I used to have with my kinesthetic way of thinking not really fitting into the system. I also tried spoken labels for the first time. That wasn’t something I had planned. I usually note in a silent way. I probably felt that I needed the extra help with my focus. It did help. When I was about to space out a couple of times, I heard that there were no labels being said, and I quickly found something to note.

That shifting feeling in my spine together with my posture correcting itself on its own volition happened a few times.

My visual imagination seems indeed to subtly wake up. There were mental images popping up. That is new. They seemed rather arbitrary. Sometimes I couldn’t make out what they were. There were some symbols, I believe. Unknown ones. And an hour glass? Some other things that I have already forgotten. Mental images of things that I heard. Orange color; that may be due to the fact that we were supposed to imagine breathing in orange on the yoga class, which I found difficult at the time. The long curly hair belonging to R (visual image accompanied by and follwing the mental smell sensation and the mental physical sensation). I heard inner talk to, which I usually don’t very often. There were a lot of positive feelings, often due to sounds that I heard (my son and my cats), but also bliss coming out of the practice and occasional appreciative thoughts. There were some minor negative feelings as well, such as faint compulsive impulses to tic, but mindfulness has taught me that if I welcome the sensations resulting from me not ticcing, they are actually not unpleasant, and they are very transient Some sounds startled me briefly. A lot of flow (pulsating waves, buzzing vibrations) and rest (felt and seen). The noted sensations were in a broader range than what has been common up til now. Most of the time there were a couple of notions per second, I believe. I felt relaxed.

The chosen technique worked well insofar as it kept me active and in focus without stressing me out. Some rather loud noices and my cat climbing onto me did not take away my focus or tingling sensations. There were a couple of instances, maybe a few, where I was close to spacing out because I was so relaxed, but I remembered noting rest then. There were a few instances where I forgot the words, rendering spokel labels difficult. I found them, though, after brief moments of confusion. I accepted the fact that words don’t always come easy to me and took interest in that fact. This could perhaps be explored more closely. I think I was more relaxed on those occasions, maybe close to sleep but nut dozing off. I didn’t feel tired, but there was a dreamlike flavor to it.

There were lightness.

I feel very relaxed now. Time to go to sleep.

Good to see you are doing this, Linda. I'll be following along. Looks like you are already getting some good comments and guidance.

Thank you! I appreciate it.

Hi Linda! If you're interested in reading Seeing That Frees a few of us have been discussing it over on the /r/streamentry community:

https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/8k2ril/community_seeing_that_frees_discussion_parts_1/

We've just finished the last chapter, but there are summaries, notes and discussions which might help you along.

Thankyou Lewis! That may come in handy.

I forgot to mention some details from my energy body meditation. At one point I had the feeling that my hands were directed towards me instead of from me. Then I felt that there were two of me, sitting in front of each other, mirroring each other. The hand thing reappeared later as well, after the phone call that had disrupted the experience.

Today has been hectic. I’m sitting on a train now. I was starting to have some motion sickness, in spite of the medication I took to prevent it, but then I remembered that I’m supposed to be mindful of whatever arises not only on the cushion, so I started concentrating with a wide focus, instead of resisting the impressions, and wow, that really makes a difference.

I think I have found a way to turn on that kind of concentration. I hope it sticks and lets itself be applied in a variety of situations. I’ll have to practice. It’s difficult to explain what I do. It’s like learning how to control the inner muscles of your ears to open and and close something in there. You just know what to do.

That's a good analogy. Tuning attention requires subtlety, not too much effort nor too little. I like to think of it as holding a bird in your hand: too tight and you crush its delicate bones, but too loose and it flies away. There has to be a brightly aware but relaxed sensitivity and responsiveness.

Yeah, holding a bird feels about right.

I’m not at home, but seeing a partner that I hadn’t seen for six weeks, and it’s his birthday, so I meditated for only 20 minutes this night. I used ”noting everything”, which made it easy to find and keep focus.

Maybe I’m too happy to awaken? There is no suffering in my meditation, no angst, no drama. I just tune into things and feel good. The pulsating waviness has become very reliable. It turns up almost immediately. I have noticed that it comes together with the purple swirls on my black screen forming a circle. That is a wellknown pattern by now. I have seen that purple circle before, during sex. The waves come and go, though, and so do the swirls and circles and all other tingles and buzzes. I trust them to come back, and they do. In the meantime I note other sensations.

There were golden brightness mixed in with the purple, almost like sun.

At a certain stage I was wordless again. I know how to recognize and distinguish sensations from each other, but the words are not there.

When I opened my eyes after the session it felt like I just had great sex. The same goofy smile and the same softness of the world and the same sense of things not being quite solid but pulsating. I took a moment to cherish the feeling and merge with the pulsating. I circled my spine a bit and released some pleasant shivers.

This night I meditated in my dream, practicing the method of noting everything. I don’t remember much of it, but I remember that mental images were part of it. In my daily life I also find it easier than before to access visual memory. That is a welcome change.

There's nothing wrong with feeling good but it seems that's not satisfying to you. Maybe you should do vipassana. Investigate that which arises, whatever it might be.

Maybe it isn’t satisfying me. Yeah, true. I get the feeling that there must be something more to it than this. If pleasant shivers were my goal, I might as well take some pill or have sex.

That’s what I’m trying to do. Shinzen Young’s mindfullness system is mainly based on vipassana, if I’m not mistaken.

I think I’m in a phase of developing reliable access to what has before been my top performance, and perhaps that is a good opportunite to really explore what is happening. I’m not really sure what to do, though. Of cource it is impermanent. Neurotransmitters eventually run out. Even if they didn’t, (apart from the fact that neverending pleasant shivers would pretty soon be boring, and apart from the fact that the transient character of the sensations is exactly what makes them a rapture), climate change and oppression cannot and should not be ignored. Escaping into blissful states isn’t going to solve anything in the long run, and trying to fool oneself that it is will build up anxiety, wich means that it’s not satisfactory. But that’s obvious. I suppose there are more subtle qualities to detect? As for the part of not being me or mine, I don’t really understand. Why would I believe that it were personal in the first place? There is no me in this. I thought that was the point? To temporarily dissolve what is ”me”, to let go of it for a while? Isn’t that what draws some people to it and repells others who have a stronger need of being in control? So what is it that I’m supposed to do? There is nothing there to discover except for sensations that come and go, increase and decrease, move around, spread or narrow down, flicker in and out of attention, entail different flavours depending on deepness of concentration and degrees of clinging/resisting vs equanimity, etc., is it?

Are you still reading MCTB2? There is a path to awakening presented in the book that you might be interested in.

I am. I’m currently on chapter 30. Now I’m curious. Would you rather let me discover it on my own or would you like to share your thoughts?

One of the advantages of using the instructions in  MCTB2 (it's basically just Mahasi style vipassana) is that it's what the largest number of us here have practice experience with. So you may get the most useful feedback for your practice log if that is what you're primarily writing about. It's also a sensible place to start working in a systematic way and it seems to work well for a lot of people. It was mostly all I practiced for years.

I think you'll get a better description from the book. I used the methods referred to in it, as did a lot of practitioners who've frequented DhO over the years. MCTB2 is a huge store of information about the Theravada path but it centers around the notion that one can awaken using the methods it describes. These are what is usually called Mahasi noting practice.

More references:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/mahasi/wheel298.html

https://buddhismnow.com/2013/09/12/vipassana-as-taught-by-the-mahasi-sayadaw-of-burma/ 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017I22E1A/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Well, that itself is an important insight. Now you can let go of that bliss in your meditation and move on to more refined concentration AND you can incorporate what you learned already in dry vipassana. All in MCTB2 and other places.

Thanks, both of you. I’ll keep reading. I have learned Shinzen Young’s unified mindfullness system and use that, with some adjustments that fit me better. I’m not sure that changing the noting system would make that much of a difference. They seem to basically cover the same phenomena but from slightly different points of departure. I can see that certain situations may need different kinds of noting, though, and my plan has been to to do whatever works in a given situation. I’ll read the links and reflect more on this.

I *think* shinzen bases his system on Mahasi noting but the terminology is different and so that's where things get confusing when trying to communicate. 

That could be the case. I think it’s based on more than one system, though, and customized with the intention of enabling neuroscientific research with FMRI. I’m in contact with some of Shinzen’s students and need to communicate with them as well. I have made it to this point without any noting system at all, though, so it’s not like I’m formly rooted in it.

Sorry, I didn’t see your comment until now for some strange reason.

Hm, yeah, maybe. So what next? Just find myself new states to first enjoy and then deconstruct? Or do I need more deconstruction first? What is there to deconstruct?

I’m not sure I’m capable of dry vipassana. I seem to enter shamatha jhanas whether I meditate or not.

Shinzen Young uses a fusion approach to his practice, mostly vipassana and Zen:

https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/AnOutlineOfPractice_ver2.5.pdf

Yup. And I kind of like the fusion.

Cool - go for it!

:-)

Did 30 minutes this evening. Wanted to do more.

Was in a rather bad mood before sitting due to unexpected complications. Was able to find concentration almost immediately, though, and the bad mood disappeared. Restful. Noted the whole grid. Kept concentration. It was more than access concentration. I know the difference. Saw mental images clearly. Not only visual memories, but also imagined stuff. Drawings in detail that I have never made. I can no longer say that I have no visual imagination. Don’t remember everything. It was like dreaming although I was awake. Felt very vivid at the time, and was noted, but didn’t stay in conscious memory. For a moment words disappeared. I noted that anyway, with a wordless note. I noted wordlessly that I was in that wordless state, whatever it is. Since there are words for other experiences, I’m thinking that I’m not very likely to mix them up anyway.

Post meditation still deeply relaxed. Not tired, just relaxed. Slight headache, but doesn’t bother me.

Mabe I’ll meditate some more after R has gone to sleep.

Forgot: for a while I felt like I was moving in space, at a high velocity.

I'm somewhat in the same situation I think. Shamatha is easier for me than vipassana. From what I am reading here it seems to be the opposite for the majority. Not to worry though, MCTB2 suggests you pick whichever you are stronger with and work with that then go for the other, then combine them to a fusion of the two. So start from where you are as I understand it.

So, about what to do now: MCTB2 suggests you have a couple of options: try and deepen the state you are working with, try and move to the next one, or use the things you learned to gain wisdom. Could be you have gotten what you can from the 1st and 2nd vipasssana jhanas for the time being. Also, nothing wrong with enjoying these states. I do think noting the more and more subtle flaws of these states is important and helps us mature on the off cushion part of the path too.

As to not being able to do dry vipassana, what happens if you keep your eyes open, do walking meditation, etc?

Yeah, seems like it. Weird, because I have ADHD and thus should have trouble concentrating. I thought I had. In fact, I had no idea this was concentration. I just knew it had to be some kind of altered consciousness. I’m trying to do what you are suggesting. It seems to be what works for me.

I have had my strongest jhana experiences with my eyes open and with no (conscious, at least) intention to meditate. Of course I can do noting in the midst of my everyday life without getting into jhanas, but I wouldn’t know if it is meditation then or just noting. What makes meditation meditation? Oh yeah, knowledge of the three characteristics, in the case of insight meditation. But in how many ways am I supposed to come to the same conclusions? Like ”Oh yeah, this sensation is impermanent too, and this one”. Oh, really now? Couldn’t see that one comin’... Yup, I’m hoping that the more subtle nuances will make it more interesting.

I tried doing some quick noting in the doctor’s waiting room, and bright dots started playing in the air. It was fun but not particularly dry.

I think that at that point your work becomes to actualize that insight. What I mean is we can have these momentary experiences and then create an intellectual object that we come back to and can say "yep I know this or that is impermanent" but we're not really experiencing that in real time outside of meditation. Instead we're referring to the mental objects we created from our momentary experiences. That's a subtle difference but I think a key one.

That and progressively freeing yourself from more of the "fetters."

You are right, of course. Thanks, I needed that reminder. I do know the difference. I recently realized that the compulsive urge of my tics is transient and that it was resistence that created the suffering. If I instead of trying to repress it, or act upon it, just focus on and fully embrace the sensations following it (like ”Bring it on!l) they very quickly dissolve. It is nothing there, really.

Also, I realized that what I have been resisting is probably the feeling of ”solid” things being not solid, because touching things usually triggers my tics. It coincides with the time span that reveals that the sensations are oscillating.

It’s much easier for me now to just stop ticking without compulsion building up. I still tick out of habit, though, but I’m working on it. My tics were a huge obstacle for me, so this is extraordinary. More discoveries like that would be most welcome.

I’m hoping that Shinzen Young’s focus on expansion and contraction helps me not to neglect the insight work, because it seems to me that it focuses on the insight aspects of the jhanas.

I sat 30 minutes late yesterday night. Was too tired to keep the noting going consistently. Must see to it that I find the time to do it before I’m too tired.

Reflections:

It was only a couple of months ago that I took up a systemtic daily practice and started to apply techniques. Before I just sat down to breath very slowly and get myself into another mindset, which happens rather automatically and quickly if you slow down your breathing enough. I don’t get what people are saying about how sitting down with your own mind is so disconserting and chaotic. In daily life my mind has been very speeded, sure, with thoughts going on in many different directions and feelings and sensations arising and competing for attention. But I’m aware of that. I’m aware of how my perceptions trigger certain thoughts and emotional reactions, how my emotional reactions trigger certain thoughts and sensations, how my emotions and thoughts affect what perceptions come into focus, etc. I have worked on that for many years on my own outside of meditative practice, because I don’t want my actions to be controled by automatic thoughts or emotional reactions triggered by some old trauma. I have been observing my thoughts and emotional reactions and impulses and perceptions for as long as I can remember. Don’t people do that? Then how do they manage life?

When I sit down to meditate, my mind is mostly calm. There is nothing overwhelming going on there. If I’m upset when I sit down, it calms down very quickly. Monkey mind takes vacation. If I want to observe monkey mind in action applying meditative techniques in a systematic way, then I need to take my meditative practice into the businesses of my daily life. So I do that. That reduces the amount of stress significantly. It also stops monkey mind. I guess what I need to do is increasing the frequency of these ”micro hits” as Shinzen Young calls them, and also make them less micro, to be more mindful in my everyday life. Not in a way that makes me solipsistic, of course, but enough to be less attached to (personally invested in) thoughts and feelings and sensations off the cushion. I also need to do this when I feel the least inclined to do it, because that’s probably when I need it the most.

I’m watching Daniel Ingram at the Robert Wright show right now, https://youtu.be/V0cXqFYlm2I, and have gotten to the part where Daniel talks about how the senses are intertwined in our thoughts, and I feel like ”YES!” I knew it. That’s what I have been trying to explain to people who claim that thoughts are either images or inner talk. No, they are not. At least mine are definitely not. I was especially relieved to hear Daniel say that the expected physical sensation of touching the glass happens at the glass before you actually touch it. That’s where that sensation is, not on a visual screen or around your ears, and it is part of the thought process. I’m kinestetic, so the physical sensation aspects of thoughts are very accessable to me, and people have been telling me that these are not thoughts. I knew they were. Other senses are in that mix, too, but for me the physical sensation and the smell are often the most obvious ones. I even intentionally use them to access other aspects of my memory or imagination. And YES, the awareness of the rain is where the rain is. Yes! 

And I do know that the relief and the petty triumfant emotional reaction I’m having to this is me clinging on to personal investments in a self that is a mere illusion. I see the irony in this and find it rather amusing. It is vanity and very irrational, yet a part of the human condition that I have compassion for. 

Due to the holidays I had barely time for my minimim of 20 minutes today (or yesterday, to be more precise). I did that, though, and I managed to keep my focus despite noice and quarrel around me. I also did some micro hits during the day, which reduced the amount of stress radically.

I still find myself ticking out of habit although I know now that it is completely unnecessary. It is only my resistance/craving that creates the suffering. No real discomfort kicks in if I just embrace the feeling. Thankfully, it is now easy for me to stop on a dime as soon as I notice what I’m doing and remember that the compulsive urge has no me to torture and is very transient. Thankfully, again, the process of realizing all this moves along faster and more effortlessly now. There may still be backlashes, though. These things tend to come and go like waves.

I look forward to doing longer sits. If my health allows it, I’ll do it tomorrow (today...), but I have had foods that tend to knock me out. My (for health reasons) very stric diet doesn’t contain much of the food that we normally have on the Swedish Christmas smorgasbord, so I cheated just a little bit.

Linda, nice to see you are making progress. I think it's interesting to see where our different backgrounds and mental makeups play into our strengths and weaknesses in meditation. That's neat that you are able to access some of the sensory stuff so easily. Looking forward to reading more.

I will give this a shot. It seems to be more precise and thus more helpful in the process of developing insight insofar as it makes the gradual progressing visible. I need that kind of precision to move forward. I guess I needed to come to this conclusion by myself. Thank you for your patience!

Okay, so yeah, definitely more precise and more flexible to my needs. I see now why you recommended it, Chris. I decided to try the Mahasi noting style while performing ordinary tasks, just to see what it can offer.

Choosing the labels according to a new system and with a language barrier entailed some confusion, which was expected. Since most of my available resources are in English, it is probably more convenient for me to do my labelling in English as well, but there are some wordfinding difficulties related to being a non-native speaker. Hopefully I will overcome this barrier as I find labels that are both general and precise with regard to my needs. Please feel free to correct me if I’m going about this the wrong way!

Another challenge was the rate of arisings and passings in the task. My executive dysfunction involves both advantages and drawbacks in this respect. On the plus side, I’m already to a relatively large extent aware of the complexity of everyday tasks. On the minus side, this makes these tasks so overwhelming that applying labelling to them in a skillful way would probably require slowing down the process substantially. I will have to make conscious decisions as to when I do this, not least out of concern for the people around me. Lucklily, I was alone today.

While most people are able to perform such tasks more or less automatically, I need to pay attention more closely to precisely what I’m doing. One step doesn’t necessarily trigger the next step, so I need to keep track of what I’m doing and make conscious decisions in order to perform the task. The Mahasi noting made me realize that all these tiny decisions are not conscious enough, because I can very easily be distracted from the task with every new arising of an intention. Intentions tend to be triggered by sensate experience, and my attention wanders when off the cushion. Therefore I see clearly that there is an urgent need for developing insight into what is going on in and around these tasks. Lack of insight creates suffering. There is still much to be learned about cause and effect in order to deal with everyday behaviour in a skillful way. I seem to have skipped a few steps there, to say the least. I did suspect that, because I stumbled over the A&P without putting in the systematic work, which seems to be the case for many neurodivergent people.

Because of all this processing I have to do when performing ordinary tasks, there is so much going on at a mental level in these tasks. No wonder that focusing on a more sensate level on the cushion and in yoga is such a healing experience. I need to maintain that to stay grounded. I need to work with the mental level too, though, because that is a major source of suffering that affects not only me but also my output on the world (which I will for pragmatic end ethical reasons treat as something that exists and matters outside the vipassana practice).

I noticed a tendency to get lost in stories when focusing on the mental level, but the noting seems to offer help with that. I can note it as analyzing, and as fantasy and/or planning when I find myself imagining writing this log, for instance. This helped me to drop the intention and regain focus on the task at hand.

I noticed that there are so many intentions arising in my daily life that I need to elaborate more distinct terms for labelling different ways of handling them. This is probably related to my ADHD and Tourette’s. I need to choose more carefully as to how I deal with these intentions. I noted intentions to the best of my ability, and I noted will when I acted on them. I noticed that I have a tendency to avoid intentions that arise even though acting on the intentions would be skillful. I already knew theoretically and intuitively that I do this, but I need to note it when it arises. By doing so, I was able to abort the avoidance and act on the intention that was originally avoided. I think I will note conscious choices of dropping an intention as abort. I’m thinking that avoidance is a special case of intention. It’s a defence mechanism, so it is often unconscious, but it can be made conscious. Does this make sense?

I will have to distinguish clearly when I apply vipassana and when I’m ”off duty” to avoid mixing the insight practice with content and every day wisdom. I’m thinking that vipassana is welcome to seep into my everyday life to some extent, as long as it doesn’t make me solipsistic. Its clarity of perception is needed to increase mindfullness in daily life. The content of everyday rumination needs to stay out of vipassana, though.

My preliminary plan now is to alternate between noting on a sensate level to stay grounded and on a mental level specifically to work on everyday challenges regarding avoidance and other defense mechanisms that may arise. I work on tics (from Tourette’s) as well, but the sensate level takes care of that. These are my priorities right now. I may be tempted to enjoy the pleasurable aspects of jhanas as well and I know myself well enough not to forbid it (I need to handle myself with a compassionate low-arousal approach), but it will have to be outside of the curriculum and clearly demarcated. It may be a treat that I offer myself when there is sufficient time for play after finishing my duties.

A practical question: some intentions in everyday life that arise are better left aborted, but there are also intentions that need to be dropped momentarily to maintain focus on the task at hand although it would be a good thing to take up that intention and act on it somewhat later. How do I deal with that if choose to apply vipassana to the task to gain insight? Should I note that as planning and then drop the intention and retain focus on the subtask at hand, and then hope for the intention to pop up again when the time is right? Will that put the intention on stand-by, so to speak?

Using I-language feels a bit ridiculous in this context, but this is after all a personal log, and for now I’m kind of stuck with some conditionings affecting the construction of me. It would be little point in exchanging experiences if we didn’t believe that individual experiences from our unique positions matter, right?

Also, knowing that I have issues with avoidance, I believe it’s essential that I implement insights with regard to this in my everyday life, as an ongoing mission. I need to change the infrastructure that conditions my behaviour. Morality training remains a priority too. I will not allow meditation to become yet another escape. I may need some careful reminding with regard to this, and some reality check. My progress should be noticable in daily life. The five spiritual faculties should be helpful here. I need to come back to this section regularly as a reality check. I should make a habit out of it. On a more mundane level, I need to make a habit of intentionally doing things that I’m inclined to avoid doing but need to do. Avoidance is not my only problem, but it is a major one. I can see how it creates other problems as well. If I avoid taking my medicine or cooking meals or going to bed in due time, my concentration or my energy falters. If my concentration falters, I tend to be more distracted and thus avoid eating or sleeping, which leads to my energy faltering. If my energy falters, I tend to forget to take my medicine, which leads to faltering concentration. The downsides of ADHD in a nutshell... I have worked intensively with balancing faith and wisdom for the last years, although I didn’t have access to this framework. Without the proper amount of energy and concentration, balanced faith and wisdom doesn’t get much done, though. I have struggled a lot with balancing energy and concentration, developing many strategies for this, with varying success. Mindfullness seems to be the missing key component to deal with this in a balanced way. Mahasi style vipassana noting may be just the right tool do develop the clarity, precision and presence to the moment required.

When doing formal insight practice, the five spiritual factors are probably helpful as well, but the section on the seven factors of awakening seems more precise. I will go back to this section over and over again to set up my formal practice. When this has settled somewhat, I will do the same thing with the book Practical Insight Meditation. After that, Manual of Insight is next in the list.

All rightie. I have a plan. Scary. Please don’t let me avoid this! The responsibility is mine, of course (I’m using everyday language now, outside vipassana; within vipassana I will deconstruct the sense of me and mine, but that doesn’t entitle me to avoid personal responsibilities outside the practice, not even with regard to the practice - jeeze, this sure requires a fair amount of abstract thinking), but I will probably need help.

Good to hear you've got a plan. Let us know if you need a nudge in any particular direction.

If you maintain a reasonably frequent practice diary here and post about your practice experiences honestly and in some detail then we can help in a lot of ways.

Thanks! I’ll try, although I often find it difficult to know what to ask for.

For the moment, I think I’ll start with the basics. I’ll try the noting system in a formal sit. First I’ll use the breath sensations in the abdomen as my default focus of attention, but I’ll be careful to note anything that draws my attention away from it. Then I’ll probably try out some other possible focuses, in other sits, to see what difference it makes. I have often used the tingling in my hands as focus of attention, but maybe that tempts me to get lost in the pleasure and neglect the insight work.

Need to eat first. I’m contemplating whether respecting the wish of one of my cats to continue sleeping in my lap is avoidance or compassion. That’s a very temporary problem, though. ;-)

I’ll certainly try. I appreciate it.

I think I needed to be clearer about my goals before I could see what my needs were. I was trying to run in all directions at once. That doesn’t work, obviously.

Yeah, experiment to see what works. Pleasurable sensations can be extremely rewarding for insight work precisely because they present an opportunity to investigate how the mind tries to chase them like a puppy bounding after a ball. 

I was thinking that too but forgot to write it. That is exactly what I had in mind. It might be good to have a more grounding routine to fall back on as well, though.

I set the timer to 30 minutes to try out the noting using sensations of breathing in the abdomen as default focus of attention.

More challenging than unified mindfullness system, renders struggle with attention more visible. Noted ”analyzing” and ”planning” and occasional ”hearing” and ”visual” (”seeing” seems more logical, but ”visual” was the word that appeared) and ”colour” but kept bringing my attention back to the rising and falling of the breath.

Initial challenge: noting affecting breathing. Noting pauses was aborted due to excessive effort forcing breath. I think I lacked the mindfulness to note these hindrances as they arose. Shifted focus more to sensate level instead of the concepts associated with the labels. Noted my spine shifting as a result of this (noted as ”shift”); this was something that reappeared every time (?) I adjusted my noting to something more in tune with my sensate experiences. I noted ”pleasure” from this.

After I while I found that clarity diminished in the center of my attention whereas more peripheral sensations appeared more clear. I noted this as widening as I widened my focus to breath into the more peripheral parts of my body. Noting rising and falling didn’t seem quite accurate anymore, so instead I noted expanding and contracting. Shifting spine and rapture. After noting this, I brought my attention back to the breathing with its expansions and contractions. Sometimes I needed to shift back to rising and falling again because my focus was narrowing, sometimes following distraction, sometimes seemingly because of a wavelike pattern in the nature of attention, how it widens and narrows. When I managed to be attentive to these shifts, paradoxically the wider focus appeared to stabilize. I was sort of tricked into focusing on my hands a couple of times, though, having the sensation that I was breathing with my hands. I failed to note this shift, but as I noticed it I redirected my attention back to breathing into a wider area of my body, fitting the labels expansion and contraction, which felt more accurate at the time than rising and falling of breath in my andomen. Sometimes it felt like breathing occured not only in my body, but also around it. Widening of focus was accompanied by purple swirls spiralling on my black screen. I noted this as spiralling and brought my attention back to the breathing.

There were instances where i felt lightheadedness and noticed that I was breathing very lightly. I noted this as lightness.

During the wider focus there were instances where my proprioception played tricks on me. A few times I had the sensation that my hands were turned towards me instead of away from me. At one point I had the sensation that my arms were crossed. I noted these instances as proprioception (that was the word that came to me, despite its length) and redirected my attention to the sensations of breathing. There were also instances of my hands dissolving into energy flow, which I noted as dissolving. I redirected my attention to the sensations of breathing.

There were instances of something that I failed to note because I couldn’t find a word. Suggestions are very welcome. It was the sensation of being drawn backwards from something, increasing the distance between... I don’t know what, really. The subjectice awareness and its original position in space? Awareness didn’t really move, though. It’s more like an increase of depth. Like widening but with regard to another dimension. Deepening? I don’t know. Focal deepening. Yeah, something like that.

I failed to note intentions; this will be a future challenge. Maybe I have difficulties in shifting between sensate and mental experiences, I don’t know.

That all sounds good, Linda. It might be beneficial to break this down into a series of smaller goals to make it manageable.

Yup. As usual. This is a constant struggle for me. I tend to be fascinated by complex interplays and then struggle with the entanglement. This happens over and over again in my research as well. I need to practice on breaking things down into series of smaller goals, but this is also where I might need help. I don’t know where to start. I guess the section on the seven factors of awakening could be helpful in teasing out what is more fundamental and then progress gradually from there. 

I was planning to do more sits today, but so much time has been spent on reflecting and decision making and reading back and forth that it’s now late night and I’m exhausted. I sense that I’m on the right track, though. 

Thanks for your input! I appreciate it.

A tactic that helped me at the beginning of my vipassana noting practice was to focus my attention on just one object and try to observe it as directly and thoroughly as I could. For me, this tactic worked best on touch sensations. I would sit with two fingers, one from each hand, touching each other and try to observe that touch sensation. It isn't just one solid sensation, of course, and over time I was able to trace the transitions that would happen as the sense and idea of the touch would fade and return, fade and return (arise and pass away). I could eventually trace the steps the mind would follow in that process - this is called dependent origination and is probably the most fundamental insight in Buddhism.

Just a suggestion to try if you're struggling to stay focused on the stream of objects while you meditate.

Thanks! I’ll try that next time. I have used this focus before but without the noting. It is a focus that comes naturally to me, so it might be a good idea to add the noting to it to make it a vipassana practice instead of getting absorbed by the pleasure involved in the tingling sensations. And when my practice is strong enough, I might try to add separate samatha practice sessions at a different time of the day to see what works. But that is a later question. Right now I need to get accustomed to vipassana.

Yep!

Right. So. I set the timer to one hour, but I missed the signal, and now my neck hurts a bit. I think I sat for about 90 minutes, but I struggled with concentration and staying awake for the latter part. I was probably dozing off when the alarm went off. My ADHD medication lost its effect somewhere mid sitting, I believe. I should plan better. The first part of the sit was really cool, though. I’ll write about it, but first I’ll take care of the mammal and get some light and air. It’s twenty past one in the afternoon here in Sweden, and the sun is shining. That is something to cherish at this time of the year when there are just a few hours of daylight. I usually miss it, so this is mundane progress.

My attention varied a lot during the session. There were moments when I could follow it shifting between my left index finger and my right index finger about five times per second, but that would only last about a second. I noted ”left”, ”right”, and ”shift”. There was a wow feeling to it that I failed to note. The shifting felt like something moving, very tangibly, and it wasn’t me that was moving. It felt similar to what happens in my spine sometimes during sits. Mostly I could only notice and note this shift once or twice per second if at all. That clarity of perception was more of an exception than a rule. I was distracted many times, and I used the note ”feel” to redirect me to feeling the sensations between my touching fingers.

For a while it felt like I could almost control the shifting, but I’m thinking that I probably wasn’t. I probably anticipated the shifts, which I failed to note, and therefore managed to be present to the arisings and passings, because the shifting wasn’t my doing.

One thing that distracted me was the urge to get up and write about the sensations immediately. I redirected my attention to feeling, and then I thought that I should have noted the intention and the planning. I thought about what labels were most suitable and got lost there for a brief moment, then realized what I was doing, noted it as analyzing and redirected my attention back to feeling. Analyzing (comparing the situation to my usual patterns of procrastination due to distracting impulses) and planning happened a few times. I also noticed that I felt the need to impress, and I noted that as vanity and redirected my attention back to feeling.

Another thing that drew my attention was the purple swirls on my black screen. They had a hypnotic quality to them. Redirecting my attention back to feeling the touch between my fingers required discipline. I noted ”spiralling”, ”purple”, ”swirls”, or ”circle”, depending on what word appeared first, and then ”feel”. I managed to avoid getting drawn in by the spirals but I had to make an effort most of the times.

At one time I had the sensation that the attention, or the thing observing or whatever, was a stable thing located between my fingers whereas my fingers were unstable or in motion. That startled me, and I noted ”scared”. The sensation went away and I redirected my attention to feeling.

The concentration ability sort of followed a wavelike curve in the first part of the session. In the very beginning, the peaks were more frequent. Then there were longer waves. I noted ”dullness” and ”clear” and ”rapture”. Then it sort of bottomed out with occasional peaks of some concentration. I noted ”torpor” and spaced out and dozed off. Somewhere along the line my right leg was geeting numb and torpid. I’m probably overly cautious here, but I have had some trouble with chronic pain before so I chickened out and moved my toes and then my entire leg and finally stood up and walked a bit on the spot. I did this without opening my eyes and tried to maintain my focus of attention using the noting, with some but very limited success. I meditated standing up for a while. Then I sat down on the chaise lounge next to me instead of on the yoga mat and cushion. I was able to track the attention wandering between the left and right finger a bit again. That was before the attention curve bottoming out, though. In this position my spine was not as straight as before, and it made me sleepy. Dullness and torpor was noted. I tried to straighten my spine several times, noted as straightening. Still, I spaced out several times and dozed off for microseconds a few times. It made me nod, which woke me up again. I may have dozed off somewhat longer too, or maybe I was just very close to sleep. I struggled to redirect my attention to the index fingers touching, but it was difficult. I wasn’t as present to the feeling as I would like to be. My cats started fighting next to me. That didn’t really help, but at least it kept me awake. Finally I came to realize that more than an hour must have passed, so I opened my eyes and stretched and had a look. In doing so, I noticed that there was a baseline of buzzing in my hands despite the torpor and really lousy attention.

Apparently, steadying the attention without embracing pleasure tingles tires me, which should come as no surprise since I have ADHD. I need to take my medicine and take care of the mammal in other ways to balance energy and concentration. I have a history of falling asleep when concentrating. I’m hoping that it’s possible to train the brain to stay focused for a longer time and more consistently, although attention will probably always follow a wavelike curve. It’s not a solid thing. Well, duh, it’s impermanent.

Should I do shorter sits and then gradually make them longer? Or should I do long sits and be stubborn about it? Try both?

As for the numbness, I’ll try double yoga mats. If that doesn’t work, I’ll bring the cushion to the chaise lounge. I want to be able to sit for a long time without disruption. How do other meditators handle their legs falling asleep? With equanimity? For me it takes quite a while to get them to function again afterwards if I let them go totally numb. Should I just get used to that? And note the sensations as unsatisfactory? Otherwise I don’t mind sitting for a long time. I can sit in my bed for hours, but then my spine isn’t straight, so that’s why I’m trying to sit on a cushion on a yoga mat on the floor instead.

The point of this meditation is to uncover the mind processes going on behind what you normally perceive as "just two fingers touching." You don't need to run a marathon with every sit. I think a half hour of this kind of meditation is long enough. You should try to be comfortable and able to observe the "stuff" going on with touch sensations when you do this - you don't need to torture yourself with excessive posture related concerns. You do need to stick with this process for some time. Get used to doing it, stretch your ability to observe the touch sensation processes.

My prescription would be shorter periods of vipassana observation and less concern about posture so you can be comfortable... and observe.

Okay! I can do that. Will do.

Did a 20 minutes sit. Had to redirect attention to the touching fingers many times due to distractive sounds and occasional analyzing and planning. Didn’t space out, but some of the noting was delayed, which made me less mindful. I did feel the touch most of the time, keeping track of left and right. I sometimes was present to the shift inbetween. It felt like an animal, alive. Not me.

Did you notice anything about the sensations themselves? Are those sensations always present? Are they somewhere in the background even when you're not noticing them? Do they change over time? Is there a chain of things that happen to make you notice them after being unfocused on them?

These are some potential questions to keep in mind for another vipassana session.

Exactly what sensations are we talking about now? The sensations of attention shifting, or what? The sensations of one finger feeling the touch from the other?

Thanks for the help! It’s good to have a clue what to look for.

The touch sensations of your tow fingers touching.

That's all that matters for this particular exercise (voluntary, of course). All the other feelings and thoughts are distractions from that. For this exercise the objective is to focus on that touching as much as possible. If you get distracted from that singular focus just come back to it. We're not trying to follow or track those other objects. We're trying to investigate the sensations of two fingers touching, how those sensations arise, how they pass, and what they are comprised of.

Right. Okay. Should I use noting for that?

I used to focus on my hands touching each other before, without using any noting, and then my hands would kind of absorb each other and dissolve into an energy stream and then out of awareness. I’m probably using words in a confusing way, but that’s how I would describe the sensations. But I guess we are looking for something else here?

I tried just now to just feel for ten minutes without using any labels and without getting absorbed by tingles. I got the feeling that I was feeling with both fingers simultaneously. Both of them were both subject and object at the same time. Is that even possible? Or am I just tired? Just before the alarm went off I felt certain that I sensed the pulse in both fingers at the same time, both as subject and object. But maybe that’s just lack of sensory clarity?

Temperature, pressure and pulse, and sometimes waves/vibrations. That’s what I would say that the sensations consist of.

I guess they kind of disappear inbetween pulses when there is no new information to register. Pulses make them come back. 

But it’s not just the pulse. There is something moving. Sometimes it’s in one of the fingers, sometimes in the other, sometimes in both, crawling around like a worm and taking the fingers in posession. Difficult to explain.

No, there is no ”it” that is moving. There is a series of arisings and passings of pressure and relative temperature sensations located near each other. It’s very easy to give into the illusion that there is a continuous thing moving around, but there isn’t.

So I guess there was never any shift there to be observed. That was just a series of arisings and passings of sensations of pressure and warmth or coolness, and I lacked the clarity to observe the arisings and passings and instead perceived it as a continuoum.

Yep, lack of clarity!

I’m not sure I have sufficient clarity now, either. I recall having it, though. I remember feeling my pulse arise and pass away on so many different spots all over my body, as single blips, out of synch with each other. Later I have constructed this as feeling the pulse move around, but that’s not what I felt. I felt it as many different sensations with no continuity, and that scared the sh*t out of me then. That was several years ago.

Thanks! That makes sense.

So... I seem to have slided down to an earlier stage, then. Okay. So, that’s an opportunity to learn more thoroughly and consistently, I guess.

I seem to have had peak experiences that have faded away, and now I need to build up my insight from scratch with a systematic and disciplined practice.

Okay. That’s a bit unsettling. Very reasonable, though. I’ll do it.

I have probably been doing one of those messy hybrids between insight and concentration practice that doesn’t lead anywhere. That’s good to know, albeit not very satisfactory.

I’m very grateful for having found this forum so that I can dismantle my delusions and hopefully make real progress. I feel rather stupid now, but that will pass. 

The movement I thought I was sensing seems to be the passing of pressure sensation in one finger and the arising of pressure sensation in the other finger as I move my attention.

Can attention even be moved? Or does it just go through a series if arisings and passings that are constructed by the mind as something continuous? I guess I lack the fine resolution to sense this with clarity.

When I notice the pressure sensation in one finger, the intensity of that sensation increases.

Yes! Keep investigating.

You're on a great track!

This is a practice I did for a long time to plumb the depths of how perception works, which is the ultimate objective of this practice - how is your experience constructed? The only way to get to that point is to do a dedicated practice that focuses on a small enough set of experiences that will allow you to see the process.

Nice work, and thanks for being patient with my so-called instruction.

Thank you, Chris! I appreciate your instructions and feedback a lot. You are the one being patient.

I will keep investigating this.

Is it okay to also start with the basic exercises in Practical Insight Meditation to go through the basics in a systematic way and learn how to do the noting?

I decided that just focusing on the rising and falling of the breath in the first basic exercise probably wouldn’t hurt, so I did that to get grounded and to work on my mindfulness for 20 minutes. After that, I moved to a more comfortable place to focus on the sensations of two fingers touching for 30 minutes. This time I was calm and present enough to notice the pressure sensations arise and pass away on various locations, one at a time. There are really very many identifiable separate locations on two finger print areas. Would it be correct to say that the arising involves an increasing intensity of the pressure sensation and the passing away a gradual decrease in intensity of pressure before it completely vanishes? So that the sensation has a wavelike quality to it? That is what it feels to me right now. That’s what my mind erroneously constructed as something wormlike crawling around as it made the various arisings and passings away on different locations into something continuous.

Now I’m curious as to what it would feel like if I were to focus on a smaller area: only the finger tips. Must try that.

When you sit to again focus on the touching of your two fingertips, see if you notice anything that appears as a buzzing or rapidly vibrating experience within the arising and passing touch sensations.

Right! I did sense that in my face a couple of weeks ago or something, so I think I know what you are referring to. There were pulsating wavelike arisings and passings, and these waves consisted of much smaller oscillations if I zoomed in on one of them. I was able to zoom in and out, and took interest in doing that. It was during a 90 minute session of restorative yoga (basically just lying down or leaning in different positions while tuning in to the sensations in one’s body).

I was about to try but was interrupted by a very insistent and cuddly cat with sharp claws just now. He seems to have settled down now so maybe I can give it another try. Otherwise I will do it tomorrow. It’s getting late here.

I seem to be very dependent on the right conditions to be able to observe things as they are.

I gave it a try for 20 minutes, but I seem to be too tired now. I did get a buzzing sensation, but there wasn’t much clarity and precision, so maybe it was just wishful thinking. The arisings and passings in the finger tips were not very clear, and sensations in other parts of my hands were obtrusive. My ability to focus seems to have reached its limit for tonight.

I seem to have come down with some bug, so conditions aren’t exactly optimal for meditative practice today. I have tried several times, both with very basic mahasi noting, to get used to the method, and with the exercise with touching finger tips. The first few times I tried both exercises in a reclining position, because I wasn’t feeling well. It was very relaxing so I fell asleep. I woke up feeling better each time, though. Then I tried the finger tips exercise sitting up in bed. I still dozed off, but it was very noticable that straightening the spine made a huge difference for my ability to stay attentive.

It seems that at this point I can either be present to the arisings and passings of touch sensations or to the smaller vibrations, not both at once. Zooming in and out doesn’t work. That’s a bit of a setback since I recently had a much more refined experience with waves and oscillations in my face. The clarity then felt amazing compared to this. It seems to have been a peak experience that I can’t intentionally replicate.

May I suggest that you haven't really given this enough time? Meditation is a skill. It's not something you do once, have bells and whistles go off, and stop. Don't give up too early. Hopping around from method to method isn't optimal for progress. Whatever method you decide to do you should think of it as a long-term practice.

Keep going!

Of course I will keep going! :-) I didn’t mean to give up. It was intended merely as a reflection on the state of my progress so far, but I seem to have given the wrong expression. But thank you for the encouragement. I appreciate it.

I sat up with a very straight spine for about 45 minutes just now, and yes, I can sense vibrations within the identifiable arisings and passings. It’s not as vivid as it was before in my face. I don’t get that clear sense of oscillations building up larger waves, as layers. It’s not very precise.

This time there were a few instances of my spine aligning itself. I have come to see these instances as a good sign. It seems to entail increased clarity. What is that, exactly?

When I ended the session I felt brief pleasant tingles, shivers and rapture. I seem to need that quality to be able to investigate with at least some clarity. Is that cheeting? I wouldn’t want to mix vipassana and concentration practice in a messy half-measure sort of way.

Focusing on my finger tips so much seems to have caused a heightened awareness of my pulse, and now I can’t turn that off. It’s making me a bit nauseaus. It makes me feel very... mortal. And fleshy, sort of. It’s repulsive.

I won’t stop, though. I trust this feeling will pass.

Yeah, I've had heightened awareness of my pulse for a while, to the point where I went to the doctor to see if it was a problem (it wasn't - he basically said brains are weird and sometimes get latched onto these things). Nowadays it comes and goes but I'd say I can feel it most of the time. Possibly your reaction is related to disgust nana. But possibly just a normal reaction to a new sensation. 

Thanks for sharing! I’m usully aware of my pulse, but last night it was a bit overwhelming. It’s normal for me, though, to be overwhelmed by sensory input from time to time. I guess that’s just how my autistic brain is wired. Some sleep usually helps, and it did.

Now I’m struggling with fatigue. It’s probably because I’ve had some food that I tend to react to. I should know better. I’m tempted to focus on pleasant tingles in meditation and really tap into that, because that usually gives me energy, but I’m guessing that would be unwise since I’m trying to get a vipassana practice settled.

I seem to be able to do ten minutes of breathing focus and noting in a reclining position without falling asleep, so if I find myself having trouble sleeping I’ll try to keep it up for just a while longer. That should do the trick. Trying to focus on my finger tips touching while reclining seems to cause sleepiness even faster, should I be desperate. Apart from the fatigue, I feel much less sick today, so I will be able to practice sitting. Thus I should be able to stay awake. I feel like I could sleep all day, but I have been procrastinating and need to deal with the consequences. There’s work that needs to be done. Initially when I started meditating daily (on October 20th) I had an energy rush that helped me be more productive. I miss that. It’s so dark here in Sweden at this time of the year. If anybody here is into sending positive energy and feels like sending some in this direction, that would be most welcome.

Hmm sounds familiar. I felt a little bit like I had an insight hangover after the two fingers exercise and all the processing. Maybe that is the dukkha nanas / stages of insight kicking in? Lots of information around this site suggesting you can either just bear through it as it comes or use jhanas to go through it without so much unpleasantness.

I wish... I’m not so sure that I’ve had so much insight from it yet.

This evening I sat 25 minutes breathing and noting, took a 5 minute break to massage and wake up one of my legs (while noting it) and then sat 30 minutes in a more comfortable position focusing on two finger tips touching. The first section was grounding and relaxing and gave a flavour of concentration, except for the part where my leg fell asleep in the end. I do get a bit frustrated by having to note every single intention every time I need to swallow, I guess. Hmmm... I should have noted that. In the last section I spaced out and dozed off. I can’t seem to find that fascination with the sensations that would keep me alert. Is there a way to apply Mahasi noting to that exercise to make it more engaging? Any other advice?

Seems to me like you are getting insights. If I remember correctly Chris said you should focus on just a single aspect of experience. If you are noting all your intentions at once that's probably taking too wide of a perspective for this particular exercise. I would try to note only things happening at the fingertips for this exercise.

Also, maybe you don't want to cut concentration entirely from your practice? It's not a rule that you have to. That was, at least from my end, intended as a short term experiment, and we were warned totally dry vipassana is pretty brutal. Personally I've just been shifting the balance to more vipassana for the last couple days with some short dry periods when it makes sense to do it from a development perspective, not cutting concentration entirely for prolonged periods.

That's correct, Milo.

The objective of this exercise is to observe only the touch sensations in the fingers. Ultimately, the observer/meditator should be able to find components in those touch sensations but to be able to do that, to see that detail, you can't be noting all kinds of other things.

I do observe only the sensations from touch between those two finger tips. The breathing and noting is a separate exercise. I can stop doing that exercise entirely, sure. The problem is that I’m currently unable to stay alert when I limit my attention to just sensations between my finger tips. I doze off. So what shall I do?

Maybe this is an ADHD problem.

Do something active before you sit. Take a walk or a jog. That might help you stay alert for 20 to 30 minutes while you do this practice.

I mean, I try several times a day and I fall asleep most of the times.

I will try. Not jogging, though, because my health doesn’t allow that. Some yoga perhaps.

Apparently a short session of Kundalini Yoga does the trick. The difference was remarkable. Now I was able to stay alert and observe.

First I didn’t really get that rapid ping pong perception. My attention seemed to linger at one finger at a time, at different parts of the finger. I thus realized that I needed to narrow down my attention much more. That is difficult for me. I’m not quite sure how one is supposed to do that. I can distinguish between very tiny areas sensorywise, but zooming in on just one of them is tricky. Somehow I managed, though, and then the ping pong was there. I had to keep narrowing down, because there seems to be a tendency for the sensory input to spread in volume when I notice it.

I don’t know how much insight this is in the vipassana sense, probably not that much, but in my daily life I can most likely benefit from learning how to intentionally either narrow down or widen my focus of attention. I’m not sure how this narrowing down of sensory input from touch is applicable on intellectual tasks or everyday chores, whether or not the same processes are involved. I guess it’s all very much a case of sensory processing, though, so there should be some transferable knowledge there.

Also, since I struggle a lot with my energy level (that is why I only work halftime), it was valuable to realize that I can increase my level of attention tanglibly just by doing a few Kundalini Yoga exercises. The energy-concentration balance is a hard nut to crack for me.

I did yoga today, so there is no fatigue. Staying alert during the exercise of two finger tips touching was no problem. I really should do yoga every day.

I get the impression that the pulse is vibrating. I can’t tell whether it is the actual blood flow that is vibrating or if it is my attention flickering back and forth between the fingers that gives that impression, or even the discontinuity of my attention. During the pulses, the pressure sensation between the finger tips increases. The sensation isn’t really one sensation, but many. The pressure decreases and increases rapidly. Maybe it does so the whole time, but it is perceivable during the pulses. 

Also, the fingers are never fully stable. There is always some tremor there, sometimes more noticable, sometimes so subtly vibrating that my crude untrained attention is fooled (gradually less so).

There are so many ways that the touch is not solid. Tremors, blood flowing in pulses affecting the amount of pressure, molecules and finer particles constantly moving around and on finer levels even flickering in and out of existance. Attention itself flickers between the two finger tips and also flickers in and out of existance, which is how the illusion of solidness is upheld: the mind fills in the blanks. There is no way that I will ever be able to perceive reality as it is through my senses. The only reality I will ever perceive is the sensate reality, and that is dependent on so many different conditions. One such condition is the scale.

Where does the attention go when it’s not here in the sensate world? Probably nowhere, as it’s not a continuous phenomenon. Attention itself is a mere construct of sensations and mental activity arising and passing into subjective consciousness.

Is consciousness even stable, or does that flicker in and out of existance too? 

What is consciousness anyway? Is it a stream of arisings and passings? Nothingsness vibrating into somethingness? If so, there truly is no real difference between subject and object. There’s only nothingness dividing itself into somethingness, which makes perception possible because the division enables subjectiveness.

Fruitful thoughts!

On the other hand, in another sense there is only subjectiveness, because non-duality is beyond perception. While we can realize that the division of consciousness into separate and seemingly (but not really) continuous entities is merely a construction that enables perception and experience and that everything comes from the same source, we cannot perceive the world from a non-dual position. There is no non-dual position, because in non-duality there are no positions. I guess that also means that there is no time in non-duality, because time is also a position.

But honestly, this isn’t something that I can perceive or derive from the sensations of two finger tips touching. These are thoughts that I have had for a long time. For all I know, the sensations could be constructions made up by my mind to fit into this framework. After all, it’s well known that our preconceptions affect our perceptions. That’s dependent arising, too, of sorts.

Maybe arahants are able to actually perceive the exact arisings and passings of all there is to sense and even their own subjective consciuosness. Maybe streem enterers are able to do so to some extent as well, I don’t know, but I’m definitely not there yet.

Sounds like good progress, Linda.

This thought about whether consciousness is stable is a good one. Once the sensate stuff is figured out that means the next step is looking at the mind itself, right?

Looking forward to reading more.

Thanks, but I don’t know... I have had these thoughts for many years, but I guess I’m integrating them with my crude sensate experiences now at least to some extent. Still... Part of me scoffs that it sounds like pretentious bullshit. :-)

The thing is that the sensate stuff is not as clear as it should be, and I’m impatient and trying to cut corners.

I kind of like the idea, though. It would be nice for consciousness to get away from this washdryer of a mind at least for short moments on a regular basis.

We already know that consciousness isn’t continuous. Depending on how it is defined, deep sleep may qualify as not being conscious, and there are several medical conditions that involve unconsciousness. But are there shorter ”blips” apart from that, even when we think we are awake non-stop? On the other hand, does it matter if it’s beyond our perception? I guess it would matter on a finer scale. Let us say hypothetically that there are sentient beings that are able to perceive reality with a much higher resolution with regard to time. For them it would make a difference if they could squeeze actions in between our moments of consciousness. We would ”sit out a throw” in the game of reality on a regular basis.

I thought what I was experiencing was genuine and not just pretentiousness, though as you say the mind can follow suggestion. I guess how much to read into it is a decision to be made at the individual level.

I believe it was genuine. Sorry for being unclear! I’m talking about my vague experiences, which I may be applying wishful thinking to. I believe in your experiences. Your clarity is obviously much more evolved than mine. Parts of me feel like I’m cheating. I am trying, though, and you are inspiring me. So please don’t think that I think that way about you! I don’t.

And most parts of me don’t even agree with those mistrusting parts anyway. I just... well, I think they need to express themselves. If I don’t let them, they might form a shadow that comes out unexpectedly. I probably should be more explicit about this dynamic, or even refrain from letting those voices be expressed here where they can hurt others. I’m sorry.

I would offer that if you stick to the exercise you've started and pay attention good things will come of it. Speculating on non-duality and other things is interesting intellectually but irrelevant at this point. You seem to be doubting yourself. This kind of doubt is a common experience but it's certainly not insurmountable.

You can do this!

The smaller the touching area, the faster attention shifts I’m able to perceive. I just tried balancing a toothpick between my finger tips, and wow, what an activity!

When using the toothpick, I sense larger waves (they last for about two seconds) that are made up by many brief impulses alternating between the two fingers. I’m not sure exactly what quality makes it a wave. Intensity of perception? Focus? Maybe it’s like during eyesight examinations; in those it is obvious that the eye can only focus optimally for brief moments, and there is a wavelike curve for it.

The impulses could be waves of even shorter impulses as well, but that is beyond by perception for the time being.

(I feel like I’m Karate Kid in the beginning of his training, waxing cars all day long and not yet understanding why.)

No problem, Linda. I wasn't interpreting it that way - just trying to offer my perspective and encouragement and engage in an open discussion about legitimate skepticism. You have helped me quite a bit here by sharing your experiences. I'm grateful and the last thing I want is for you to stop practicing.

I can see why you keep pushing me to investigate with diligence to increase clarity, precision and speed. I seem to be struggling with the three characteristics, and that’s what I need to get through that stage.

You'll be able to find the three characteristics in the finger touching exercise - that's the purpose. Of course, that's the purpose of vipassana in general. The three characteristics are found in every object, so focusing on one specifically is a great way to find them there, and then by extension, in other objects.

Today I did the exercise while travelling by train. I sat for 30 minutes. The vibrations from the train were picked up in the touching, so there were plenty of sensations. I realized that I really don’t need to intentionally shift the attention between the two fingers. When there is new information the attention flickers rapidly between them by its own volition. I guess that is the scanning that Milo was talking about. The arisings and passings of the impulses of pressure sensation coincide with when the attention arises and passes on the spot. This time the impulses felt painful. The pain was not constant, because it was just brief impulses, but the pain was always where the attention was. Thus, the brief moments of relief between the pain impulses were not really experienced. That’s ironic. Having a subjective awareness creates pain.

Dukkha is like that stubborn colour patch that blocks one’s view after staring into bright light. Wherever one looks, there it is. Relief is just around the corner, but when one looks around the corner, dukkha arises there.

Finding the dukkha in those experiences was an interesting insight for me. I understood that there was existential dukkha associated with neutral experiences but somehow previously failed to appreciate that there is literal physical discomfort and pain mixed in as well.