Sat for one hour. Noting, breath as default but openness to other sensations.

Itching doesn’t bother me any more. Whole body showers of bliss were alternated with moments of calm blissful lightness. Some pain (mostly head ache) that didn’t bother me - waves of pulses (pressure sensations of varying intensity). For a brief moment that familiar perception of hands being turned the opposite direction again, as if I were two bodies sitting in front of each other. Some instances of mind wandering.

•••

I have found a Shambhala center in Stockholm that I plan to visit.

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?

The frequency is inconsistent for me. This is new to me and I’m still learning. Sometimes I can do a few notings per second, sometimes one per second, sometimes slower (if I stay with a set of sensations that can be noted the same way although they are in fact many individual sensations arising and passing I usually do not note each and every one of them). I think about two notings per second is rather common for me when I’m not dull, kind of the default mode, but I’m not sure.

The hand thing: That’s a weird thing that has happened to me a lot. It’s hard to explain but I’ll try. At a certain stage of the sitting something changes in how I perceive of my hands. First they pop up as figure instead of ground if I’m focusing on my breath (although if I intentionally shift my focus to them, they don’t stand out that way; I’m guessing that it could be a dark night thing, with a blurry center but clearer periphery, but I’m not sure). Then after a while the sensations are crosswired in a distorted way or something. I get the perception that someone who is also me sits in front of me, mirroring me, and the hands belong to that mirrored me. The fingers point to me instead of from me. Once I had the mental image of a whole body mirroring me like that, but mostly it’s just the hands. I feel the hands as if they were coming from the direction of someone sitting in front of me, but I feel them as if I were that person. Does that make any sense at all? I don’t think I can explain it any better than that. It’s a very distinct feeling.

EDIT: Since this was a breathing session, the noting was probably much slower, although I tend to add another layer of noting for sensations that I notice beside the breath, and also do some kind of continuous noting in order not to lose focus, like ”rising - dot - dot - dot - dot - dot, falling - dot - dot - dot - dot - dot”, so it depends on how you count.

Nah... It just means that I have figured out what the hierarchic tree of posts does with the displayed text if I keep replying to the last post, and I got tired of it and decided to keep this log more readable.

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.

Oh no! I didn’t know. That’s horrible! Thanks for telling me!

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.

Posted today on /r/streamentry https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/agfqxk/practice_free_scholarships_for_oneonone/?st=jqzaeupl&sh=f70b7a67

Thank you so much!

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. 

Did another sit, a short one (20 minutes). Sitting was comfortable, but was caught up in stories and old memories as if I were evaluating my life. Somewhat heightened sensations in hands.

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.

Woke up exhausted and in pain. Maybe there were some additives in that tea yesterday after all.

30 minutes. Mixed methods to keep track of my attention. Counted breaths but noted distractions. I managed to keep up the counting but I may have repeated a number once or twice. I started from one every five minutes (when there was a bell). Therefore I know that my breath turned faster and more shallow. I started out with 29 breaths and ended with 50.

Dullness is visually noticable. It manifests as murk all over the black screen. Mindfullness is brighter. Everytime there is a shift back to more mindfulness, the black screen subtly lights up. Sometimes there was murk only at the center of the screen. That came together with more peripheral awareness. It seems like trying to focus narrowly at this stage draws one into the murk. At other instances the whole screen was brighter and the mind was clearer both in the center and in the periphery, but that was only for brief moments. I was able to evoke a metacognitive aspect that kept track of how the rest of the mind went dull. I realized that seeing that metacognitive aspect as the self would be a trap. It was not more me than anything else. That reflection made the screen brighter. There is no integrated self. One aspect can reflect on how another aspect reflects on a third aspect. The subjective point of me jumps between different aspects. It’s all about identifying with thoughts and feelings and perceptions and so on. It is possible to just stop identifying with something, and then the point jumps. For the purpose of vipassana it is useful in this stage to have it jump into a metacognitive aspect and use that as a point of departure, but that doesn’t make it me.

I named that aspect several years ago. I gave her the name Ariadne because of the Greek myth where she helped Theseus find his way out of the labyrinth by following a thread, because I saw her as the narrator following a thread. This was outside of meditative practice. I knew that she was a theoretical construction along with other theoretical constructions covering other aspects of ”me”, and I found that helpful. At that time I believed that I needed more integration, but I came to realize that cooperation was more helpful. Each aspect had its purpuse, and if in balance they made no trouble. Seeing myself as a collective of different aspects helped me to become aware of reactive patterns and their triggers and choose to act in ways that made these survival mechanisms unnecessary.

The dull aspect had a name too, Aniara. She was the one who put all other aspects into cryo pods and put the ship into autopilot mode. I wasn’t aware that she still popped up so often. She is the aspect that has the least degree of self awareness. She is probably the one that will eventually have to face the void dakini.

I just realized that I think I know exactly how equanimity can be a trap. I had a name for that aspect as well (I’m too embarrassed to tell you that name), and she had a counterpart that was all about impermanence in a ruthlessly eruptive way, sort of Kali-like.

Okay, so these were insights masked by their own stories. I guess I had to start from where I was.

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.

This is a common fear and it can be debilitating, but emptiness in Buddhism doesn't mean non-existent. It means without permanence, without essence. You exist, just not in the permanent form you previously conceived of. And there is meaning, no matter what. It, too, isn't what we may have always thought it was, but it exists in a likewise impermanent form.

Buddhism is not nihilism.

Thanks! I’m glad that it’s not nihilism. I kind of feel that it’s even more important to imprint right skills in the mind if the karma may end up in other people than a reincarnated me. I wouldn’t want them to suffer for my mistakes. In that sense, and because they affect other living beings in the here and now, I know that my choices matter, even though they are dependent arisings (and also because they are). I do know that I exist. It’s just... I guess I kind of hoped that there would be some sense of progression and some learning over time that would somehow remain together, not scattered over the entire existance. Still, the thought of individual souls reincarnating fosters victim blaming, so it makes sense for it to be a fallacy. I guess discontinuity scares me. On the other hand, the thought of subjective eternity is even more scary.

You nicely describe going through standard insight stages, A&P, Dissolution, Fear, so might read up on those, as you are having classic presentations of them. While some of them, such as Fear, can be very disconcerting, be reassured that they are normal and pass.

Might see here: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/6-fear/

Thanks! I reread that section regularly. It is what keeps me going.

Damn, I was really hoping that this was re-observation. I thought I had already been miserable and disgusted and craving for deliverance. Wishful thinking, most likely.

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.

Well, could be, actually, as the Dark Night can come “as a package”, meaning that the stages can overlap.

Regardless, I will continue practicing.

I sat for thirty minutes now. No panic, lots of fierce vibrations. I imagined layers of me splintering. It actually felt good.

Your experience reminded me of the "Litany Against Fear" from Dune. Not sure if that's your thing but it might be helpful. :-)


I find it very helpful during Dark Night times! 

Fear is the mind-killer

Thanks for clarifying that point, I felt bad when Polly posted about the fear she was feeling. I should have been more clear, or perhaps just left the advice to the more qualified posters.

Thanks! I’ll try that the next time something like this happens.

Thanks to Chris too, but the clip seems to have been removed. I have seen the film, though.

Where did you comment? I haven’t written about it anywhere but here as far as I can remember.

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.

I made a comment in a thread about depersonalization/derealization right before your post in this thread about experiencing existential fear. It appeared to be related to my comment, if not happy to hear it lol.

That was not my post, and no, it wasn’t related. I thought your advice there was great, though. It wouldn’t have helped very much with my panic, but it wouldn’t have done any harm either. Panic is what it is, all fluff and no substance. I got that wording from the MCTB2 chapter on re-observation. This probably wasn’t re-observation, but the wording is probably helpful for many things. Whatever it was, I needed to overwrite the experience with a positive one. That works for many things too. The mind is mainly a network of infrastructure. We need to build many entrances to the paths that we wish to trafic, and many turnoffs from the muddy old ruts that we keep sliding into. Then we need to keep directing the trafic in a way that keeps the wanted trails open while the unwanted trails are overgrown.

The way I've usually seen this explained is nuanced as this is another concept westerners especially make mistakes with due to language and cultural barriers.

Emptiness of phenomena properly understood means they do not exist from their own side, without support from other phenomena. In other words phenomena do not exist inherently but depend completely on other phenomena for their (conventional) existence. What they do not have is atomic, unitary, independent existence. But that doesn't mean they don't (conventionally) exist.

How this has been dealt with in various schools of Buddhism is fascinating as it has been presented in different, provisional ways for different audiences. Perhaps we need a provisional version for modern Buddhists/mindfullness practitioners.

IMHO the best way to understand emptiness is to experience it  

I think the nuance (complication) comes from trying to use language to describe something that isn't reducible to a concept or a construct that language can handle. It's like describing the taste of coca cola to someone who has never tasted coca cola.

Right. Dependent arisings. That makes sense. Thanks for reminding me!

Emptiness is a horrible word.

That makes sense too.

It doesn’t seem to be A&P. It is much wider and deeper. I sat for 30 minutes, could have continued but I have promised to play a game with my son. Sitting was comfortable. I could easily feel breath sensations throughout my body. There was heightened peripheral awareness but the center was still there, with no murk in it. Sometimes I had something resembling vertigo. There was subtle motion around me, and spacious. Staying mindful was relatively easy.

Agreed there is no substitute for direct experience. IMHO the problem is usually that the intellectual understanding happens but the direct experience part is missing, but sometimes the intellectual part can be useful to go back to when interpreting direct experiences.

Yeah, what Milo said.

This stuff is clearly intellectually fascinating for many when they get into it, all the weird happenings, the strange side-effects, the kundalini stuff and kriyas, the highs, the lows, but I like to think of this as training to be a sherpa, except that, in this case, the trail is the dharma path, and your own experiences of heart, mind, and body.

If you train to be a sherpa, you have to walk the same trails again and again for years. Each time you walk up and down the path, you learn something about it by just going there, just participating in the process, in a way that you could try to explain to someone, could talk about, could write something about, make maps of, but it would be nothing like the fact of just doing it.

You walk the trail at dawn, at midday, at dusk, at night. You walk it in rain and shine. Some days, the trail is easier. Some days, it is hard. Some days it is pouring hail on your head. Some days, lightning crashes around. Some days, wind threatens to blow you off the path. Some days the light breeze is so pleasant. Some days, it is utterly gorgeous. Some days, you feel lucky to have made it home. Sometimes the creeks you have to cross are low. Sometimes the creeks you have to cross are roaring torrents. Sometimes there is ice and snow. Sometimes it is blistering hot. Sometimes it is freezing cold.

From all of these varied direct experiences on the trail, having walked it literally thousands of times, you become a seasoned sherpa. You learn that trail so that you are an expert in it, have true, direct knowledge that comes from experience and handling various situations on that trail, so that you can guide people safely on that same trail in all sorts of conditions, however it presents that day or night. You know how to read the clouds, the wind, the smell in the air, the tracks on the ground, the leaves on the trees. You know the seasons and how they affect the journey. You know that, while you can explain all sorts of things to those sherpas in training that you are now teaching and to those you guide along the trail, they just have to walk that same trail again and again and again in all sorts of conditions and be present to them to really know it like you do now.

May your sherpa training go well,

Daniel

That's well put. Thank you!

And by continuously walking, you keep the trail from being overgrown with weeds. The more you walk it, the more accessible it gets. Meanwhile, other trails that used to lead you astray do gradually get overgrown if you manage not to slip back into the old muddy ruts.

Why do you think that?
People's different responses to the term fascinate me.

Dan Brown, who is a Tibetan, calls it "an unfortunate term" and said a good synonym would be "mental construction." He equates emptiness with the Western/postmodern idea of constructionism. I don't agree with that at all. He also distinguishes emptiness and no-self, saying (in his very Tibetan way) that no-self was the earlier version, and the Tibetans improved and refined the concept. I don't agree with that either.

At the other extreme is a comment I read on a forum somewhere, where the commenter stated that it seemed like it had always wanted to be called emptiness, like it was just begging to be called emptiness.

I tend to agree with that second commenter. I think emptiness is a perfect description because there's no center point.

I'm not sure where the term comes from - the Pali is 'anatta' which is literally an-atta (no-self).

This all sounds like classic Equanimity nana.
Layers splintering off the self is classic late dark night stuff (D for D and Reobservation).

You have really good descriptions! I'm jealous. It's hard for me to describe stuff.

That would be nice. I guess we’ll see. It may be wishful thinking. Imagining layers splintering off was something that I did intentionally, not something that came to me in a vision. I may have scripted myself into feeling like this, so I’m not going to assume that it is real.

Do you really think so? Thank you!

Regarding why I think emptiness is a horrible word: maybe it’s because of the storylines that people use to describe frightening things. I’m a researcher in the field of dementia, and people with dementia diseases have often been described as empty shells, robbed of everything that makes them persons. None of that is true, of course. Emptiness is how psychological states such as depression, dissociation and depersonalization are described. It sounds as if nothing matters. It makes me think of apathy and of zombies and robots and clichés and false smiles and rituals the meaning of which nobody remembers anymore, or cares about, and of spams and bots and automatic routines that keep going after the last human being is long gone.

I second this. In english, emptiness has lots of baggage in the form of negative connotations that obscure what's meant in a dharma sense. It's bad enough that when people new to dharma teachings encounter the term they will often dismiss the whole project as nihilistic. For this reason I'm in favor of keeping with the pali terms or finding some better terminology like "not independently existent" or similar, even though that is fairly cumbersome.

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.

Yup.

I’m thinking that it seems to resemble compatibilistic determinism much more than nihilism. I have also noticed similarities to what Derek Parfit talks about in On What Matters, at least in the first chapters that I have actually read.

It's interesting that you bring up both compatibilism and Parfit, since I've found both very relevant to awakening.

There was a point where the idea that I have some sort of personal identity just stopped making any sense. Before that point, I was obsessed with philosophy of personal identity, including Parfit - questions like "if you step into a duplicating machine, which copy are you? What if you make a copy and then destroy one of the two five minutes later? How does that affect personal identity?"

After that point, I looked at all the same stuff I had read and it looked completely different. It just seemed so obvious that there could not be any such thing as personal identity.

About compatibilism - I'm a firm non-compatibilist determinist. Again, this is something I can directly perceive, not something theoretical. There is no free will, since all decisions I make and all my intentions are the effects of earlier causes, not something I freely choose. Compatibilists just redefine free will to be decision making.

There's a great quote by Samuel Johnson on free will: "All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.”
At a certain point, this stops being true, and all of a sudden your experience matches the theory and you see through the illusion of free will.

And yes, I really love your descriptions

You did it intentionally, huh?
Who was it who did it intentionally?
Can you see the no-self in your intentions? Something caused those intentions.

Me too! And I recently realized that there is no I that will seize existing. That still scares the shit out of me, but I’m trying to get used to the idea.

Me too. It’s the only theory that makes any sense. Most people don’t seem to get it.

:-)

Heh, busted.

Interesting. I hadn't heard of compatibilistic determinism before, but after reading up on it, it does sound related. A version of this could be viewed as a logical corollary of annata/emptiness, or more specifically, of dependent origination.

When the rhythms were out of synch, it was like there were winds colliding, or like when two people are paddling a canoe out of synch upstream.

Yes, exactly. And that doesn’t scare me. I have been a compatibilistic determinist for 24 years now, so I’m pretty used to that idea.

A little confused. I was saying I was a NON-compatibilistic determinist.. compatibilists think we have free will even with determinism, which makes no sense to me. You think that?

Oh, sorry, I misread.

What they are saying is that the only way to have a free will is if it is determined. Otherwise it is no will at all, but mere coincidence.

If you don’t think your choice of action matters, then why do you attempt to do anything?

Will can coexist with determinism the same way that emptiness coexists with somethingness/suchness. Will belongs to the dual reality. It may be an illusion, but it’s the only reality we will ever experience. As I see it, anyway.

Then again, an awakened person sees through the illusion and knows that there is no ”I” that has a will. As long as you still keep going, eat your dinner, pay your bills, etc, there is still a will of sorts.

Freedom of will is being able to form attentions according to one’s personality. The construction of you still has a personality, even though you know that it consists of independent arisings.

Compatibilistic determinism is practically the theory of independent arisings.

That’s how I have always interpreted it, anyway.

I guess it would make even more sense to say that the question whether or not the will is free is irrelevant. If it is free, in the sence of being independent, it’s not a will.

I believe that to be their main point: the dependence is what makes it a will. You can’t be free AND independent, because if you are independent, you are a slave to coincidence.

I would say that determinism is practically the theory of dependent arisings. The compatibilistic part is just an error.

I think of will as being the same as intentions. Intentions and attempts to do things just arise dependent on past causes, including personality. As you say, otherwise they would just be random coincidences.

You say free will is "being able to form \[intentions\] according to one's personality." That's not possible. Intentions just form on their own, and there is no self that is able to form or not form them. It's not a choice, just cause and effect.

Compatibilists understand all this, but then they say that there's "free will" because our intentions derive from our personality. But there are no free choices involved.

It seems to me that we agree to the substance of the matter but disagree semantically. The determinists that I have read don’t seem to take responsibility seriously, whereas the dharma does, hence the eightfold path. I do agree, though, that determinism is compatible with dependent arisings. The problem with determinism is that it can be demoralizing.

What personality is can be discussed. There is probably no consensus on the matter, wherefore conclusions may differ radically. I don’t think it’s necessary for the person to have an essence in order for them to have a personality. The person is a formation that exists within dual reality, and personality as I define it is a set of behavioral patterns. That makes compatibilistic determinism a tautology, but then again, that’s the point.

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.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot - for a while I had the perception that someone else was doing the breathing, not me.

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.

Just before noticing that, I could have sworn that I heard many voices murmuring in the noice from the drywasher, as if there were people all around me.

Maybe all the pipes here carry the voices of my neighbours talking in their apartments. Hm.

There were overwhelming impressions everywhere.

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.

There is a feeling of wearing too strong glasses.

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.

The realization that the point of identification can simply move seems like a breakthrough, both spiritually and in mundane life. May I remember this!

I think there is a subtle psychological reaction to that insight now. It’s vague but it’s there. Something is unsettled by having the belief in a solid self challenged. That something reacts with tension and nausea and fear. Facial muscles are contracting. Bubbly feeling in stomach. The main parts of the body remain relaxed. There is no need to identify with the reaction. It’s just there.

That feeling of wearing too strong glasses has returned. I guess it may take some time getting used to new ways of perceiving things. Relaxing helps.

Good to see things coming along for you, Linda. Very cool that you have been practicing diligently and seem to be getting into equanimity.

Thanks! 

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.

Haha! Then I thought ”Hey! The tension is gone!” and then ”Wait a minute!” Of course it’s not gone. The identification point just moved again.

How many times am I to repeat this observation before it finally sinks in as the default mode? Haha!

(Not that it’s the same tension. The components that make it up arise and pass away and make room for new ones, of course. But the formation remains longer than its components.)

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.

I have the strange feeling that I’m about to deliver a baby (from my head) and at the same time go through a divorce, deliver myself as a baby but also bury myself. The drains were blocked from my bathroom sink, and for the first time ever I was able to release that huge disgusting slimy blob of old hair from that upper part of the drains that cannot be reached because of poor design. It felt metaphorical. I enjoyed imagining that I was releasing layers of myself (which I probably was, literally... ugh...). Suddenly I felt the need to listen to music for the first time in a long while, and very specifically the tune ”Deliverence” by Mission UK. I have it on repeat now. I used to listen to Mission all the time when I went through my divorce, oddly enough since it was actually my ex-husband who introduced me to Mission. Oh, the rapture from this music... I’m celebrating and mourning at the same time. This is probably the closest I have ever been to stream entry. I’m thinking that if I’m ready it will happen, and if I’m not ready, unlike with child birth, there will be new chances to get ready. The flow knows what to do.

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.