How quickly were you noting? Did the frequency change throughout this sit?

What do you mean by the hands turning thing?

Does starting the second log mean you have started into a new phase of practice?

You probably already know this, but just FYI in case you didn't know Shambhala has been dealing with fallout from a pretty serious scandal.

Sat for 30 minutes at the office before I had to leave to meet somebody. I was ill (allergic reaction of sorts) and the air intake had been shut off because it was after office hours, but I did not space out, so I guess the fatigue has come to a break for now. I focused on the breath with relatively few distractions (stomach pain, noice, contemplation and discourse about observations). I kept the breathing within my awareness during these other notings, so I noted in separate layers. I noticed that I have some kind of mental image of these layers of noting (I neglected to note that with a word, but I was aware of noticing it). I filled out the breath notings with dots to stay alert, and I noticed that the dots tended to be synchronized with my pulse. No backward hands this time, but there was the beginning of a changed perception, if that makes sense. I also noted that it felt as if I was breathing into the area where my hands touched (thighs), as if I was holding a large ballon that was expanding and contracting. Also, I felt a fifferent kind of ”energy” in my hands while breathing in compared to while breathing out.

Sat about 40-45 minutes, focusing on breath as default but with openness to other sensations. Conditions were unfavorable. Brain fog and some pain due to allergic reaction from medicine (it wasn’t food this time), and my partner watched youtube videos about ant farms next to me, haha. I started out dull and with mind wandering, but clarity increased. Vibrations at a high frequency, first in my hands and then throughout my body. Some irregular slow waves. Showers of bliss over and over again, first very subtle and then with somewhat increased intensity. Then calm lightness. Changed perception of my hands. Perception of having my arms crossed, then of having palms turned upwards holding a sphere (they were resting on my thighs, palms facing down, left hand resting on left leg, right hand resting on right leg).

After the session I feel much better than before. Brain fog is gone. Pain too. Some energy restored. I’m grateful and somewhat surprised.

Sat for one hour. Breath as default focus. Noting.

Was exhausted so started out dull and spaced out and dozed off several times. After about 40 minutes dullness took off and then there was relative clarity. Even dullness is impermanent. Maybe after redirecting focus over and over again, and returning to a more mindful state over and over again, the brain eventually gets it. At that point there was the familiar perception of heightened awareness of sensations in my hands. This time I decided to investigate what those sensations really are. I guess I thereby shifted from clear peripheral awareness of these sensations to focused attention to them. That shift changed the sensations. They now seemed more binary than wavelike. Instead of waves moving through hands, I felt pressure sensations arise and pass on different points. The attention shifted rapidly between the hands and between different points of the hands. Each sensation stood out so distinctly that it felt as if the point of contact (with the thigh) braced itself against the surface. Maybe the waves are consciousness scanning through the body, and when directing focused attention to them they appear more the way particles do, that is, having specific locations)? And since attention constantly arises and passes, then so do the ”particles”?

There were moments of full body shower of piti (which at this point no longer feels like bliss, more like something that I recognize and let go of). Some kriyas, as if something needed to be evened out. I think this was the first time that I noticed such involuntary jerky movements locally in the throat/neck area.

Sudden noices did not startle me.

After the session I feel better than before it. More present, calm and clear.

High frequency rough vibrations noticable even off the cushion, like my whole body was vibrating. Slower waves still there in the background, turning into binary sensations arising and passing in rapid succession when investigated. Have been sick all day, felt like I was mildly poisoned. A 90 minutes session of hatha yoga combined with pranayama took away the worst of it but left me feeling overwhelmingly tired. Have done a formal sitting but struggled with staying awake (in the mundane sense). Took a long nap afterwards. Healing. Need to sleep. What I had planned to do this evening will have to wait.

Off the cushion thoughts about dukkha and impermanence even in the best moments. Less clinging to non-binary identity since there is no separate self anyway. This body feels like a masquerade dress that I put on to play with. Today I saw matter vibrate off cushion, and I realized that I have seen that before. 

Off cushion reflections:

I think I’m starting to see more clearly where my attention deficit is playing tricks on me and what I need to work on to get past that. I really need to develop the ability to notice when I’m about to loose access concentration due to dullness. I have made some progress in this area as of late, but it has only made me realize the extent to which I’m not there yet. I’m planning to order and read Culadasa’s The mind illuminated to get a more firm grip on what is happening. There are also some indications that my mind sort of tries to cheat and skip steps, and I think it might be helpful to learn more about the basic skills from more than one perspective. I’ll go back to reading Mahasi as well.

I have noticed a reduced amount of cravings but also an increased awareness of at least parts of the craving that still remains. Some of these cravings I can handle with equanimity. With regard to others I can be equanimous about not being equanimous. I can see that they are conditioned and I can see how silly it is, and I’m kind of getting used to the idea of letting go of them eventually.

I have dips with more cravings, and I notice how the cravings are creating suffering. Even though giving into them may feel good for a short while, it’s never as pleasant as I used to imagine. I probably still do that, but it’s like I always know that it’s just chasing something that doesn’t exist. Also, I can feel that giving into cravings makes me lose balance. It makes me more prone to craving, and it forces my body struggle with the stress from it. I find myself more often than before deciding that I don’t want that kind of imbalance.

Still there are some cravings that feel more entangled with the illusion of self, and I can feel the self holding on to them.

Meditating on the train while sleep deprived and on medication for motion sickness was not a good idea. Focus and clarity were there for maybe 10 minutes. The remaining 35 minutes were increasingly sleepy and dull. Now my shoulder hurts, too. Ouch! I should have slept instead.

Something really scary is going on. I don’t know what this is. It seems to be full-blown panic but it’s also physical. First I tried to meditate in a seated position, but after maybe 12 minutes I had to interrupt because this unbearable panic spread through my body and grew more and more intense. It felt pretty much like that one time when I fainted due to a bursting ovarian cyst. The thing is, I have a cyst right now; I recognize the symptoms that started yesterday (I have had quite a few cysts over the years). Therefore it made sense that the panic attack was my body saying no, especially since the cyst was now also pulsating with pain and my whole body was shaking. As I lay down it got better, and I thought the cyst had either finally burst or the seated position put too much pressure on it. I then tried to meditate lying down but fell asleep. As I had now stopped shaking, I decided to meditate standing up. First it went well and I thought that I had just been silly to even consider this being a dark night thing, but then the panic returned. I opened my eyes and tried to ground myself in seeing and hearing ordinary things, but it didn’t help. I had to lie down and hug myself and just breath. In doing so, I felt that the cyst was pulsating with pain again. I don’t know if the cyst is causing this panic reaction or if the panic reaction is causing the increased pain in the cyst. I will consult with a doctor tomorrow. Now that I’m lying down I feel better again. It seems like the meditation triggers either the pain or the panic, and whichever comes first triggers the other one. Sometimes pain seems to manifest as panic for me, so it’s difficult to know what is what. I have never had such reactions to meditation before. I couldn’t even imagine it to be possible, although I have heard of it.

The first time I did try to just observe the sensations. It started as chaotic vibrations especially in the throat area. Then the panic came. I felt pressure around my heart, and showers of both cold and hot dots arising and passing rapidly on my skin. In doing these observations, the screen went brighter and clarity increased. I had a heightened awareness of my hands and at the same time they started to feel like they were not my hands and kind of dislocated. That is common for me and I don’t mind it at all. Still there was fear to such an extent that I was unable to stay at a sensate level. I was increasingly lightheaded, dizzy, and nauseous. I felt like I was about to throw up and at the same time felt like I was suffocating, as if somebody was strangling me. I felt that I was afraid of what would happen if I lost my sense of self, and thought that maybe this was what it felt like. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure that I wanted it. There were parts of me that did want it, who kept saying that this was just the self trying to defend itself, so I tried to just stay with what happened and embrace it, and it kind of drew me in, and that was unbearable. I couldn’t take it. And now I’m afraid of the panic.

I don’t even know what I’m so afraid of. It’s not like things will just cease to exist. Either they already don’t exist or they do exist on one plane, and that will continue. I will still be in this body. I will still be able to love. What’s there to be afraid of? Am I clinging to a sense of normality? I don’t even believe in normality, and normality never believed in me.

I managed to meditate lying down with my eyes opened for 20 minutes without falling asleep or panicking, although I did space out briefly three times. I focused on all breath sensations. One of the times I spaced out I remember images of bandaging a foot for some strange reason. Some thoughts came up about self. The thought of having no soul scares me. So does the thought of there being no higher power with a higher purpose. I felt guilt for bringing a child into existance if there is nothing there, no meaning. Then I realized that my son’s self is as much an illusion as everything else, and that scared me even more, and I felt bad for putting him in the position of having to deal with such an illusory existance. Then I realized that there is no me that can be blamed.

Even though I kept my eyes open, I got that strange perception about my hands. I have a hard time describing it. Maybe it’s like they are having their own awareness? Still, ”I” am aware of having that awareness, sort of. It’s like awareness is not tied to any center. Yet, there is still something there that interprets these perceptions and ties them together.

Off cushion:

I don’t know if these are rough high frequency irregular vibrations or if I’m actually shaking with tremor. I recognize this from before, about ten years ago, nine maybe. I remember wondering what it was. I know that it was subsequent to having had something energy-like shooting upwards through the spine and exploding in the head. I cannot recall how much time had passed inbetween and what other sensations had occurred in detail. I’m pretty sure, though, that it had been very turbulent and panicky but with periods of exhaustion and brain fog. This was before I even tried Kundalini Yoga. It was that time when everybody seemed to die around me and I was waiting for a neuropsychiatric investigation and everything was quagmire, after getting divorced. I remember that it all started after I had said to a friend that I had given up on happiness and would settle with an interesting life. It seemed that I had evoked something there.

I don’t know if I can take this again.

I probably can. After all, I got through it last time. This too shall pass. But I don’t want this happening over and over again. I need to finish it this time.

I’m scared to meditate. It’s not that I’m afraid of what I might find within me; it’s what I may not find there. I’m scared that it’s nothing there. How can emptiness be a good thing? It sounds so meaningless. I need meaning. I need there to be meaning already. If it’s up to me to create meaning, what if I don’t have it in me? And if there is no me at all, how is it even possible to create meaning? If there is no agency and no purpose, how can there ever be any meaning?

I probably need to listen more to J. Krishnamurti. He seemed to get it and still not despair.

And I will meditate. I have decided once and for all that I will do formal practice at least 20 minutes per day without interruption. 20 minutes. That’s practically nothing. I will survive that. Jeeze, this is silly.

I felt stable so I decided to sit for 20 minutes just to get a positive experience. That was a good idea, because I didn’t panic, and now I’m not afraid anymore. It was uncomfortable, physically, but quite managable. My whole body felt buzzy and a bit restless. There was a somewhat changed perception of the hands. Slight pain and blissful sensations occurred simultaneously.

I can still feel the buzzing sensations throughout my body, buzzing like static / TV noice.

Oh no, oh no, oh no, please don’t let this be A&P again! Off cushion showers of piti in the midst of daily life. Although I do appreciate the energy, I would rather go forward than backwards.

As soon as I sat down and closed my eyes there was rapture, and then I was drawn into spaciousness. Nothing fancy, but wider and deeper than I’m used to. My eyelids flickered and there was noice in my right ear, a creaking sound that turned out to be rapid clicking. After a while my eyelids relaxed and the noice stopped. There were spinning movements and rhythms that sometimes were coordinated, sometimes out of synch. There was lightness and a slight shift in the gravity, like on an air plane going down for a landing. I didn’t need the noting. When I tried to use noting, I couldn’t keep up with all the sensations, and that caused tension.

Regardless of whether or not I intend to meditate, as soon as I close my eyes I’m drawn into spaciousness. It’s like I’m taken for a ride. There is movement around me and through me, and I’m moving through space. From time to time I feel motion sickness.

In the end of today’s yoga class there was some time for meditation. I noticed tensions in the facial area, resisting the motion into space. I relaxed my face to the best of my ability. That increased the motion but decreased the sickness. Sometimes it was kind of wobbly. There were spinning motions.

It was as if someone pulled my chest and head up and pushed my shoulders down into a relaxed position and the chin backwards to elongate the spine and tilted the pelvis into a correct position. It was automatic. Cool.

Today’s thoughts have been almost ridiculously constructive and nuanced. I have smiled all the time (okay, I’m excaggerating a bit here), been attentive, considerate and nice to strangers (and I’m autistic; social interaction can be exhausting, but it wasn’t today), and managed to do all the things I planned to do and more. I think the duukha me would have found this me slightly irritating and then felt guilty about it. When I think about that, I feel compassion towards the dukkha me and want to hug them or something.

This is low equanimity. I’m certain about that, but it actually doesn’t matter. What matters is that I do my best to be a decent human being and stay attentive to what happens, or how. It is what it is, regardless of what it is called and regardless of what I or anyone else believes. Please remind me of that if/when I drop back into dukkha nanas or lose direction, because the same things matter there as well.

Sat down and did not immediately get drawn into spaciousness. Realized that I was expecting sensations rather than being attentive to the present sensations. Became more mindful. Was drawn in, but there was less of a ride this time. The shoulders were pushed into position once more, but only subtly.

There were soft waves, but they were looping. I don’t know how it is possible, but I sensed a outward circular movement. This would mean that the touch sensation reached out from my body, to the space around it. I don’t know where in these sensationes the body ended and the space started.

My son was shouting loudly at his computer game. Felt grateful that I’m doing Vipassana. Such incidents are no interruptions, but possibilities. I could notice how the shouting effected the space around me. The movements became anxious and fast and less circular.

I don’t know how long I sat. I had set the timer to 20 minutes, but I decided to sit longer.

Close to the end I remember seeing the large chimneys with huge light bulbs on them, made to look like a gigantic advent wreath, that are visible from the new lunch room at my work. The other day I pointed out to my collegues that the light bulbs were still there. Now I was there again, pointing to them. I don’t know if this memory came to me so vividly just because I have read in MCTB2 that it can happen. I am rather susceptible to suggestion, so it is quite possible. Even if that is the case, it was cool to have such a vivid memory. I really thought that I was there. Normally, my visual memory is very poor. I was a bit dissappointed, though, that I didn’t notice my mind wandering.

Sometimes it seems that I’m having trouble noting the difference between my sensations and others’ sensations, such as those of my cats or my son. Logically speaking, I’m hearing them and imagining doing what they are doing and feeling the sensations that they must be feeling, but I sense it. Not in my body, though, but where they are. I know that awakened people are able to perceive that perceptions have their own self awareness, but I’m not awakened. So is this me being sloppy and dull, or it is possible to have glimpses of this before awakening? It’s not exactly as if I’m perceiving things from their perspective either, because at the same time I also have an immediate perception of the density of their bodies and their smell and their warmth and texture. Everything is there immediately. I can’t tell what is triggering what. It’s just there. These moments are rather brief, though. Then it comes back to ordinary sensory input, I think.

Off cushion, doing laundry: There are pulses in my vision field and things moving around in my peripheral vision. Is this a good thing or am I going mad?

There are tensions in my face muscles making me nauseaus.

I lay down and meditated with one cat on each side, relaxing the face muscles as much as I could. That set off swirling motions in space. For a brief moment I saw layers of swirls on the black screen instead of the usual flat screen.

There is sort of a pressure in my sinuses.

There was a subtle and slow threedimensional rotation in the black screen.

My son’s inbreath before coughing felt as if I was the one doing it.

All the time this weird tension in the facial muscles and sinuss. I feel as if I need to depressurize.

I woke up pretty zonked out and with pain all over my body because of allergic reactions to foods. The hyposensibilisation treatment seems to have made things worse instead of helping. Then I remembered that the ego doesn’t have to identify with being zonked out. Identification was moved to a metacognitive aspect that remained clear. Not only was I able to get out of bed to take my medicines - I suddenly stopped feeling zonked out (before I had taken the medz). The pain is still there, but it doesn’t bother me. It’s just there. I know it will pass. I can live with it.

All these subtle traps...

While brushing my teeth I felt the nausea and tension, and there was this thought that if I were to meditatate right now I would probably feel panic again so maybe I shouldn’t do that just now. Then there was this ”Wait a minute, what was that? What is it that is fearing what?” And I thought that I was afraid of the fear. Then I thought, no, I fear identifying with fear. But what is it that is fearing that? Apparently that point is already identifying with fear. That made the anxiety ”go away”. For a moment there was triumphant content. Then there was another ”wait a minute” moment. No, the anxiety didn’t go away. The identification point moved. The fear and anxiety are still there. Believing that they are gone is just denial, not liberation. They are there. There is no need to identify with them, but that doesn’t mean that they are gone. That’s not what this is about.

Did a 20 minutes sitting before cooking lunch. Very soon there was a heightened peripheral awarenss accompanied by a small circle filled with murk on the black screen. Then the black screen brightened up and the murk faded. There was rapture immediately followed by tranquility. Lightness. A distinct widening. Space.

In the latter half (?) of the session, there were instances of subtle dullness. Each time I recognized the dullness, the screen brightened. There were also instances of a dreamlike state which I guess is more than subtle dullness. The screen brightened each time I noticed them as well. I need to work with identifying these dull instances coming up before they reach the identification point.

Breathing was very easy. Sitting was comfortable and still.

20 minutes sittings are often underestimated, I find. A lot happens in twenty minutes, and such sessions are possible to squeeze in here and there. It is probably much better to cultivate hepful habits for twenty minutes than being dull for hours. Exercising in a sloppy way due to exhaustion makes one prone to injuries. I bet the same goes for exercising the mind. It’s good to know one’s limites.

I don’t know what to think about chakras, I really don’t, but just now I had the distinct feeling that there was a pressure to the third eye and that I needed to open it to realease something. While writing here, it changed. The crown of my head heated up, and now the pressure is there instead. There is also a minor pressure to the throat. That pressure seems to be moving upwards to the third eye. And now there is an increased pressure to the crown of my head. Weird. This keeps repeating.

Sat for thirty minutes. Very tranquil. Either dullness or formless or unknowing events at the end of some breaths, subsequent to a feeling of shifting gravity. No nodding. Sitting was comfortable, breathing easy.