Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/14/19 4:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/14/19 7:37 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/15/19 10:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 9:53 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Milo 1/14/19 8:45 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/15/19 4:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Andromeda 1/15/19 8:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/15/19 9:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/15/19 11:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/16/19 8:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Andromeda 1/16/19 8:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/16/19 8:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/30/19 11:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/17/19 9:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/18/19 5:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/18/19 5:41 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/19/19 5:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/19/19 10:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/20/19 7:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/20/19 8:11 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/21/19 5:09 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/21/19 5:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Jason Massie 4/23/19 10:03 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/24/19 12:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Jason Massie 4/24/19 8:09 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/24/19 8:18 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/22/19 4:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Chris M 1/22/19 7:02 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/22/19 8:19 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Daniel M. Ingram 1/22/19 9:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/22/19 10:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Daniel M. Ingram 1/22/19 3:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/22/19 5:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 BeeBoop 1/22/19 5:34 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Chris M 1/22/19 5:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/23/19 3:28 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Lars 1/22/19 6:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/23/19 3:30 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Lars 1/23/19 10:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/23/19 11:55 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Milo 1/23/19 12:30 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Chris M 1/23/19 1:19 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/23/19 2:44 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Milo 1/23/19 5:46 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Daniel M. Ingram 1/24/19 2:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/24/19 3:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/23/19 2:43 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/24/19 10:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/24/19 3:56 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Milo 1/24/19 12:47 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/24/19 4:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/24/19 11:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 1:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Milo 1/25/19 1:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 2:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/25/19 8:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 8:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 9:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/25/19 9:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 11:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/22/19 10:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/23/19 10:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/23/19 3:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/24/19 10:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/24/19 11:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/24/19 11:16 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 1:09 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/24/19 4:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 2:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 1:53 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 4:57 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/25/19 5:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/26/19 5:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/26/19 2:25 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/26/19 2:47 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/26/19 2:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/26/19 3:55 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/26/19 4:09 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 4:18 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 4:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 6:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Andromeda 1/27/19 6:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 6:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 7:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 7:10 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 7:13 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 7:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 8:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 2:15 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Chris M 1/27/19 3:41 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/27/19 11:53 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Chris M 1/28/19 3:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/28/19 3:27 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/28/19 9:09 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 12:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 1/29/19 1:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 3:21 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/29/19 12:47 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 1:07 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 1:24 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 1/29/19 1:22 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 1:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/29/19 5:32 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/30/19 12:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/28/19 3:30 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/28/19 3:33 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/28/19 3:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 3:55 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 11:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 5:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 4:50 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/29/19 5:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 J C 1/29/19 5:25 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/30/19 12:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/30/19 12:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/30/19 1:29 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/30/19 3:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/30/19 4:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/30/19 6:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 1/31/19 12:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/31/19 11:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/30/19 4:56 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 1/31/19 2:46 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/1/19 7:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/2/19 3:07 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/3/19 6:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/4/19 6:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/4/19 8:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/4/19 11:16 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/5/19 3:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/5/19 3:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/5/19 4:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/5/19 4:19 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/6/19 6:21 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/6/19 5:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/7/19 2:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/7/19 3:45 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/7/19 4:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/7/19 4:31 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/8/19 10:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/8/19 5:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/8/19 5:39 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 5:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 10:10 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 10:18 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 10:29 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 10:55 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 10:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 8:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 2/9/19 8:55 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 9:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 9:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 9:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 10:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/9/19 5:36 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/10/19 7:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/10/19 1:08 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/10/19 12:39 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/11/19 7:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/11/19 9:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/11/19 9:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/11/19 11:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/11/19 11:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/11/19 2:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 2/11/19 5:11 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/11/19 5:36 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/11/19 4:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 2/12/19 2:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/12/19 8:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/12/19 8:17 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Milo 2/12/19 10:24 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/12/19 10:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/12/19 10:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/12/19 10:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/12/19 1:19 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/12/19 1:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/13/19 9:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/14/19 7:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/14/19 3:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/19 9:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/15/19 6:03 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 2/16/19 9:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/16/19 10:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/16/19 6:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/16/19 12:20 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/17/19 6:53 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/17/19 2:15 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/18/19 2:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/18/19 7:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/18/19 7:45 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/18/19 7:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/18/19 9:24 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/18/19 2:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/18/19 5:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/19/19 12:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/19/19 1:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/20/19 4:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/20/19 1:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/20/19 2:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/20/19 4:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/20/19 5:02 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/20/19 5:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/20/19 7:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/20/19 1:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/21/19 8:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/21/19 8:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/21/19 9:09 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/21/19 2:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/22/19 1:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/21/19 4:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/22/19 9:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/22/19 9:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/22/19 5:17 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/22/19 10:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/22/19 10:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/23/19 3:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 1:38 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/23/19 10:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/23/19 2:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 4:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 5:02 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 5:11 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 5:19 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 6:29 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 7:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 11:02 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 11:57 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 4:36 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/24/19 6:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/25/19 7:11 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/25/19 3:57 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/25/19 3:48 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/25/19 8:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/26/19 2:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/26/19 6:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/26/19 8:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/26/19 10:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Jyet 2/26/19 4:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/26/19 4:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Jyet 2/27/19 8:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/27/19 1:32 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/27/19 4:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/27/19 7:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/27/19 7:33 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/27/19 11:22 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Chris M 2/28/19 6:53 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/28/19 7:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/28/19 6:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 2/28/19 6:25 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/1/19 10:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/1/19 10:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/1/19 12:33 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/1/19 12:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/1/19 12:53 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/1/19 1:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/1/19 1:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/1/19 1:27 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/1/19 2:35 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/1/19 3:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/2/19 1:58 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/2/19 6:48 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/3/19 1:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/3/19 12:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/3/19 4:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/3/19 6:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/4/19 4:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/4/19 4:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/4/19 5:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/4/19 8:16 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/4/19 1:24 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/4/19 4:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/4/19 7:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/4/19 8:24 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/5/19 12:46 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/5/19 5:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/5/19 11:02 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Dexter Chamberlin 3/5/19 12:48 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/5/19 5:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/5/19 6:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/6/19 12:37 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/6/19 6:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/7/19 8:16 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/7/19 9:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/8/19 11:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/8/19 3:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/9/19 11:13 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/9/19 11:11 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/9/19 1:08 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/9/19 11:27 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/10/19 4:45 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/11/19 1:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Anna L 3/11/19 3:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/11/19 4:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/11/19 4:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/12/19 2:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/12/19 2:30 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/11/19 3:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/12/19 9:30 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/12/19 12:39 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/13/19 10:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/13/19 1:15 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Jyet 3/13/19 10:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/13/19 1:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/13/19 3:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/14/19 5:31 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/15/19 11:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/16/19 2:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/17/19 5:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/19/19 4:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/19/19 4:54 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/19/19 5:33 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/20/19 3:29 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/20/19 6:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/20/19 6:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/20/19 8:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/20/19 10:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/20/19 1:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/20/19 1:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/20/19 1:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/20/19 2:57 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/30/19 10:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/20/19 5:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/21/19 3:33 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/21/19 11:58 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/23/19 12:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/23/19 7:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 1:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/24/19 2:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 3:30 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/24/19 4:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 12:46 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/24/19 1:51 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 6:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 6:18 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 5:27 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 5:44 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 7:12 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 5:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 5:12 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 5/3/19 6:07 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/3/19 6:30 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 5/3/19 6:48 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/3/19 7:32 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/3/19 9:57 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 5/3/19 10:55 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/4/19 12:09 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/11/19 6:30 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/24/19 4:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/25/19 8:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/26/19 9:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/26/19 9:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/26/19 10:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/27/19 6:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/27/19 1:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/27/19 2:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/27/19 10:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/27/19 3:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/27/19 6:44 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 3/27/19 9:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/28/19 12:51 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Jyet 3/28/19 3:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/28/19 3:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 3/28/19 7:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/28/19 7:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 3/28/19 9:17 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/28/19 9:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 3/29/19 7:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/30/19 7:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Raving Rhubarb 3/30/19 3:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/30/19 4:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Anna L 4/2/19 4:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/2/19 4:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Lars 3/31/19 1:21 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/31/19 2:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/29/19 2:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/29/19 8:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/30/19 7:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/30/19 9:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/31/19 5:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/31/19 8:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 3/31/19 2:56 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/1/19 3:19 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/2/19 9:45 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/2/19 6:47 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/3/19 2:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/3/19 8:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/3/19 9:19 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/4/19 2:28 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/4/19 4:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/4/19 1:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Andromeda 4/4/19 5:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/4/19 6:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Andromeda 4/4/19 7:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/4/19 3:15 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/4/19 5:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/5/19 9:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/5/19 2:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/6/19 1:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/6/19 8:33 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/7/19 1:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/7/19 2:27 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/7/19 6:40 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/7/19 4:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/7/19 6:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/8/19 7:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Jyet 4/8/19 3:08 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/9/19 12:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/9/19 2:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/9/19 5:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/10/19 4:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/11/19 9:25 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/12/19 7:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/12/19 10:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/12/19 11:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/12/19 11:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/12/19 12:12 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/12/19 5:41 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/12/19 6:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 4/12/19 7:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/13/19 4:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Not two, not one 4/13/19 4:28 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/13/19 7:13 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/13/19 8:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/12/19 12:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/11/19 7:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/10/19 10:47 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/12/19 2:37 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/13/19 10:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/14/19 5:12 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/14/19 6:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/14/19 9:19 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/15/19 7:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/18/19 11:10 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/15/19 8:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/15/19 7:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/18/19 11:13 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/16/19 4:18 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/17/19 3:24 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/18/19 2:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/18/19 3:55 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/19/19 6:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/19/19 2:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/20/19 5:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/21/19 8:03 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/22/19 7:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/23/19 3:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/23/19 5:47 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/24/19 7:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Andromeda 4/25/19 9:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/25/19 11:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/25/19 2:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Andromeda 4/25/19 4:27 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/25/19 5:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Andromeda 4/25/19 6:31 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/25/19 7:09 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/26/19 11:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Andromeda 4/26/19 3:36 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/26/19 6:27 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/14/19 4:59 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/14/19 4:59 PM

Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
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.
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/14/19 7:37 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/14/19 7:37 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
How quickly were you noting? Did the frequency change throughout this sit?

What do you mean by the hands turning thing?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 10:56 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 4:40 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
J C:
How quickly were you noting? Did the frequency change throughout this sit?

What do you mean by the hands turning thing?



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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 9:53 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 9:53 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
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.
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Milo, modified 5 Years ago at 1/14/19 8:45 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/14/19 8:45 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 371 Join Date: 11/13/18 Recent Posts
Does starting the second log mean you have started into a new phase of practice?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 4:43 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 4:43 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Milo:
Does starting the second log mean you have started into a new phase of practice?



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.
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Andromeda, modified 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 8:04 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 8:04 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 393 Join Date: 1/15/18 Recent Posts
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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 9:32 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 9:32 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Andromeda:
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!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 11:23 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/15/19 11:23 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/16/19 8:31 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/16/19 8:31 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
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.
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Andromeda, modified 5 Years ago at 1/16/19 8:35 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/16/19 8:35 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 393 Join Date: 1/15/18 Recent Posts
Posted today on /r/streamentry https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/agfqxk/practice_free_scholarships_for_oneonone/?st=jqzaeupl&sh=f70b7a67
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/16/19 8:39 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/16/19 8:39 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Andromeda:
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!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 11:50 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 11:50 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Andromeda:
Posted today on /r/streamentry https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/agfqxk/practice_free_scholarships_for_oneonone/?st=jqzaeupl&sh=f70b7a67

Thanks again, Andromeda. I actually got one of those scholarships. I nearly missed it becuase my job’s server sorted out his email as junk mail, but he was kind enough to reach out for me on facebook.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/17/19 9:54 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/17/19 9:54 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/18/19 5:00 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/18/19 3:09 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/18/19 5:41 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/18/19 5:40 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/19/19 5:50 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/19/19 5:50 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/19/19 10:23 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/19/19 10:23 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/20/19 7:49 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/20/19 7:49 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/20/19 8:11 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/20/19 8:11 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/21/19 5:09 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/21/19 4:17 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/21/19 5:05 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/21/19 5:05 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
Jason Massie, modified 4 Years ago at 4/23/19 10:03 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/23/19 10:02 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 124 Join Date: 10/18/16 Recent Posts
Maybe chill out a bit and watch a movie. emoticon standup comedy on Netflix. Take some advil and meditate tomorrow .

There is a self. It is just not continuous or separate from anything else. Maybe there is a higher power or not. I would stick your with experience. Now doesn't sound like the time to form belief systems.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/24/19 12:34 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/24/19 12:34 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Why? I actually prefer meditating and listening to dharma talks nowadays, which is kind of funny since I used to bingewatch netflix all the time. I did take a long nice walk yesterday after work and talk to a dear friend on the phone. I also did som photographing, which is a hobby of mine. I will spend the upcoming weekend with my two male partners and go to a party. Today I’ll work on a scientific poster for a conference and chaire a meeting for people with disabilities in need of a certain type of service (like myself). Then I will either go to a yoga class or do my laundry. No need to worry about me. I’m enjoying life, and I do have a life outside of DhO.

No, there is no self in the sense that people usually believes. There is a location of consciusness that manifests as both matter and a number of mental processes. The mental processes identify with each other and with a body, but are really connected to everything else, and that’s just fine. That’s actually the belief system I have had for more than a decade, so nothing new really, just a bit more detailed.

Is there anything in particular that made you draw the conclusion that I need to chill out and take some advil? I have come to realize that I use nuances of words differently than the majority, which probably has to do with being neurodivergent. I did have a cold for a few days, but I’m fine now. Thanks for caring, though.
Jason Massie, modified 4 Years ago at 4/24/19 8:09 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/24/19 8:07 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I saw some posts describing a difficult time, panic, pain etc. They looked like the latest posts. I dont see them now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/24/19 8:18 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/24/19 8:18 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Oh, I see. Then I understand. Thanks for caring! That feels like ages ago. This thread is getting too big to navigate. I plan to start a new practice log as soon as I have had my last coaching session tomorrow.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 4:04 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 4:04 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 7:02 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 7:02 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.

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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 8:19 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 8:19 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 9:39 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 9:39 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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/
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 10:26 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 10:26 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 3:29 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 3:29 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Well, could be, actually, as the Dark Night can come “as a package”, meaning that the stages can overlap.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 5:02 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 5:02 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
BeeBoop, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 5:34 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 5:34 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Your experience reminded me of the "Litany Against Fear" from Dune. Not sure if that's your thing but it might be helpful. :-)
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.


I find it very helpful during Dark Night times! 
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Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 5:40 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 5:40 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 3:28 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 3:28 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Erin:
Your experience reminded me of the "Litany Against Fear" from Dune. Not sure if that's your thing but it might be helpful. :-)
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.


I find it very helpful during Dark Night times! 


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.
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Lars, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 6:52 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 6:52 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Chris Marti:
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 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. emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 3:30 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 3:30 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Lars:
Chris Marti:
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 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. emoticon



Where did you comment? I haven’t written about it anywhere but here as far as I can remember.
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Lars, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 10:59 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 10:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Where did you comment? I haven’t written about it anywhere but here as far as I can remember.


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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 11:55 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 11:55 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Lars:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Where did you comment? I haven’t written about it anywhere but here as far as I can remember.


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.
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Milo, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 12:30 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 12:27 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 1:19 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 1:15 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.

IMHO the best way to understand emptiness is to experience it  emoticon

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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 2:44 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 2:44 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Chris Marti:
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.

IMHO the best way to understand emptiness is to experience it  emoticon

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.



That makes sense too.
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Milo, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 5:46 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 5:46 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 2:47 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 2:47 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 3:43 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 2:43 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Milo:
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.

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

Emptiness is a horrible word.
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 10:37 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Milo:
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.

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

Emptiness is a horrible word.

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).
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 3:56 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Milo, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 12:47 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 4:14 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Milo:
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.



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.
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 11:13 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Milo:
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.



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 emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 1:08 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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J C:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Milo:
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.



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 emoticon


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.

:-)
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Milo, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 1:59 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Milo:
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.



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.


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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 2:06 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 8:35 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
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?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 8:56 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 9:05 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 9:43 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
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.

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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 11:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/22/19 10:44 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 10:03 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/23/19 3:01 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
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.



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.
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 10:41 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
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.



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.

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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 11:41 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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J C:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
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.



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.

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!
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 11:16 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
J C:


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!

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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 1:09 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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J C:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
J C:


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!

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.

Heh, busted.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/24/19 4:10 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 2:04 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
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.


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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 1:53 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 4:57 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/25/19 5:04 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Oh, yeah, almost forgot - for a while I had the perception that someone else was doing the breathing, not me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/26/19 5:46 AM
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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/26/19 2:25 PM
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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?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/26/19 2:47 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
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?



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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/26/19 2:38 PM
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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/26/19 3:55 PM
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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/26/19 4:09 PM
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There is a feeling of wearing too strong glasses.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 4:18 AM
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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 4:47 AM
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The realization that the point of identification can simply move seems like a breakthrough, both spiritually and in mundane life. May I remember this!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 6:31 AM
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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.
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Andromeda, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 6:34 AM
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Good to see things coming along for you, Linda. Very cool that you have been practicing diligently and seem to be getting into equanimity.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 6:44 AM
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Thanks! emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 7:05 AM
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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 7:10 AM
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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!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 7:13 AM
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(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.)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 7:58 AM
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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 8:36 AM
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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.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 2:15 PM
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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.
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Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 3:41 PM
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Are you still doing noting practices?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/27/19 11:53 PM
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That depends on whether it helps or holds me back. That varies. However, I’m not sure that I always know what the status is. 

What would your advice be?
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Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 1/28/19 3:00 PM
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What would your advice be?

I have to ask another question first -- how is "helpful" or "hurtful" determined in your practice?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/28/19 3:27 PM
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Chris Marti:
What would your advice be?

I have to ask another question first -- how is "helpful" or "hurtful" determined in your practice?

Helpful is what takes me closer to awakening. Hurtful is what takes me away from awakening. Since I’m not qualified to determine what brings me closer to or further away from awakening, I try to look for other signs, such as dullness or tensions or sliding back into a lower state (hurtful) or qualities that resembles descriptions of Vipassana jhana and higher states (helpful). Was that an okay answer?
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/28/19 9:09 PM
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I think of the path as a helix. Every time you go back and forth from Eq to ReOb you're making progress at a higher level of the helix even if it seems like you're just going around in circles.

"Zeke" is a great note.

Can you look at and note the labeling of your experience as helpful or hurtful, back or forward? Can you note the mapping, questions about progress, uncertainty? Can you look at that space or viewpoint you've been holding as constant and identifying with, and see it from the outside?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 12:56 AM
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That’s good to remember.

Thanks!

There’s probably room for development there.
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 1:05 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Chris Marti:
What would your advice be?

I have to ask another question first -- how is "helpful" or "hurtful" determined in your practice?


Helpful is what takes me closer to awakening. Hurtful is what takes me away from awakening. Since I’m not qualified to determine what brings me closer to or further away from awakening, I try to look for other signs, such as dullness or tensions or sliding back into a lower state (hurtful) or qualities that resembles descriptions of Vipassana jhana and higher states (helpful). Was that an okay answer?
Welcome to meditation. In this land, you will see ALL the states again and again and again and again and again... In all kinds of configurations and mysterious conditions which are not under your control (hello anatta). Some of them will have dullness. Some of them will have tension. Some will not. I think it is a good idea to befriend all of those states. I think this is the road to sanity.

On the other hand, arbitrary labeling some of those states as 'lower' or 'hurtful' just because in the progress of insight they have a smaller number will not do you any good. This is why meditation teachers often don't introduce maps at all.

But the cat is out of the bag, since you are already familiar with the maps. Labelling will probably occur even if you decide to drop it. In this case, you probably already know what to do about it, right? Treat them like any other condition that occurs in the mind, which it really is. In other words, what J C said: note it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 3:21 AM
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Thank you for taking your time to formulate this. I imagine this isn’t exactly the first time you and many others here have had to say this to a newbie, so I appreciate your patience. I am aware of this trap but it is always good to be reminded, because I’m obviously falling into it despite being aware of it. I probably need to be more mindful about it in passing. Yes, I realize that I need to label the labelling to be more conscious about it and thus more mindful about the choices that are made by the mental processing that is now going on at a less conscious level. These are reactive patterns that need to be disentangled.

Hah, I just had the thought ”Maybe this is what holds me back! If I just resolve this, then...”. Busted! Reactive pattern right there. Jeeze, I really need to work on this. It’s looping around itself.
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 12:47 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Thank you for taking your time to formulate this. I imagine this isn’t exactly the first time you and many others here have had to say this to a newbie, so I appreciate your patience. I am aware of this trap but it is always good to be reminded, because I’m obviously falling into it despite being aware of it. I probably need to be more mindful about it in passing. Yes, I realize that I need to label the labelling to be more conscious about it and thus more mindful about the choices that are made by the mental processing that is now going on at a less conscious level. These are reactive patterns that need to be disentangled.

Hah, I just had the thought ”Maybe this is what holds me back! If I just resolve this, then...”. Busted! Reactive pattern right there. Jeeze, I really need to work on this. It’s looping around itself.

Also note the impulse behind the thoughts "reactive pattern right there" and "I really need to work on this" ... perfect examples of suffering right there.

Nothing wrong with the mind trying to be free, trying to identify and solve problems - that's what the mind does. This is how the path goes.

And yes, it all loops around - suffering is the desire to be free from suffering, the desire to accept the present moment as it is without the need to change it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 1:07 PM
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Right. True.

Now I have a craving for gluten free and milk free ginger breads, one of the few sweets I can still eat without getting brain fog, fatigue, muscle pain and stomach problems. I have the ingredients to make them and it’s really easy, and because of my complicated food intolerances I don’t really need to worry about bad eating habits. I eat ridiculously healthily most of the time. Still I have this idea in my head that giving in to this craving will keep me from awakening. Will it? Or is it okay to make cookies once in a while just because you feel like it?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 1:24 PM
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Uh, screw it. If I am to make this, I’ll have to do it in a way that is consistent and possible to live up to long-term. I’m only human. That’s why I decided that the minimum time for meditation per day should be 20 minutes. That’s not much, but it’s possible to do even with a deadline or when I’m staying with a partner or have many chores to do. I have not missed it one single day since I started. If I decide that I can’t have the only sweets that my body accepts, I will most likely fail somewhere along the line.
L
When my cravings backfire I’ll note it. Maybe I’ll learn something. (Hm, that does sound a bit like making a confession in advance, doesn’t it? Maybe it doesn’t count then...)
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 1:22 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Right. True.

Now I have a craving for gluten free and milk free ginger breads, one of the few sweets I can still eat without getting brain fog, fatigue, muscle pain and stomach problems. I have the ingredients to make them and it’s really easy, and because of my complicated food intolerances I don’t really need to worry about bad eating habits. I eat ridiculously healthily most of the time. Still I have this idea in my head that giving in to this craving will keep me from awakening. Will it? Or is it okay to make cookies once in a while just because you feel like it?

Every retreat I've been to (4 different centers) serve sweets to the meditators. Obviously, retreat centers and meditation teachers of all sorts (including monks and nuns) think enjoying sweets is perfectly fine. Possibly interesting line of investigation: Where did you even get the idea that it's not?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 1:26 PM
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Thanks!

Because it’s a craving, and now I’m allowing myself to give into one.
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 5:32 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Thanks!

Because it’s a craving, and now I’m allowing myself to give into one.

So it's important to distinguish ordinary suffering from fundamental suffering.

Ordinary craving is just wanting something. Enlightened people still want cupcakes and still eat them.

It becomes fundamental suffering when there's a "split" - when the sensations of the cupcake and wanting it are not clearly seen, when the illusion of self is not seen through, when there's some struggle against the way things are right now.

So wanting a cupcake and then taking action to get the cupcake are not the problem. Our desires are normal and natural and it's important not to pathologize them. This path is about clearly perceiving sensations, not about losing any kind of preference or desire to have yummy things for yourself.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 12:49 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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J C:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Thanks!

Because it’s a craving, and now I’m allowing myself to give into one.

So it's important to distinguish ordinary suffering from fundamental suffering.

Ordinary craving is just wanting something. Enlightened people still want cupcakes and still eat them.

It becomes fundamental suffering when there's a "split" - when the sensations of the cupcake and wanting it are not clearly seen, when the illusion of self is not seen through, when there's some struggle against the way things are right now.

So wanting a cupcake and then taking action to get the cupcake are not the problem. Our desires are normal and natural and it's important not to pathologize them. This path is about clearly perceiving sensations, not about losing any kind of preference or desire to have yummy things for yourself.


Thank you for clarifying this! I needed that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/28/19 3:30 AM
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I hypothesized that the dullness I had experienced probably indicated the need for more diligent noting again, so I did a 40 minutes sitting with noting. It helped. When there was a pause between breaths I noted gone or sitting, dedpending on what stood out most. I noticed (and noted) an increased heartbeat when I noted gone, as if the disapperance of the breath scared me or something. When I had noted that a few times, that tendency faded away. I tried to follow sensations to the end, but if was difficult with the trafic noise. The sounds from different vehicles melted into each other. I tried to note subtle mind states. I didn’t always like what I found. Then I noted judgement. In some cases I had a hard time distinguishing between different senses. They all came as a package. That happened for instance when one of my cats lay down on my lap. How do I know if I have dropped down to being sloppy and lost sensory clarity or if I have started sensing formations? I don’t know which one it is. I do know, though, that it would be dishonest to make up a certain order of sensations in my noting when what I perceive is a package. Therefore I noted ”Zeke”, which is the name of the cat. Is that okay?

Sitting wasn’t quite as comfortable today. In the beginning I had to do some adjustments not only to the posture but also add another blanket to sit on, because the angle of the pelvis was wrong and that caused tensions that I thought might hurt my lower back. I also did some minor adjustments throughout the sitting to straighten my posture. I have pain today because I had a small icecream yesterday (there was craving, I admit it). I didn’t mind sitting, though. I could easily have continued, but I have an appointment now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/28/19 3:33 PM
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I think I have been gliding up and down between reobservation and low equanimity several times today. Is that possible? I have pms, which makes my Tourette’s worse and my mood lower (I have PMDD so I used to fall down in an abyss of apathy and worthlessness during pms, but that seems to have clearly diminished). I had to deal with a lot of stuff that tend to stress me out a lot today, most of which had to do with dealing with disability in this society as it is. I have done all the things that I needed to do today, but I felt that it was draining and that I had to struggle to regain mindfulness, and there were some mild sadness and disappointment/resignation. I realized that I had expected too much from equanimity. Of course it can’t take away all my struggles just like that, and I did know that it wouldn’t last anyway. I’m not exhausted though, like I would normally be from this amount of stress, so I guess that’s on the plus side.

Because of the setbacks today I felt that I needed some guidance. Therefore I did the gudied meditation in this video with Culadasa: https://youtu.be/zF6rkzTtvI4, after first listening to the instructions to get an overview. The session involves both wider and more narrow focus but always together with cultivation of peripheral awareness. The first few minutes of meditating were horrible. I felt as if things were crawling under my skin, and I had very annoying earbugs with songtexts that I could only partly remember, which added to the irritation. I had to adjust my posture several times. It felt so wrong. Then suddenly there was calmness and the earbugs went away and I could focus and stay aware. The posture did not trouble me anymore. It seemed almost automatic. Around the middle of the session the irritation came back for a while and then the calmness returned. There was energy throughout the whole 40 minutes long session. A few times I was distracted by thoughts but I noticed that and redirected my attention. There were very subtle and mild piti and sukkha during the calm parts.

Earlier this evening I went to restorative yoga. On the way there I had to walk fast, but I did my best to be mindful while walking. I noticed that the breath and the movements had a tendency to synchronize. The rhythm varied depending on how fast I went, but synchronization occurred pretty fast. It was as if all of the movements involved in walking and all the sensations involved with breathing formed a symphony and a whole.

At the restorative yoga all positions started out with irritation throughout my body but then transformed into calmness. I noticed that it was easier than before to wake up into full consciousness after the session.

I feel relatively calm and at ease now. I look forward to having the rest of the evening to myself and maybe do some reading and other stuff that makes me feel good.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/28/19 3:52 PM
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Directly after the guided meditation mentioned above Culadas explains that fluctuating sound inside the ear. It has to do with fluctuating attention just as I thought. Good to know.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 3:55 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Anyway, I realized this morning that it has become easier to be aware of other people around me and the subtle cues of their behavior in a way that enables me to be considerate and polite - offer them a seat, move out of their way, give them space, smile reassuringly if they are anxious about something, etc. I really appreciate that. I used to feel very bad about not being able to notice such cues, because I really want to be kind and thoughtful. I don’t want to burden or bother people, and I want a world where people can feel that they are okay if they happen to have a bad day or just can’t keep up with the speed (I know what it’s like to worry about that). Sometimes my attention deficit and my autistic propensity for sensory overload hampers my ability to be perceptive in this way and this makes me seem unkind and egocentric which I really don’t want to be (I notice identity clinging here; obviously the outcome of my behavior is more important than my identity, but I do have an attachment to certain aspects of identity, and that is probably counterproductive but also the best I can manage right now). I now realize that it is my outrospective (is that a word?) peripheral awareness that has been poor and that it is possible to do something about it. I’m in the midst of pms and still able to be more perceptive than I used to be in the morning rush. That says something about the potential of meditative practice.

Come to think of it, I haven’t lost my temper in the mornings when my son refuses to go go school for quite some time now. Not even during pms.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 11:46 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I have continued listening to the youtube video series ”The magic of mindfulness” with Culadasa from Dharma Treasure Audio Archive, because I need to work with my attention and awareness both in order to be able to meditate more mindfully and to function more in line with my wishes in daily life. I find that this series gives me tools to work with, tools that I’m actually able to use at this point in my practice. Today I did the guided meditation in part 6. I was able to pay attention to the instructions throughout the session while still doing the exercises. I managed to pay attention to the particularly sensory input that I was supposed to pay attention to most of the time. I got tired and lost focus, but the instructions to relax the attention and work with the awareness in case I got tired were helpful. They came just in time for me to be able to hear them and make the assessment that I needed to follow them in order to retain mindfulness. I think that’s good because it enabled me to make habitual patterns that are constructive rather than follow the old muddy ruts that I wish to get away from in this infrastructure that constitutes my mind. Maybe I should measure the time in those parts of the session and use it to plan my own sessions. I also think I’ll use this guided meditation several times to really build those new pathways in the infrastructure.

(And now my soup is ready. Perfect timing. I had it cooking on a low temperature. It really is possible to make time for meditation as a householder as long as one plans the logistics.)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 5:06 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I have continued listening to the youtube video series ”The magic of mindfulness” with Culadasa from Dharma Treasure Audio Archive, because I need to work with my attention and awareness both in order to be able to meditate more mindfully and to function more in line with my wishes in daily life. I find that this series gives me tools to work with, tools that I’m actually able to use at this point in my practice. Today I did the guided meditation in part 6. I was able to pay attention to the instructions throughout the session while still doing the exercises. I managed to pay attention to the particularly sensory input that I was supposed to pay attention to most of the time. I got tired and lost focus, but the instructions to relax the attention and work with the awareness in case I got tired were helpful. They came just in time for me to be able to hear them and make the assessment that I needed to follow them in order to retain mindfulness. I think that’s good because it enabled me to make habitual patterns that are constructive rather than follow the old muddy ruts that I wish to get away from in this infrastructure that constitutes my mind. Maybe I should measure the time in those parts of the session and use it to plan my own sessions. I also think I’ll use this guided meditation several times to really build those new pathways in the infrastructure.

(And now my soup is ready. Perfect timing. I had it cooking on a low temperature. It really is possible to make time for meditation as a householder as long as one plans the logistics.)


One take away from this session was that it is so much easier to keep a body part in awareness while focusing attention somewhere else if I first have focused my attention on it for some time. It’s like it wakes up some pathways that were dormant. That is consistent with my previous experience of heightened awareness of the two finger tips I had been focusing on. I guess that could be one of the reasons that body scanning is used as a method in meditative practice: in order to increase peripheral awareness of the body and create new pathways for introspection (hmm, that was two, I guess, albeit overlapping).
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 4:50 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I sat for 20 minutes just to check in with the vibrations. The first couple of minutes or so I recognized the harsh vibrations from reobservation in my throat area. Then they dissipated, and there was calmness. Piti. More calmness. A widening. An altered sense of touch. A feeling of getting drawn into something. Then I kind of blanked out, lost mindfulness, realized that, came back, struggled back and forth with that, got lost in dreamlike stories I cannot recall. Piti and sukkha are there. Sati goes on vacation somewhere down the line. Why do I send it away? What are the mental processes that result in me going dull instead of taking note of what I sense? Am I blocking something out? Or have I exhausted all my concentration power? Both?

What brought on piti this time was the love for my cat who brushed his fur against me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 5:23 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I sat for 20 minutes just to check in with the vibrations. The first couple of minutes or so I recognized the harsh vibrations from reobservation in my throat area. Then they dissipated, and there was calmness. Piti. More calmness. A widening. An altered sense of touch. A feeling of getting drawn into something. Then I kind of blanked out, lost mindfulness, realized that, came back, struggled back and forth with that, got lost in dreamlike stories I cannot recall. Piti and sukkha are there. Sati goes on vacation somewhere down the line. Why do I send it away? What are the mental processes that result in me going dull instead of taking note of what I sense? Am I blocking something out? Or have I exhausted all my concentration power? Both?

What brought on piti this time was the love for my cat who brushed his fur against me.


I am aware that checking in with the vibrations and attributing a stage to them might contribute to map obsession in the sense of striving too much, but I actually don’t think that’s the main reason that I do it. At least it’s definitely not the only reason. Recognizing where I am at makes me feel safe. It gives me an idea what challenge it is that I need to take on, what aspects of my self that needs to be dismantled at this point. It helps me to see over and over again that everything is temporary, and to observe patterns. Eventually I will probably have to let go of my need to feel safe, too, but for now it keeps me going.
J C, modified 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 5:25 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/29/19 5:25 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I sat for 20 minutes just to check in with the vibrations. The first couple of minutes or so I recognized the harsh vibrations from reobservation in my throat area. Then they dissipated, and there was calmness. Piti. More calmness. A widening. An altered sense of touch. A feeling of getting drawn into something. Then I kind of blanked out, lost mindfulness, realized that, came back, struggled back and forth with that, got lost in dreamlike stories I cannot recall. Piti and sukkha are there. Sati goes on vacation somewhere down the line. Why do I send it away? What are the mental processes that result in me going dull instead of taking note of what I sense? Am I blocking something out? Or have I exhausted all my concentration power? Both?

What brought on piti this time was the love for my cat who brushed his fur against me.

You low on sleep by any chance?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 12:47 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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J C:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I sat for 20 minutes just to check in with the vibrations. The first couple of minutes or so I recognized the harsh vibrations from reobservation in my throat area. Then they dissipated, and there was calmness. Piti. More calmness. A widening. An altered sense of touch. A feeling of getting drawn into something. Then I kind of blanked out, lost mindfulness, realized that, came back, struggled back and forth with that, got lost in dreamlike stories I cannot recall. Piti and sukkha are there. Sati goes on vacation somewhere down the line. Why do I send it away? What are the mental processes that result in me going dull instead of taking note of what I sense? Am I blocking something out? Or have I exhausted all my concentration power? Both?

What brought on piti this time was the love for my cat who brushed his fur against me.

You low on sleep by any chance?


Uhm... yup... all the time. I didn’t even think of that obvious reason. Of course. I need to sleep more. I’m so used to not having enough sleep that I didn’t even consider it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 12:41 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Heh, I just saw the visual effect, on the black screen, of going from total dullness to being alert when my second morning alarm went off. The darkness gradually collapsed into one single point in the middle of the screen. The dark area was circular throughout the process. It took maybe a second.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 1:29 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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One of the reasons that I apprecite the series ”The magic of mindfulness” so much is that there’s a woman in the group who asks all the questions that I would like to ask. She even covers those times when I didn’t quite hear what Culadasa said, and asks him to repeat. Bless her!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 3:58 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Off cushion reflections: I think my distribution of how consciousness is used diverges from what is common. Because of how my brain is wired due to being an autistic human being with ADHD and Tourette’s, I’m prone to hyperfocus from birth, but also to be easily distracted (probably because so much of my consciousness goes into one thing at a time, leaving little scope for keeping track of where my attention is going). Because of the difficulties that I have met in daily life, I have acquired a rather unusual (for a non-meditator) metacognitive reflection skill in certain respects whereas I’m obviously less trained than average in other respects. That’s one kind of peripheral awareness, with subordinate skill sets depending on areas. For me the extent to which I have cultivated these different kinds of metacognitive reflections (the subordinate skill sets) varies enormously. That’s why I’m usually able to avoid reactive patterns* in my romantic relationships even if we are dealing with stuff that would be very unsettling to most people, but I struggle to notice the exact poing where my mind is going dull or I’m about to forget where and when I am (which used to happen a lot before I started on ADHD medication).

When it comes to outrospective peripheral awareness I had an unusual level of awareness of bodily sensations to start with when I took up meditation (although it tended to vary), whereas my peripheral awareness of what was going on outside of my body was extremely poor, as was also my spatial awareness.

Realizing this helps me to understand what is happening in my mind and what needs work in order to improve my abilities both to meditate and function in daily life.

*) What helped to to develop this kind of metacognitive awareness was a series of meeting with a children’s psychologist when my son was four years old. Because he has inherited some of my ways of being neurodivergent, he struggled with some things very intensely, and I wanted to meet him in a more perceptive way. I struggled so hard with this that I ended up being inconsistent. I was the ”perfect” attentive parent in the beginning of the week and axhausted and reactive by the end of the week. I realized of course that this was definitely not beneficial for my son. I went to this psychologist because I wanted to learn how to be more perceptive throughout the week and because I wanted some feedback on what challenges and expectations were beneficial for my son and what was unreasonable, because I knew from my own experience that the expectations on an autistic child are usually not fair at all. Still, some challenges are required for all human beings if we are to grow. It turned out that the psychologist saw something else. I was already very perceptive towards my son, but not to my own needs, and I was exhausting myself. I needed to set boundaries that worked for me as well. If I did that I would have enough capacity to stay perceptive in a consistent way. This revolutionized my relationships. It took some hard work to learn to recognize the subtle cues of my body and the patterns of my mental processes to see what was coming up and take care of my needs in a timely fashion instead of suddenly being overwhelmed by emotions and automatic thoughts. It also took some hard work to learn how to communicate this to my son and to others in a constructive way, especially if the other person had their own reactive patterns that came into play. Furthermore, it took some patience and determination (and too often a lot of frustration) to wait for some people to accept my new boundaries. I sometimes forget how much work this was, and take this developed awareness for granted. The way many people get stuck in unnecessary conflicts continues to surprise me. I find myself wondering how on earth they did not see that one coming and dealt with it before it blew out of proportions. I need to remind myself that this kind of awareness takes a lot of work to build up, and not everyone has the resources to do so. The psychologist I was seeing was a blessing. I’m forever grateful to her.

And yet I fail to recognize the connection between staying up too late and getting dull and blanking out in meditative practice. That’s funny in a way. It’s great to have feedback from wise people.

Maybe there is a lot if identication going on with that particular set of mental processing that does not want to waste time on sleeping. That’s something to contemplate.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 4:27 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Off cushion reflections: I think my distribution of how consciousness is used diverges from what is common. Because of how my brain is wired due to being an autistic human being with ADHD and Tourette’s, I’m prone to hyperfocus from birth, but also to be easily distracted (probably because so much of my consciousness goes into one thing at a time, leaving little scope for keeping track of where my attention is going). Because of the difficulties that I have met in daily life, I have acquired a rather unusual (for a non-meditator) metacognitive reflection skill in certain respects whereas I’m obviously less trained than average in other respects. That’s one kind of peripheral awareness, with subordinate skill sets depending on areas. For me the extent to which I have cultivated these different kinds of metacognitive reflections (the subordinate skill sets) varies enormously. That’s why I’m usually able to avoid reactive patterns* in my romantic relationships even if we are dealing with stuff that would be very unsettling to most people, but I struggle to notice the exact poing where my mind is going dull or I’m about to forget where and when I am (which used to happen a lot before I started on ADHD medication).

When it comes to outrospective peripheral awareness I had an unusual level of awareness of bodily sensations to start with when I took up meditation (although it tended to vary), whereas my peripheral awareness of what was going on outside of my body was extremely poor, as was also my spatial awareness.


Considering this, there’s no wonder why I have spent so much time in the dukkha nanas. After all, that’s where peripheral awareness is cultivated. I probably really needed to work on a lot of this from scratch. And I did, in some respects. Those were valuable lessons.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 6:07 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Today I’m fairly equanimous of having pms, and fairly mindful of the limitations of my mindfulness. I’m grateful for having realized that pms diminishes my capacity for peripheral awareness. That’s why I keep bumping into things and drop things and happen to throw away things while making gestures and things like that. Good to know. Then I can take some measures to be more careful, maybe slow things down a bit and take in the information that I need and be compassionate towards myself.
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 1/31/19 12:54 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 1/31/19 12:54 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Today I’m fairly equanimous of having pms, and fairly mindful of the limitations of my mindfulness. I’m grateful for having realized that pms diminishes my capacity for peripheral awareness. That’s why I keep bumping into things and drop things and happen to throw away things while making gestures and things like that. Good to know. Then I can take some measures to be more careful, maybe slow things down a bit and take in the information that I need and be compassionate towards myself.
There's a common misconception that more meditation experience equals more mindfulness equals more "being careful, being precise, being aware, acting generally flawless..."

But in my experiences this isn't the case. This is especially obvious on retreat. If I meditate at home, there are different conditions in the meditation, which somewhat carry over into the rest of the day. But on retreat, those conditions are magnified, and are much more obvious.
And the truth is, some of those conditions make you... clumsy.
On retreat, I've almost fallen down the stairs.
I have burned myself with hot water from the electric water boiler.
I have accidentally kicked the house cat.
I'm generally not a clumsy person, these things would probably never happen to me off retreat.
So the obvious idea is that meditating makes me into a super-mindful-human being who is immune against these things.
... Well, not going to happen.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/31/19 11:50 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I’m not expecting meditation to take away my pms symptoms. I was just describing my personal experience of how mindfulness in daily life is helpful for me. When I manage to be more mindful of my own limitations, it makes life so much easier. That’s why I’m trying to take certain meditation techniques with me in daily life. Being more metacognitively aware of my limitations is something that I have been working on for a decade. It does help.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/30/19 4:56 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I sat for 30 minutes, focusing widely on the breath. There was piti as soon as I closed my eyes, then calmness and an altered sense of touch. Sometimes there was a subtle sense of spaciosness, sometimes a subtle sense of shifting gravity. For maybe the first half there was a strong sense of being present and aware of shifting mind states in addition to being with the breath. Later I lost that meta-cognitive awareness several times, but I came back to it over and over again. I sat on a cushion on the mat and it was comfortable. Far away in the peripheral awareness there was some minor pain, but that seemed irrelevant. Somewhere in the session there was a vague sense of threedimensional space on the visual black screen.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 1/31/19 2:46 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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This evening I did the guided meditation by Culadasa in ”The magic of mindfullness, part 9”, 46-47 minutes long. It aims at learning the difference between peripheral awareness and shifting attention and at learning to check in on one’s mind state on a regular basis to avoid dullness. That suits my needs at this point.

There was immediate piti and sukkha as soon as I closed my eyes. First a bit too much (it made me shiver), then calmer.

It was good to have someone remind me to check in with my mental state, because I did go into a dreamlike state several times. At one point I was back at Malta with my son that time when all our money was stolen and a stranger helped us find our way to the police station and gave us some money and something to eat. I really thought I was there. I did remember to check in with my mind state inbetween the reminders too. I had to redirect my attention back to the breath here and now several times.

Towards the end of the session I noticed that eye movements seemed to shift the quality of piti or take it away completely. If I turned my gaze straight upwards between my eyebrows, the whole body piti transformed into vibrations of the chest. If I gazed upwards and to the side as if to remember something, it stopped immediately. Maybe there was a subtle thought there that I wasn’t aware of that stopped the calm concentration. It seems likely that it wasn’t the eye movements themselves that caused the piti to stop, but the mental processes that are accompanied by certain eye movements. I couldn’t replicate it in a reliable way by just moving the gaze, but when I tried to remember exactly where I had directed my eyes, that mental process seemed to do the trick every time. This little investigation caught my interest enough to prevent me from going dull again. Curiosity is the key, it seems. Of cource.

I was able to sit on a cushion on the mat the whole time without being bothered by legs falling asleep. I did straighten my position a few times, though.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/1/19 7:41 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes, focus on breath by the nose. Sat on cushion on mat.

Was curious about the red dot that I saw by the nose during yoga class when focusing on breath by the nose. Couldn’t see it in any condensed form now, was distracted by expectations. Did see very faint larger versions of it, though, I think.

Early in the session slight distraction from thoughts: planning how to describe experiences here on this forum. There seems to be a lot of identification stories going on with regard to meditative practice.

In the middle of the session (?) there was a shift in mind state into something more spacious and effortless. The breath was very subtle and pleasant.

Later in the session stuff came up from unconsciousness. Sometimes it was dreamlike and dissipated as soon as I was aware of it. At times I was able to observe the content that came up without forgetting about observing. Unfortunately I no longer remember what it was. Now I feel a bit annoyed by that. As I recall it, it wasn’t scary or shameful, so why can’t I remember it?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/2/19 3:07 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes, breath at the nose. Started out with a headache. Noise around me. Was a bit annoyed at first, had to redirect focus from sounds and emotional reactions and thoughts. There were purple swirls spiralling on the black screen. They formed a circle. Then the noise became easier to just let be there in the background. There was rapture and calm and I didn’t feel my headache anymore. At one point there was a small image in the middle of the black screen. It looked like something was written in ornate letters. It was too dark to read, so I used the bright dot to light it up. It made the letters more visible but I still couldn’t read it. I then thought ”Hey, there’s a bright dot here that I can use as a light!” That made both the bright dot and the text disappear. I remembered that I should focus on the breath sensations, so I did. There were more dreamlike stories that came up that I can’t recall now.

I really need to sleep more.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/3/19 6:15 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes, breath by the nose, noting in and out and distractions.

I tend to slide between concentration and dullness and I need to work more on recognizing the difference. There is a certain flavour to it when the breath changes quality. It is lighter and still stands out more clearly, and there is breath where the hands touch the knees as well. It is pleasant and calm, and somehow that makes me relax in a way that allows unconscious stuff to come to the surface, and that’s where I forget what I’m doing and sort of start to dream instead. Not daydreams. It’s more like sleep dreams, although I’m not asleep. I forget to observe.

...

Yesterday night before I went to sleep I investigated my headache and found that the preassure sensations in it behave just like other pressure sensations. When investigated closely the wavelike quality dissolves and instead there are sensations of pressure arising and passing rapidly on various points. The mind tries to make something continuous of it, resulting in the weird perception of a larva crawling under my skin. I knew that meant that it wasn’t continuous. Disentangled from mental constructions like that, the pain was very managable.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/4/19 6:49 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Off cushion reflections:

There seems to be a lot of sentimentality coming up out of ”my” control. These are processes that probably depend on circumstances that I’m not fully conscious about. I guess it’s true that it’s not my doing. Patterns live their own lives. Still there is identification going on, which is kind of weird. It is a bit hurtful because it makes me mourn times that are forever lost. Yet, they weren’t that great and I know that. I spent much time back then dreaming of another life whereas nowadays I’m often rather content with the present. It’s like I miss the dreams, but they were never real in the first place, so how can they even be lost? Some of them even came true. It doesn’t seem to matter. It’s like I miss those dreams as much as the ones that did not come true. There are probably parts of me that notice the dukkha that is part of it all and keeps resisting it, as if that would do any good. Resistence is what causes the suffering. Thus, resisting these processes is probably just as useless. I’ll have to observe them patiently, however irriational they are.

There is also a subtle satisfaction (?) arising from the fact that these patterns keep repeating themselves, because it makes me feel that nothing is ever truly lost. That satisfactions is however paired with sadness and nostalgia. There is a lot of clinging going on here. At this point I don’t know how to let go of it. I guess everything that has happened keeps affecting what follows it, so in that sense nothing is truly lost, but that’s something quite different from trying to hold on to something that is frozen.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/4/19 8:00 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes noting with breath sensations as default but openness to other sensations, perceptions etc.

I’m not sure exactly where the difference is between moving attention and awareness, and I decided to not bother with trying to decide that for now. Maybe I still need to let my attention move in order to develop that wider awareness, and if so, then let it be so.

A lot of restlessness in the beginning, and some thoughts. I noted it the way it turned out. Then rapture and calmness took turns. With the rapture came a red dot in the center of the black screen. Breathing was easy. There was a lightness.

Then a leg fell asleep. First it didn’t bother me, but then I decided to take care of it. I massaged the leg and kept on trying to focus on the breath. I realized that was probably not such a good idea. The leg bothered me more and more. Thus I decided to focus on the rubbing sensations instead. That worked out better. After a while I realized that I had synchronized by breath with the rubbing and that the breath, the rubbing and a rocking of the body were all integrated into one thing. Somewhat later I could sit still again.

Less spacing out this time. I did have sort of a dream, but I regained mindfulness soon enough to actually remember it this time. It was about the Buddha entering into something (a cave but perhaps also a state of mind or a realm) in the form of a bird, which by someone was seen sort of as a deception. Therefore that someone (which looked like a character in a film that I saw yesterday: a researcher with good aspirations but harmful behavior) chose to enter the same cave as they were instead. I don’t know how that played out.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/4/19 11:16 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/4/19 10:51 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I added another session, same thing, 20 minutes. In the very beginning I had to let one of my cats in, though, because it’s freezing cold outside and lots of snow. I regained focus quickly.

No dreams this time. There were some thoughts but I redirected my attention each time.

Most of the times when I heard something, the other senses were there immediately. There were no separate sensations presenting themselves, but larger portions of constructed reality coming through, if that makes any sense. I didn’t draw conclusions about my surroundings based on what I heard; it was just there, immediately and vividly, with all its qualities - sounds, images, density, smell, touch, texture, intentionality (my son and cats).

Where are the waves/vibrations? I can’t find them. Instead there is lightness, sort of. I feel less anchored. It’s weird. It’s more difficult to tune into. There is a vague sense of motion but nothing to hold on to. There is breath everywhere, but the breath is so light and unsolid.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/5/19 3:25 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes. The first 15 minutes were spent on adjusting the sitting position due to muscle inflammation that I really don’t want to make worse. When I finally got it right, there was a subtle widening and deepening. I could feel the breath in my thighs and hands where they touched. It was expanding and contracting. Thoughts about what it would be like to develop the kind of sensory clarity that would make the breath tangible in my middle toes. Redirected focus back to sensory experiences of the breath. Thoughts about what to write here; there is some identity project going on here with vanity and perhaps inferiority complex. Redirected focus back to sensory experiences. Towards the end there was lightness, almost as if I could levitate.

If I were to have the experience of levitating, it would probably be interrupted by thoughts of describing it. At least the vain observer mental processes keep me from spacing out. I guess I kind of got what I asked for. Now could I please get rid of the vanity part? Oh well, I can always learn to observe the observer more diligently. That is something to explore. I guess I should also observe the mental processes that want to get rid of other mental processes rather than just observe them. That’s resistance. Ironically, it is also vanity. I guess striving for the end of striving is as inevitable as it is paradoxical.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/5/19 3:36 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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That heightened awareness of peripheral body parts kicked in too. I’m still struggling with how to describe it. This time it included a small muscle in the shoulders. It is as if they are feeling themselves and share the information with my mind telepathically. Do they become self aware? I don’t know.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/5/19 4:04 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/5/19 4:04 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Today during yoga class I temporarily sensed harsh vibrations in my throat and chest area just like I seem to do when in reobservation. Then they disappeared.

This evening I sat again for 20 minutes, noting. Within the first few minutes there was what I perceive as rapid cycling: intense rapture followed by vibrations that grew harsher and harsher and then suddenly disappeared into calmness. This happened three times in rapid succession. Then I sensed another spell of rapture developing, but this time I thought maybe I’m clinging to these strong sensations and decided to let it go. The rapture calmed down and gave way to a widening. There was calm. There were soft waves. There was more rapture, but in a calmer way. There was heightened peripheral awareness (or maybe covert attention, I don’t know). I checked to see if the center of my focus was blurred, but it wasn’t. No spacing out. Some distracting thoughts arose but I redirected my attention back to sensations.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/5/19 4:19 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/5/19 4:19 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I would say that impermanence is pretty obvious by now.

I also have the sense that these processes live their own life. They do what needs to be done. There is no self in control of it. There is a constructed and dependent self that has the subjectice experiences of having agency, but it chooses to do what it’s ready to do. The latter very much depends on the processes rather than the other way around.

Paradoxically these processes involve a lot of craving - craving for relief from craving. Dukkha is inevitable as part of the path. There is also clinging to certain experiences that are easier to demarcate than the subtler ones.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/6/19 6:21 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/6/19 6:11 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes noting with breath sensations as default.

The first few minutes were distracted by thoughts, but I redirected focus back to breath sensations. I adjusted my position several times because I’m prone to inflammation.

No spacing out. I did however notice that the breath slid back into peripheral awareness as thoughts came up. It was as if some mental processes thought that I didn't need to focus on the breath so they could occupy the focus instead. When I redirected attention back to the breath, I could feel the breath in several parts of the body and the mind screen brightened up. There was sort of a faintly glowing red cloud with flourescent purple swirls in it. It is easy to feel the breath where the hands touch the thighs, but now I could also feel the breath all over my arms and torso.

There was some rapture that when it calmed down for a moment had the quality of vibrations. Are piti and the vibrations the same phenomenon?

There was a sense of things being out of synch with each other, like streams or winds colliding.

In the end I used pain in lower back as focus as it drew attention. It seemed fo increase concentration a bit. The mind screen deepened and there was a lot of movement.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/6/19 5:23 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/6/19 5:21 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I sat for another 34 minutes, focusing widely on breath sensations but noting distractions. There were sensations of the breath in the nose, in the sinuses, on the lips, on the forehead, in the throat, chest, diafragm, belly, thighs, fingertips, hands, arms, shoulders, and feet. There were some distractions - external sounds (my son was coughing a lot), my cat lying down next to me, thoughts mostly in the beginning - but I redirected attention back to breath sensations. There were seven instances of subtle dullness that made me forget to observe for a very brief moment. When I noted them, the mind screen brightened. Unconscious content came up during several or maybe all of these instances. There isn’t one integrated self, but lots of mental processes going on. There is no I that controls what comes up. There is no continuity either. When other mental processes than those intending to meditate take charge of the attention, sometimes there is no recollection of meditation as the ongoing activity. When mental processes intending to meditate redirect focus back to breath sensations, the agenda that just a moment ago was in charge is now forgotten. The mind is in constant conflict with itself, especially when in a reactive mode. Feeling good about noticing subtle dullness, rather than judging, seemed to cultivate more such noticings. I cannot recall what I was thinking or sensing for those seconds or half seconds that I forgot to observe. Different mental processes keep secrets from each other, or maybe it is more accurate to say that the internal communication isn’t very effective in this rather obscure and poorly managed organization that constitutes my mind. There is nobody in charge that has knowledge of all processes involved, and there are probably many conflicting goals and agendas. Different fractions take the steering wheel at different points in time. No wonder we keep moving in circles.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/7/19 2:56 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/7/19 2:56 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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So... Today apparently there are strong chaotic vibrations off cushion. Still things to learn from the dukkha nanas then. Well, bring it on! Splinter off another layer!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/7/19 3:45 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/7/19 3:42 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Sat for twenty minutes, noting, breath sensations as default but with openness to other sensations.

Some restlessness in the beginning.

Rapture, harsh vibrations and tranquility took turns over and over again. Investigated three characteristics.

Thought: why investigate suffering in things like breath? Felt ungrateful. It is what it is, and it keeps the body alive. Why complain?

There was a shift where density decreased. Spaciousness, lightness, wideness. It was somewhat brighter. Awareness of breath in different parts of the body was immediate.

It felt as if the breath lived its own life.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/7/19 4:10 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Sat for 30 minutes, noting.

Started out with rough harsh vibrations in throat area. They turned into rapture and then there was calmness and wideness and lightness.

At some point there was a demarcated shift in gravity. I felt much lighter.

Towards the end more and more dullness. Each time I realized that and came back, the mind screen brightened.

I spaced out and lost myself in thoughts and dreamlike associations. I know that I had some dreamlike ”insights” about meditation that were probably rubbish; I can’t remember them now, and I suspect that’s for the best. Clearly there are mental processes that don’t agree that meditation is a real activity but assess that the attention is free from them to take into possession.

Sitting was very comfortable.

...

Today I have had harsh vibrations going on but I moved the identification point into something very calm and peaceful that was observing. I let the vibrations be. I felt no need to identify with them or avoid them. Eventually they subsided.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/7/19 4:31 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/7/19 4:31 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Oh yeah, now I remember... being in the open calmness I felt that there was nothing to hold on to and I was wondering what to do with all this spaciousness. At that point I went into dullness and had dreamlike fantasies about making the world a better place. Yeah well... that would be nice. I doubt that I had any practical solutions, though. The dullness was probably a reaction to being in unfamiliar territory and freaking out about it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/8/19 10:44 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/8/19 10:44 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes, breath sensations as default, openness to whatever arose.

Piti was there from the beginning but soon calmed down.

There were some distracting thoughts with emotional charge. It was easy to see that the part of my mind that was occupied with these thoughts held on to ideas of a separate self which created suffering. That insight calmed down the thoughts,

Breath sensations were discernable on various places of the body including the ear lobes. There was a heightened sense of touch and a heightened awareness of the breath in my body.

More and more unconscious processing bubbled up and hijacked my attention. I brought back mindfulness several times. It is obvious that the mind consists of many different processes and that there is noone in charge and noone that has an overview.

Memories bubbled up from when I lived together with my ex-husband: looking out from our kitchen window. It was as if I was there. Some part of me objected that my current kitchen view doesn’t look like that, but it took som effort to remember what it really looks like. I had to shift not only the scenery but also the perspective because I now live on the bottom floor whereas back then I lived on the fourth floor. Remembering that made me come back to the here and now and regain mindfulness about doing meditation.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/8/19 5:14 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/8/19 5:14 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes, following instructions from my phone call with Michael Taft. I wanted to know what to do with the spaciousness I have come across lately. I was adviced to use it to investigate my sense of self. The sense of self was defined as emotional body sensations, mental images, and mental talk. Before I have mainly worked with physical body sensations and have experienced them dissolving into vibrations and disappear. Now I am to do the same thing with my sense of self. This was described with references to Shinzen Young’s sensory grid and what he calls ”focus in”. Since I’m very kinesthetic I needed to make some adjustments.

5 minutes touch out (physical sensations of touch):
It took me some time to settle in to focus only on touch sensations. I probably need to start with just sitting and kind of establishing where I am am and what distractions there are first. I was a bit distracted, but I redirected focus back to touch sensations. Sensations of sitting, breath, body parts touching each other, the texture of my clothes etc. Within this time frame I didn’t get to dissolve the sensations. They still appeared pretty solid.

5 minutes touch in (mental sensations of touch - thoughts that are kinesthetical, imagining touch; I include the chemical senses here too):
They appeared often. I do this quite a lot. For instance, my son has tics just like me and he cleared his throat quite a lot. I could feel that as if I was the one doing it. It was a bit confusing, though, because the sensation was located where my son was although my throat wasn’t there. When I investigated the sensation, it kind of flickered back and forth between my throat and my son. Sometimes there was also a wiff of my son’s smell accompanying the touch sensation. When I heard my cats there were often touch sensations as if I were petting them, but there were also touch sensations as if I were them. When Zeke was sharpening his claws on my chaisse lounge, I could feel my claws gripping the fabric and the resistance from the texture when I pulled then out. I could also feel the texture of the fabric as it would feel against my fingers, at the same time. Again, I had the distinct perception of this happening over there, not where my body was really located. It happened too quickly for me to be able to investigate it further. At this point, the ”touch out” sensations were no longer solid.

5 minutes feel (body sensations with an emotional component):
At this time there was mostly rest. Relaxation, neutral emotion, maybe some subtle sense of anxiety beneath the surface. Rootlessness, maybe. I had difficulties locating emotions in my body within this time span.

5 minutes image (mental images):
A lot of rest. When I heard sounds I could often imagine what the source of the sounds looked like. I didn’t see those images on any screen, but they were located geographically at the same places as in ”reality”. When I heard a car outside my window behind me, I saw the car driving by on the road outside of my patio behind the treas/bushes and fence that would block the view. Sometimes I saw zoomed in details, sometimes more zoomed out images. They were always located at their real geographical locations. Sometimes I also saw images of sounds. That kind of image tended to be more in front of me, I think. These images flashed by really quickly. They were abstract and matched the sound in their extension, sort of. I didn’t get very much detail. I didn’t have any conscious visual thoughts coming from ”inside” but I could sense some subconscious activity going on under the surface. (By this time, I had a heightened sense of touch and a sense of widening, but it was still rather dense.)

5 minutes talk (mental talk; I included mental ”vocalizations” of clearing throats as well):
This was a bit tricky because the talk wouldn’t come out when I focused on talk, but as soon as I let my garde down it sneaked out kind of behind my back. I repeated it in order to get a sense of its phenomenology. It was a mix of many different components. There was the physical sensations of forming the sounds in my mouth, vibrations in my throat and chest, sound, images of text, density and colour and texture of the words/letters/sounds (I’m synesthetic) and the kinesthetic sensations of making gestures and shifting body positions while talking. The talk commented on things, analyzed and searched for concepts that would suit an audience (often this forum, sometimes Michael Taft). Sometimes the talk seemed to come from ”over there”, sometimes from my body (throat, chest, posture). The latter involved more of a sense of self. The talk that came from somewhere else was still very much sensations from the throat and chest, but at the same time it came from another direction, which was a bit weird. These were the comments that just popped up out of the blue. The search for concepts and more elaborate analyses seemed to emanate from my body. When I investigated that kind of talk more closely things got kind of wobbly and swirling and pulsating, but I didn’t get any details.

5 minutes focus in (all the above except for touch out):
This is actually easier for me than trying to separate the sense gates, because different senses tend to come together for me. When I hear a sound during meditation I don’t really perceive it as a sound. I perceive a whole bunch of impressions immediately. Kinesthetics, images and often also smells are there immediately. In order to perceive it as a sound I have to use logic. I know that it must be sound because my eyes are closed and my physical body is not over there. I have learned to apply that kind of logic very rapidly, but it’s still logic.

At this point of the session emotional body sensations were much more accessible. Investigating mental talk drew me into spaciousness and that made pressure sensations arise around my heart (fear) and there was a sense of being drawn out (?) through solar plexus (nausea). Anxiety arose with prickly sensations all over my body and harsh vibrations in the throat, but as I focused on them they transformed into piti and rapture throughout my body accompanied by flourescent swirls shining very brightly.

...

I’ll work on this to refine my sensory clarity and investigate more diligently. I’ll try out different variations.

This was fun!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/8/19 5:39 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/8/19 5:33 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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A thought: I really enjoy having things transform into vibrations. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been really interested in the breath. The breath is vibratory from the beginning. These vibrations do shift character, but that’s much more subtle than solid body parts dissolving into waves and being sucked out from one’s own solar plexus. Maybe later on when my sensory clarity has increased I will be able to find the same fascination for the breath as well. 

I know that I approach this kind of backwards, but that’s how I’m wired.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 5:59 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 5:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I used the same set up as last time. Wow, this practice is definitely not boring.

Touch out:
I used breath sensations and sitting sensations to anchor myself. At this point the touch sensations were stable.

Touch in:
This immediately feels less limited. The world is alive, vivid and embodied and full of density, textures, smells, motions. I’m there, in the world, not only in my body. This also makes the physical touch sensations shift character. They are more alive and breathing.

Feel:
There were some subtle anxious expectation and a somewhat more tangible confusion. I located the confusion to my forehead and moved into it. It seemed that the center of it was the point between my eye brows, the third eye, but it had sort of a cloud around it. It intensified and drew me into space and became pulsating flourescent light and intense rapture. A psychedelic light show drew my attention (yeah... and I just wrote in another thread that I was at a stage where these kinds of phenomena were less intense...). I was trying not to focus on the visual, but then the bell rang and it was time for the visual.

Image:
Now that I was allowed to focus on the visual, there was mostly visual rest. There was some subtle movement and I could sort of feel that there were images there under the surface but they didn’t come up. The outer world made some noices that brought with them hasty faint images but they didn’t really catch my attention. They were in my peripheral awareness. There was a sound that kept drawing my attention, like a tick-tocking that maybe was my heartbeat, but if so, it was fast and didn’t sound like a heartbeat. It sounded kind of hollow. I noticed that it was synchronized with the movement of visual swirls.

Talk:
I had to wait for a little while for the talk to come up. It seemed to have different sources. Some came from my solar plexus. It felt like it was about how I felt and it hade a lot of ”me” to it. More polished analytical comments came from the throat area. It felt more brainy and more invested in appearances. Some more intuitive talk, mostly questions, came frome outside my head, slightly above, in front of and sort of from the right. The talk from solar plexus was the most embodies, but they were all embodied. The talk from outside of my body was most sound-like, but they all came with sounds. It’s difficult for me to get close enough to the sound to describe it phenomenologically. The talk from the throat was somehow connected to the harsh vibrations that I sometimes feel there, I think, but I’m not sure. Noticing this about the talk made things less dense and more open. It felt as if I spread out and became less dense, less solid.

Focus in:
Things got groovy here. I was very present there and then to observe, but efterwards it’s hard to remember the details, especially since I have been writing for a while now. I remember investigating something in the third eye region. Maybe it was a feeling? Yeah. It had to do with the spaciousness. There was an intense ride. Anxiety that felt like I was going to have a seizure, one of those psychogenic nonepileptic seizures that I have had - undiagnosed but I know what they are, and I also know that they are a distorted form of piti. I did not resist it, but let it come and be. It dissolved into intense rapture and brightly shining flourescent swirls. The rapture transformed into harsh vibrations in the chest and then setteled down into calm spaciousness. This happened over again, I think. Maybe the vibrations came back then? Around my heart? And maybe I moved into them and investigated them? There was intense rapture again. When the bell rang there were still sensations to disentangle so I continued for a while so that I could open my eyes in a more calm moment. I remember vaguely that at some point there was a pressure in the third eye region as if something wanted out. I also remember vaguely that maybe some of the flourescent swirls were something that had come out, and that I tried to feel myself in it. I don’t remember if I succeeded, but I remember not being sure about where ”I” was.

No, I don’t think this is A&P over again, although I know it looks like it. It doesn’t feel the same. I’m on the threshold between reobservation and low equanimity. This is how it manifests to me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:10 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:10 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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While waiting for my food to cook I did another twenty minutes, this time focusing broadly on all the categories (touch out, touch in, feel, image, talk). The clarity wasn’t great but I was able to zoom in on things to make them dissolve, mostly emotional body sensations. I was making some adjustments to my posture because I was feeling uncomfortable but stopped myself to instead investigate the feeling of being uncomfortable which was located in my back. The sensations were not that painful at all, it turned out. The feeling disappeared when I focused on it. I’m not sure if it did because of a murky center or if it actually dissolved. The pain and the emotion seemed to be gone afterwards. There was lightheadedness in my forehead. When I focused on it I seemed to be drawn backwards faster and faster but then it slowed down and sort of collided with a much slower rythm. Now there were really slow waves, slower than a second. They seemed to alternate between my left and right side. I felt it in my hands that touched my thighs. The rythm speeded up a bit to the familiar fear frequency but softer. I felt the sensations of the same kind of fear that freaked me out before, but much milder. There was a descriptive comment from the left side of the brain. It sounded detached. The meta-comment ”detached” came from somewhere in the upper middle of my body. I focused on the fear feeling to investigate it and thought ”Bring it on!” but there wasn’t much to it. I did the same thing with a feeling of nausea that came up. It dissolved too. Unfortunately I don’t remember any details. All these emotions were very subtle and their manifestations were vague.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:18 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:17 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I remember noticing a tendency to shut down the mental talk instead of investigating it, out of habit. I had to stop myself. If I remember correctly, letting the mental talk be instead of resisting it caused the space around me to widen.

I remember that some mental talk at one point was compulsory (due to my Tourette). There was a describing comment or maybe noting that had some sounds in it that stuck because of the sensations pronounciating it would make (it tends to trigger my tics). My Tourette is very kinesthetic.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:29 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:29 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Oh, and ”Feeling groovy” turned up again. I think I was both lead vocal and back vocal and also mimicking instruments and rhythms with my voice. All of this in the background. Maybe the original voices were there too? I don’t know. I only know two words of the lyrics, so it was a bit repetitive... It was the refrain over and over again, as a soundtrack, sort of.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:55 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Oh, and ”Feeling groovy” turned up again. I think I was both lead vocal and back vocal and also mimicking instruments and rhythms with my voice. All of this in the background. Maybe the original voices were there too? I don’t know. I only know two words of the lyrics, so it was a bit repetitive... It was the refrain over and over again, as a soundtrack, sort of.



HAHAHAHAHAHA! I had to listen to that tune to see what it’s about since it’s stuck to my brain since yesterday when I suddenly felt the need to use the word ”groovy”. That tune is like a caricature of equanimity. The subconscious mental processes of this mind have a bad sense of humor.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:31 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 7:55 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I did a twenty minutes sitting focusing solely on mental talk. It feels very tentative, I don’t know how to do this really. It was difficult to explore any mental talk more thoroughly. It seemed to come from different locations. It started with a voice singing ”feeling groovy”. It seemed to come from the right side of the brain. It was my own voice. It had an embodied feeling to it as well, as if it radiated out to the body. I could easily imagine the vibrations it would make if I were to sing it. The voice describing that, on the other hand, seemed to emanate from the left side of the brain. It was less embodied. It was possible to move into it, though, and sort of perceive things from that point. It didn’t really have much to say, though, which it said over and over again in different wordings (and empty gestures?) but with not that much of variation. Another voice was amused by that. ”That one didn’t have much to say”, it said sardonically. If it had had eye brows it would have raised one of them. It was located in the heart area. Someone said that was one judgemental bastard for a heart, which is ironical, but I couldn’t locate it. As it seemed that some voices were located at so called chakras (it could be scripted), I tried to listen to one of the lower chakras, but all I could hear was ”fuck”, so I backed away. They didn’t seem very talkative down there anyway. At one point the heart voice said ”Fuck!” too, or maybe it was the solar plexus. I don’t know. The heart was singing ”Feeling groovy” too, but it felt more like a statement this time. I tried to play some other tune to see from where it would come. Then a tune that my mum used to sing while cleaning the house came up. It’s a song about an old street where people used to live happily but the street is long gone and all the laughs are now silent. It came from the right side of the brain. It was my voice.

Visually there were swirls moving about, and it felt kind of... thin-aired. Oh yeah, thin-aired was the feeling (hm...) that I found at the third eye towards the end of the last session.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 8:05 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 8:05 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I know that content is irrelevant, but is it okay to be amused by the attitudes of these voices and the travesty-like quality of the session? I can’t help but chuckling.
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 8:55 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I know that content is irrelevant, but is it okay to be amused by the attitudes of these voices and the travesty-like quality of the session? I can’t help but chuckling.
No. Being amused is verboten. Meditation is serious business.emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 9:39 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 9:39 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Raving Rhubarb:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I know that content is irrelevant, but is it okay to be amused by the attitudes of these voices and the travesty-like quality of the session? I can’t help but chuckling.
No. Being amused is verboten. Meditation is serious business.emoticon


emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 9:08 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 9:00 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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When I tried to examine the descriptive voice more closely, at first I couldn’t. Then I realized that I was the descriptive voice at that point, trying to look at itself from the outside. Of course that wouldn’t work. I had to study it from the inside to make it talk again.

Hm, maybe this is the wrong track. It seems to be more imaginal work than insight work? But how does one go about to examine mental talk phenomenologically? A comment is so short. I’m not that fast. It’s not like I can record it and listen to it over and over and transcribe it in detail as I do with talk in my work. Not that I’m very good at descriping tone quality and prosody anyway. I have colleagues who are more qualified for that sort of thing.

The more I repeated a sequence of talk to myself, the more hollow and empty it seemed, and the more absurd it seemed to assign it a self. Is that phenomenological? I’m not sure how much of that is a sensate experience and how much is an evaluation. It could be a little bit of both. Maybe I could investigate that next time.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 9:14 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 9:14 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It seems like the interaction between processes is more central right now than detailed analysis at the narrow end anyway.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:35 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 10:35 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I should probably be careful with my wording. Talking about mental talk as different voices could perhaps solidify ideas of permanent personas. That’s not what it is. It’s just talk, arising and passing away.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 5:36 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/9/19 5:25 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes late at night, close to midnight

Touch out:
Heightened sense of touch instantly. Felt subtle vibrations in face with clarity. Easier to breath. Widening of passages from nostrils. Knees were breathing.

Touch in:
This one is a favourite. This focus makes the world more vivid and alive. It comes very naturally when I allow this sense gate to be open, although the touch sensations do not come alone. They come with a package of sensations. Images come easier this way, piggybacking on the kinesthetic sensations. It’s kind of a relief to open this gate. It’s strange, though... I get kinesthetic sensations that I shouldn’t be able to have, such as the sensations between the car wheels and the ground, as if I knew what that felt like. I have sensations for texture and density that differ from how the actual surfaces feel normally. I don’t even know if texture and density are the right words. It’s like I feel how things occupy space or something. Emotional body sensations arose here before the bell rang. My heart was racing. Parts of me were scared. I kept redirecting my attention to mental touch sensations. There were things going on in my sinuses and in my forehead. Don’t remember the details. So many things happen; maybe I should do voice recordings, and maybe I should try letting the process unfold itself and shift focus when needed instead of waiting for the bell to ring.

Feel:
Now that it was time to focus on emotional body sensations, they were less active than before. Instead I saw the mind screen kind of crackle into a net of fine lines. There was an intensity, though, under the surface. I felt activation in the visual field. Hard to explain.

Image:
Here I felt auditory activation instead. Apparently the processes developed faster than I had planned. The processes live their own lives. They seem to know the drill, though, and the order.

Talk:
There was both visual and auditory activation but the content and forms didn’t come up to the surface. There was an intense flickering of attention interfering and distorting.

Focus in:
I vaguely remember that something actually was dissolved into vibrations but I don’t remember what. A lot of dreamlike content came up and hijacked my attention.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/10/19 7:37 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/10/19 7:37 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I sat for about 90 minutes and was mindful all the time. I tried to record it (was talking) but only 28-29 minutes were recorded. Haven’t listened to it. I’m cold now. One knee hurts just a little bit but my body is fine. I focused on body sensations, mental kinesthetics, feelings, mental images and mental talk, or that was the idea, but since I talked out loud I didn’t bother with focusing on mental talk.

There were a lot of sensations of pressure and vacuum. Pressure in the forehead behind the third eye, vaccum as if something ws being sucked out of there, a sucking feeling in solar plexus (nausea). A lot of piti, often accompanied by a red dot (once or twice a blue dot) that then was replaced by a red cloud that dissolved. Sometimes I felt lightness, sometimes I felt really heavy (head, arms, whole body). Coldness, piti that turned into vibrations. Sometimes the piti was overwhelming. It often followed fear with heartbeating. Sometimes the sensory clarity was very strong. I could feal my heart expand and contract, and I felt that one part of it was expanding while another was contracting. The fear was accompanied by rapidly flicking flourescent swirls. There was visual motion, sometimes rotating, sometimes layers rotating, sometimes zooming in, sometimes zooming out. A lot of visual figure-ground shifts. There were gravity shifts and changes of density in space. I felt awareness of cars moving outside, as if I was the car. That led to a small seizure turning into overwhelming piti that then calmed down. For a while I vaguely saw an eye, I think, but I may have just imagined it. I remember feeling spread out. There were lots of fear and nausea and anxiety that turned into piti/vibrations and was followed by calm spaciousness. Instances of vertigo.

Everything was in constant flux.

Afterwards it took a while for the floor to feel solid again. After I had opened my eyes, I saw a faint bright un-dense dot in front of me that took a while to disappear.

This was weird. Not very pleasant. I guess it’s something that needs to be worked through.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/10/19 1:08 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/10/19 7:39 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I remember that for a while there were really slow waves alternating between left side and right side of my body.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I remember that for a while everything was very very bright, all around me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/10/19 12:39 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/10/19 12:39 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I did another sitting, 30 minutes this time, without talking. Now I was too relaxed, dull. I spaced out several times. In the end it felt as if my whole body tilted, but it didn’t.

Maybe I have run out of dopamine or something.

At least my body seems to have gotten used to sitting on a cushion on the mat.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 7:06 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 7:06 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Huh, I just noticed a weird thing that the mind does with sensations. I was watching one of Daniel’s vimeos, the one where he talks about Vipassana and the sense doors and three characteristics, and I was wearing headphones. Then I went away from the the table where my ipad was located, so I couldn’t watch the video of Daniel speaking, but I was still listening. That’s where the sound moved into the headphones, as if it wasn’t there before. The sound shifted its quality in a very tangible way, and I realized that when I was watching Daniel speak on the video, I didn’t hear him from my headphones like that. He wasn’t separated into image and sound from different sources, but was integrated (haha). What the h is that? Which one of these modes of perceptions is the mind trick? Or are they both? And how does it work? Now I can’t seem to get back that fully integrated version, which is annoying, because it made the experience so much more vivid.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 9:15 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 9:15 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes, 5 minutes per subheading.

Touch out (physical sensations):
Breath sensations throughout my body, much of it anyway. Not in specific toes or internal organs. Focusing like this made a faint red dot appear on a regular basis and then turn into a red cloud that faded away, over and over again.

Touch in (kinesthetic thoughts or whatever it is; maybe sometimes direct perception of formations):
It took a while to get there, but after a while I could tune into more and more kinesthetic experiences of things that I could realistically only perceive as sounds. In the beginning it was the cool air outside as I heard sounds from outside. Then the birds chirping had this weird quality to them where I heard every sound twice because the mental perception lagged behind of what was already in awareness. I felt weird tensions in my head when these double noticings bounced around. The first one in all these pairs had more of a kinesthetic quality to it and some kind of visual imprint as well. It was a more immediate impression and not distinguishable as merely a sound. Then the impressions tended to have more density and texture to them and to come together as a package of more than one sense.

Feel (emotional body sensations):
I tried to notice what I felt, but that mostly resulted in weird tensions moving around. When I tried to investigate the tension, the tension moved somewhere else. For a while if felt like my heart was trying to paddle its way upstreams, if that makes any sense. I came to think of what you people so often talk about, that there is no doer and so on, and I thought maybe it’s easier to just sort zoom in to any feelings where they are without trying to watch them. The tension decreased. Then these horrible drilling noices from another apartment started again (they are renovating). I usually think of them as horrible, so I though great, now a tangible feeling will arise. I felt it in my head, fiercely vibrating. I thought it would by irritation and despair, but it was only this loud sound and intense vibrations that turned into piti. I had lots of piti coming from that noice which I normally hate, because it was so intense and so... not me. In the hearing was only hearing, and that actually made the suffering temporarily go away. Weird.

Image (mental images):
I tried to focus on whatever mental images would arise, and as before, this resulted in weird tensions. Just before the last subsession ended there had been some visual aspect integrated in the hearing so I tried to tune into that, but it wasn’t accessible like that, separate. Instead I tuned into visual aspects of sounds in the present. It was somewhat easier, as none of the sounds are pure sounds anyway. Then after a while I noticed that my surroundings were there kind of by themselves. No need to look for images in thoughts about something alse than the present. There is a sense of the room that is around me and it has clear visual components regardless of whether or not I physically look at it.

I’m not sure I’m doing this right. I was supposed to see the images dissolve, but there are no images there to dissolve. My mind screen is dark with swirls on it just like it always is while there is also a simultaneous knowing of what is around me that has visual components but they cannot be watched. What am I supposed to do with this? I’m not a very visual person. I know what things look like but I don’t see them before me. I just know that they are there, where they are, and how they look being there. Wouldn’t it be more logical to just dissolve this ”I” who cannot even see the things because they are too far away?

Talk (mental talk):
It’s hard to have mental talk come up while I try to investigate it. A few formulations came up, though, and they seemed to come from about the same different directions that I mentioned before. The noting seemed to come from a position behind my throat or something like that. I have a hard time investigating the sound quality. It’s not that clear. I think that mental talk often comes up as a mix of kinesthetic sensations of vocalizing and making gestures, sound, and written text. I don’t see the text being written. It’s all at once but I think that I only focus on one keyword or something like that, so the rest of the text might as well be gibberish as it normally is in my dreams, if readable at all. It doesn’t transform into vibrations (apart from the vibrations they are already making in my throat and chest because that’s what sounds do) and dissolve. It’s just there and then it’s not. These discursive thoughts are so fast. How does one go about to investigate them phenomenologically? Please do tell!

Focus in (all of the above except for physical sensations that are not vibratory):
There was mostly a lot of pity during this subsession. Phenomena appeared in my consciousness not as separate sense impressions but as packages. It was a relief to just let them do that. It’s hard to focus on one sense at a time. It’s a bit like reading one letter at a time instead of just perceiving the whole word or phrase as it is there immediately.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 9:52 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 9:52 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I vaguely remember reacting with increased heart beat to something in this session, but I don’t remember what it was. It probably had something to do with the no self aspect, as it usually has.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 11:01 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 11:01 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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20 minutes focusing on watching the watcher.

Started with a sense of things flickering. It seemed like the visual field was flickering although it didn’t really look like it. Maybe it was attention moving in and out from the visual field.

I was trying to investigate feelings. There was a tension around my heart and that feeling of things being out of synch and as if the heart was trying to paddel upstreams.

There was an annoying sound outside, but as I was about to zoom in on the bodily sensations of it, the sound was gone. I found myself being annoyed that the cause for being annoyed was gone. I realized the irony in that, but as soon as I did, the feeling was gone. After that, the sound came back many times, but it wasn’t annoying anymore.

I talked out loud because I was trying to record this, but the recording failed. Anyway, sometimes discursive thoughts came up that I did not say out loud. For instance there were fragments of sentences, meaningless on their own. They manifested as a mix of kinesthetic sensations of vocalizing, inages of text, and sound. The written word ”maybe” slided down the bottom of an imaginary circle, and it had qualities of sound an kinesthetic sensations of vocalizing embedded in it. It’s strange how I can see that and yet not see that. I’m very aware of seeing the back of my eyelids and the visual swirls going on there. Those I actually see. Other visual aspects are not visual to the same extent. Maybe the ”self” is fixated on trying to see things with its actual eyes?

When my cat sneezed there were discursive thoughts regarding how I should maybe call the veterinary and start him on that medication again. These thoughts were in English, oddly enough. It seems that this forum and other English-speaking feedback channels are the audience for my thoughts during meditation even though they concern mundane matters that I usually speak about in Swedish. The ”watcher” seems to be concerned about audiences.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 11:14 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 11:14 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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At some point I noticed that there was music somewhere in the back of my mind. I tried to listen to it but it was like when your neighbors play music at such a low volume that you can only hear some rhythm and that it is music but not distinguish any melody. It was preconscious, I guess. Then I recognized that it was ”Feeling groovy” again, and now I could hear it, but soon it was mixed with the instrumental version of the signature music the the Swedish children’s movie ”Dunderklumpen” that was popular when I was a child.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 2:00 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 2:00 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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The wording ”watching the watcher” makes me cringe. Of course that’s not possible. As soon as the ”I” is being watched by the ”I”, the watched ”I” is no longer an ”I”, but a ”me”. The part that is watching cannot be watched by itself because of the perspective and because of the slight delay in time. I feel so bad about using that wording that I will not do it again. Ugh. There are definitely a lot of identification going on with logical mental processes in this mind. By the way, the cringing was located in many different muscles of my body. I was lying in a restorative yoga position but the body acativated muscles that it would need to get up and argue for this case.
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 5:11 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 5:11 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
When my cat sneezed there were discursive thoughts regarding how I should maybe call the veterinary and start him on that medication again. These thoughts were in English, oddly enough. It seems that this forum and other English-speaking feedback channels are the audience for my thoughts during meditation even though they concern mundane matters that I usually speak about in Swedish. The ”watcher” seems to be concerned about audiences.
Funny, this happened to me on my 2nd retreat. I was only allowed to talk to the teacher, who spoke english only. So the thoughts which appeared in meditation turned english, too.

I’m having weird dreams about doing people I would never normally do. I think parts of my unconscious have started to accept the idea of deconstructing my sense of self.
If it wasn't late at night, reading this would have made me laugh out loud. What an epic combination of observation and conclusion emoticon
But, more serious: do more meditation, and more and more weird things will occur in your mind, including (and maybe especially) in your dreams. I remember one instance where I was on retreat and I would report those dreams to the teacher and he could hardly stop laughing.
So, what is a good approach to these things? Some traditions recommend ignoring it all to avoid the danger of getting distracted. Some people obsess over these things and get distracted. Maybe some people get obsessed with the bad stuff and start to blame themselves for being bad. That would probably not be the best approach.
My personal approach is to collect the coolest things to have nice stories to tell, and otherwise keeping a "I don't have clue what this means but probably nothing at all"-attitude.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 5:36 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 5:33 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Good to know I’m not the only one.

Hehe, I thought it would be a waste not to share it although it’s a bit embarrassing. Maybe you would also appreciate the humor in the fact that one of them was wearing a pink fury onepiece with ears and a tail (possibly the Pink Panther) to a formal dinner and nobody seemed to react. He was supposed to be some kind of professor or guru or something, and his manners were horrible.

Yeah, I think it’s good to know that the emptiness seems to at least have some sense of humor. It makes it less frightening.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 4:05 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/11/19 4:05 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I’m having weird dreams about doing things (and people... uhm...) I would never normally do. I think parts of my unconscious have started to accept the idea of deconstructing my sense of self. At least I hope that’s what they are doing.
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 2:52 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 2:52 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I’m having weird dreams about doing things (and people... uhm...) I would never normally do. I think parts of my unconscious have started to accept the idea of deconstructing my sense of self. At least I hope that’s what they are doing.
On second thought, I think it's the other way round.
Actually, the mind keeps changing all the time even in non-meditators, but the change is so slow (at least in adults) that we fail to notice. (Reading old diary entries makes the change obvious though.) Then it is easier to imagine a fixed sense of self.
Then we start to meditate and all kinds of things happen in the mind. We recall stuff we thought we had forgotten, we face inner demons we'd rather not, we find love and gratitude and tenderness and peace we didn't think we'd be capable of, we experience mysterious visions, we discover more and more facets of suffering. For better or for worse, we are forced to accept that our minds are capable (and willing) of more things than we expected.

This process can give us hope, since we glimpse what our minds can be capable of. It can terrify us because we glimpse what our minds can be capable of. Either way, it becomes hard to hold on to our fixed notions of what we thought we were.

I guess this is not the same as insight into anatta on a really detailed level, and it's not the same as seeing the sense of self being subject to the 3Cs.
It's on a more intellectual level, and I think it's rather unavoidable.
A side effect is that suddenly, judging other people seems rather pointless, at least if they're meditators, too.
They may be another person tomorrow, so why bother emoticon

Maybe you would also appreciate the humor in the fact that one of them was wearing a pink fury onepiece with ears and a tail (possibly the Pink Panther) to a formal dinner and nobody seemed to react. He was supposed to be some kind of professor or guru or something, and his manners were horrible.
Sounds cool. On reflection, I can't recall similar stories. I guess this means I have more meditation to do emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 8:36 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 8:36 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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To Rhaving Rhubarb:

Yeah, true, the mind is constantly changing. There is not even one mind, just a huge bunch of mental processes that arise and pass away. They tend to follow certain patterns, though, albeit patterns that are in conflict with each other, and many of them identify with each other and cling to a sense of continuity.

I did write letters when I was a teenager, and it was comical and rather disturbing how much had changed the next time it was my turn to write. When I started a practice log here, I thought you people must think that I’m one of those rollercoaster personalities, but yeah, I guess that’s just the human nature. We tend to think of ourselves as separate and continuous entities, but no thoughts and no feelings are unique, and they all just bounce around.

Yes, these are intellectual thoughts, but intellectual thoughts also arise and pass away in the sensate reality. The thoughts per se are not Insights, but seeing them as they are (not buying in to their content), we can gain insights.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 8:17 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Meditated for 15 minutes at my desk at work, focusing in.

There was some minor agitation due to work-related performance anxiety (which is why I took a break to meditate). I tried to investigate the body sensations that it involved. They were subtle. There was a subjective experience of pressure around my heart and increased awareness of heart beats, and there was activation of muscles as of I was ready to take some action (fight or flight?). Apart from that I couldn’t really find much. The anxiety seemed to be more of a narrative than actual physical sensations. There was no pain. The heart beats seemed normal per se; it was just the awareness of them that had increased. After this, my body relaxed. I felt a movement where my hands touched my thighs and where my feet touched the floor. I know from before that this ”movement” turns into binary and discontinuous arisings and passings of pressure sensations at one point at a time when studied closely, but physical sensations were not the focus of my investigation right now. Instead I noticed that my mind-state had reached a certain level of concentration and clarity and that peripheral awareness was in place. I turned that inward.

I think I may have some kind of un-intentional embryo of a nimitta thing going on in my practice. It’s just something that I have noticed. When a certain flavor of concentration sets in, a colored spot appears. Color and shape varies. Most of the time it’s not very condensed. Anyway, I have started to notice some patterns. Therefore, when the spot appeared, it generated mental talk.

Mental talk usually starts out in my conscious awareness as semi-discursive. There’s an idea and there are sort of key concepts that have texture, color and density to them but the rest is fluff.* Then the thought appears again, with more actual words, and behaves as if it was new. There is an annoying bouncing going on there. It’s like one of those really annoying guys who rephrases what you just said and gets all the credit for it, and he does this all the time. Once I noticed this, the bouncing around was intense and frustrating. I noticed that this also happened with the noice from a solar cell driven cute plastic bear that wiggles its body on my book shelf (or did... I took it away from the light now, because ugh...). Just bouncing, bouncing, bouncing back and forth in my head (or perhaps rather between the actual occurance and a location in my head, but it felt like it was bouncing between the walls of my skull). I think the eye muscles were maybe involved in the conceptualizing, which may have added to the sensations of bouncing.

The bouncing reminded of when you are talking on the phone to someone who stands next to you and you notice that there is a constant delay, like an echo. I tried to make the delay go away by means of increasing the attention to minimize the time between the first knowing and the conceptual knowing. It was possible to decrease the delay to a minimum, but the bouncing remained. The bouncing was spatial.

A somewhat more condensed red dot appeared here, and then that familiar flickering sound in my right ear that feels like rapidly changing pressure. That sound is like an auditory version of the bouncing.

The bouncing in my mind was exhausting, so after a while I tried to just let impressions arise on their own. For a moment there was a richness of impressions coming from outside my window without effort. I was a bit surprised as to how vivid they were.

Then the session came to its end.

...

*) I have tried to investigate this before, how my thoughts appear, without thinking of it as meditation. I work with words and concepts - I’m a researcher and I write papers based on empirical research. Yet I have found that my ideas about what to focus on are not originally verbal. They are not visual either, but they sort of have a texture and density and an extension in space. I think maybe I have been aware of my thoughts at a preconscious level. I knew that they were there but I could not tease out what they were yet. I just knew that they were coming. When these kinds of complex thoughts are born, the labor is usually protracted, so to speak, so there is plenty of opportunity to notice them at this stage.
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Milo, modified 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 10:24 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 10:24 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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That's good stuff.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 10:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Milo:
That's good stuff.



Thanks! Yeah, it seems like a breakthrough. How could I not see this before?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 10:49 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 10:41 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes, still at my office.

Started with focusing on body sensations, both physical and emotional, to come into a mind state of enough concentration and clarity and awareness. When the signs were there, I did ”focus in”.

I felt the beginning and end of each inbreath and outbreath distinctly, with their sort of countermovements standing out clearly. At that point I felt the breath clearly where my hands touched the thighs. I was curious as to whether I could also sense the beginnings and ends of each inbreath and outbreath where my hands touched my thighs, and yes, I did. It was very distinct. I also noticed the delay between noticing it and conceptualizing it. I noticed the activation of eye muscles as the conceptualization occured, and I noticed how that subtle activation made distinct differences to the touch sensations where my hands touched my thighs. Out of curiosity I couldn’t help but testing out how eye movements would affect the touch sensations of my hands against my thighs. The eye movements made a huge difference to the sensations of touch. Now it was definitely time to focus in.

There was a lot of flickering. There is probably a bouncing with regard to all sensory input as long as the mind thinks that it needs to be the kazoo player that Daniel talks about in his chapter on eqauanimity in MCTB2. The visual mind screen has kind of a bouncy, echoing quality. I felt a rapid bouncing behind my forehead. There were lots and lots of unverbalized or semi-verbalized thoughts and impressions flashing by faster than I could possibly count. I don’t remember the content now but I remember noticing that I understood them without having to fully verbalize them. At some points I did verbalize them; the thought that I noticed that there was no need to fully verbalize the thoughts was ironically a thought that I did verbalize. The bouncing was there instantly, and it interfered with the fluency.

There was a point in time when everything was suddenly darker. That must have been when the lights turned off (there’s a motion sensor). I did not consider that possibility. I just noticed that it was darker. It made all the tiny colored dots on the mind screen more visible. There was much more detail. (I probably should start to meditate in darkness.)

There was a feeling of being sucked into something, deeper in space. Some sudden sounds from the corridor did reach me but they didn’t startle me. There were so many sensations from the different sense doors flowing by in rapid succesion and accompanying each other. It was very vivid. Thoughts and intentions flashed by no different from other perceptions. It was all so much and so flowing and beautiful in its richness. YeT I had the nagging feeling that I was missing something. That something was holding me back from fully joining the flow.

Fantasies came up. I don’t remember much of the content. One of them involved people making soup. I have no idea why and I didn’t care. I remember that every time I regained focus on meditating, the mind screen brightened up. Towards the end, it was so bright that I was very surprised that the lights were off and the room dark when I opened my eyes.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 10:59 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 10:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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This session was intense. I feel slightly nauseated now, like motion sickness, and I have a very mild headache or tension around my eyes as if I had been wearing too strong glasses for a while. The fact that my ADHD medication is wearing off probably contributes. It’s time to go to my yoga class soon, though, and hopefully it helps.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 1:19 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 1:19 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I forgot to mention: the rapid thoughts that I never needed to fully verbalize did have sound to them. It was not my voice, though, but deeper. I didn’t recognize any words. Does that make any sense?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/12/19 1:42 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Today’s yoga class was explorative yoga, which is new to me. It was my favourite teacher, the one who usually gets me into a mode that makes it easier to concentrate. I noticed that the red dot that had started to appear more frequently now was replaced by a limegreenish yellow dot with and without blue contours. The yellow dot was visible even with eyes open and for longer time periods than the red dot. When the blue contours were there, the dot was stronger. In the resting in the end (shavasana), the dot disappeared. When we sat up again to finish class, a less condensed purple spot appeared.

This appears more clearly during yoga than in meditation. I think yoga has turned into some kind of concentration practice for me. That wasn’t the intention, originally. I did yoga because it improves my health. I suffered from chronic fatigue. That’s gone now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/13/19 9:56 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/13/19 8:50 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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First I did 30 minutes sitting. Then I set the alarm for another 30 minutes in immediate succession. I was improvising, trying to be with whatever showed up.

Lots of noice in the background due to renovation in the building. Despite of that, very soon the red dot appeared, I think maybe just a minute in to the session. I don’t know. While meditating, the noice didn’t bother me (now it’s unbearable, so I’m getting out of here; I’m autistic and very sensitive to sounds, although less so now that I meditate on a daily basis).

I heard mental music in the background, a tune by Saga. I heard their voices although I could only distinguish those words in the lyrics that I can remember (”...in so many ways, but there’s only one way to give up”). Weird that I can still hear the voices singing although I don’t know the words.

Could notice beginnings and endings of breath even when there was no pause inbetween, except now I noticed that there was a pause there, for a fraction of a second. I sort of had a mental image of the breath turning. It was a flowing movement from side to side that left golden trails in the space.

The bouncing (echo/delay) is still there, although it’s not as clear as yesterday. It was there when I conceptualized thoughts, and it was there when I focused my closed eyes to see the swirls and dots that I had already seen. I tried to stop, but then I remembered that I should accept whatever arose, so I let it be while also allowing myself to let go, or at least that was my attention.

I noticed clinging to the nimitta embryo (?) that appeared. I tried to let go of it. Then I realized that I was forcing it, craving for the present to be different. Instead I accepted the fact that I was clinging. That made the nimitta brighter.

There was craving for the clarity I experienced yesterday. I remembered to be in the moment instead and tried to take in as much of it as I could, with every imperfection, as it was. I took joy in that. There was rapture. I didn’t hold on to it, let it come and pass. Maybe I didn’t fully let it be, I don’t know.

At one point the red dot had blue contours. Sometimes the red dot was large and glowing brightly. For a moment I could se detailed texture on its threedimensional surface. Then purple swirls moved past it, and then it was once again twodimensional and lacked the detailed texture.

After the first 30 minutes I wanted to do more. I had tilted forward with a lot of weight on my legs so my right leg fell asleep. By that time I was silently (inwardly) chanting the mantra ”let it come - let it be - let it go” to remind myself of the intention for the session (I think I started either in the dealing with clinging to nimitta or in the trying to deal with my eyes trying to focus and my gaze moving around), so instead of regretting that I needed to wake up my leg, I just did and then I stood up for a standing meditation.

At some point in the internal chanting (don’t remember if it was before or after I stood up), the chanting sounded like speaking in toungs. I had tried to not subvocalize it and then tried to just let it be as it was, whether it was subvocalizing or not. I had also tried to focus on the intention rather than the words. Focusing on the words as words had turned the ninitta stronger and I did not want to make this into some kind of halfmeasure concentration practice. After all, the intention was to let whatever arose arise, be, and pass away, on its own.

Standing

For a short moment there was bright space all around me, and it was breathing. I realized this was what I was seeing when I panicked before. It’s nothing to be afraid of. Unfortunately these discursive thoughts took me away from there.

I was shaking, or maybe it was kinesthetic sensations of the noice from the drilling machine.

Sitting again

The noice from the drilling machine filled me. I had body sensations corresponding with it. The sound kind of filled up my sinuses. I noticed them expanding when the sound began, staying filled while the sound was still there, and contracting/relaxing when the sound vanished. The sound vibrated in my body.

Don’t know when:

At some point I asked myself what it was that I still clinged to as self. I thought that it was my position in time and space. A wish to give that up. Hesitation - my body is bound to time and space. Thought: I’m not my body. Maybe that was when I was drawn into that bright space that was breathing.

A some point I think I dreamt about people but I’m not sure. Maybe that was yesterday.

I noticed that I could sort of see my nose with my eyes closed. Not as it actually looks, but in flourescent colors occyping space in a threedimensional way where my nose was. The nose had one color at a time (mostly purple) but sometimes there were two layers of aura around it, in other colors. The contours were very distinct. It looked pretty much like the images from an infra red camera.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/14/19 7:35 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/14/19 7:35 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes at my office, focusing in after first grounding myself in the present through the senses.

That high clarity and speed is not there, although I can still notice the flickering and bouncing. It’s more vague. I get that it says something about impermanence and it surely is nonsatisfactory, and it does challenge the idea of one separate and integrated self. Unfortunately the resolution is poor. At this point I don’t know how it is possible to notice this for everything that arises as it arises. There are so many things arising, and I can’t catch it all, and I don’t know how to let go of the sense of a doer/watcher. I understand in theory that there is no need for a watcher, and I have seen glimpses of it, but it’s not accessible for ”me” more than as glimpses. I didn’t get there in this session.

I keep getting distracted by the colored dots. I should probably use those distractions as a means to look at the sense of self, but I get caught up in the content of what I see. As soon as I closed my eyes there was a faint but clearly visible red dot. Dots in different colors appeared and dissolved. At one point there was a brightly shining blue dot.

I felt dull and kept getting into dreams although I wasn’t sleepy. Dreamlike stories just kept popping up. There were people there, unfamiliar to me, and actions. In one case there was a person (I think it was the subjective ”I” in the happening, but if I remember correctly I both saw this from the outside and experienced it from the inside) who jumped up from the ground to catch some kind of small air plane, I don’t know if it was an unreasonably big model plane or an exceptionally small sailplane, but I think I was trying to climb into it while it was flying. There was somebody else on the ground, a man I think. I’m not sure why I was (literally) cathching the plane. Maybe it was a metaphore, maybe it had to do with letting go of being a doer and just glide, or letting the formations appear on their own and just be there for the ride, or maybe it reflected a sense of urgency to make it in time and catch the opportunity, or maybe it was just nonsense. There was a sense of urgency in reaching up to catch that glider, though, and I think as a metaphor it kind of catches the paradox in striving and making a huge effort to reach up to something that is all about gliding.

Many times I sort of woke up to being aware of doing meditation. All those times the images disappeared and the mindscreen was there and it was lit up. At one time that ”screen” looked as if it was knitted for a brief moment. I didn’t catch the exact breaching point between images disappearing and mindscreen appearing, so I can’t tell what it looked loke. Maybe I have seen that before? Maybe that’s when the whole vision field turns into something that sort of resembles tiny bright champagne bubbles (one example would be yesterday, when I was in a bright space that was breathing)? Or is that something else? Hm... It makes sense, though, that the ”screen” would collapse at some point, because there cannot be a screen without the separation between watcher and object, inside and outside. Knitted... Constructed, man-made, blocking the way but not dense. Breakable. Maybe I should bring a pair of mental scissors and cut my way through it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/14/19 3:10 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/14/19 3:10 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I tried something different tonight, namely this guided meditation https://youtu.be/gl36Ir91hfA after listening to a couple of his dharma talks. It seemed to help with the balance between concentration and anergy (he talks about agitation and dullness in his dharma talks, and I guess that refers to the very same field of tension). I liked it. Tears were running, though, and my nose was dripping. It is really hard to steady one’s gaze. It took a lot of my consciousness just trying to do that. The points where my thums gently touched each other were hurting. It felt like needles were stinging me over and over again. I was surprised when the session ended. It went so fast. I thought it had just started.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/15/19 9:43 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/15/19 9:43 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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In today’s yoga class (hatha yoga), there was a colored dot there in front of my eyes a lot of the time when I was concentrating on the asanas. It kept changing color. While resting in the end, I checked if I could affect its color by forming the intention to see another color. I could. Sometimes it happened fast, sometimes it required a lot of patience. Yellow was a difficult one. Purple is my default color on the regular swirls, but red is what appears most easily as a centered dot.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/15/19 6:03 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/15/19 6:03 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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With regard to practice, this has been kind of a shitty day. Earlier I managed to squeeze in 15 minutes. I don’t recall anything special happening. Now it’s midnight and I have just finished a 40 minutes sit that didn’t go very well. Michael Taft wanted me to try to start my sessions with observing the nimitta to enhance my concentration before moving on to Vipassana. Lately it has been there every session, often from the start, but now that I was to observe it, it did not appear. Instead there were those swirls that I assume are related to subconscious processing moving around underneath the surface. They sure behave like meandering thoughts. They are mostly purple, but now other colors have started to blend in - white, grey, red, blue, yellow, green. For a while there was a new thing, kind of like a small bright white starfish rotating in the center. It was soon covered by the ordinary purple swirls, though, with its usual pattern of behavior. Spiralling inwards, spiralling outwards, rotating clockwise, rotating counter-clockwise, reversing figure and ground (often a purple circle with a black center alternating with a black circle around a purple center), something that looks like a comet chasing its tail around a black hole (sometimes this looks pretty much like the yin and yang symbol), drifting veils... I did see something that looked like grey smoke making intricate patterns; that’s a new one. There were also occasional tiny bright dots of different colors spread over the space. These objects were not centered and not stable in any way. They seemed like the visual version of monkey mind, albeit with a pretty make-up. At least I did not get lost in dreamlike stories like I have done so many times before when the hypnotic swirls have been active. (Hm, I notice a lpt of judging and craving.)

I got a bit frustrated, which caused tension and some compulsiveness: I ticced quite a lot with my feet. I had a lot of verbal thoughts. I found myself talking (mentally) with Michael Taft and with this forum, and then I talked with him and you about talking to him and you. I seemed to feel the need to explain myself quite a lot. It seemed to be my voice most of the time. I did hear Michael Taft, too, but the poor guy didn’t get to talk that much. You guys were silent. I think I treat you more like a diary in my internal talk than as actual conversational partners (sorry!). Also, I don’t know what your voices sound like. There was a high-pitched sound, too. I don’t know if it’s internal or if it’s something electronical (I’m not at home). It flickered, and that flickering coincided with an intense flickering in the visual field, as if the sense consciousness wasn’t there continuously - which it probably never is. Maybe my attention was flickering rapidly between the visual field and the auditory field. That would make sense, as Michael wants me to examine my thoughts through mental images and mental talk. There was probably a scanning going on.

I think I may have scripted my mind into behaving stubborn. I have been using mind tricks to get myself to do stuff. Now it seems to prefer to do things when it’s not expected to, instead of when it is. On the other hand, the stubbornness is also an old pattern. As a kid, when I was trying to count sheep because of insomnia, my sheep always refused to jump over that gate. Maybe that’s why those tricks are the ones that work. Stories... anyway, intentional focus is not that easy for me. Focus sort of just happens when it happens. The nimitta tends to appear most easily either when I do yoga or focus on physical sensations. When I focus on the visual field, I’m not focused enough.
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 2/16/19 9:00 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/16/19 9:00 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
With regard to practice, this has been kind of a shitty day. Earlier I managed to squeeze in 15 minutes. I don’t recall anything special happening. Now it’s midnight and I have just finished a 40 minutes sit that didn’t go very well.
Did you mean to say "I meditated and then some conditions occurred which I spontaneously found not impressing so I concluded that the practice sucked"?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/16/19 10:46 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/16/19 10:45 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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No. I understand that it sounded like that, though. Can’t explain myself better right now. I know that the practice can be good although the subjective experience of it is that it sucked. I know that I’m clinging and I know that trying too hard not to cling is also clinging, and I’m trying to just observe this process with all these meta-levels without adding even more layers to it.

I appreciate your down to earth comment. Thanks!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/16/19 6:59 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/16/19 6:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I was suspecting this... I woke up with dullness and fatigue, so I’m probably back in dissolution again. Yeah, I still need to work on that wider awareness, I guess. It did seem like I fell back from equanimity (further up in it than I had been before) to A&P with somewhat increased concentration. Today I’m soooooo tired. I’ll try to move the identification point enough to be able to do some goodenough formal practice despite staying in a rather noisy environment. At least knowing that there are things like identification points makes things easier. So does knowing that this will pass. I have also had some really nice experiences from meditating in dissolution before, so I know that it’s possible. Michael Taft will probably have to wait for that nimitta to come back, and I wouldn’t be totally honest if I said that it doesn’t bother me at all, but it’s not the end of the world.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/16/19 12:20 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/16/19 12:19 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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40 minutes, started out with grounding myself in the senses to gain some focus so as to be able to focus in.

In the beginning there were both agitation and dullness but not that balance inbetween. The physical sensations accompanying the agitation was a vague sense of pressure around the heart, which was probably more of a story than actual physical sensations, and some minor muscle activation. Noticing this made me relax more. There was some monkey mind chattering, mostly intellectualization and identification stuff on a conscious conceptualized level. That sounded like my voice talking in English.

In the midst of all that I suddenly heard some aspect of myself thinking ”I love” and then interrupting itself because I heard it and identified with being the doer, I guess. Since I didn’t know what would be the object of that love, I couldn’t finish the sentence. I think it had something to do with a supportive context, but I’m not sure, and I don’t think it would have been phrased like that. It seemed to be at a less abstract level. I think it was less conscious, less conceptualized, but using ready-made phrases as a resource, if that makes any sense. Sometimes emotional phrases just pop up in my conscious like that, triggered by something. They usually contain emotional expressions or desires. Vedana, I guess, and whatever the craving part accompanying it is called.

I felt slow vibrations, 1-2 Hz. It took quite a while to focus enough to feel that old widening and increased peripheral awareness, and it wasn’t very distinct. At some point I did have a sense of focal deepening, but it was even more vague. There were some instances where a faint embryo of a nimitta was visible, but there were mostly those purple swirls that are the sign of non-unified unconscious processing rather than a unified mind. After a while the vibrations speeded up. There were two instances of rapture, the second one encompassing my entire body and more extended in time. It was followed by deep calm and that altered sense of physichal touch that was the landmark of focus for me in the dukkha nanas.

There was some dreamlike content that I don’t remember. The mindscreen brightened as I came back to a more mindful state of mind. At some point a heard a bright voice singing a wordless melody that seemed familiar. It could have been either my mum’s voice or mine.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/17/19 6:53 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/17/19 6:53 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I have repaired a broken friendship thanks to meditation related insight (impermanence and no self and dukkha - yeah, all of them, actually). Suddenly I saw things clearly, and what hurt so much before didn’t matter anymore. All I could feel with regard to the conflict was compassion.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/17/19 2:15 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/17/19 2:15 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes, first grounding myself with any senses, then focus in.

Mostly a wild mix of monkey mind, dullness and dreamlike scenes coming up from the unconscious. I did get to the increased peripheral awareness of touch and could sense my knees breathing and the scanning processes of my consciousness bouncing around, causing heightened pressure sensations on one spot at a time. It didn’t feel like vibrations, bur more like something crawling under my skin. I know that’s because my mind constructs continuity between the arisings and passings. There was a lot of craving, clinging, striving, and it’s obvious that it gets in the way and thus creates suffering. I got lost in some content. At one time I noticed subtle dullness early enough to get out of it by opening my eyes for a short while and then gazing upwards behind closed eyelids and smiling. I felt some time pressure connected to the striving, which was counterproductive. Identification and craving creates suffering. I know that, but letting go is not always possible. Towards the very end there was mild but widely spread rapture, and a faint nimitta embryo arose.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 2:04 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 2:04 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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When I woke up from the alarm, I saw the darkness behind my eyelids collapse gradually but rapidly into one centered spot that reminded of a nimitta. The contour of it was blue.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 7:07 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 7:06 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Did a 30 minutes sitting while on the train. It was mostly gross dullness, and I hope I haven’t strenghtened pathways into ignorance even more by going through with it anyway. I feel clearer in my head afterwards, though, so maybe I needed to go through that fog.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 7:45 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 7:45 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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The fact that this stage comes back over and over again, and with it this tendency for subconscious processes to hijack the mind to the extent of making me forget again and again what it is that I’m doing, is one example of both impermanence and no self. Seeing this as ”my” setback only creates suffering. The processes causing the mind to blank out probably never subscribed to my conscious intentions from the beginning. I can’t force them to do so. I guess what I can do is making the insights so strong on a sensate level that the subconscious processes become aware of the insights and join the mission.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 7:49 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 7:49 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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So maybe the dullness is sort of an opening to communication. There are processes saying in their own way ”Hey, we didn’t sign up for this. Why should we?” ”I” need to show them why, by repeating basic insights until they sink in for all the mental processes.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 9:24 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 9:24 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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40 minutes, same practice.

I had the feeling that there was activation of the visual field behind the surface. I was able to let it be. The eye muscles were relatively relaxed. The dullness took longer time to arise this time. There was less craving for new exciting sensations. Towards the end it was more difficult to stay alert, though, so I had to bring back mindfullness over and over again.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 2:59 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 2:59 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It seemed to be a good idea to take up noting practice again and do shorter sittings in a more comfortable spot. Therefore I did 20 minutes noting and stayed comfortable. Now it was possible to stay relatively alert, and clarity increased somewhat. I could feel the breath in my knees. Absolutely no rapture. My mind is slow. I have been so tired the last couple of days, and I have been freezing. If I see something that resembles a nimitta, it’s dark or has a dark centre, and it soon fades away. These processes seem to have a life of their own beyond my control, which by now is hardly surprising but still rather unsettling. Today I’m starting to have body pain again. I was so happy that my chronic fatigue had gone away, and now it has come back, but it’s good to know that this too shall pass. The bad things are also impermanent. I’ll keep practicing and get through this. Clinging to a certain mind state only creates suffering, so I’ll have to make the best of what is.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 5:10 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/18/19 5:10 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I really need to let go of seeing ”myself” as the doer and identifying with it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/19/19 12:47 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/19/19 12:47 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Okay, so now I seem to be in fear. After a night with the creepiest nightmares, I woke up with a nagging feeling of anxiety. Actually, I welcome it, because at least it involves energy. The brain fog is gone. I’ll try to use the energy to get things done before misery takes it away again. It’s like that short pause inbetween contractions when giving birth. For a really brief moment one can actually breath. This feels more like the contraction part of that analogy, though.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/19/19 1:40 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/19/19 1:40 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Ouch! A 45 minutes long session at this point was not the best idea I ever had. My neck hurts.

I divided the session into nine time periods of 5 minutes each. I started with noting to get grounded and alert. Then I focused on the sensations of the breath. After that I focused on mental kinesthetic thoughts, then on feelings, mental images, mental talk, then three slots of focus in. That was the idea, anyway. The last 30 minutes were very dull with a lot of head noddings and dreamlike (and not very lucid) scenes.

At today’s yoga class I did see nimittas so I was hoping that I would be able to stay more alert. Apparently that was not very realistic. This darknight makes it hard to do my assignments. I’m thinking that I should perhaps go back to more basic noting. I’m not sure that I’m ready to dissolve mental images and mental talk, and feelings don’t seem to come up in practice right now (maybe they do but in ways that are too subtle for me to notice). Maybe I should meditate at my office instead; that worked well last time I was in fear.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 4:58 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/19/19 4:20 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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20 minutes noting. The noting and the shorter time span enabled me to stay alert throughout the session with some brief exceptions (mind wandering, getting lost in stories) at the end. I managed to redirect my attention each time. There were instances of rapture entailing embryos of nimittas. There was a heightening of peripheral awareness. There was also a sense of movement at the knees where my hands touched them - pressure sensations arising and passing away, constructed by the mind as something continuous.

EDIT: If I remember correctly, I did notice some mental images and mental talk using this method.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 1:43 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 1:43 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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As I woke up from sleep this morning, I noticed mental talk in one word that doesn’t really exist. It was in Swedish: ”härvaro”, which resembles the real word ”närvaro”. The latter means ”being present” or ”dasein”. ”när” means near, but there is also a homonym that means ”when”. ”Här”, one the other hand, means ”here” and is thus unambigually spatial.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 2:08 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 2:08 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Also, I think I woke up in misery, because everything seems meaningless. Knowing that this is a stage gives comfort, though, especially since they seem to pass really quickly. It makes it easier to move the identification point. The misery is not me. It’s just there. Intellectually I know there is no me at all, but my subconscious seems to cling to the idea that there must be something that is me. Well, good news for you, subconscious: the misery is not it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 4:56 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 4:09 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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20 minutes noting, using labels that fit into Michael Taft’s sensory grid and additions as needed. I managed to stay alert but did come across dreamlike scenes. It seems that ”outward” sensations keep me grounded in mindfulness whereas mental sensations have the tendensy to suck me into the content. Sounds and physical sensations can thereby be used to keep dullness at bay. There were some unsatisfactory feelings, but acknowledging them as they were led to rapture (not the most intense kind), nimitta embryos and less darkness. I think I found the kind of balance that works at this point, staying mindful but relaxing enough for some unconscious stuff to bubble up to the surface. There were moments of clarity with regard to peripheral physical sensations. Maybe there was also some clarity with regard to introspective awareness. There was a brief moment when things felt less heavy and dense, maybe less contracted.

EDIT: The delay between recognizing sensations and being able to conceptualize them seemed extremely long.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 5:02 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 4:55 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Okay... this will probably sound delusional... but I think I went through disgust and desire for deliverance and into reobservation while in the shower. I do spend too much time in the shower, but it really wasn’t that long.

I recognized that familiar old feeling of wanting to throw up my ”soul” and it occurred to me 1) that this must be disgust, and 2) that wanting to throw up one’s soul is really not the destructive urge that I used to believe it to be. It is a desire for deliverance, and it knows exactly what needs to be done. There are unconscious processes that are aware that clinging to a self only causes suffering. This realization led to a strong desire to practice and lots of craving that would surely hamper the practice, and I saw this. Then the harsh chaotic vibrations were back, and now I have this weird sense of a lot of processing going on at once and out of synch.

The key to navigating through the dark night territories seems to be simultaneously both acknowledging what arises without trying to make it go away AND knowing that it is not self.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 5:06 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 5:06 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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As for mental talk, I clearly noticed some while in the shower. It said ”Blä!” which is Swedish for ”yuck” or ”eeew” or ”icky”. I do seem to have sort of a vedana voice that is very to the point.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 7:06 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 7:05 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log

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Rapid noting is difficult for me, but I tried to do it anyway while walking to the bus stop. It did give me some rapture as I surrendered to the many sensations overwhelming me. Then I had a nagging feeling of familiarity that I couldn’t quite figure out. Then a word came to me: caleidoscopic. I know I’m not supposed to get lost in the content of mental talk popping up, but maybe it was just a noting label. Anyway, it made sense. That was a proper label for that sense of familiarity that had eluded my noting. Every moment seems new and old at the same time. It’s like existence is recycling old material over and over again in constantly new ways, not only physically but also experientially.

Actually, there was some mental talk. I remember hearing myself thinking ”Nothing ever changes” and then instantly reacting to that by replying ”Yes it does! Everything changes!” That’s when the word caleidoscopic popped up. I have always loved caleidoscopes, so this is helpful for me, because change can be very scary for me.

Then I couldn’t help but intellectualizing a bit (what was written above are examples of that, but there is more). Caleidoscopes are limited to the components inside it and the laws of nature. Yet, within those very strict limitations, there are infinite possibilities. No image is ever the same. There probably is some mathematical probability for the same image to reappear, depending on what counts as the same (near enough), but that chance is probably neglectable (correct me if I’m wrong here). Then I thought something like ”wait a minute... there are solid unchangable components in the caleidoscope, so what am I solidifying here?” Then it dawned on me 1) that they are really not as solid as we make them out to be and definitely not permanent, and 2) that those parts are the formations.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 1:28 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/20/19 1:28 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I checked my log to see how I got through the dark night last time, and I found that one strategy was to count breaths in order to notice dullness in time. Therefore I decided to do a 30 minutes long sitting with breath counting, starting over from one every five minutes as the bell rang. This helped me to stay alert throughout the session. The first five minutes involved 36 breaths. Then they ranged from 15 to 20 breaths per five minutes. Yeah, there was some striving and forcing there, I admit that.

In the beginning of the session there was agitation in my body. Throughout the session there was pain due to inflammation. As the breaths slowed down, the pain bothered me less. There was a heightened peripheral awareness of touch and a change in the quality of the touch. I could feel the breath in my knees and hands where they touched, and the energy (?) of the hands differed between inbreath and outbreath.

Counting breaths allows for mental images and mental talk to bubble up to the surface. It seems easier to observe them while being occupied with something else, something that doesn’t take up too much concentration but enough to force me to stay alert. Those bubbles were very shortlived so I could not make out any phenomenological details. Sometimes I heard mental talk without distinguishing the words (subconscious material).

For a moment it felt like time slowed down.

I don’t know what to make of the vibrations. They are not nearly as harsh and fast as I thought they would be. Maybe the worst is yet to come. Maybe this is still just misery after all.

Off the cushion: my body is in pain and not even yoga makes it better. My posture is bad. I can’t seem to control the whereabouts of all my limbs. Unsatisfactoriness is obvious. Not self too, because apparently this is beyond the control of any ”doer”. Bah, I want cookies. And painkillers. And a cosy blanket. If there is no doer, why can’t somebody just wake me up when I have arrived at equanimity again? Yeah yeah, sherpa training, I know.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 8:26 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 8:26 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
30 minutes at work.

Started out with noting, applying labels according to Michael Taft’s recommendations. Was then confused about the distinction between mental processes and ”outside”-related sensations, because methodologically they are cause some difficulties. I assume this is one of the things that the practice aims at making the meditator notice for themself (I’m guessing that these distinctions in the model are there to sort of provoke the reaction, because neither Michael nor Shinzen Young would do something like this by mistake; there must be a purpose). Therefore the session turned into something more explorative, methodologically (it is all an exploration, of course, but I refer to being more eclectic about methods).

There are sounds that I ”know” come from ”outside” and auditory sensations that are soundlike but yet I ”know” that they are mental. But do I really know that? If so, how? There are also sounds that could be from many different sources. Is tinnitus a physical or mental phenomenon? There seem to different kinds. There are many sounds that seem to be from ”inside”, but they could also be from electronic devises. How should I know while I sit there meditating? Does it matter? It’s still the same sound. Aren’t all sensations mental at least to some degree? The mental part is after all the only thing we know for certain while sitting there.

I tried to investigate phenomenologically how ”inner” and ”outer” auditory sensations/perceptions/whatever differ from each other. I noticed that when I make an effort to focus on the sounds that I perceive of as coming from outside, I have a certain physical sensations that I find hard to describe. There is movement. I know that there are muscles inside our ears (I’m one of those people who can manually open and close my ears similar to what happens when there is a pressure change), but I don’t know whether we actually use them actively for the purpose of hearing. Maybe I feel them moving? Or maybe the perceived physocal sensation is in fact a mental image of the shifting of focus? I don’t know what it is. I don’t know for sure that there is actual movement, and if it is, I don’t know what is moving. Anyway, I noticed that the same movement did not occur when shifting focus between sounds that appeared to come from outside the window in front of me and sounds that appeared to come from the corridor outside the door behind me. That sensation of movement only occurred when shifting between ”mental” and ”outside”. Yet there were sounds the origin of which I could not tell; that is something that could be interesting to explore further. Could that sensation be used to identify the source as inside or outside? On the other hand, how could I control that when the factis that I don’t know the source? And even if it were possible to find a correspondence to a certain source, that doesn’t prove a causal connection. It could very well be the case that believing that there is a difference between inside and outside is what causes the sensation, either mechanically (because it makes us activate something) or mentally.

My subjective experience is that there is a qualitative difference between sounds from outside and mental sounds, but I don’t know how to describe it and I don’t know how much of that perceived difference is a mental construct, a story that has no bearing on a sensate level. A few days ago I mentioned in this log how while listening to a video using headphones, moving away from my ipad (and from seeing Daniel speek in the video) I noticed how the sound suddenly moved into the headphones. Logically, the sound should have been there already, but that was not what I experienced. I guess something very similar happens when the image and the sound is out of synch. Suddenly it is obvious that the sound and the image come from different sources, and the formation (?) is splintered into parts in a disturbing way.

Actually, I also have experiences from auditory hallucinations that complicate this matter. It seems to be surprisingly common in some autistic communities to have hallucinations specifically related to the current signal of one’s own mobile phone (I won’t go into speculations about the reasons for that), and I have had such hallucinations for at least two different time periods. When the hallucinations are fullblown, it is impossible to distinguish the sound from ”real” sound. I could hold the phone in my hand and see with my own eyes that it was turned off and still hear the signal loud and clear, every tone of it. Phenomenologically, there was no difference. It didn’t start out like that, though. You know how while in the shower or in some other noice you can sometimes wonder whether that was the phone ringing (or whatever sound you have reasons to watch out for, maybe a baby crying or the cat scratching on the door because they want to come inside)? That is normal and healthy, but it’s also how the hallucinations start. The brain interprets some frequences as possible cases of a specific sound, and it does so using imagination and pattern recognition, I guess. Much of our hearing in daily life is the result of such processes, to varying degrees. Thus it’s not a qualitative difference, but a gradual one. So basically, the distinction between inside and outside is a construction. We don’t need to read old theravadan texts to learn that. Science says the same thing.
I know a woman with dementia who used to have hallucinations because of her medication. Sometimes she would see a big black dog in her livingroom, as detailed as if it was physically there. Her friends asked her ”What did you do then? Did you pet it?” She replied ”No, I couldn’t possibly do that. It wasn’t real.” She also had reoccurring distorted perceptions. For example she could see her own sofa in the wrong size, as if it was a tiny miniature. First she would admire the detailed production, but then she would realize ”Oh, that really IS my sofa!”, and then she would actively change her perception, making it big again, sort of manually. That doesn’t differ very much from my own meditative experiences. Once I found myself sitting upside down, which I knew was not likely to be the case for ”real”, so I imagined myself sliding down the inside of a circle until my perception matched what was likely to be more corresponding to reality outside the meditation experience.

Okay, that was a big sidenote. Now back to this session:

Oh yeah, I was having a similar problem with regard to the nimitta (it has come back). Is that physical sight or mental image? Most of my mental images are not something that I really see. I can watch the purple swirls behind my eyelids and at the same time have a mental image, and the mental inage is much more vague and elusive. I can’t study it in detail, because it’s not actually there, if that makes any sense. These different kinds of seeing do not seem to occupy the same space. I don’t know if this is something that differs between people? Maybe if one’s mental images are vivid enough, it’s not possible to distinguish them from physical sight? Like with hallucinations. That seems reasonable. I would love input from others on this. I’m curious: if so, is there a moment when these different spaces merge into each other? How does that look? In dreams, unless one is having a lucid dream, the mental images seem to be convincing enough to be indistinguishable from physical sight. I tend to have a problem with reading in dreams, though, because either the content is unconscious or I didn’t bother to ”make it up” in the dream. Thus, my mind uses a lot of different tricks to cover for the lack of content. It may be too dark, or I may be too dizzy to be able to read, or too distracted to be able to remember any of the words long enough to make sense of them. Sometimes the words change while I’m reading, or move around, or get blurred (this has happened during meditation as well, but not in this session). That is usually the key for me, telling me that I’m dreaming - that and all sorts of problems with regard to availability of toilets, haha. Once I had one of those dreams and really needed to wake up for real, because I needed to go to the bathroom, but some lazy part of my mind tried to fool me into believing that I was already awake. Thus I made sure to find some text to read, which proved my point. Knowing that I was in fact dreaming, I made a huge effort to open my eyes. For a really brief moment, probably less than a second, the image changed into the view of my bedroom. They seemed to occupy the same space at that time, so obviously it should be possible even for me, as a not very visual person, to have mental images vivid enough for them to be indistinguishable from physical sight.

Back to the session:

The nimitta is back. It varied in size, density, brightness and color. Sometimes it had like an aura in a separate color. The colors appearing were red, orange, yellow, lime, green, purple and dark blue. I’m not sure exactly where to draw the distinction between a nimitta and the embryo of one. Maybe these were all embryos, I don’t know. I know that they are somethings different from the ordinary swirls, at least. The nimitta (or nimitta embryo) appears when I’m more focused (a more unified mind).

I noticed that observation changes the nimitta. Observation per se has an effect, but how I direct my gaze makes a difference too. For me observing the nimitta is tricky. It appears more clearly when I focus on something else. When I shift my attention to the nimitta, it tends to fade out. Sometimes it makes it bigger and brighter, though. I’m not sure what I do differently. I do know that when I try to focus on it with my eyes while at the same time looking down a bit, it gets smaller. For a moment it becomes more condensed, but then it fades away. If I defocus and look upwards a bit, it becomes bigger. Sometimes it becomes brighter for a while. In both cases, it tends to spread out and be undistinguishable from the rest of the vision gield. Sometimes this means that the entire vision field brightens up, sometimes it’s more like the nimitta gradually fades while spreading. Sometimes I’m not sure which one of these is occurring. At least once I thought that the nimitta had spread out, but then a new small nimitta appeared.

The nimitta is not reliable enough for me to base a kasina practice on it, not that I have that intention. Just stating the obvious.

That crackling sound in my right ear appeared when I was observing both inward and outward sounds, or whatever I should call them using such an arbitrary distinction. It seems to be related both to the disctinction between inside and outside and to the shifting of attention per se. I can’t tell if either of these relations is more central to this phenomenon than the other.

Peripheral clarity seems to have increased again, or rather, started to come back to a similar level as before. That makes me feel comfortable, so I guess that’s a clue to what I cling to as self. I didn’t investigate phenomenologically the feeling of being comfortable, unfortunately. I did investigate subtle anxiety/nausea, though. It seemed to entail heightened awareness of pressure to the heart, tension of muscles around eyes, and some kinds of sensations in the throat region that I have difficulties explaining. Intellectually, I think they may be related to the secretion of saliva. Phenomenologically... I don’t know... contractions?

There was quite a lot of mental talk on a very conscious and conceptualized level, with verbalization of whole sentences. Unfortunately, I was unable to investigate that on a sensate level. I was occupied doing analyses and thus lost in the content. I don’t know whether it’s possible to have such verbalized thoughts going on by themselves while the identification point is moved into the ”watcher” in order to observe on a sensate level. Maybe that’s what Shinzen Young calls auto talk?

To sum up: the distinction between inside and outside is a blur. Well, duh.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 8:52 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 8:50 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Oh, and also: off cushion harsh vibrations.

At a seminar today I was trying to be very mindful about the senses. It doesn’t seem to be a linear process of one sensation at a time or a sensation from one of the senses triggering a though that then triggers a feeling, and so on. It seems to be much more complex than that. It’s so fast, and some semsations seem to come as packages. This made me think of Culadasa’s distinction between attention and awareness. I know that the attention can only focus on one tiny tiny sensation at a time and thus tends to flicker between different points in space (with regard to touch), and then constructs this as something continuous. Awareness, on the other hand, is not limited like that. It has a broader scope. So I guess much of the time, to get a more holistic perspective, the attention doesn’t go to the direct sensate experience here and now, but to the awareness to get some sort of retrospective summary of selected impressions mixed together in one channel. That would explain the delay/echo that I noticed before.

This also makes me wonder... there are scientific findings suggesting that autistic people (like me) perceive things more ”as they are” with less adaption to what neurotypical people take for granted, not only in more complex thinking but also on the level of perception. I have been wondering about this, because I’m not the only autistic meditator, and it seems like our experiences from meditation may differ in some respects, but not in such a fundamental way. This has bothered me for a while, because I wanted to understand the difference between these two concepts of reality ”as it is”. My guess is that we also have the attention check with the awareness to have a retrospective summary. I don’t know if there is a difference as to how often we do this, but in any case I don’t think that’s the major difference. I think the main difference lies in how the mixing is done when ”recording” that retrospective one-channel recording. Our recording is less biassed and thus it compensates less for noice and makes reality more difficult to navigate, but it also enables us too see deviations and variation that neurotypicals tend to miss. It does not mean, however, that we perceive reality more directly.

I’m not a neuroscientist, so these are just my speculations based on observations and a variety of ideas that I have encountered.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 9:09 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 9:09 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
One phenomenological difference between ”inside” and ”outside” is that inside sensations/perceptions/whatever at least in some cases tend to cause me to get lost in content. I wonder if that changes when the perceived distinction between inside and outside becomes more obviously arbitrary. On the other hand, there are outside aggregates that are very likely to draw my attention in a way that makes me get lost in content as well. A fire alarm would most likely take priority. Someone talking to me is hard to ignore, which is why I make a point of not wanting to be disturbed. So maybe those unconscious processes just don’t listen as well as the people around me. It also seems like unconscious stuff bubbling up is more likely to engage with its content, and that happens in a different mind state than is usually in charge of dealing with the outside.

The experience of the senses changes in quality depending on the level of concentration. This is one of many things that illustrate how arbitray the distinction between inside and outside is.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 2:29 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 2:29 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
One thing that struck me during the session at work today was how arbitrary thoughts are with regard to self. They never just pop up on their own from the brain. They are always the response to something. I knew this, of course, on the intellectual level. It’s the foundation of my work, as I analyze interaction. I know that everything that we do is interactive to some extent. Even our most private thoughts are dependent on previous experiences of interaction, and we are constantly addressing someone or something. Thus, these reflections are really not new to me. Still, I find myself trying to search for thoughts as something that will just pop up independently. In doing so, I think about how to do that and about how frustrating it is that thoughts do not arise. But these are thoughts. That’s how thoughts work. They address something. They are dependent. Similarly, I find myself being annoyed by distracting sounds causing me to think about stuff instead of focusing on uncovering my thoughts. But that’s thoughts right there! I just need to be mindful of them AS thoughts. Somehow I find myself doubting that these thoughts count, because they were provoked by something external. But they all are! That’s how thoughts work! This is so silly!

I think I have a romanticized and simpliatic idea of doing some kind of mental archeology where I will dig up and discover something completely different from the unconscious. Well, unconscious stuff does pop up from time to time, and it IS different from the default mode of thinking. Sure. But archeologists can’t just skip layers. In order to reach the deepest levels they need to very carefully investigate all the layers closer to the surface as well. They do this very patiently with little brushes. They don’t just grab the biggest shovel they can find and dig in.

I guess that simplistic idea is one of those thoughts that I should carefully brush out from one of the layers closer to the surface, to investigate it phenomenologically. Is it mental talk or images? Is it some kind of kinesthetic imagining? I really don’t know.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 1:04 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 3:54 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I had decided to go to sleep early instead of doing another session, but then I was curious. Thefore I sat for 30 minutes with the intention of investigating hearing, both of outward sounds and mental sounds, and the relation between them.

There was immediate rapture as soon as I closed my eyes, maybe because I was genuinely curious and thus had a unified mind.

The flickering of attention made the crackling noice in my right ear so often and so loud and to the extent that it was painful. I was uncomfortable with the flickering, and that manifested as irritation of my left eye resulting in tears.

The movement that occurs when I shift focus between different sounds seems to be partly some kind of expansions and contractions inside the ears regulating air pressure, partly subtle movements of the gaze. These two kinds of sensations seem to be correlated. Now I noticed the movement when I sfifted my attention between sounds from outside, to my left, and from the kitchen to my right. I’m guessing that I was subtly moving my gaze when I shifted my attention. Earlier at work the ”outside” sounds were either in front of me or behind me, and I did not turn my eyes backwards. Thus there was less movement of the gaze. That’s probably why I didn’t experience that sensation of movement when shifting between different outside sounds then.

That really annoying crackling sound in my right ear, the one that is the sound of flickering attention, is inevitable when I use my attention to investigate something as wide as all sounds. Attention can only take in one tiny sensation impulse at a time, so it has to jump around, arise and pass away rapidly at different points in space. That causes tension, and there are a lot of information that is missed. For every tiny little sensation, there is a huge blind spot entailing an entire sensate universe beyond that tiny sensation. Thus, the attention jumps all over the place, trying to cover as much as possible, but regardless of how fast it jumps, it still misses out on the whole sensate universe except for that tiny little sensation that is currently in focus. Awareness, on the other hand, is wider. It doesn’t need to jump around. I noticed that when I let go of focused attention for a very brief moment, there was sort of a widening of the visual field. I’m guessing that the widening is a mental image of increased awareness, that is, the distribution of consciousness to awareness rather than attention. I’m guessing also that the focal deepening that I have experienced before, not in this session, is the mental image of even further distribution of consciousness to awareness. Maybe the perception of being drawn into something very rapidly with fast visual movement is the letting go of attention entirely, in favour of awareness, and maybe that’s why it’s so scary.

Attention is overrated.

The sound of ”silence” is present in the middle of outward noice and inward chatter, and it’s actually rather loud.

I think I sensed some kind of mental murmur of many voices under the surface. There was activation of the auditory field and some kind of very subtle change of the pressure in my right ear. I think there may have been very subtle and finegrained flickerings of the visual field that corresponded to the murmering. This happened right after I had that altered sense of touch and perception of my hands being bavkwards that tend to mark a certain level of concentration for me. I used this mark as a sign and turned my attention to listening in.

When I verbalized fully conscious and conceptualized thoughts, I was subvocalizing. I can’t imagine the sounds of the syllables unless there is a very subtle activation of the muscles needed to form those sounds. That’s somehow rather disturbing. That kind of mental talk has the voice of this body, as far as I can tell. It’s difficult to hear the quality of the voice while being occupied with the content, though. When I reflected on that, I wondered if I’m able to imagine the sound of voices better than that. What came to my mind then was the voice of Michael Taft, my meditation coach. I could very easily imagine that voice without hearing any content at all. The tonality of the voice was still clear. Weird.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 4:04 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/21/19 4:04 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Bah, now I’m hearing loud very high-pitched sounds and I’m unable to turn them off. Can’t silence just shut up?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 9:08 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 9:08 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
45 minutes, focusing on hearing and mental talk/sounds.

Immediate mild rapture.

Lots of sounds from outside, from the staircase and from the renovation of another apartment. Little tension but some delay between experience and conceptualizing.

More rapture. It was intense. I let it fill the sore muscles of my back. It lingered there and dissolved the pain. It felt healing. The rapture transformed into harsh vibrations in throat area that faded away like ripples on the surface. Then there was a profound sense of calmness. Easy to relax. Altered sense of touch. Found myself having to ground myself in the sounds in order not to lose myself in dreamlike content and forget what I was doing. It was difficult to remember that I had the intention of focusing on hearing in and out. Unconscious stuff bubbled up and hijacked me. Was getting into a very peaceful but dull state.

After 25 minutes the door bell rang. It took me a minute to check if it was something important. Directly after that I needed a brief moment to find a comfortable seating position again. When I did, there was rapture, then calmness. This time it stayed bright and I did not get dull.

A male voice said something about ”that mindstorm”.

There was a slow surging wavelike movement of attention between the left and the right side. It was so easy to breathe. The center was back. I could feel subtle sensations of the breath in my nose, and at the same time my whole body was breathing. There was lightness. Ease.

Then the bell rang. I didn’t want to stop, but I have booked a Kundalini Yoga session with Gong meditation and I don’t want to miss out on that.

My back has almost completely healed, just like that. The pain was dark night, and I think I’m back in low equanimity. It took a week to go through the entire dark night this time. I can live with that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 9:41 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 9:32 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I have a vague memory of not wanting to see something unpleasant about the meditation, wanting to make it better in my perception than it actually was. When I realized that, I let go of that perception and took note of the unsatisfactoriness. I don’t remember when this was, but I think it was a turning point.

Oh yeah, it had to do with the flickering of attention and that annoying crackling sound in my right ear that tells me that I’m struggling too hard to direct my attention when I ”should” let an open awareness take in the sensatiobs instead. For a moment I struggled to widen my perception, but then I remembered Michael Taft reminding me that he has not asked me to take control of anything, and I remembered peopl saying that here as well. So I surrendered to the experience of the narrow attention flickering desperately and squeeeeeeeking in my ear, and listened to the sound. I think that was when that intense rapture came and filled by back and healed it. Cool.

OMG! I actually did my assignment. I listened to mental sound and sensed it dissolve. I had given up on that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 5:17 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 5:17 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I sat for one hour watching visual flickering behind closed eyelids. It flickers a lot, indeed. At some points the whole flickering vision field itself bended and tilted. All these times I sort of jumped back into being a watcher, unfortunately, and thus interrupted the bending and tilting.

There were a lot of details, constantly changing. On the larger scale, there was synchronized movement. On a micro level, tiny tiny dots were constantly arising and passing away in a seemingly chaotic manner. They all have colors.

For a while there were regular swirls, now in a new color: deep pink nuances. They soon transformed inte a myriad of details.

Sometimes there seemed to be stretch marks or cracks in the vision field, or larvae-looking abstract threedimensional things eating their way through it.

All of it flickering in and out of existance.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 10:14 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 10:14 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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As I lay down in bed I continued to watch the flickering and didn’t freak out when the visual field tilted in different ways. So many intricate patterns, detailed and caleidoscopic mandala like and threedimensional, constantly moving and flickering. Flickering sounds, swishing, whirling, murmuring of voices. Visual detailed patterns that trembled and got sort of an overlay, multiple exposure, and moved towards some sort of collapse. Was drawn into something multiple times and kind of came back with a mental jump start. I must have stopped breathing all these times, because suddenly air was coming out of my nose and mouth with a sound, and I was surprised because I had absolutely no recollection of holding my breath. It was not snooring, more like the air just seeped out as if somebody had opened a poppet. There was no dullness. Everything was chrystal clear. All sensations were pristine. I have never before felt the breath so clearly, every little vibration. This kept happening over and over again, for hours. Gradually the visual and auditory calmed down whereas the physical sensations were more and more intense. It was like all nerves were vibrating. After a few times - I lost count - it was like fibromyalgic pain especially in my left wrist that has always been most sensitive to energetic phenomena. The pain gradually became more intense each time. It didn’t bother me, though. It was just there. After repeating this many times, there was an adrenaline surge jumpstarting my whole body. I guess enough was enough.

This cannot be unseen.

Afterwards it took some effort to coordinate the body, and there was a pleasant and soft flow. Still is.

I’m so hungry now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 10:49 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/22/19 10:49 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It really is possible to just take in one’s whole sensate universe, and with no effort. Now I understand it.

And there is absolutely no need to direct one’s gaze and try to focus on the visual.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/23/19 3:39 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/23/19 3:39 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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The first time all the flickering dots organized themselves into a perfect and complicated pattern was amazing. It was like a gigantic caleidoscope turning into different images. All of them were perfect. Like different snowflakes, but made of dots rather than chrystals.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 1:38 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 1:38 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
As I lay down in bed I continued to watch the flickering and didn’t freak out when the visual field tilted in different ways. So many intricate patterns, detailed and caleidoscopic mandala like and threedimensional, constantly moving and flickering. Flickering sounds, swishing, whirling, murmuring of voices. Visual detailed patterns that trembled and got sort of an overlay, multiple exposure, and moved towards some sort of collapse. Was drawn into something multiple times and kind of came back with a mental jump start. I must have stopped breathing all these times, because suddenly air was coming out of my nose and mouth with a sound, and I was surprised because I had absolutely no recollection of holding my breath. It was not snooring, more like the air just seeped out as if somebody had opened a poppet. There was no dullness. Everything was chrystal clear. All sensations were pristine. I have never before felt the breath so clearly, every little vibration. This kept happening over and over again, for hours. Gradually the visual and auditory calmed down whereas the physical sensations were more and more intense. It was like all nerves were vibrating. After a few times - I lost count - it was like fibromyalgic pain especially in my left wrist that has always been most sensitive to energetic phenomena. The pain gradually became more intense each time. It didn’t bother me, though. It was just there. After repeating this many times, there was an adrenaline surge jumpstarting my whole body. I guess enough was enough.

This cannot be unseen.

Afterwards it took some effort to coordinate the body, and there was a pleasant and soft flow. Still is.

I’m so hungry now.


I seem to have been wrong about the breath after unknowing events. It is an inbreath, but it sounds different, like Ujjay pranayama.

As I woke up from sleep this morning I was already meditating, seeing detailed textures transforming rapidly. The one with bubbles I recognized from before.

DREAMS:
While I was still sleeping I dreamt of seeing symbolic tarot card images one at a time, many of them. Every fifth of them, or something like that, lingered somewhat longer. Some of them were upside down. Earlier this morning I tried to stay awake to look out for patterns but I was very sleepy. I saw a Scrabble board where somebody had formed the word ”somna” which is Swedish for fall asleep, haha.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/23/19 10:31 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/23/19 10:31 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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This morning I attended a yoga class before going to sleep after a whole (not planned) night of meditation. That was probably not the wisest choice ever, as I was really tired. Maybe it was due to being so tired, but still... I saw waves in the floor. For a long time. The floor did not look solid at all. It looked like the air was steaming with heat and therefore causing a mirage. Also, almost everything I looked at for more than a few seconds made really strong after images. On the way to the yoga class, ordinary sensations gave rapture, and I felt a calm but strong happiness.

Since then I have been too tired to do a sitting meditation. I have slept. I have also tried to repeat the observations of all flickering dots making intricate and perfect patterns while lying down. I did see one detailed and geometrically complex image very briefly, but mostly there were regular swirls and instances of more detailed chaotic texture. I so hope that this is just reasonable tiredness due to lack of sleep. I do not wish to be back in dissolution again. There were unknowing events, but since I’m so tired now, I would guess that they were just micro sleep. Maybe I have missed the window of repeating whatever happened this night/morning, or maybe it was just an unsignificant peak event. I guess time will tell.

Regardless of what it was, it was amazing to have this meeting with chaos organizing itself into order in such a beatiful way.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/23/19 2:01 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/23/19 1:56 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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20 minutes sitting before I had to go to the laundry room, focusing in.

Started out with a blue nimitta that was soon replaced by a larger and perfectly round black disk (after first developing a black aura) which was in turn replaced by a red nimitta. Then a small and very bright blueish white spot appeared to the left from and below the perceived center. It was replaced by a pitch black after image. Then purple swirls, then more colors: pink, yellow, green. Occasionally a bright spot appeared in the middle.

With regard to mental sounds, there was a lot of crackling noise in my right ear. I let it be there and listened to it. After a while it calmed down. Instead there was a high pitched whirling tone.

There was a perception of bouncing between my forehead and further back in my brain when I was directing my attention to both mental images and mental sound. I did my best to apply the approach ”let it come, let it be, let it go”. When I directed my focus to just being aware, the visual field brightened up and the bouncing stopped.

Off cushion, earlier in the laundry room: instead of waiting impatiently for one of the washing machines to finish, I noticed the movements of the foam and was fascinated by the ”dance”. Why have I never seen this before? I attribute this new curiosity to the benefits of meditation.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 4:59 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 4:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I have been somewhere deep. Was forced to come out of it because I needed to pee. Sorry for bleing blunt, but it’s significant, because I noticed that I heard the sound of peeing before I felt the touch sensations of peeing, which made me feel that it wasn’t me peeing. The mind synchronizes sensations to create a false sense of unity. I touched my toe to verify this, and yes, I saw my finger touching the toe before I could feel it.

Writing is difficult now because I feel like I’m not quite in my body or in control of it.

I felt as if I was torn inside out, or as if inside and outside collapsed. After that, the senses were different.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 5:02 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 5:02 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Uhm, where did the time go? No wonder that I had to pee. Apparently I have spent all the morning in bed focusing in. It is noon here now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 5:11 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 5:11 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I’m guessing that I’m really more in ”my” body now than before. I’m just not used to more direct sensations and thus it’s disorienting.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 5:19 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 5:19 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It’s so weird writing with a touch screen when the sensation of touching the screen comes after seeing the touch.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 6:29 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 6:29 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I don’t think I have ever truly seen snowdrops before. They are amazing. I can’t describe how grateful I am for getting to enjoy spring flowers with new senses.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 7:20 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 7:20 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I can’t tell for sure what these unknowing events and the events leading to them are, but I do know that when I react to their arising as if I’m a doer and try to watch them diligently, they are immediately gone and neither the ”prelude” nor the unknowing events occur. Surrender is necessary. When there is total surrender, they happen on their own. There is no need to do anything. The trick is to let go of the letting go. There is no one who lets go. Intentionally letting go doesn’t work.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 11:02 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 11:02 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Meditated lying down for 100 minutes. Did not fall asleep. Yay! No unknowing event this time. I did feel as if drawn into something, though, this time through hearing. It’s heard to explain. It was as if the hearing tilted around and was turned inside out. Maybe this is third vipassana jhana with stronger sensory clarity, I don’t know. So... no hearer either. No inside, no outside. When there is resistence, there is also suffering. It’s like trying to resist giving birth, or trying to resist throwing up.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 11:57 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 11:57 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Like I was drawn out from by body through the sound in my right ear and then the sound cycled around my body, and the hearing and the consciousness of hearing followed it like the tail follows a comet, and then it was in my left ear and pierced through me... or something like that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 4:36 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 2:14 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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90 minutes, focusing in.

I’m starting to think that the sudden breath sound that takes me with surprise is actually the release of some hormone opening up the respiratory tract.

I haven’t been able to repeat the seeing of perfect kaleidoscopic images, unfortunately. I did see a child running towards me in a park with a lot of grass and some trees, as sort of a dream scene, and then that image being replaced by the darkness behind the eyelids. I saw the shift between images, and they took up the same space. I wasn’t able to catch the exact process.

There was deep calmness. It felt like oxytocine pumping through my entire body just like when breastfeeding. Sometimes I think there may be adrenaline too, because I sort of get a jump-start with intense awareness of mental sounds and vibrations throughout my body, and breath sensations even in my toes, and I feel an increased heart beat although I’m not scared. There were also periods of body parts falling away.

There was some mind wandering. Some of it felt like I was the doer of the thinking (which I know I’m not, but apparently all parts of me are not fully convinced), some of it could have been someone else’s thoughts. Somebody was talking about ”that lad of yours” (”grabben din”). It made me think of a friend’s son for some strange reason. Did I think I was her, or was I the talker? I don’t know. That’s not the way I talk.

Most of the time, however, the ringing sound of silence was very loud.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 6:26 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/24/19 6:26 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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1 hour sitting, focusing in.

The sounds in my ears, especially in my right ear, are loud (still are). I noticed that listening to the sound changes it. It is possible to break it into different tones. It isn’t continuous either, but has a rapid pulse with pauses inbetween.

It seemed to be time for the sense of smell to be turned inside out or something. It felt as if my nose was drawn to the left and then inside out, and the sense of smell with it. I guess there is no smeller either. Maybe this is some subversion of the third jhana. Previously I have focused much on the sense of touch which is perhaps strongest in the hands, and I have often felt as if my hands were positioned backwards, turned towards me instead of from me. It seems that now that I’m focusing more on what I have previously neglected, other senses are going through the same process. Whatever this is, it makes a strong case for the realization that there is no center. While illustrating that there is no I in control of the senses, it simultaneously seems to sharpen the senses.

There was a point where I think I was getting into the state of seeing amazing kaleidoscopic images, but one of my cats made a loud noice that interrupted the process.

I sincerely hope that I’m not one of those meditators that mix weak Vipassana with weak Shamatha. How does one know?

I did notice that the jhanic qualities are not only pleasurable. They come at a price. They burn neurotransmittors. Eventually, one runs out of them for the time being. Running on fumes causes a slight headache. Also, these states can be interrupted by a loud noice. They are dependent (yeah well, isn’t everything that can be experienced?). They are not reliable. If one craves for them, they stay away (they are pretty much like Carmen; I do love Carmen, but I wouldn’t want her as my partner). The perceived competences that one acquires while in jhana are very elusive and temporary. They are not mine.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/25/19 7:11 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/25/19 7:11 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Sat for 45 minutes, focusing in.

A black disk appeared in the beginning of the session, and the sound of silence was loud. I was able to divide the sound into different frequencies. I was starting to feel very calm. Small bright white and pitch black dots arised in the periphery, lingered a while and vanished. For a while the black disk turned into a large faintly red dot that was sort of both there and not there. Then the black disk appeared again, if I remember correctly.

Drilling noices from neighbors’ apartment interrupted the jhanic qualities. I used the sound as alternative meditation object and at the same time checked my introspective awareness to investigate my reactions. There were a lot of purple swirls, moving fast. Rings like Russian dolls zooming inward and outward. When focusing on the sound instead of resisting it, it was not annoying. It did seem to release endorphins, though, so I suppose I needed them. It was probably the unified concentration on the loud sound that released the endorphins that made the sound mildly pleasurable instead of horrifying (I’m sensitive to sounds). I noticed that the respiratory tracts widened.

Although I could feel endorphins pumping, I wasn’t comfortable. I realized that I don’t trust my body to say no in time since the dark night I went through recently with severe muscle pain. I recognized postures that I know were very painful just days ago, and now by body sinks into them in a way that could actually hurt it. I thought I was still in equanimity, but now I don’t know. Also, I had an annoying melody ringing in my head (the melody that I use as my morning wake-up alarm). When I allowed it to just be there it became much less annoying, but it was still a bit distracting. I seem to have melodies ringing in the background of my mind very often. This sounds very much like re-observation stuff, but in re-observation I was in severe pain, and now I’m not, and there is clarity both in the center and in the periphery (I checked that). There were no harsh vibrations, just a soft gentle wave billowing back and forth between my left and right sides. I directed my attention to the sensations making up the waves. Now they were not gentle anymore. They were pointy electrical surges arising and passing away on one small point at a time. That was very unsatisfactory. I was able to zoom out again to regain the perception of a gentle wave, but the small point where I zoomed in before kept standing out in an annoyingly edgy way. Maybe I’m starting to see through the pleasantness of equanimity, or maybe I’m on the verge of falling back into re-observation, or maybe I’m one of those people who have gotten too used to the dark night to feel really comfortable in equanimity. I don’t know. I guess time will tell.

I think those amazing detailed patterns organizing themselves in space were perhaps fourth jhana, and now the afterglow of it has worn off. It was a fantastic experience, but nothing to strive for right now. I need my life to work and can’t afford spending so many hours per day on something that is so elusive and short-term.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/25/19 3:57 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/25/19 2:01 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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At today’s class of restorative yoga, I noticed that in any part of the body that I focused on, there were wavelike movements that on a closer investigation were individual sensations of expansions/contractions/pressure arising and passing away. Focusing on it made me conscious of it, but I was hardly in control of it. There are so many processes going on without each other’s knowing. It’s like a whole civilisation in there.

I tried my best to take in everything that occurred in my sensate universe. That’s a lot of sensations! There were a lot of tensions directly related to this process. When I directed my attention to a sound, I could feel muscles contracting in my face in a weird way, and there was a slight delay (echo/bouncing). There was probably some conceptualization going on all the time. I wish I could just let go of the notion of being the watcher, but that would require me being in control and thus the doer, which would mean that I also were the watcher... Gah!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/25/19 3:48 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I think the unknowing events that I experienced may have been this:

”Unfortunately, just to make things confusing, there is often a single double-dip state shift into some deeper version of early Equanimity in the manner of A&P territory, with one state-shift that may involve an eye-blink and shift in consciousness halfway down the breath and the other at the end of that same breath, very soon after the shift from Re-observation to Equanimity. [ñ11.ñ4 in ñana.subñana (insight stage.insight stage) terminology, the part of Equanimity that has a bit of the A&P phase in it.” (MCTB2, part IV, chapter 30:11, Equanimity)

For me it happened multiple times, though. Yeah well, I usually don’t fit into any maps at all, so I guess I had to diverge from it somewhere. Anyway, it fits the description. I think I was right about coming back hearing the outbreath after all. I suppose that also explains the spectacular images, because yeah, there was sort of an A&P quality to it. Yet, it seemed to me like it was at a higher level.

Also, I think I may be in the mini-darknight of equanimity now. That fits the description. So it’s possible that I haven’t dropped down. Yet, anyway. Complicated stuff, this.

So, I think I have at least a vague idea of what needs to be done. That’s a relief.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/25/19 8:29 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/25/19 8:19 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I sat for 45 minutes and then meditated in reclined position for I don’t know how long - two and a half hours? I may have started around 11.00 p.m., and now it’s 2.20 a.m.

There were periods of extreme clarity and awareness. There were also periods of deep calmness and stillness with very little thinking going on. All the time, I was going through a process of turning myself inside out. It felt as if I was torn apart. There were prickling sensations throughout my entire body, like carbon dioxide being released but never ending. It sounded like that, too. Sometimes there were also crackling noices. Frequences and intensity of the sounds varied. Sometimes the sounds were accompanied by visual activity that sort of looked like carbon dioxide being released, too. When the intensity of experience escalated, the frequencies got higher and higher.

I went through turning all the senses inside out. It’s hard to explain, but it has to do with collapsing inside and outside and sort of switching position, as I experience it. There was a sense of being drawn out from my body tbrough the senses, one at a time. Even the taste was included.

There was burning pain at the back of my head. I investigated it and there was a lot of relief between the pain impulses. After quite some time I realized that there was actually a physical cause for the pain. I had tied a blindfold to my head, and I was lying on the knot in a way that put a lot of pressure to the back of my head. I took away the blindfold. I didn’t need it anymore. There was another moment of intense pain to my neck, and I realized that I had tilted my head in an unnatural position while having the experience of being drawn out to the left. The pain didn’t bother me very much. It didn’t feel like it was mine.

At one point the heart area hurt so badly that I realized that energy must be blocked. I noticed that the spine wasn’t straight. The bed is too soft. I put a pillow under my chest, and there was relief. Things happened visually as a result of removing the blockage.

At one point my feet were flexed upwards in a fierce movement.

There were a few unknowing events - three, I think - where the sound of my breath surprised me, and it was definitely not snooring. Two of them were definitely inbreaths. I think one of them may have been an outbreath, though, which is strange. I’m not sure whether there were moments missing or if it was just a very sudden change of the breathing. All I know is that I was surprised by the loud breath and that breathing was extremely easy from that point, and rich in detailed sensations. These situations had an intensity to them. The one that was an outbreath was different from the others. There was a smell, too, so I think I was perhaps releasing toxins. This sounds very much new age, I know. I’m just trying to explain what I experienced.

There were a lot of neurotransmittors/hormones released over and over again. I could feel it.

I don’t know what this is. Michael Taft warned me that experiencing bodily sensations with the kind of clarity that awakening would require may be painful for me, so maybe that’s what I’m going through. I try to focus on the visual instead, but the bodily sensations are so much more accessible to me. Mostly I think this is very interesting, though. So far I don’t mind it. For a while there I felt that there wasn’t any substance to my ”self”. I think there is resistence, though, and that’s what making this so fierce and violent. I feel as if I’m having protracted labor and may need a suction cup or maybe a caesarian section, because this baby is trying to come out through every pore of my body. For a while it even felt like energy releasing from the crown of my head.

Is it supposed to be like this? Am I doing something wrong? I feel fine now, though. No problem. No pain, no fear. And I didn’t mind it. But it was violent. And I don’t think it’s done yet.

...

During the sitting, I noticed that a dreamlike mental image (of an emerald or something like that) had an after image on the black screen.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 2:08 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 2:06 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I woke up in re-observation with intense pain in my back and neck and head, but instead of taking painkillers, I sat down to meditate. There was immediate rapture. I found myself cycling up and down between A&P, re-observation and equanimity. There were intense Kundalini phenomena, harsh vibrations especially in the throat area, and profound calmness and ease. I could feal that there were still blockages in the heart and throat area. Focusing on these areas lead me back into re-observation, and I could not dissolve them entirely. I will need to work on that, but in order for this day to work, I needed some relief from the intense pain. Therefore I stopped the meditation while in equanimity. Equanimity is marked by harmonious calm together with chrystal clear awareness of breath both at the tip of the nose and throughout my body, and by breathing being easy.

When focusing on the crown area, with gaze directed straight forward and relaxed, that feeling of carbon dioxide being released throughout my body - prickly sensations arising and passing away - arose and intensified, and with it that high-pitched whirling sound and the accompanying visual. Because of the blockages, I couldn’t go through with it. I noticed that this phenomenon, whatever it is, is the same phenomenon that caused me to panic before. It is very intense.

I still have the feeling that energy is trying to search its way through the blockages and through the crown of my head. I’ll bring painkillers to work, just in case. I have a feeling that I may cycle back and forth today.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 6:44 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 6:41 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Okay, so yeah... There is rapid cycling going on regardless of whether or not I practice, and that actually explains a lot about some mysterious periods in my life when I have reacted with what I thought was some kind of allergic reaction to even the slightest exercise, with strange things happening in my vision field and a whirling sound in my ears and like carbon dioxide bubbles being released in my entire body. I have gone through this before, periodically. The combination of the Kundalini energy of the A&P, the harsh vibrations of re-observation, and the spaciousness of equanimity, over and over again, with the feeling of being sucked out of my body and then being just fine shortly afterwards. Until it repeats again. And again. How weird!

I felt like I needed to lie down in Shavasana and just breath with the tounge pressed against that area behind the upper front teeth, so that’s what I did for a couple of hours.

Apparently when I focus on the crown of my head while directing a relaxed gaze straight forward, an inner light switches on. That’s fun to play with.

I’m trying to go to work now (luckily I manage my own time). I’m not sure how that will play out, as I’m already feeling lightheaded again (heh, pun not intended). But just being outside feels like a blessing right now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 8:58 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 8:58 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I found that my senses were overwhelming me with their intensity to the verge of causing me to faint, especially since I kept cycling like crazy, so I decided that going to work was probably not the best idea after all. Still, it is a lovely weather today, mild and sunny although this should be in the middle of the winter, and that felt healing, so I decided to go for a walk while deciding what to do. The intensity increased, and I felt the need to sit down somewhere close to water or trees and put my bare feet in the mud. I determined that a small herbal garden close to a creek and with trees in it would do, so I walked there as fast as I managed. That really did help. I have been sitting here for quite some time now. As soon as I sat down and closed my eyes, a strong bright yellow nimitta appeared. I looked at it for a while until it faded and I had calmed down.

Maybe I have focused more on energy flow than I can manage, I don’t know. Maybe I should have just taken painkillers this morning instead of moving that energy. But it worked. Still no pain.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 10:34 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 10:34 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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On the other hand... it seems that I was actually taking painkillers, although internally produced. Apparently there are opioids involved in meditation. That explains a lot. http://www.leighb.com/jhananeuro.htm
Jyet, modified 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 4:01 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 4:01 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Nice to see a link from Leigh B. It's a shame he doesn't come to Stockholm in recent years. Did a retreat with him at Barnens Ö organized by vipassanagruppen in 2015. I think he would suit you very well as you seem to have talent for concentration.

I enjoy reading your journal. Keep up the good work Linda.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 4:23 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/26/19 4:23 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Jyet:
Nice to see a link from Leigh B. It's a shame he doesn't come to Stockholm in recent years. Did a retreat with him at Barnens Ö organized by vipassanagruppen in 2015. I think he would suit you very well as you seem to have talent for concentration.

I enjoy reading your journal. Keep up the good work Linda.


Oh thankyou! Yeah, that would have been great. Too bad I didn’t know anything about this stuff back in 2015. I feel envy coming up right now, so apparently that’s something I need to work on, but I’m also glad for you. Wow, what an opportunity! What a cool thing to have experienced! Vipassanagruppen? I haven’t heard of them. Are they still active? Sounds like something I should check out.

Maybe I have? I wish that would apply to the challenges of daily life. But then again, that’s a very different type of concentration.

Thank you so much for your kind comments! I’m really happy that someone enjoys reading my daily rants.
Jyet, modified 5 Years ago at 2/27/19 8:41 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/27/19 8:40 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Yes check them out. They have donation based sittings once a week at Södermalm/Sofia. I haven't been there myself for some years. But when I was there last time the schedule was 45min meditation then tea/coffe break with chit chat and finishing with a dharma talk. They also arrange a few retreats per year. I've heard very good things from friends about the one in May with Yanai Postelnik and Catherine McGee. Unfortunately it seem to be fully booked this year.

http://sangha.nu/embodying-the-awakened-heart-insight-meditation-retreat-with-loving-kindness-maj-2019/

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/27/19 1:32 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/27/19 1:32 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Thank you so much!

I have listened to a talk by Catherine McGee recorded on a retreat and I liked it very much. That retreat was fully booked, but I’ll join another one if I’m allowed to bring my own food (complicated dietary requirements for health reasons...).
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/27/19 4:54 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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As I woke up today, I wondered what kind of clarity I have today. Immediately, without deliberately looking for it, I could sense that there were waves in my hands, and when I focused on them I could sense the arisings and passings of pressure sensations on individual points. I could feel that clarity is there both in the center and in the periphery.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/27/19 7:49 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I meditated at the office for about an hour, focusing on flow, that is, on the vibrant nature of sensations, mental images and so forth.

As soon as I closed my eyes, there was a red nimitta embryo and the nada sound. I focused on the vibrant qualities of the nimitta embryo until it dissolved. It kept coming back, brighter, bigger, and in yellow, and I kept focusing on its vibrant qualities.

As I listened to the sound, I could tune in to different frequencies of it.

There were wavelike movements where my hands touched my thighs. I could investigate it to sense its binary components arising and passing away, and I could zoom out to the wavepattern again. I could perceive the waves as more local and as more global, as horisontal and vertical. I tried perceiving diagonal waves but the outcome was unclear.

Over time, impermanence felt more and more natural. I didn’t get to that state of everything being like when you open a bottle of carbonized water that has had a bumpy road, though, but I could sense that it’s not that far away. I will get there again.

I opened my eyes slowly and the afternoon daylight looked green. For a moment the desk and the things in front of my didn’t appear fully solid.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/27/19 7:33 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I meditated in a reclined position for a couple of hours, focusing on visual impermanence. The visual is not as accessible to me as kinesthetics, but it is more pleasurable (less violent). I’m not at that stage of equanimity where I’m immediately drawn into something, but if I meditate in a very relaxed way, approaching occassional mind wandering equanimously, I do get into a highly vibrational state now and then. That is visually interesting, but I did not get to the state/stage where perfect intricate patterns organize themselves.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/27/19 11:22 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I just woke up from a scary dream about meditation that felt too real. I was meditating (or maybe I was just trying to sleep?) and very suddenly, in a way that scared me a bit, came into that buzzy state where vivid images present themselves, and these images were chrystal clear. It started with images reminding of tarot images in color, with short texts on that I could actually read - I usually can’t in dreams; that’s how I know it’s a dream. I though that what I had seen before wasn’t a dream after all. The words didn’t make much sense, and the images replaced each other at such a rapid pace that I was unable to memorize them. I thought that my unconscious probably got the messeges that I needed to get, so I didn’t worry about it. I remember that one of the pictures showed a giant red rose with a ring among its petals. Then the images were replaced by short film scenes that seemed very random. The scenes got longer and longer. They kept appearing even with my eyes open. Now my son was there next to me and I felt relieved that something felt normal and that I was not alone, yet worried a bit about scaring him. In the dream there was a movie screen on our wall. We don’t have any such thing in real life. Anyway, he was watching something on the screen, but I couldn’t see what it was because I had visions that covered it. At some point I told him what was going on and started to say out loud what I saw. Then a small TV monitor started to appear on the wall above me, broadcasting visions. First I just took the monitor for granted, but then I realized that I don’t have one, and I got scared because it looked so solid and it was in 3D. It started to show scenes uncontrolably. It would disappear and then reappear more close to my face. Then other actual 3D items started to appear and transform and move about in the air, first at a distance, then closer. A little girl was levitating above me and started to sink down over me. I touched her and she was like a balloon. I could interact with her. She was as surprised as I was about her being like a balloon. At some point she wasn’t solid but more like a ghost, but then I could touch her again. I feared that she would become dense and fall down on me. A green cat appeared above me and I could pet it. It occurred to me that I had no idea if it would continue to behave like a normal cat or be like in a horror movie, and I got tense. The cat could probably sense that, and it started to scratch me. I wanted to get rid of it. I felt something on my legs (maybe one of my real cats in real life) and was trying to free myself from it. Then the scene changed in front of my eyes and I could see my actual living room (where I sleep), and I realized that it had been a dream. Still I was scared that things would start to appear around me.

Ugh... what am I getting myself into? The thresholds between ”reality” and meditation and dreams are getting blurred in a way that I’m not sure I’m prepared for.
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Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 2/28/19 6:53 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 2/28/19 6:51 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Ugh... what am I getting myself into? The thresholds between ”reality” and meditation and dreams are getting blurred in a way that I’m not sure I’m prepared for.


I've been there many times -- I theorize that the mind was showing me what it was fully capable of by creating such realistic experiences that were entirely made up. I would awaken to amazingly fast images of playing cards flashing in front of me, so fast that I could barely make them out but the images were very realistic and brightly colorful. I would hear sounds and voices that I was certain were real, only there weren't any other people or sound sources nearby.

Your mind is an immensely powerful thing. These images, sounds, and other experiences are showing you just how much mind creates your everyday experience. Your senses gather only a tiny part of what we call "reality" and the rest is filled in by this hugely powerful took we call "mind."

These are lessons to pay attention to but not to fear. I think they're normal and part of the path.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/28/19 7:04 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Thanks! Yeah, I was thinking that, too, while at the same time feeling that I might be losing it. So it’s a relief to hear that it has happened to others as well, others who are still functioning. I’m too curious about all this to bail out on it, but I wasn’t so cocky early this morning. Thankfully I had my cats (not green levitating ones!) there to comfort me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/28/19 6:20 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Did a 20 minutes sitting at work, focusing on visual impermanence. Earlier at a coffee break I had noticed that furniture and other ”solid” stuff appeared to be flickering in my visual field, so I wanted to see what was up. I had to hold my eyelids down with my hands for a while because they were fluttering rapidly so I couldn’t tell what was actual flickering and what was just my eyelids fluttering. Weird. There was flickering going on, so it wasn’t just my eyelids. I could also feel both fear and nausea, albeit in a subtle way. The fear was marked by perceived pressure to the heart, which was beating fast and hard. The nausea was more of an upper stomach thing. At the same time, I felt safe. The floor felt solid under my feet.

My visual field is still flickering, though, even with my eyes open, and I can feel very fast vibrations in my body and hear high-pitched whirling sounds in my ears.

There is clarity both in the center and in the periphery. I can feel both individual arisings and passings where two finger tips touch AND vibrations in my entire body and slow waves billowing softly. My best guess is that this is the mini dark night of equanimity.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 2/28/19 6:25 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Okay, this is ridiculous, but... I very palpably learned a lesson about suffering tonight as I hurt my muscles trying to chase some deep experience (craving). After 2 hours and 40 minutes, which were mostly dull anyway, there was a burning pain that I hadn’t noticed until I attempted to move. Didn’t I read about the uselessness of trying to power equanimity like this? Yes, I believe I did. Well, at least there were no green levitating cats or TV monitors growing out of the wall or anything else reminding too much of an episode of Doctor Who coming true.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 10:26 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Did a thirty minute sitting with noting, using a combination of Shinzen Young’s grid, my own adaption of it (with help from a dharma friend), and Mahasi noting. Impermanence was easy to se, as tactile, auditory and visual aspects of mental activity was in constant flux. That nada sound (or combination of sounds of different frequencies) is getting so loud! Not self was also fairly obvious, because those dreamlike scenes that appeared might as well have been someone else’s. I can usually at least relate to my dreams, but the scenes showing up in meditation really don’t seem like they are mine.

I think mental images are starting to occupy the same space as the black screen in a way they haven’t done before, as I have perceived it.

Some unconscious stuff hijacked my attention a few times. I don’t think it was for very long. Noting helped. It was a bit weird that I noted it as talk when somebody else said something in a dreamlike scene, but that made me realize that I had actually heard the voices clearer than I usually do, with accents and everything. They were all talking American English. A woman clearly was from the south. I guess there are mental processes within my mind that have no problem with identifying with total strangers who are fictive.

Sitting was comfortable and restful. Having my attention hijacked is unsatisfactory, though.

...

At today’s yoga class, when I opened my eyes after sitting with them closed for a while, the visual field was in flux.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 10:48 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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At one point I noticed that some mental process was noting happenings that I had no conscious awareness of what they were, and I couldn’t perceive the labels either. Still I somehow knew that noting was going on and that it was not just mimicking of noting, but actual noting. That part knew what it was doing. It just didn’t bother to share. Does that make sense?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 12:33 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I’m on the train and I thought I would close my eyes to see if it would be possible to meditate in this noice (the train itself and people talking loudly) and with all this shaking. I immediately saw a red nimitta embryo. Soon the center of it turned green, and then the entire vision field was green. I decided to check if could make it change color. I thought of yellow, and soon there was a yellow dot in the center. Then I thought of blue, and a blue dot appeared. The same with pink. Purple took longer time, strangely enough; after all, purple was the first color I was able to see, and I usually see a lot of it (swirls that seem to be beyond any control). Then I thought of red, and immediately there was a large round red dot. I though of yellow again, and yes, a small yellow dot appeared in the center of the larger red one. I thought of green. That took some time, but then green appeared.

I remember the first time I heard somebody talk about seeing colors behind their closed eyelids while doing Kundalini yoga. I was so envious. I could never imagine that happening to me. Never say never.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 12:38 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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That's great Linda!  Can you do the same with emotions?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 12:53 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I don’t know. I know that I can evoke joy, at least sometimes. I haven’t tried very often. I could try, I guess.

When I investigate one of the color dots, it is dissolved into something that looks like many vibrating wavy strings that could be of any color. When I investigate the strings further, they seem to consist of very small particles of different colors that arise and pass away very rapidly.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 1:06 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It doesn’t seem to work now. I have done it in theatre and role play, but then I was identifying with a content. I have done it with joy several times, without thinking about anything at all, but I guess there was already joy there in the background. Now I could feel calm pleasure, but that overwhelming joy did not appear. I could probably evoke fear by thinking about my uncertain future, but that would imply identifying with content. I guess that’s not what you are asking about, is it?

Is there a point to feeling random feelings? Does that help with seeing no self?

Most of the time when I meditate I don’t feel any feelings at all, unless I’m very stressed up to begin with. When feelings come up, that’s the exception.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 1:14 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I can sense that there is resistence towards cultivating feelings during meditation, so maybe there are subtle feelings under the surface.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 1:27 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I could probably very easily evoke irritation by focusing on uncomfortable clothes, itches, noise, compulsions, and so forth. But why? I already know that feeling too well (if it counts as a feeling; maybe it is feeling + story). I’d rather not strengthen those pathways. It is welcome to stay in the background and even more welcome to communicate its needs before those needs are overwhelming. I have spent a decade learning to listen to subtle signs from my body in order to take care of myself, and I would say I’m fairly good at it. When there is a strong negative feeling, things have already gone too far. My boundaries have a buffer zone.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 2:35 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Positie emotions will do.  Negative one arise more often than we want anyway.  But love, joy, compassion, bliss, happiness?  These are all different.  Can you switch between them? 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/1/19 3:23 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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If thinking about content is allowed, then yes, I think so. Not always, but pretty often. That depends on my current stage, though. But even when I’m totally miserable, I know what I need to do to feel compassion. Sometimes I may need a reminder, though, and sometimes I may need help from somebody else. I have people that I turn to for this purpose, because compassion is important to me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/2/19 1:58 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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30 minutes noting with focus on flickerings in all sense doors but notings also for everything that caught attention.

Impermanence was very obvious for all senses as they all have an inherent flickering quality. No self appeared as the sense of touch did that backward thing, reversing directions in a way that is so hard to put into words.

Visually it is clear that there is no white when one looks closely. White is made up of tiny tiny dots of red, green and blue.

Some sounds from one of my partners triggered emotional response: love. When I investigated it, it was hard to pinpoint it. Phenomenologically it seems to be a combination of things like standing on firm ground, being safe and happy, and a great motivator for skillful action and skillful balancing. It made me relaxed and active at the same time. It felt like soft cotton against my heart. There were elements of joy, bliss and a lot of compassion. It is the opposite of fear.

Nimitta embryos showed up. I could construct them and deconstruct them into vibrational strings. It seems like the relationship between shamatha and vipassana is like that between multiplication and division or between addition and substraction. It is really the same process although the results differ substantially because the point of departure is the opposite. Construction and deconstruction.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/2/19 6:48 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

Some sounds from one of my partners triggered emotional response: love. When I investigated it, it was hard to pinpoint it. Phenomenologically it seems to be a combination of things like standing on firm ground, being safe and happy, and a great motivator for skillful action and skillful balancing. It made me relaxed and active at the same time. It felt like soft cotton against my heart. There were elements of joy, bliss and a lot of compassion. It is the opposite of fear.


Love is such a beautiful emotion.  Maybe the best of them all. emoticon  If you can't pinpoint it, then next time it arises have a look around in the subtle body. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/3/19 1:52 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/3/19 1:52 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Right. I’ll try. That’s in line with my assignments, too.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/3/19 12:29 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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curious:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

Some sounds from one of my partners triggered emotional response: love. When I investigated it, it was hard to pinpoint it. Phenomenologically it seems to be a combination of things like standing on firm ground, being safe and happy, and a great motivator for skillful action and skillful balancing. It made me relaxed and active at the same time. It felt like soft cotton against my heart. There were elements of joy, bliss and a lot of compassion. It is the opposite of fear.


Love is such a beautiful emotion.  Maybe the best of them all. emoticon  If you can't pinpoint it, then next time it arises have a look around in the subtle body. 


It’s an emotion that carries you and that drives creation and makes it all worth while. It’s not static, but a flow. It’s the curiosity that makes you want to keep going, and a connecting force. As such, it is transcendental. It is also the faith that enables you to let go and the trust that allows you to throw yourself out and know that you will be carried.

I got the intuitive feeling that love is what holds all ”creation” together, not in a static way, but dynamically (as an ongoing exploration), and not by force but because it finds joy in it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/3/19 4:23 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Before I fell asleep last night, I got to the point of visual imagery starting to change character. The many dots sort of chrystallize (?) into a more fixated image, and then there is an overlay, not totally unlike in those 3D-pictures where you need to relax your gaze in a certain way to see the 3D-image. I think the parasympathetic nervous system (I’m unsure if this is the correct terminology in English) needs to be activated for this to happen. It seems to be more about construction than deconstruction, so I’m guessing this is some sort of Jhanic thing.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/3/19 6:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Around two hours of meditation in a reclined position with legs against the wall, noting just enough to stay mindful, otherwise mainly trying to be open to whatever would arise.

Lots of flickering and vibrational stuff. Lots of unsconscious content the first hour. Second hour focusing on the visual.

Constructing, deconstructing, becoming, unbecoming. Solidifying impermanence and striving not to. Striving, striving not to strive, striving to be equanamous about striving not to strive, succeeding for a moment, then clinging to that. Serenity, then clinging to serenity.

Felt breath both in center and in periphery. There was some spaciousness and lightness, a decrease in density,

Flickering of visual field, auditory field and kinesthetics continues off cushion.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/4/19 4:07 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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About an hour maybe (?) of focusing on visual and auditory flow.

I couldn’t tell what sounds were internal and external, because the air ventilation system here is pretty noicy, so I treated them all as if they were mental sounds. I could break tones into impulses and change the sounds depending on how I listened. I was actually convinced that a certain set of sounds within the ”normal” tone frequency was internal, but I realize now that it emmanates from the ventilation system. Still, apparently much of the perception is indeed mental. There was a bouncing, though, when attention moved between those sounds and the high frequency sounds that I know are internal, and between them and the mental visual flow.

I kept shifting between visual flow and auditory flow rapidly, observing the bouncing. More and more often I came into a space where I didn’t need to shift because it was all in my awareness. In those instances, the high frequency sound was louder, and the flow also included kinesthetic sensations. Not rough vibrations, but innumerous amounts of tiny tiny unstable bubbles being released and gently bursting very rapidly. This kind of impermanence was part of visual, auditory and kinesthetic input simultaneously. It still is to some extent. There was also a sense of spaciousness, lightness, thinness. Less density.

...

It appears as though my ”mind screen” and ordinary visual field are starting to integrate. Before I fell asleep last night I could again see my nose although my eyes were closed (it varied in color between different purple nuances and pitch black and maybe red, I don’t remember) and I could also to some extent see my hand in front of my closed eyes. It was pretty dark, so it wasn’t that my hand made shadows through my eyelids. I could see it move but I couldn’t see details, except for once when I actually saw my finger approach my nose, but I’m not entirely sure whether my eyes were fully closed at that point or if some visual data could actually reach them. When I opened my eyes, I could shift between night vision of the room or the mind screen with purple swirls or sort of both.

After today’s meditation sitting, it was as if there was an overlay of mind screen upon regular vision. Still is.

I could see my nose during the sitting today as well, periodically, in purple and black, but not quite as clearly.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/4/19 4:48 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It seems like precise physical sensations have stopped being like needle stings or strong electrical charges and instead have taken on the character of unstable bubbles that softly arise and gently burst. When this ”carbon dioxide bubbles phenomenon” first appeared broadly, it was fierce. Now it’s not. Maybe the resistence trying to hold the bubbles ”inside” has decreased. In a bottle of sparkling water, the resistence of the walls makes the bubbles into a strong force when shaking the bottle. Without the walls, that is, without the resistance, there is no need for the bubbles to force their way out when the bottle is opened.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/4/19 5:50 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I have realized that there is no need to push things right now. Equanimity is not a stable stage, but the dark night pre stream entry is familiar territory and I know how to navigate in it and up from it. Pushing things seems to be what brings me back to A&P. The work that needs to be done right now is subtle, and I will get as many chances as I need as long as I’m alive. So the sense of being in a rush is misleading. It is the subtle suffering of this stage. Not only does it make me miss the beautiful sceneries of the journey; it also makes me miss that junction that I’m supposed to take.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/4/19 8:16 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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At the train while relaxing deeply I could almost see unconscious images flashing by. They were right beneath the surface. Some texture was visible.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/4/19 1:24 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Notes from today’s session with Michael Taft:

I seems that I’m in equanimity and I should keep doing vipassana on three senses. We tried both shamatha and vipassana exercises, and it is clear that I’m more inclined to focus on vipassana. Ironically, when trying to just enjoy the color shows, the colors tended to fade away, but when I focused on impermanence in visual, auditory and kinesthetic fields, a psychedelic light show appeared, and there were small red, blue and green dots arising and passing away rapidly and vibrating strings appearing, and the high-pitched whirling sounds in my ears increased.

He said that if it interferes with my ability to work I should step back and ease it.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/4/19 4:38 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

We tried both shamatha and vipassana exercises, and it is clear that I’m more inclined to focus on vipassana.
I noticed that too!  But I'll try not to interfere with your guidance from your teacher.  Practice well, Linda.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/4/19 7:42 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Ah. Thankyou!

There will be plenty of opportunity to give advice without interfering when these scholarship-based sessions are over, because I can’t afford Michael Taft on my own. Just sayin’.

I was afraid that I wasn’t really doing Vipassana because I really get a kick from whatever it is that I’m doing, but apparently it is, after all. Maybe it’s just not the dryest version of it, I don’t know.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/4/19 8:24 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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After our coaching session I felt like meditatingnsome more. First I sat for 45 minutes, with a lot of impermanence showing up in the visual and auditory field and also kinesthetically. I lay down to continue for as long as I needed, and I kept going for hours before I decided to just rest a short while before writing. Then I fell asleep, of course.

There was a lot of activity and it was interesting. I’m starting to really enjoy impermanence. I’ll try to remember that when changes stress me out in my daily life.

The physical sensations were rather violent again and actually painful. I wasn’t really expecting that, but I decided to just let it be. I knew that I could easily end the pain by just decreasing my concentration to come out of third Vipassana Jhana. I chose not to, because I was having fun. It was mainly my heart that hurt. There were painful pressure sensations and occassionally the sense of a force trying to rip my heart out of my chest. I interpreted it as the no self process that had previously gone through all my senses was now going for my perceived center, and I thought that was good. When I investigated the pain closely I could feel that the pain was only very brief impulses with a lot of space inbetween them, and it wasn’t harming any tissue. Some hurt involved my head, and there was a sense of being drawn out from my head as well. Accepting this process with equanimity made things brighter and made breathing easier. It also eased the pain and led to the beginning of images chrystallizing. A clear image of a mandala made of stars on a black sky flashed by very briefly. There was also a text, sort of a headline containing several words. One of them was ”Christ” for some strange reason. I was not sleeping at this point, but it seems like this was one of those dream scene images that I have. There were other dreamlike images of long texts that I could not read.

After a while it struck me that the pain could be due to physical blockages of an energy that wanted to run freely, so I piled up my chest with a cushion into a heart opening position and supported my neck to a backward bend to open up the throat chakra as well. Later I also opened up my hips. This was a relief and I lay like that for a long time. I felt that my breath was healing me from whatever was stuck in the blockages. Maybe it was the flow of impermanence that wanted to run freely through me, taking away some old habits and preconceptions and hang-ups.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/5/19 12:46 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/5/19 12:46 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
When I investigated the pain closely I could feel that the pain was only very brief impulses with a lot of space in between them, and it wasn’t harming any tissue. 
Very very good.

Sorry to hear about the theft, that really sucks. Don't worry, your reaction doesn't show that you can't awaken.  Rather, it shows that you are human.  All awakened people are human too.  I was reading the other day about the Buddha being ill and getting grumpy over being fussed over, and snapping at his attendant.  Then he was asked 'why did you do that' ... um ... 'because he was blocking the views of all the devas who wanted to look.'.  Yeah, right.  SIddharta made a mistake, lashed out a little, and then tried to make it right.  Human.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/5/19 5:26 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/5/19 5:26 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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curious:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
When I investigated the pain closely I could feel that the pain was only very brief impulses with a lot of space in between them, and it wasn’t harming any tissue. 
Very very good.

Sorry to hear about the theft, that really sucks. Don't worry, your reaction doesn't show that you can't awaken.  Rather, it shows that you are human.  All awakened people are human too.  I was reading the other day about the Buddha being ill and getting grumpy over being fussed over, and snapping at his attendant.  Then he was asked 'why did you do that' ... um ... 'because he was blocking the views of all the devas who wanted to look.'.  Yeah, right.  SIddharta made a mistake, lashed out a little, and then tried to make it right.  Human.


Thanks! I needed some encouraging and validation right now. I’ll remember that story about the Buddha, because I’ll probably need it again.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/5/19 11:02 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/5/19 11:02 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Staying equanimous is not very easy when somebody steals one’s telephone with disability aid technology in it. I was already panicking because I couldn’t find my way into a meeting and my battery died on my ipad because it was so cold so I couldn’t check the address or contact the others. Without internet I’m lost. I have no sense of directions and very little visual memory. I was freezing and didn’t know what to do, and while I was trying to figure it out, somebody stole my phone and lifeline. What’s wrong with people? I’m too upset now to be in equanimity, so now that’s probably screwed too. Maybe I’m too sensitive to this kind of stuff to ever awaken.
Dexter Chamberlin, modified 5 Years ago at 3/5/19 12:48 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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The way you're feeling is very valid. Don't forget to be compassionate with yourself. The situation you have been put in sounds very stressful and it can be hard to not create additional suffering by turning the feelings back on yourself. Maybe this has set you back, but if you able to achieve equnimity then you already know its something that is possible for you. If you just ignored the reaction then you would just be pretending to be in equnimity by being apathetic. I might be off but I think that if you can be compassionate and accept that it is okay and valid for you to feel the way that you do then you might find even more equnimity in your life.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/5/19 5:28 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Dexter Chamberlin:
The way you're feeling is very valid. Don't forget to be compassionate with yourself. The situation you have been put in sounds very stressful and it can be hard to not create additional suffering by turning the feelings back on yourself. Maybe this has set you back, but if you able to achieve equnimity then you already know its something that is possible for you. If you just ignored the reaction then you would just be pretending to be in equnimity by being apathetic. I might be off but I think that if you can be compassionate and accept that it is okay and valid for you to feel the way that you do then you might find even more equnimity in your life.


I appreciate your kind words and validation. Thank you! Good points too.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/5/19 6:04 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I meditated in a reclined position for four hours without falling asleep or even getting sleepy, so at least I know I’m not currently in dissolution. I was focusing on impermanence. In the beginning I was agitated and did a lot of mind wandering and had irritating music in my ears, but that settled down eventually. I could hear that music being distorted by interference from vibrations and thought that was pretty cool. The same thing happened with a mental image. That familiar feeling of an altered sense of touch, sort of backwards, appeared. I kind of like that weird perception of being on ”both sides” simultaneously. It makes it easier to distance myself from the illusion of a self. There was pain in my wrists as if some force was taering them. It may sound strange, but that didn’t bother me. There were instances of intense pain in the bones of my feet, and I enjoyed the intensity, Then I spent a lot of time just tuning into the gentle ”bubbles” whirling in my visual field, auditory field and kinesthetic field, It was soothing. Now I’m very calm.

There is an intense high-pitched tone ringing in my ears now, and I can chose between hearing it as that tone or as white noice.

I realized earlier tonight that not only is there no doer on this side; there is no doer on the other side either (duh). There is no external entity judging my reactions and deciding whether or not I’m worthy of awakening. Awakening will happen when all (or most of them, perhaps, as awakening is only the beginning of the process) mental processes identifying as my self are convinced that the identification only causes unnecessary suffering. As simple as that, and as difficult as that. I only need to convince my (not) self.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/6/19 12:37 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/6/19 12:33 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It happens more and more often off cushion that the visual field is flickering and full of small points that arise and pass away rapidly. I remember that I saw this regularly as a child. How did the visual impressions come to appear so solid, and when did that happen? Gradually, I guess. I remember people informing me about floaters in a patronizing way, as if I wouldn’t know the difference. I probably stopped talking about what I saw because people discarded it as silly, and eventually I just stopped believing my own eyes.

Not that there is a me, but you get the picture...

At today’s yoga class I found that constructing a center point actually makes balancing soooooo much easier. I just played make-believe that I was sitting inside my chest, in the heart chakra, and that made all the difference. Do people normally think of themselves as having a centerpoint like that? Is that what should be let go of? I never had that sort of center point before. I have mainly seen myself as sort of a formless blob, an amoeba without a core, and that makes it really difficult to notice when the center of gravity is off. How weird that imagining that there is a self in the heart chakra makes such a difference. I don’t even believe it, and I didn’t do anything with it more than pretending very lightly. Ironic that I should need to create the sort of thing that I’m trying to get rid of.

My faith in humanity is restored, by the way. I got my phone back. An old lady had found it on the spot where I know I lost it. Strange that she took it while I was still there. I must have put it down next to me and then turned away and looked like it wasn’t mine. I had a very confused moment so I may very well have done that. I guess she had to leave before I started to look for it. Now there’s an example of creating one’s own suffering. I was so certain that somebody had stolen my phone in a vulnerable moment (it has happened before, but I have lost things by being clumsy many times more, and gotten them back most of the times), and then it turned out to be nothing but a story.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/6/19 6:00 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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For the record, I did a one hour session focusing on impermanence in visual, auditory and kinesthetic fields. I did it too late in the evening to have the kind of clarity that I would have wished, but there’s a day tomorrow too and I’m looking forward to continuing with practice. I enjoy this.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/7/19 8:16 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/7/19 7:52 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I spent four hours focusing on visual, auditory and kinesthetic flow/impermanence.

There was a lot of mind wandering and dullness and I may have dozed off a bit, but by now I don’t think there’s room for much doubt with regard to the constant flux of experience. I started out with rapid shifts between the senses which resulted in that familiar bouncing sensation in my head. I think it has partly to do with subtle eye movements and maybe activation of different parts of the brain if it’s possible to actually sense that. The main thing seems to be the conceptualization of something that was already there in awareness. After a while the bouncing decreased as I no longer actively shifted my attention, but held all three fields in awareness, and probably didn’t feel the need to conceptualize quite as much.

There are off cushion effects from this. Visually, the new default mode is seeing how much I don’t really see. I see where my mind is filling out the blanks, perhaps not all of it, but it’s evident that it does that a lot. I see fabrications poorly smoothing out the image where there are gaps. I also see that ”white” is not really white but full of microscopic colored dots (red, blue and green) that arise and pass away quickly. Furthermore, my brain doesn’t compensate for shifting light conditions as much as before with regard to white balance. That will probably be useful for my photographing.

Sensing auditory flickering in daily life is more tricky as the sounds vanish as soon as they arise. All sensations do, of course, but in the visual field there is at least the illusion of visual objects remaining over time. However, in my profession I have done a lot of transcribing of group conversations, so I know frustratingly well how voices have many different frequences at the same time and that they all oscillate and that voices merge into each other in ways that make them difficult to separate from each other. I know that a specific section of sound is perceived radically different depending on what context I demarcate for playback. The mind is always interpreting and it interferes with perception in such an obvious way. Also, the fact that we so often fail to hear what someone says shows very clearly how limited perception is.

Kinesthetic flickering has been available to me for so long that I can’t remember it not being there. Clarity has increased radically sinse I started a daily formal practice, though.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/7/19 9:14 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/7/19 8:57 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I really should sleep now but the flow of sensations is so fascinating. Even behind closed eyelids the attention moves around in the visual field, causing the area in focus to be much more detailed than the rest in a way that creates extra flickering. Just now I heard a deep voice commenting on this sardonically, pretty much like my son would have done. Maybe it was actually his voice. I have probably an internalized version of him. Human beings are after all constant perspective takers.

Fascinating how the mind keeps fabricating continuity of experience when there is none. Even darkness is fabricated.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/8/19 11:41 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/8/19 11:41 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Meditated for 70 minutes in a reclining heart-opening position, took a short pause and then meditated for another 70-80 minutes reclining on my right side. Focusing on impermanence in all senses.

I treated the bouncing sensations related to conceptualization (the kazoo player) as any other sensation. That was a relief. I don’t know why I couldn’t just do that before. Or maybe I do. I had the notion of a doer and wished for things to be different from what they were. That created unnecessary suffering. The bouncing is just as transient as any other sensation. It’s nothing to be burdened by.

My concentration varied. Periodically, there was a lot of mind wandering. At other times, I took in what I believe was the most of my sensate reality. At least I can now imagine it to be possible to take in one’s whole sensate reality for a moment. Sometimes I sort of let the sensations do their noticing on their own. That makes it possible to be more present instead of lagging behind.

Off cushion: It was naive to say that seeing what I don’t see and having everything flicker in the visual field is now my default mode. I realized today that’s not true. It is getting much more common than before, but there are still many times when I just take continuity for granted. I’m probably noticing the flickering just because it is still the exception.

Off cushion I still fear changes and uncertainty in many instances. Being autistic doesn’t really help with that. Well, at least that makes it easy to see how clinging creates unnecessary suffering. I really wish that I could let go of things more readily. If I never get to awaken, maybe I will at least get some relief with regard to this. Focusing on impermanence makes it somewhat easier to accept that things won’t last, but there is a lot of resistence.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/8/19 3:10 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/8/19 3:10 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I sat for 5 minutes in a painful position, that is good for stretching muscles that needed to be stretched, and focused on dukkha. That was a good exercise for letting go of craving; I should do that more (more often and a bit longer). Then I sat for 20 minutes in a more comfortable position on a cushion, focusing on anicca with all senses. There was clarity in both center and periphery but my focus was a bit off. Childhood memories came up, first as music, then as images, smells, and tactile sensations.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/9/19 11:13 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/9/19 10:02 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Meditated for two hours in a reclined position, focusing on impermanence in visual, auditory and kinesthetic fields. The flickering is tangible even after the session with eyes opened, in all three fields. There is still a loud high-pitched whirling sound in my ears, sensations of tiny bubbles arising and passing away in my body, and tiny dots arising and passing away rapidly in my visual field.

During the session I sometimes found myself releasing a lot of air on the outbreath, as if a pressure had been built up. On one occasion I found myself grasping for air on the inbreath. In all those instances I surprised myself. The body did its own thing.

In the beginning there was a lot of mind wandering. Later on there was more stillness.

Maybe I’m getting lazy, I don’t know. Meditating doesn’t seem to be much work. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or if I relax too much. Maybe I’m getting dull? I should probably do more sitting meditation to see if that kind of energy results in different experiences.

Adding for clarification: I start out with rapid noting to build a momentum. Then I let go of the noting.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/9/19 11:11 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/9/19 11:10 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I added an hour of sitting meditation, just in case reclining is making me lazy. It was easy to find and keep a good posture. Breathing was easy and light. In the beginning there was a lot of bouncing, but as soon as I felt breath in large parts of the body, the bouncing decreased radically. Impermanence was my main focus, but no self appeared on its own. There were clarity and stillness. I would have enjoyed sitting some more, but I have a coaching session coming up.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/9/19 1:08 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/9/19 1:08 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I’m having so much fun! I just had a coaching session with Michael Taft, and I get to do all the things that I enjoy. Just being with the flow and sensing everything vanish on different scales and in different rates. I get to focus on everything that seems solid to some extent and have it reveal its impermanence. I love it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/9/19 11:27 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I meditated some more before I went to sleep, and when I woke up this morning I saw intricate symmetric patterns in brief flashes. They were beautiful and chrystal clear. They were in black and white with fine lines, very detailed, like printed art. And in a flash they were gone.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/10/19 4:45 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/10/19 4:43 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Wow! I did a 20 minutes long fire kasina exercise, and it was awsome! So much has happened in my visual field since I tried it once before. So much was going on visually that I probably cannot recall the right order of it.

The first time I closed my eyes, I could se the entire upper part of the candle and its surrounding glow in reverse colors. Then the red dot in the middle turned green an grew in size. Then it became red again, and then there was a black dot in the red. It kept changing colors, and there were several layers of halos around it, in different colors. I think it was in the end that it was yellow, and then it dissolved itself into vibrant strings.

The second time I closed my eyes, the colors were very intense. I could still see a larger image than just the red dot. There were many strong colors. A dark pink was introduced. There was a lot of figure ground reversal going on when the black dot appeared in the middle of a colored dot. Colors started to appear inside the black dot. Then there were more layers of colors, like russian dolls. When the yellow dot appeared it looked like a sun with long tentacles. After a while it turned into flourescent purple and the regular purple swirls.

The third time I closed my eyes, I could still see the whole upper part of the candle and its surroundings but in a much more stylized form. The red dot had a lot of texture to it and sort of a three dimensional touch to it, and it was spinning around horizontally. I could only see one side of it but the texture of the stilized flame showed that the part that I saw was not the same but kept changing because the flame was turning around away from me (or towards me, or rather both). Then the colors shifted very rapidly. When the yellow sun showed up it rotated, also very rapidly, but not like the candle. This time I saw the same side throughout the movement. Then purple swirls appeared. At some point the dot appeared again, changed color some more until it was dissolved.

The fourth time I closed my eyes, impermanence was a dominant feature. The picture was even more stylized now, but it was also detailed in a way that made impermanence obvious. The red dot did the three dimensional spinning again. The bigger dots were made up from very small dots arising and passing away. The larger images also shifted rapidly. In the end the nimitta vanished completely, and instead there were detailed structures all over the place, irregular but sort of searching for their place.

This was so cool! I must continue with this practice. I think I’ll look at the flame just a little bit longer and then lie down to focus on visual impermanence.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 1:23 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 12:46 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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The fire kasina did indeed increase concentration for the following vipassana session focusing on impermanence. I started out with a visual activity that normally takes a while to develop. I could see detailed patterns flashing by almost immediately. That kind of pattern was an exception, though; murkier things are still more common, but I find them interesting as well because of all the action. Auditory and physical sensations started out at a higher level as well.

Today I woke up at six o clock without an alarm. Huh? I’m not a morning person. Was this the cure all along for not being able to wake up in the mornings? I thought I had tried everything.

...

I keep having vivid dreams where I do things that are out of character for me together with people from my past that are also out of character. I take this as a sign of subconscious processing of no self.
Anna L, modified 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 3:29 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 3:29 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Yay! Another fire kasina convert! ;)

yes, this practice can definitely shave an hour or 2 off your sleep and help with waking up clearly. I think we have some similar health issues (fibro/CFS stuff?). Kasina practice seems to really help with energy emoticon 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 4:10 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 4:10 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Anna L:
Yay! Another fire kasina convert! ;)

yes, this practice can definitely shave an hour or 2 off your sleep and help with waking up clearly. I think we have some similar health issues (fibro/CFS stuff?). Kasina practice seems to really help with energy emoticon 


Haha, yes, I knew that it would happen at some point.

Yes, something like that. Mostly food related, but also related to any form of physical exhaustion (with yoga as a wonderful exception) and probably also stress. Nobody knows what it is, but I think it’s the aftermath of chronic darknighting. Before I started my daily practice of meditation, I couldn’t even stand up while cooking, but had to lie down and rest. That was on September 20th 2018. Now I do yoga 3-6 times a week and standing up is no problem. I just need to avoid most foods and keep practising.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 4:27 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 4:27 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I did half an hour of fire kasina practice now, late morning/early day. The circumstances were not beneficial. The door was open to my patio. There was noise outside and my cats were running around. The flame wasn’t still because of the wind. I made an audio recording to keep track of the order of things so I was talking all the time. I have an upcoming appointment so I couldn’t focus very well. Still, interesting things happened. I don’t have the time to transcribe the recording right now but I’ll do it later. This is indeed a very powerful practice.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/12/19 2:28 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 11:46 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I did half an hour of fire kasina practice now, late morning/early day. The circumstances were not beneficial. The door was open to my patio. There was noise outside and my cats were running around. The flame wasn’t still because of the wind. I made an audio recording to keep track of the order of things so I was talking all the time. I have an upcoming appointment so I couldn’t focus very well. Still, interesting things happened. I don’t have the time to transcribe the recording right now but I’ll do it later. This is indeed a very powerful practice.

Here we go. This will be a loooong rant.

First time of closing my eyes:
I see the entire candle. It’s black (I used a white pillar candle). There is a clear and dense red dot where the flame would be. It has a halo around it. There are details within the red dot, moving about as the flame flickers - sort of like a fake flame of poor quality on a screen. The dot turns into blueish black, but sometimes it still has a tiny red core in the middle. It’s there and it’s not there, alternating or in different layers. Blue appeared. Like a bluegreen shade - beautiful. The black silhouett of the pillar candle is still visible. A thin limegreen halo appears around the bluegreen dot. The candle image disappears. Thin red haze. Bluegreen core returns inside the faint red dot. A black candle wick appears, or maybe it’s the embryo of a black dot. The dot darkens. It’s still bluegreen but dark. There’s a faint red haze around it. Now yellowish green or greenish yellow appears in the middle with faint red around it, but there’s still a tiny bluegreen core in the middle. That core gets diminishes until I can hardly see it. The dot gets murky. There’s still a faint red stain around it, more like a terracotta color than red. It is starting to dissolve. There are smokey veils around it. There is still A terracotta colored dot in the middle, but it’s not solid. There are vibrating strings or tiny points arising and lassing away rapidly in it. It’s still there but faint. Here I pause the recording after about 4 minutes and 40 seconds (I only recorded the part where I had my eyes closed).

The second time I closed my eyes: inaudibale recording. Then pause.

I start the recording again to comment on the fact that while I stare at the candle it is as if the candle lights up the entire room with its golden glow, although it is bright daylight.

The third time I closed my eyes:
There is a red dot surrounded by a bluegreen halo that is in turn surrounded by a stain of red (not as bright as the dot). The image is now more sylized, more circular. At first the black pillar candle image is not visible, but then it gradually appears. Then the dot is orange and surrounded by a gray halo, and a tiny bluegreen core appears in the orange dot. The bluegreen core is unstable. It flickers. A bright spot appears under the flame, probably as the reverse after image of murk appearing while I was staring at the flame. The upper part of the candle is still visible as a black silhouette. Now the dot is partly bright blue, partly bright green with a gray haze around it. Then the image is pretty murky but there is still a bluegreen core. There is a thin halo around it, its color indeterminable; it seems to alternate between red, yellow and green but it is murky. Around that halo there is in turn a brighter halo. Now the silhouette of the candle is no longer visible. A blind spot appears in the middle. Sometimes it is black, sometimes it reveals a stain with several colors in it: blue, red and green, with a white halo around it. Sometimes it is all covered by a black disc, sometimes by sort of a nothingness. A tunnel forms around the disc. The center is more and more dominated by black. The whole image is very dark but there are some nrighter elements around the center. A faint colored spot appears but it is unstable. A dark cloud swirls by. There is a lot of movement. The regular purple swirls start to do their thing.

I open my eyes to look at the flame. Once again it as if the entire room is filled with golden light.

The fourth time I closed my eyes:
There is a red dot with a bluegreen halo, and an after image of the whole candle (black, especially the upper part of the candle). The bluegreen field around the dot increases in size, and it is in turn surrounded by red. The little red dot has details in it. Now it is both there and not there, sort of - alternating or in different layers. There is a grey haze around it, but the pillar candle is clearly visible. If I avoid looking directly at the dot (the flame) and instead look slightly below it, I can see that the orange/red has a lot of details in it. A big yellow dot appears in front of the red dot, but I can still see both bluegreen and orange/red in the middle. The pillar candle after image appears. It looks red through the yellow. Now the center is dominated by blue and green. Now it is mainly yellow. Now bluegreen again. The candle after image is still visible, especially the upper part. Now it is starting to be more and more fuzzy. There is a bluegreen dot in the center with a yellowish field around it. The yellow field is moving rapidly. It is starting to dissolve. It is made up of rapidly moving strings. There is still a bluegreen flame in the middle. Now the yellow field is brighter, less yellow. There is a lot of impermanence. There is sort of a ball of yellow strings spinning round and round, but it is faint. Now a lot of fantasy is required to call this a nimitta, but if I open my eyes and look through the grey cap that I’m covering my eyes with, I clearly see a black silhouette of the candle and the flame.

I look at the candle for about 13 seconds.

The fifth time I close my eyes:
Now it starts out with just a black silhouette of the candle and the flame, but soon a red dot appears. The red dot divides itself into two dots. It changes into a field of bluegreen, flourescent purple and white merged into each other - very beautiful. In the periphery a distinct bluegreen pattern appears (I later realize that it is the after image of a large pillow on the side of the candle). Then I see a flame as if someone were to film it with very poor quality. Now it’s gone. Now there is black in the middle, with bluegreen veils around it. Now there is a bluegreen fog all over the place. The bluegreen fog remains for a while (moving around). There is some kind of center but it is very vague. Now it’s black. There is like a black hole with a vortex around it, but very faint.

I look at the flame for about one and a half minute (one of my cats interrupts me by jumping up in front of the candle). This is where I notice that the distinct pattern I saw earlier exactly matches the black and white pillow. I realize that there has been a widening.

The sixth time I close my eyes:
There is a red dot with a bluegreen field around it and then a reddish fog around all of that. A blackish green stain appears below the red dot and then vanishes. Now there is a bluegreen cloud around the red dot. Next to the red dot there is like a greyish fuzz. Now that grey fuzz takes over. Now a bright turqoise little dot appears in the center. The brightness of it fades. A dark pink appears. The entire image has a pink tone. The pattern of the pillows (now two pillows) appears. The white in the pattern shows as pink, and the after image of the white candle is in a darker pink. Now the image is very faint. There are tiny dots (like particles) arising and passing away everywhere, alternatively vibrating strings. Now the image dissolves.

I look at the flame again for about 40 seconds.

The seventh time I close my eyes:
There is a red dot in the middle. There is rotation. The red dot fades, then grows stronger and brighter. Now it is very bright. Now it is not. Now it is black. A white oblong dot appears to the right of the red dot, and some white also appears below the red dot. Now the white turns greyish and starts to cover the red dot. Now a bluegreen halo appears around the grey. The image reverses so that the center is bluegreen and the halo is grey. Black appears below - ah, that’s the after image of the candle. All of it is surrounded by bluegreen, which is in turn placed on a larger grey backround shaped as a circular disc. Now black appears in the middle. There is a black disc. There are green foggy veils around it. This image remains for a while. Then it starts to dissolve. The foggy veils sort of passes over the black disc. The black disc is still there bit there are colored strings in front of it, swirling around. If I close my eyes harder, I can see a white candle with a yellow flame. The resolution of the image is very poor, and it is unfocused. It alternates with the black disc.

Here I stop the exercise because I’m getting restless (an appointment is coming up soon). When I open my eyes and look through the grey cap I can still see the black silhouette of the candle and the flame.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/12/19 2:30 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/12/19 2:30 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I did half an hour of fire kasina practice now, late morning/early day. The circumstances were not beneficial. The door was open to my patio. There was noise outside and my cats were running around. The flame wasn’t still because of the wind. I made an audio recording to keep track of the order of things so I was talking all the time. I have an upcoming appointment so I couldn’t focus very well. Still, interesting things happened. I don’t have the time to transcribe the recording right now but I’ll do it later. This is indeed a very powerful practice.

Here we go. This will be a loooong rant.

First time of closing my eyes:
I see the entire candle. It’s black (I used a white pillar candle). There is a clear and dense red dot where the flame would be. It has a halo around it. There are details within the red dot, moving about as the flame flickers - sort of like a fake flame of poor quality on a screen. The dot turns into blueish black, but sometimes it still has a tiny red core in the middle. It’s there and it’s not there, alternating or in different layers. Blue appeared. Like a bluegreen shade - beautiful. The black silhouett of the pillar candle is still visible. A thin limegreen halo appears around the bluegreen dot. The candle image disappears. Thin red haze. Bluegreen core returns inside the faint red dot. A black candle wick appears, or maybe it’s the embryo of a black dot. The dot darkens. It’s still bluegreen but dark. There’s a faint red haze around it. Now yellowish green or greenish yellow appears in the middle with faint red around it, but there’s still a tiny bluegreen core in the middle. That core gets diminishes until I can hardly see it. The dot gets murky. There’s still a faint red stain around it, more like a terracotta color than red. It is starting to dissolve. There are smokey veils around it. There is still A terracotta colored dot in the middle, but it’s not solid. There are vibrating strings or tiny points arising and lassing away rapidly in it. It’s still there but faint. Here I pause the recording after about 4 minutes and 40 seconds (I only recorded the part where I had my eyes closed).

The second time I closed my eyes: inaudibale recording. Then pause.

I start the recording again to comment on the fact that while I stare at the candle it is as if the candle lights up the entire room with its golden glow, although it is bright daylight.

The third time I closed my eyes:
There is a red dot surrounded by a bluegreen halo that is in turn surrounded by a stain of red (not as bright as the dot). The image is now more sylized, more circular. At first the black pillar candle image is not visible, but then it gradually appears. Then the dot is orange and surrounded by a gray halo, and a tiny bluegreen core appears in the orange dot. The bluegreen core is unstable. It flickers. A bright spot appears under the flame, probably as the reverse after image of murk appearing while I was staring at the flame. The upper part of the candle is still visible as a black silhouette. Now the dot is partly bright blue, partly bright green with a gray haze around it. Then the image is pretty murky but there is still a bluegreen core. There is a thin halo around it, its color indeterminable; it seems to alternate between red, yellow and green but it is murky. Around that halo there is in turn a brighter halo. Now the silhouette of the candle is no longer visible. A blind spot appears in the middle. Sometimes it is black, sometimes it reveals a stain with several colors in it: blue, red and green, with a white halo around it. Sometimes it is all covered by a black disc, sometimes by sort of a nothingness. A tunnel forms around the disc. The center is more and more dominated by black. The whole image is very dark but there are some nrighter elements around the center. A faint colored spot appears but it is unstable. A dark cloud swirls by. There is a lot of movement. The regular purple swirls start to do their thing.

I open my eyes to look at the flame. Once again it as if the entire room is filled with golden light.

The fourth time I closed my eyes:
There is a red dot with a bluegreen halo, and an after image of the whole candle (black, especially the upper part of the candle). The bluegreen field around the dot increases in size, and it is in turn surrounded by red. The little red dot has details in it. Now it is both there and not there, sort of - alternating or in different layers. There is a grey haze around it, but the pillar candle is clearly visible. If I avoid looking directly at the dot (the flame) and instead look slightly below it, I can see that the orange/red has a lot of details in it. A big yellow dot appears in front of the red dot, but I can still see both bluegreen and orange/red in the middle. The pillar candle after image appears. It looks red through the yellow. Now the center is dominated by blue and green. Now it is mainly yellow. Now bluegreen again. The candle after image is still visible, especially the upper part. Now it is starting to be more and more fuzzy. There is a bluegreen dot in the center with a yellowish field around it. The yellow field is moving rapidly. It is starting to dissolve. It is made up of rapidly moving strings. There is still a bluegreen flame in the middle. Now the yellow field is brighter, less yellow. There is a lot of impermanence. There is sort of a ball of yellow strings spinning round and round, but it is faint. Now a lot of fantasy is required to call this a nimitta, but if I open my eyes and look through the grey cap that I’m covering my eyes with, I clearly see a black silhouette of the candle and the flame.

I look at the candle for about 13 seconds.

The fifth time I close my eyes:
Now it starts out with just a black silhouette of the candle and the flame, but soon a red dot appears. The red dot divides itself into two dots. It changes into a field of bluegreen, flourescent purple and white merged into each other - very beautiful. In the periphery a distinct bluegreen pattern appears (I later realize that it is the after image of a large pillow on the side of the candle). Then I see a flame as if someone were to film it with very poor quality. Now it’s gone. Now there is black in the middle, with bluegreen veils around it. Now there is a bluegreen fog all over the place. The bluegreen fog remains for a while (moving around). There is some kind of center but it is very vague. Now it’s black. There is like a black hole with a vortex around it, but very faint.

I look at the flame for about one and a half minute (one of my cats interrupts me by jumping up in front of the candle). This is where I notice that the distinct pattern I saw earlier exactly matches the black and white pillow. I realize that there has been a widening.

The sixth time I close my eyes:
There is a red dot with a bluegreen field around it and then a reddish fog around all of that. A blackish green stain appears below the red dot and then vanishes. Now there is a bluegreen cloud around the red dot. Next to the red dot there is like a greyish fuzz. Now that grey fuzz takes over. Now a bright turqoise little dot appears in the center. The brightness of it fades. A dark pink appears. The entire image has a pink tone. The pattern of the pillows (now two pillows) appears. The white in the pattern shows as pink, and the after image of the white candle is in a darker pink. Now the image is very faint. There are tiny dots (like particles) arising and passing away everywhere, alternatively vibrating strings. Now the image dissolves.

I look at the flame again for about 40 seconds.

The seventh time I close my eyes:
There is a red dot in the middle. There is rotation. The red dot fades, then grows stronger and brighter. Now it is very bright. Now it is not. Now it is black. A white oblong dot appears to the right of the red dot, and some white also appears below the red dot. Now the white turns greyish and starts to cover the red dot. Now a bluegreen halo appears around the grey. The image reverses so that the center is bluegreen and the halo is grey. Black appears below - ah, that’s the after image of the candle. All of it is surrounded by bluegreen, which is in turn placed on a larger grey backround shaped as a circular disc. Now black appears in the middle. There is a black disc. There are green foggy veils around it. This image remains for a while. Then it starts to dissolve. The foggy veils sort of passes over the black disc. The black disc is still there bit there are colored strings in front of it, swirling around. If I close my eyes harder, I can see a white candle with a yellow flame. The resolution of the image is very poor, and it is unfocused. It alternates with the black disc.

Here I stop the exercise because I’m getting restless (an appointment is coming up soon). When I open my eyes and look through the grey cap I can still see the black silhouette of the candle and the flame.


Now I have finally typed out what happened during the recording. This was too much work for me to keep doing it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 3:59 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/11/19 3:59 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I saw my first skulls today behind closed eyelids at a class of restorative yoga! I feel like a real hardcore practitioner now, lol. I also saw a regular face and something as pretentious as a smiling Buddha face. They all appeared in the red swirls in the murk of my mindscreen. How cool! I can see things, wohoo! The resolution wasn’t the best, but the skulls had teeth, and the Buddha face was clearly a Buddha face with that typical Mona Lisa type of smile.

In one of the resting positions I immediately dropped into third vipassana jhana with that familiar vibrational thing going on in different layers, dissolving and distorting by body and especially my face, sort of like if I were entering a black hole and had my body stretched out, but in different directions. My body felt as if it were no longer my body, the sense of touch completely altered, alienated. I recognized that this was what happened when I was a teenager. That’s why I stopped meditating back then. It scared me then. It doesn’t now; I actually think this is super cool. Anyway, this made me realize that my first A&P wasn’t a decade ago, but probably almost two decades ago, perhaps even before that. I wonder when it happened. Maybe it was that time I dreamt of a voice that solemnly said ”It is vouchsafed to a select few to be able to see through themselves” (yup, that pretentious), or that time when I hallucinated that Indian Gods stepped out of my school book and danced around me? Or maybe it was when I read Jung as a teenager and dreamt that I literally dived into myself, or rather into my left arm, wearing a diving suit? I did have many procognitive dreams after that. Maybe it was earlier? I was a very weird child with a lot of magical thinking and weird intuitions. Maybe I have been darknighting for thirty years? If that’s the case, I’m actually not really a newbie, but a darknight veteran. I believe my son is going through the same things but he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore; he gladly did when he was younger. There is no way that I could tell him about old theravadan maps - he would think that I’m batshit crazy. You know how people complain that young people lack critical thinking? That doesn’t apply to him. There is no way anybody could convince him of anything that he hasn’t come up with by himself. No way. Nooooooo way. At least when he was a little child it was possible to convince him to brush his teeth by looking at his saliva in a microscope. Those were simpler times, in some respects.

I started typing what happened during that recording of my fire kasina, but it’s very long. I think I’ll prioritize meditation over writing this evening before I get too tired.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/12/19 9:30 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/12/19 9:30 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
How can a nimitta arise when I don’t feel concentrated at all? Am I that concentrated on the experience of not being concentrated, or have I completely misunderstood the concept of concentration? I’m at work. We have just ended a seminar. I have a slight headache and feel like I may have catched a cold or something, or maybe I have eaten something that I react to, or maybe I’m back in re-observation again, I don’t know. I was trying to decide whether to start a new activity that requires a lot of concentration or go home to rest for a while and then maybe work in the evening, and I couldn’t make up my mind, so I did a 15 minutes’ sitting just to see what would come up. And there was the nimitta, as soon as I closed my eyes. It was not as strong as in fire kasina practice, but it was undoubtfully there. It changed color several times: red, blue, black with a thick green halo, yellow, yellow with tentacles. I did not even intend to focus on the visual. I tried to feel the bodily sensations of emotions, and I did to some extent, but I was distracted by the nimitta. So how could it even be there? My mind was apparently not unified. It still isn’t. I feel confused. But as soon as I close my eyes, the nimitta is there. I checked again just now. This time the nimitta looked like an effervescent tablet being dissolved into water. That seems more to the point. The dissolving part is definitely something that I can relate to.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/12/19 12:39 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/12/19 12:39 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Lay down for 1 h 50 minutes, focusing on impermanence in visual, auditory and kinesthetic fields. I needed that. There was a lot of activity going on, so much flux, so much dissolving. Funny how stabilizing that can be. Stopped because I realized that I actually have a histamine reaction and that I have medications for that.

Even the murk is dissolving. Sometimes it chrystallizes into larger chunks that vanish.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 10:01 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 10:01 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I wrote this in the morning when the forum was down in order to paste it in later:

DhO notes Wednesday morning March 13th 2019

It seems like it is easiest to access chrystal clear visuals if I relax and pay attention with closed eyes right after waking up. I mostly get detailed symmetric patterns, black on off white, in printed art work quality (this happened yesterday morning as well). They only last for maybe a second. This morning there was also a rift in the screen through which I could see a dreamlike scene in 3D, but it closed up again before I could comprehend what the scene was about.

Before I went to bed last night I did a short fire kasina (interrupted several times by cats) and then lay down for vipassana focusing on impermanence. The fire kasina was okay but with less vivid images. The vipassana session was full of mind wandering. I should probably go back to sitting.

I have noticed that kinesthetic aspects have dropped into the background now that more is happening in the visual field. I don’t know what to think about that. When it comes to the auditory field, I tend to have a melody in the background when I watch the visuals. Sometimes I get drawn into something intense, though, and in those instances there are still whirling high frequency sounds in my ears and kinesthetics reminding on a myriad of tiny bubbles being released. Right now that is less common.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 1:15 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 10:21 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
At certain stages of my journey I seem to have the need to just rest in the impermanence for hours. At least I hope it’s part of the process and not escapism. I did a two hour sitting and then continued lying down for another two hours after a short bathroom break. The clarity and concentration vary. There are short instances of sharpness inbetween more dissolution-like states. Breathing is easy. I can sometimes feel the airways suddenly widen. At one point where I know I was not on the verge of falling asleep, because I had discursive thinking about meditation going on, I suddenly felt as if I was tripping and falling.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that for a while it seemed like daylight behind my covered and closed eyes.
Jyet, modified 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 10:50 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 10:50 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 59 Join Date: 7/15/12 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
 I was tripping and falling.
Not that I  think that you need more practices Linda. But you seem to like to mix it up emoticon 

The guided Earth descent practice is all about tripping and falling, lying down on your back. You might enjoy it.

This is one of those links to possibly pick up at some point. If just to listen to Reggies soothing outher worldly voice.

Somatic Meditation for Discovering Our Deepest Life

https://www.shambhala.com/the-awakening-body/
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 1:13 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 1:13 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Hm, interesting. Thanks!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 3:26 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/13/19 3:26 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
It reminded me of Rob Burbea’s work (the path of the imaginal, the energy body). I have generously been invited into an online sangha that focuses on Rob Burbea, so I try to squeeze that in as well.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/14/19 5:31 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/14/19 5:31 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I had just accepted that I was darknighting again and mentally prepared myself for going through all the dukkha nanas when I had a meditation that seemed to break through it back into equanimity. I’m not quite sure. I guess time will tell.

I did a 15 minutes long fire kasina session that produced red dots with some details and some spinning and other colors of dots, but seemed poor in comparison. Then I sat for 35 minutes. In order to get rid of an earwhorm I used the mantra Ohm and synchronized it with the breath. That produced quite a lot of piti that lingered in my sore muscles and took away some pain. Then there were those typical fast vibrations in the throat region that I tend to have in re-observation. They calmed down and there were lightness and ease and clarity. Sitting was comfortable. Impermanence started to show up in detail in the visual, auditory and kinesthetic fields.

I had to go to the bathroom, so I took a short break. Then I lay down for a longer session. It lasted for two hours, until it was interrupted by a late phone call. I was not sleepy at all, which was a relief because I was really tired during the day. The nada sound was loud. There were instances of face melting and being poured out on the side, sort of. Then there was more of the bubbly feeling. The tiny bubbles that were coming toward me in the visual field gave tactile sensations on the face of my skin. Things were getting really interesting. Then the phone rang.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/15/19 11:22 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/15/19 11:22 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
2 h 35 minutes in a reclined position just observing whatever came up.

It was tranquil with increasing clarity. There was a vision, including kinesthetics, of planting a seed in the soil beneath me. The seed was the size of a bean. I could hear some mental talk. One of the voices seemed to think that I need to make some more effort. It sounded judgemental and not very wise. There were tiny gently bursting bubbles in the visual, kinesthetic, and auditory fields. Different frequencies of nada sound. Visual murk chrystallizing and dissolving.

I had to change the positions of my hands and arms and my neck a few times because the bubbles were being blocked and needed free passage. These adjustments led to increased clarity while also taking a way the pain that had started to build up. It was a slightly heart opening position. I feel calm and balanced now, not exceptionally perky, but clear in my head.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/16/19 2:41 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/16/19 2:41 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Meditation occurs on its own as I wake up in the morning if I don’t interfere with it. This morning I let it go on for about an hour, divided into two chunks because I needed to go to the bathroom and let in one of my cats. There were lots of tiny bubbles being released in the visual field, and I could feel them gently colliding with my face and upper body. The murk was also chrystallized into larger chunks that were then dissolved. The nada sound was there. I could hear some mental talk. Some process expressed its discontent and impatience emphatically; it sounded very stereotypical. Some process offered some other process to punch somebody, and I suspect that somebody was also a mental process within the mix. Some process expressed that it wanted to be separate from some other process, but it was content with a slight change of spelling of its name.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/17/19 5:02 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/17/19 5:02 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
This has been a very busy day. Among other things I went to an art exhibition with a friend whom I reconnected with thanks to equanimity after a difficult time. I’m so grateful that I did! I also finished a document to authorities regarding another friend with multiple disabilities who for a long time has been mistreated. This is something that I have been struggling with for a long time. I almost forgot to meditate today, but luckily I had a checklist.

I sat for 30 minutes focusing on vanishings in all senses and on different scales. I was able to feel relief from it quite a lot. It gave me rapture, and I noticed that vanishings are essential for the pleasure of rapture. I noticed that when I was following a sound on a larger scale than the micro-level vibrations, to be prepared for its vanishing, there were annoying tensions that created a squeeking sound in my right ear and irritation of my left eye. This did not happen when I just noticed the vanishings. I had a new awareness of how each time something new caught my attention, the former object of my attention vanished. This increased my understanding of the mind as discontinuous.

When I opened my eyes afterwards, visual impermanence was tangible.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/19/19 4:31 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/19/19 4:31 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I did meditate yesterday too, but I was too tired to have the kind of clarity and concentration that I would have wanted. I really need to see to it that I get enough sleep. Also, I need to realize that I’m now in a period where I need more structure in my practice. Just lying down and waiting for things to happen on their own worked fine a few days ago, but now it doesn’t. Now it makes me dull. Good to know, I guess. Time limited formal sittings with intense noting, here I come.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/19/19 4:54 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/19/19 4:54 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I sat for an hour, focusing on vanishings in all senses and on different scales. It was a bit challenging because I had the impression that my reaction time was slow with long delays, which must mean that I actually was aware of the vanishings already. How could I otherwise know that there was a delay? I guess I’m struggling with that old kazoo player.

Also, I was distracted because I’m worried about a friend with multiple disabilities and a serious chronic disease who has been mistreated for a long time. He will have an important meeting on Friday. I have put together a document arguing for his case, but the local authorities where he lives do not seem to care very much about the law. I have a hard time letting go of my worries.

Anyway, clarity and concentration had finally increased somewhat toward the end of the sitting, so I decided to continue the meditation in a reclined position for another hour. I did, and it was still challenging, but clarity and concentration continued to increase, so I decided to keep going after the alarm went off. I was getting into a flow, but then my mum called to share bad news (private matter), so now I’m worried about that too.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/19/19 5:33 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/19/19 5:33 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It took a while to get back into continuity mode and speak coherently. The room didn’t seem solid.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 3:29 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 3:29 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
As I woke up this morning I watched the visual field behind my closed eyelids and noticed that the murk started to organize itself into beuatiful symmetric images many times but interrupted itself so the images just vanished. There was a flash and then it was gone as soon as it had started to appear. First I felt a bit disappointed, but then I realized that this is exactly what I’m looking for in my practice. I’m looking for vanishings, not trying to hold on to things. I need to let go of those beautiful images too.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 6:20 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 6:20 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I did an hour in a reclined position, focusing on vanishings in all senses and all scales. There were a lot of vanishings. It seems like there still remains some resistence, though, because dullness occurred ”out of the blue” on several occasions where the clarity and concentration were strong.

The impermanence is still flooding my senses.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 6:22 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 6:22 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Since resistence is just another quality, there must be impermanence there as well. I just need to notice that. A moment is all that is needed.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 8:32 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 8:22 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I had my hair cut and took the opportunity to note vanishings for every cut and every stroke with the brush. I thought ”hey, what a bonus, impermanence and no self in one”, but then realized that they always come together. There is no difference whether parts of my DNA are cut loose or not; those very sensations that are part of my (no-) self will never come back again. They vanish as soon as they arise. There is no continuity.

I’m pretty sure that I would have reacted differently if she had cut off my ears or popped out my eyes, though. There is still something that wants to survive and to have its sense organs intact. That something is not a stable entity, though. I suppose that’s the point. The point of identification moves, or rather arises and passes away on different locations. It probably never was in the hair. The thought of having one’s sense of self daparting from the hair seems absurd. But is it really more absurd than any other idea? Every atom of our bodies are replaced over time, aren’t they? And there are people who never cut their hair because of religious believes, if I’m not mistaken, just like there are people who think it’s wrong to donate organs or even have their pictures taken (or is that a myth?). I wonder if some of these people experience their self in their hair, phenomenologically, and if so, how that feels. I wonder where I experience my self phenomenologically at this very moment, because that eludes me. Maybe somewhere in my head? Do I believe that my brain is me? Maybe I do. But the brain has no eyes, no nose, no ears, no taste buds, no tactile organ... Does it ever experience anything, or does it merely interpret information? Uhm, the latter of course, but that is also true for the senses. Duh. All we ever experience is already interpreted. Actually, even cutting my hair - removing dead cells - has an impact on my experience of the world. Vibrations in the air due to movement entail different tactile sensations now. In a sense, the hair is actually many many tentacles. Yeah yeah, stories... I’m intellectualizing. I’m probably trying to convince myself, but the processes that need convincing seem to work on a different level. I need to experience this on a sensate level. But that’s what I tried to do.

If I touch my head, the head is the object. Does the subjective point move into the hand? It probably just bounces around rapidly between the hand and the spine and the different parts of the brain that are involved and other points that sense things, and the speed of the process makes it easier for the mind to mask it as a continuoum.

Hm, that makes it sound as if the mind were an entity with a continuous agenda. This bouncing IS the mind, isn’t it?

Hey, just so you know, I welcome feedback. My sessions with Michael Taft are almost over and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind for me to learn from more sources. He doesn’t seem dogmatic at all.

Is this self inquiry? I haven’t gotten around to learn anything about that tradition.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 10:33 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Hmm...

I spent about an hour and a half in shavasana (however that is spelled), focusing on vanishings. I noticed that there was a lot of mind bouncing going on, and instead of noting it verbally I tried to sort of merge with the experience and follow the bouncing to experience the vanishing rather than just anticipating it, which I suspected that I had unintentionally been doing in order to avoid the delay (yeah, I know that the delay is just another quality). I remember that there was a staccato experience, but I think I kind of forgot myself there. Then suddenly there was a tone beeping for less than a second, and I was surprised. Then there was heartbeat, pulse, and a pumping of the senses, slow at first, and then faster amd faster until they were vibrantly intense.

Does the world come back with a beep?

I tried to repeat the experience, but the alarm went off. Time to go to yoga class.

Before whatever it was that happened happened, I remember that the subjective point was in my hearing for a brief moment, or at least the bouncing involved hearing one way or another, and the quality of the nada sound changed distinctively.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 1:10 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 1:10 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I think either the meditation or the yoga class did something to my senses and now the world is too intense. I don’t like it. It feels like when I was pregnant (I know for sure that I’m not). The silence is shouting despite the noice around it, and the smells are overwhelming. The visual field is flickering (I actually saw waves on the yoga floor!) and there are champagne bubbles/foam in my body together with larger waves.

Now that I’m back in my bed in a dark room I feel better, though.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 1:40 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 1:40 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 1038 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I think either the meditation or the yoga class did something to my senses and now the world is too intense. I don’t like it. It feels like when I was pregnant (I know for sure that I’m not). The silence is shouting despite the noice around it, and the smells are overwhelming. The visual field is flickering (I actually saw waves on the yoga floor!) and there are champagne bubbles/foam in my body together with larger waves.

Now that I’m back in my bed in a dark room I feel better, though.

How closely and quickly can you notice those flickering sensations arising and passing away?  Can you do 20 per second?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 1:52 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 1:52 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I don’t know. I’m not able to count to 20 in one second regardless of whether or not I see anything. How on earth do people do that?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 2:57 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 2:57 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Sometimes but definitely not always I’m able to see that ”white” is made up of tiny red, blue and green dots arising and passing away rapidly. I suspect that says something about the speed, but I have no idea what.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 10:58 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 10:58 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Hmm...

I spent about an hour and a half in shavasana (however that is spelled), focusing on vanishings. I noticed that there was a lot of mind bouncing going on, and instead of noting it verbally I tried to sort of merge with the experience and follow the bouncing to experience the vanishing rather than just anticipating it, which I suspected that I had unintentionally been doing in order to avoid the delay (yeah, I know that the delay is just another quality). I remember that there was a staccato experience, but I think I kind of forgot myself there. Then suddenly there was a tone beeping for less than a second, and I was surprised. Then there was heartbeat, pulse, and a pumping of the senses, slow at first, and then faster amd faster until they were vibrantly intense.

Does the world come back with a beep?

I tried to repeat the experience, but the alarm went off. Time to go to yoga class.

Before whatever it was that happened happened, I remember that the subjective point was in my hearing for a brief moment, or at least the bouncing involved hearing one way or another, and the quality of the nada sound changed distinctively.


I thought I should make some clarifications while it’s still fresh in my memory what ”mind bouncing” refers to.

As I was perceiving all the vanishings, I noticed how the subjective point was moving around, or appearing in different locations. The perception, or the conceptualization of the perception, was another quality to observe vanishing. Every time I perceived that, the subjective point moved again (it’s a matter of perspective, I guess, as observing the observer is impossible; cf Mead on ”I” and ”me”). When I noticed that, the subjective point moved again (for the same reason). I was getting somewhat frustrated about never getting close enough to actually have clarity about the vanishings of these subjective points. In order to take away the distance, I intended to merge with the subjective point instead of observing it, because that’s the only way for it to actually be the subjective point. If I observe a point, it becomes an object. I decided to stop observing and instead become the bouncing. So when the subjective point vanished in order to arise somewhere else, I vanished to.

Michael Taft asked me more closely about this, because he thought the bouncing could be a wave rather than something binary. He tried to get clear on how the fruition fitted in with the bouncing. I suggested that maybe it is both a wave and an unstable particle, just like electrones and photons seem to be, depending on whether or not they are observed. Maybe it was a wave for a while (the staccato quality before the fruition) and then became a virtual particle that vanished and then reappeared somewhere else (fruition).

This makes me think of a book by Madelene L’Engle that I read as a child (Many waters). I was riding a virtual unicorn just like they were in the book.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/20/19 5:21 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I meditated for two hours trying to be as present to all vanishings as possible, including mind bounces. When I focused on the latter, I managed to repeat what happened earlier. The last thing I remember is starting to merge with the bouncing experience, and suddenly there was that brief tone. This time it was more of a bip than a beep, and rather than pumping, the senses came to be with a whoosh. I tried to repeat it again but did not succeed.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/21/19 3:33 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/21/19 3:33 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I have just had two and a half hours of very enjoyable and effortless meditation in a reclined position, focusing on impermanence and no self in the auditory, kinesthetic and visual fields. It was like a buffet where I got to revisit some old favorites. For instance, I got to reexperience turning these sense fields sort of inside out, in turns, but with much less tension. I got to expand the space to something less contracted just by briefly wishing for it to happen. I got to focus on the crown on my head in a way that turned lights on and felt like there was a beam coming out from the crown. Throughout the session there were genuine happiness and gratefulness and calm faith and love.

I have had a great day off the cushion as well. I woke up early in the morning with a sense of relief and harmony. I was not stressed out by the ridiculous amount of chores today or the work load ahead of me the following weeks. I was relaxed and clearheaded (I’m normally definotely not a morning person). I found that there was less resistence to work that required concentration and clarity. No performance anxiety. At a job meeting I was not confused by the heavy information load and the lack of contextualized framing, and I found a way to ask for clarifications in a not face-threatening way that was helpful for both me and my collegues. After an intense seminar where I had done a lot of talking I was still clearheaded and relaxed. I could continue to be effective. My senses have been unusually sharp today, too, but not overwhelming, except for in environments that were probably too noicy to be healthy for anyone.

I’m so glad to be alive!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/21/19 11:58 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/21/19 11:45 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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And then I spent another four and a half hour revisiting another old favorite, that kind that does its own thing and draws you in with a regular goodie bag of near misses along with the champagne bubbles sparkling in one’s entire body. It would probably have been wiser to sleep instead, especially since I will spend the entire weekend on a workshop with a bunch of other people, something that I have been looking forward to for a while now, and I need to do quite a lot of chores before going there, including cleaning my home for the cat baby-sitter, doing laundry, packing, baking that gluten free crisp bread that I can actually eat, and go shopping (I need to bring my own food because of health issues). I’m enjoying this too much. It’s starting to look like an addiction.

At least this means that I have already done my quota of meditation today, I just realized. I had meditation on my to do list as well. Well, check...
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/23/19 12:29 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/23/19 12:29 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I had a much needed very pleasant meditation experience today. There was too much energy built up and stagnated in my body because of a workshop exercise that I took part in, and it caused some pain, so I felt that I needed to just let it frow freely. I lay down on a sofa in the cabin where I’m staying and just let things happen. It was like poring up a glass of champagne. All the tiny bubbles were released. Then there was this buffet of experiences again. I dropped into a state where the wirings shifted in the back of my head and sort of pulled me into myself with a force field, sucking the back of my brain downward. Coming out of that, there was a relief of tension in the head and a very blissful afterglow. I felt as if I was very gently caressed over my whole body. Then the crown chakra was engaged and I was flooded with light. Then there were champagne bubbles again, and they dissolved the pain in my back and neck. Somewhere along the line my senses were turned inside out again, but very softle and tenderly.

Off cushion: all social anxiety really is gone, for now. I don’t even have any problem looking people in their eyes. I see people differently - I see how vulnerable they are and how beatiful that is. Talking to people is so much easier even in a crowd, because there is less of me standing in the way for the meeting.

There were energy orgasm exercises today. It made me fall to the floor. It was really intense but also very coarse and unrefined. I prefer the more finegrained nuances of meditation. Forcing energies to build up like that reminded me of when I was a little child who enjoyed spinning around until I lost my balance. Sure, it works, but it’s not very subtle. I normally breathe very slow, so hyperventilating like that was a shock to the system. A person that I have just met expressed his wish to do synchronized breathing with me in a much slower and lighter way as he is also a slow breather. That would probably be more my cup of tea.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/23/19 7:29 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/23/19 7:29 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 1038 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
Hi Linda what you said on my practice log, and above, sounds really promising.  You may well find some things are permanently changed, while other effects will fade over time.  It is good to try to extend your positive emotions for a longer, if you can. You might be able to by maintaining a light concentration on them, as a kind of background flow state.  And it is also good to bring back the blip/beep if possible.  You can use the same practices as before - but as you likely have very high conentration at the moment the blip may be much quicker to achieve. This could be quite easy for a while, but may then fade. If you find it easy to achieve, try to lengthen the blip, and expore the before and after.

However, you are also reporting what is a powerful A&P experience.  So I suggest just explore your state gently to see what is what. You may still be the post-event state and able to do what I suggest above, or you may have dropped down to be cycling again.

If you have dropped down and are cycling again, expect to see some dissolution, fear, disgust, disenchantment, desirve for deliverance, reobservation. Try to recognise these as they arise (dissolution might be fun) and see them as impermenent and not-self.  Just accept them and meditate through to the next stage. Once you reach equanimity again, spend some serious time building up your concentration and once it gets really strong (like over a period of weeks), go for the blip/beep again.

It is hard to tell exactly what is going on over an internet message board, but I don't think you'll go too far wrong if you follow this advice.

Malcolm 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 1:56 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 1:56 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Thank you so much for taking me seriously! Advice right now is much needed as this is new territory.

I think the energy orgasm exercise forced me down to cross A&P, which I should of course have thought of. I would probably have done it anyway as I was curious and thought that it would be a more profound experience (I thought I already knew what it felt like and thought it would be good to learn a technique, but it turned out that my experiences were way better). These things should come with a warning sign. Not that it would help, but it would at least be more of informed consent. I wonder how many go through their first A&P because of exercises like this. I did feel what was probably cycling last night. For a while my body was trembling ridiculously much, and that was after I had been unexpectedly tired and unfocused for a while and then had my social anxiety suddenly come back for a while.

This means that I’m in review now, right? So it’s still the dark night I’m already familiar with, but with new twists because of the new wiring?

If I’m one of those who are able to repeat fruitions (I already did it once, if those were fruitions, but that’s no guarantee, right?), will it be through the same door as long as I keep focusing on impermanence? I would really like to experience the no self door, but any one of the doors would be welcome.

Instead of feeling sorry that the workshop that I’m attending is ending today, with great people in a great environment, I’m looking forward to the solitude so that I can focus on my meditation. I will make the most of the rest of the workshop, though, as I’m here.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 2:31 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 2:31 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Thanks Linda - I'm not a noting style practitioner so I can't give you detailed advice on that kind of progression through the Path of Insight, although I think you know what to expect. However, a couple of things on the A&P.  First, it's only an 80% overlap with orgasm, so bear in mind it is something different.  It is sometimes called Grade V piti as well (just as a little factoid). Second, if it is really powerful it may stir up a lot of difficult stuff to deal with, so you may get an emotional rollercoaster and even become quite argumentative later (reobservation).  However, if you can get through it skilfully, that Grade V piti, and cycle through the dukkha nanas, that will provide a great purification of stuff you didn't even know was there.

So, expect a more complex progression through the stages of insight next time.  Persevere, but without suppressing the emotions as they come up.  Instead, just try to be mindful of the emotional states, and note them as they arise.  So the first one of these would be what you just said.  Your social anxiety came back for a while.  Did you note it?  Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety (until it subsides) and mabe Stressful.  Not me.  Not permanent.

Practice well, and may you be happy.  May you be free from harm.  May you be filled with lovingkindness.

Malcolm  

P.S. If you want some discipline on this, and find you are in the dark night.  Just briefly record here the emotions that you have noted each day.  Did fear arise?  Did desire for deliverance arise?  Did disgust arise?  Did reobservation arise?  Did anxiety arise?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 3:30 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I wouldn’t say exactly that I’m a noting style practicioner either. I think eclectic is the closest label. No, I didn’t note it like that, but I did notice it. I accepted that it was there and allowed myself to be shy for a while, and then I sat down to talk to the people I had been shy around, and then we did some singing together. I knew that it was impermanent and nothing to worry about. I’m not very worried about dark night now that I know what it is. Also, I have people around me who can deal with emotional instability if that should be the case. I was impatient in an immature way yesterday night, and they just laughed, so then so did I. Just now there was rapid heartbeating, but as I noticed it and saw it for what it was, it stopped. Right before that, I felt desire for deliverance. Just like you said, it’s not me. It just is. No big deal. I think I may have been darknighting for a couple of decades before I decided to start a systematic daily practice, and without meditating I still learned that every up and every down was impermanent and knew pretty well what to expect. I know that territory well. Before I knew anything about insight meditation, I learned how to live with the ups and downs and get through them psychologically intact. Now that I have the maps I know that it’s also possible to shorten down the period of each nana significantly. If I’m not mistaken, I’m already back in equanimity.

What I’m most worried about now is not being able to repeat fruitions. I think I crave them too much. Also, I think I risk getting too vain about the process to deal with that skillfully enough for a while, so I need to be careful with that. I keep reminding myself that when thinks go smoothly, that’s also not me.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 4:36 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Ok, so you have given some new information.  I am cautious about interfering if you are still under instruction from somebody else.  So if you are, do what they say.  If not, some of my thoughts would be:

1. Don't obsess about fruitions. Yes try going up through the POI, build really strong concentration, and give it a go.  But they are just an intermediate step, and later on an obsession with fruitions is not enough to progress.

2. Instead, obsess with clear seeing. Clearly see your emotions (as you say you are). Clearly see the three characteristics. You may need concentration practices to help you with clear seeing during the day.

3. Then, if you are doing eclectic practice rather than Mahasi-style noting, build more foundations for clear seeing. Develop jhana. Develop mindfulness of bodily formations. Clearly see what arises from those practices.  There are other stages after that, but first let me know where you are at.

Or ignore me and listen to your instructor, if you still have one! That is best. But otherwise I will check in again in 10 hours so you can tell me what you can and cannot currently do.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 12:46 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 11:51 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Thanks, Malcolm! I appreciate it very much. I have four sessions left with Michael, but so far he hasn’t said anything that would contradict your advice. I will check, though, on Wednesday when I have my next schedueled session. I think I know now why he asked me about changes in my daily life last time we spoke. He saw it coming. For now, it’s very obvious that I’m not the one doing the meditation. The process knows what it’s doing. I just need to let it. So advice can’t screw up anything. I’m not doing the meditation. It is doing me, so to speak. I think the main reason things have been relatively smooth for me is that I realized that early on and trusted the process.

Today I have felt very... non-solid... and it doesn’t scare me at all. This part of the energy field that is supposed to be me really is in constant flux. The dynamics of it changes with the slightest touch from somebody else, and that is amazing. In spite of that lack of density, for a while I thought the steps of a staircase were sinking from the burden of my body weight; it was a very tiny and old wooden staircase, almost a ladder, so I thought maybe it was about to collapse. Then I got down on the floor and realized that the floor was doing the same thing. It wasn’t visible, but kinesthetically it really did not feel solid. It’s like I can feel shifts in energies when different fields or parts of fields interact. That is most likely one of those changes that won’t last, haha. It’s just a glimpse. But I treasure that glimpse.

This weekend several persons that I don’t meet very often have, independently from each other, expressed gratitude to me for teaching them something that has changed their life for the better. I did not expect that at all. It was all dark night insights.

Now I’m heading home. I have spent the weekend with such amazing people close to a small castle and a lake, doing lots of fun stuff, and yet I’m eager to get home to meditate without interruption.

Malcolm, please do check in with me if you want to! My cycling was rapid even before the blips. On Wednesday when I have a coaching session I may be in darknight again. I can’t promise that the process follows instructions, though. It does seem to take my wishes into consideration, so I need to be careful with what I wish for, but it does what it does. Nothing more, nothing less. Just having someone to talk to about what happens means a lot. It makes me feel safe. Not that I feel particularly unsafe otherwise; I actually don’t. I really do trust the process. But if I develop more concentration, things might get weird.

If I’m totally honest with myself, I think what I need most right now is for someone who knows the territory to just take me seriously. I know that it is very common to mistake something else for the real thing, and it is too soon to say anything for certain, especially from text reports only. But if this isn’t it, that will be evident sooner or later. I think I can take that. In the meantime, there is still enough of self illusion left for me to feel that it’s a relief if at least somebody doesn’t think I’m making things up or imagining things. I mean, I know how unlikely it must seem. I haven’t even been to my first retreat yet.

Obsessing about clear seeing is in line with my own wishes and it’s exactly what Michael has adviced me to do as well. I’m not entirely sure that I know what to look for in terms of bodily formations, but I know it’s in that entangled cloud with tentacles popping out of it.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 1:51 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 1:51 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 1038 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

Comments below in italics

*Today I have felt very... non-solid... and it doesn’t scare me at all. 

Which nana do you think this is?  What do you think might follow next?


*Yet I’m eager to get home to meditate without interruption.

Did you note the eagerness?

*It does seem to take my wishes into consideration, so I need to be careful with what I wish for, but it does what it does.

Damn straight! My expeirence was progress became too rapid and was diorienting. I needed a strong base of concentration and clear seeing.  Have skilful intentions to build mindfulness and concentration, as well as insight.

*Nothing more, nothing less. Just having someone to talk to about what happens means a lot. 

My pleasure to be there - although the nature of life and the internet means I can't gaurantee to be there every day.


*But if I develop more concentration, things might get weird. 

Combine it with mindfulness and noting during the day, to ground you.

*I mean, I know how unlikely it must seem. I haven’t even been to my first retreat yet.

You would not be the only one. But don't worry about where you are, concentrate on what you need to do.


*Obsessing about clear seeing is in line with my own wishes and it’s exactly what Michael has adviced me to do as well. 

Good.

*I’m not entirely sure that I know what to look for in terms of bodily formations, but I know it’s in that entangled cloud with tentacles popping out of it.

Ah, not quite. That is just an idiosyncractic experience that is of more importance later.  Bodily formations are the in-out breath, and all the feelings associated with them.  Movement, pressure, tingling of the skin, expansion of the lungs, contraction, air flowing past the nostrils, dryness or warmth or wetness and cold in the nostrils and lungs, energy in the nerves as you breathe. And so on. All bodily sensations really, as when the in-out breath completely stops, there are no more bodily sensations either.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 6:21 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 4:05 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Before I read your comments, I must write about what happened in my meditation, because I think I had another blip through a different door (EDIT: I now think it was actually the same door as before - impermanence with a touch of no self - but this time with a more noticable component of suffering as well). I’m still in aftershock but I need to write it down.

I was noticing flickering sounds in my right ear and bouncing in my head and felt that there was too much distance to really notice with clarity what was going on. Then I remembered that merging with it was a way to achieve that clarity. At that moment I didn’t even think of fruition. I just wanted to investigate with clarity because I was fascinated. Suddenly I was drawn into a state of chrystal clear presence, without the distance that I had felt before. I’m not sure about the exact order but I know that a saw the world shift between vibrant strings, waves, and unstable particles, and I saw the shifts between those states. I saw that the waves were made up of the particles. The particles were formed as a circle around a black hole. This happened in rapid succession. It really was reality reappearing three times. And then I fell forward, into the black hole. It was really frightening for the fraction of a second. Then I was back and I was okay.

I was so focused on remembering what happened before the fall that I didn’t really notice any details on what happened efter it. I’ll try to be more aware of that next time.

...

I have been meditating since my last post. I’ll publish this now in order to be able to estimate the time. Then I’ll write more about the session. Then I’ll read your comments.

Your last comments helped. Thankyou!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 6:18 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 4:30 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Okay, so about three hours. Wow, those went fast!

I just lay down to check in with what was going on. I felt that I needed do do just that. There was a lot going on, it seemed. I still have a problem with the notion of concentration because of my prior understanding of the concept as something that is accomplished by a doer. That is not at all what happens here. I’m not concentrated in that respect. This process is going on all the time, regardless of whether or not I’m focused on it. However, the significant shifts requires that I’m in synch with it. That is not something that requirs effort. On the contrary, I just need to let go of all efforts and do nothing. That is, I need to stop being a doer.

I felt that there was no need to develop anything. That would be overpowering it. I was already like a slightly shaken champagne bottle, ready to pop.

I wasn’t even fully focused throughout the session. In the beginning some stories appeared about the workshop (poly conference) I have been attending and things I had said and done. I was a bit worried about making the wrong impression, but then I thought that was really silly because there is no self. I noted the different kinds of worries that appeared, accepted that they were there, and made the resolution to learn from them and let go. Now I can’t even remember what it was all about, and I feel that it doesn’t matter. I probably did learn from it. I don’t need to recall the story.

Then there were instances of dreamlike states. I don’t remember any of it now. It seems like this is something I need to go through in order to find the clarity. I recognize it as a pattern. I did note it.

There were a lot of bubbles being released inbetween all other things that happened.

I felt the crown chakra activating.

For a while I had that familar experience of all my senses being turned inside out, but this time they didn’t take turns. It happened with all of them simultaneously. I was aware of it happening in all sense fields at the same time.

Is it reasonable to assume that this (what I described in my last post) was the no self door with a touch of suffering? Or maybe the other way around - suffering with a touch of no self? I think the previous door was impermanence, possibly with a touch of no self. EDIT: Having consulted with MCTB2, I believe this was also impermanence after all. Maybe it was still with no self as its secondary aspect, with just a tad of suffering as well.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention: there were four or five different instances of what I recognize from before, namely a sudden very noticable and full outbreath. I wonder what those are. They are not fruitions, because they lack afterglow and do not entail any particular rewiring that lasts. Also, according to MCTB2, they are out of synch with how fruitions occur in relation to the breath. I’m thinking that maybe they are instances of coming out from a short glimpse of ”neither perception nor non-perception”, but I’m really not qualified to tell.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 5:27 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I was noticing flickering sounds in my right ear and bouncing in my head and felt that there was too much distance to really notice with clarity what was going on. Then I remembered that merging with it was a way to achieve that clarity. At that moment I didn’t even think of fruition. I just wanted to investigate with clarity because I was fascinated. Suddenly I was drawn into a state of chrystal clear presence, without the distance that I had felt before. I’m not sure about the exact order but I know that a saw the world shift between vibrant strings, waves, and unstable particles, and I saw the shifts between those states. I saw that the waves were made up of the particles. The particles were formed as a circle around a black hole. This happened in rapid succession. It really was reality reappearing three times. And then I fell forward, into the black hole. It was really frightening for the fraction of a second. Then I was back and I was okay.

I was so focused on remembering what happened before the fall that I didn’t really notice any details on what happened efter it. I’ll try to be more aware of that next time.

Saying that there was a circle around the black hole is simplifying things, because it wasn’t exactly flat. However, I’m not sure that I was paying enough attention to the details to say for certain that it was donut shaped either, but it was probably something like that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 5:44 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 5:44 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Hmm... I think I am a phenomenology junky. I could have just enjoyed the afterglow, but I just had to write down every detail I could remember as soon as possible. emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 7:12 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It’s ironic... In MCTB2 Daniel says that the impermanence door responds to wanting to detune from reality and do something entirely different, and that would be an accurate description for what got me into this in the first place. I really did long for something entirely different. I longed for it so badly. I wanted to get away from reality. But now I don’t. I want to experience it fully. Meditation practice has ignited a spark. I used to be very ”been there, done that, worn out that goddamn t-shirt over and over again - take me away from here pleeeeeease, and pleeeeeeease tell me that there’s so ething more to it!” Now I don’t understand how I couldn’t see how fascinating reality is.

I want to share something that I haven’t told told you before because it’s embarassing and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be taken seriously. When I started my daily practice six months ago, what gave me the push I needed was something as ridiculous as not being able to access netflix for a few days. I had neglected to upgrade my ipad so many times that it could only be done through a computor, and I hadn’t upgraded to the required software on my computor either. I felt like a dinosaur. Then my ipad couldn’t handle netflix anymore (they probably upgraded something). My major dealer of distraction was inaccessible. Thus I had to deal with my suffering. But even then I didn’t at first. Instead I started watching youtube. I had mainly used youtube as a source for guided meditations/ sleep hypnoses in order to get some sleep. Therefore I looked for videos on meditation. I thought I would try to get a grasp on what kinds of meditation traditions were out there and what separated them from each other, because I had been wondering for a long time. I found a video that was about starting a daily practice even for a few minutes a day. It was recommended to try it out for at least a month. ”I can do that”, I thought. So I did, and I felt how much it resonated with me. The guy in the video talked about Shinzen Young’s ”doing nothing” exercise and I liked it because it was so simple. There was no need for visualization skills or anything like that. It was effortless. There was nothing to achieve. It seemed impossible to fail, because it just meant dropping the intention of doing something. If dropping the intention required effort, then the intention of dropping the intention should be dropped. Marvellous!

So then of course I was curious about this Shinzen Young, so I looked for videos with him, and lo and behold, there seemed to be enough of those videos to last if not a life time, then at least until I would access netflix again. So I watched hundreds of Shinzen Young videos. I started with the short ones. Then there were only the long ones left, so I watched them as well. Through them I found Michael Taft’s podcast, and through that I found Daniel Ingram’s MCTB2, and so on. I practiced every day, starting with 20 minutes. Very soon I felt my energy coming back, and I took up yoga. I was broke at the time, so I took the offer of trying it out for a week for free. I booked a class per day because I didn’t want to waste the opportunity, and soon I was hooked. Doing yoga enabled me to meditate more, and meditating more enabled me to do more yoga, By the time I could access netflix again, I didn’t have time for binge watching, and I found dharma talks so much more engaging.

I’m so grateful for being a dinosaur!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 5:02 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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curious:


Which nana do you think this is?  What do you think might follow next?

I thought it was a mature phase of equanimity and that another fruition might happen soon, and I think I was right.


Did you note the eagerness?

Yes, I did.


Damn straight! My expeirence was progress became too rapid and was diorienting. I needed a strong base of concentration and clear seeing.  Have skilful intentions to build mindfulness and concentration, as well as insight.

Will do. But I need to think of it as being in synch rather than as developing concentration, because that’s how I experience it. However, it’s good to know that if I get out of synch, shamatha might help. Time to cultivate that fire kasina, perhaps.



My pleasure to be there - although the nature of life and the internet means I can't gaurantee to be there every day.

Oh, of course! I would not expect that. I’m grateful for whenever it happens, no strings attached. I wouldn’t want to put that pressure on anybody. The universe will provide.


Combine it //concentration// with mindfulness and noting during the day, to ground you.

Will do.



You would not be the only one. But don't worry about where you are, concentrate on what you need to do.

Good advice. And yeah, I know I’m not the only one. It’s not even my doing. Still, I feel privileged and sometimes I have a dash of survivor’s guilt.

Ah, not quite. That is just an idiosyncractic experience that is of more importance later.  Bodily formations are the in-out breath, and all the feelings associated with them.  Movement, pressure, tingling of the skin, expansion of the lungs, contraction, air flowing past the nostrils, dryness or warmth or wetness and cold in the nostrils and lungs, energy in the nerves as you breathe. And so on. All bodily sensations really, as when the in-out breath completely stops, there are no more bodily sensations either.

Oh, I see now that I did not express myself clearly. I didn’t refer to your process but to my way of understanding things always. It’s my understanding of the phenomenon that is in such a cloud. I learn things intuitively. Thanks for the explanation, though. It made things much clearer. Then it’s actually what I thought from the beginning when I read about the concept in MCTB2. I would call it social constructions, but most people who talk about social constructions don’t seem to realize how deep the social constructions go.

Excellent advice! You speek my language. Thank you so much!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 5:12 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Then I actually think I achieved most of my insight about formations a year ago at a camp for autistic researchers when we were sharing our personal reflections about how we perceive the world, with guidance from an autistic researcher named Hajo who did sort of like a Socrates thing to help us notice what was really going on. I knew that something very significant happened then.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 6:07 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 6:07 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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curious:
Thanks Linda - I'm not a noting style practitioner so I can't give you detailed advice on that kind of progression through the Path of Insight, although I think you know what to expect. However, a couple of things on the A&P.  First, it's only an 80% overlap with orgasm, so bear in mind it is something different.  It is sometimes called Grade V piti as well (just as a little factoid). Second, if it is really powerful it may stir up a lot of difficult stuff to deal with, so you may get an emotional rollercoaster and even become quite argumentative later (reobservation).  However, if you can get through it skilfully, that Grade V piti, and cycle through the dukkha nanas, that will provide a great purification of stuff you didn't even know was there.

So, expect a more complex progression through the stages of insight next time.  Persevere, but without suppressing the emotions as they come up.  Instead, just try to be mindful of the emotional states, and note them as they arise.  So the first one of these would be what you just said.  Your social anxiety came back for a while.  Did you note it?  Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety (until it subsides) and mabe Stressful.  Not me.  Not permanent.

Practice well, and may you be happy.  May you be free from harm.  May you be filled with lovingkindness.

Malcolm  

P.S. If you want some discipline on this, and find you are in the dark night.  Just briefly record here the emotions that you have noted each day.  Did fear arise?  Did desire for deliverance arise?  Did disgust arise?  Did reobservation arise?  Did anxiety arise?
Just bumping this up from six weeks ago, as it seems relevant at the moment.  For me, the dukkha nanas and reobservation in particular gave me lots of trouble in that cluster of stuff that was loosely associated with second path.  For a while things didn't make sense anymore, given my new insights, so I tried to argue towards a resolution.  I don't know if arguing was a good idea or a bad idea, but it was defnitely would have been a good idea for me note it and label it.  

With love.  Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 6:30 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Why this now? Are you also assuming that my short question about what mature people might do to make the world a better place and, you know, not destroy it just yet, is a sign of spiritual difficulties? Can’t I just have an interest in the wellbeing of other sentient beings than myself, in my own way?

I do note it. However, when I open my eyes, the world is still there. Thankfully. I kind of appreciate the world. It may be empty, but it’s life.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 6:48 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
...

I do note it. However, when I open my eyes, the world is still there. Thankfully. I kind of appreciate the world. It may be empty, but it’s life.
Interesting! What else is empty?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 7:32 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 7:14 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Everything, of course, but it’s still all we’ve got as sentient beings. All selves are empty, but the suffering of having to lie down in one’s own feces, as my friend is forced to do on a regular basis, is still subjectively real. So forgive me for caring. I can still care, despite being empty, and I intend to keep it that way.

It is possible for people to deal with their caring in different ways. This is just one of mine. I didn’t think it would cause this much of a debacle. I didn’t even expect any replies. After all, nobody is obligated to write or even read.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 9:57 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 9:20 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I need to find my own balance in dealing with wordly suffering. Nobody can do it for me. When people interfere with my mourning process and tell me that I’m doing it all wrong, that doesn’t help. I have faith in the process. It knows the way. I need to make my own mistakes. That’s part of the journey. I’ll let go of false hopes when I’m ready for it. Trying to take them away from me prematurely will only cause me to hold on to them even more. I know what they are. I also know my limitations in this respect, so that’s why I set boundaries. I would appreciate if people would trust me enough to respect those boundaries. It’s okay to just look the other way. I can take this.

You know that exercise when you make a muscle as tense as you possibly can, in order to notice clearly that letting go is the effortless part? That’s what I’m doing. Pulling and tugging my limbs to make me stop kind of disrupts the process.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 10:55 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Ok,  Nothing but support from here :-)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/4/19 12:09 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Thanks! I really appreciate that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/11/19 6:30 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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curious:
curious:
Thanks Linda - I'm not a noting style practitioner so I can't give you detailed advice on that kind of progression through the Path of Insight, although I think you know what to expect. However, a couple of things on the A&P.  First, it's only an 80% overlap with orgasm, so bear in mind it is something different.  It is sometimes called Grade V piti as well (just as a little factoid). Second, if it is really powerful it may stir up a lot of difficult stuff to deal with, so you may get an emotional rollercoaster and even become quite argumentative later (reobservation).  However, if you can get through it skilfully, that Grade V piti, and cycle through the dukkha nanas, that will provide a great purification of stuff you didn't even know was there.

So, expect a more complex progression through the stages of insight next time.  Persevere, but without suppressing the emotions as they come up.  Instead, just try to be mindful of the emotional states, and note them as they arise.  So the first one of these would be what you just said.  Your social anxiety came back for a while.  Did you note it?  Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety (until it subsides) and mabe Stressful.  Not me.  Not permanent.

Practice well, and may you be happy.  May you be free from harm.  May you be filled with lovingkindness.

Malcolm  

P.S. If you want some discipline on this, and find you are in the dark night.  Just briefly record here the emotions that you have noted each day.  Did fear arise?  Did desire for deliverance arise?  Did disgust arise?  Did reobservation arise?  Did anxiety arise?
Just bumping this up from six weeks ago, as it seems relevant at the moment.  For me, the dukkha nanas and reobservation in particular gave me lots of trouble in that cluster of stuff that was loosely associated with second path.  For a while things didn't make sense anymore, given my new insights, so I tried to argue towards a resolution.  I don't know if arguing was a good idea or a bad idea, but it was defnitely would have been a good idea for me note it and label it.  

With love.  Malcolm


Thankyou! I do appreciate this. Despite your gentle, kind, and thoughtful heads-up, I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be so short after the assumed stream-entry. There’s another contrast to the cycling that I haven’t experienced before, and it’s like two separate layers of reality at the same time. If I wrote down all feelings that appeared, I’m afraid I would scare people off from the practice or that they would write me off as a lunatic or both (that’s the fear part). I’m assuming that this is temporary, though, and that I will eventually learn how to handle it. You went through this and it’s obvious that you learned and transcended it. That gives me hope.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/24/19 4:33 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I’m back to feeling an incredible amount of gratitude for that beatifully brave vulnerability in people here again. It’s such a treasure to take part in what they share. I feel that this long search for meaning was never about me. All along, I couldn’t see what was right there in front of me. It’s not about my life and my experiences. It never was. It is so much bigger than that. I was so shortsighted. I’ll do my best do remember this.

Also, apparently I recevied reiki healing yesterday. That explains why that short and very subtle massage made it apparent to me that the soreness that seemed so solid was just stagnated energy that needed to be released. I felt it pouring out into my body from the blockages and causing lightheadedness. That’s when I decided to skip classes and meditate instead. Today the pain is all gone! When I told her this morning, she told me that she was channelling reiki.

Now I feel bliss.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/25/19 8:31 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I lay down to meditate with one of my cats for slightly more than an hour, because meditation was sort of going on already as I was paying my bills and unpacked my bag and other stuff. Impermanence was flooding my senses. As I lay down, the notion of a body soon went away. Everything was just bubbles being released. At some point something was happening around my ears and eyes, though. There were weird tensions. Then things were really vague. I don’t remember much. There were no thoughts that I can recall. Twice I had that thing going on with a sudden deep and audible but totally effortless outbreath through the mouth. Twice there was also something audible going on with my upper airways, above the nose. There was a widening that sounded as if something was cracked open. Besides that, I think there was a long period where I did not hear sounds. At some point, thoughts and sounds and the body came back, and there was great clarity. At that point I really had to use the bathroom, so I opened my eyes and gently started to move my fingers. I’m still having an afterglow, but it’s very different from the ones that occur after a blip. It is much less profound.

Something that didn’t happen during this session but has been happening lately is a hand or a finger being lifted up on its own, or at least it felt like it did. I haven’t opened my eyes and checked. I have also had very grouse jerky movements happening suddenly and very rapidly and then stopping equally suddenly.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/26/19 9:14 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I was just going to meditate for a while before getting up and going to work... It’s a good thing that I only work halftime and whithout a schedule, because I lost track of time. It turned out that the session was about four hours and fifteen minutes long. Oups... But what a session!

I was focusing on no self. In the beginning of the session I investigated thoughts and feelings that appeared and saw that they were dependent arisings, and as I let go of them more of those bubbles were released. I felt more and more non-solid. Then the content stopped appearing. Instead I found myself disentangling knots of energy threads and gradually letting go of tensions involving eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and what seemed to be distinct parts of the brain. It was very blissful and a great relief.

Things seemed to crack open. I could hear and feel it. Something cracked open above my nose. There was a rapid cracking sound in my left ear, and then I could hear my breath very clearly through that ear. The breath was so light and so easy and vibrantly pleasant. There were pressure sensations against the third eye and against the entire forehead, and then I felt as if I was breathing through my forehead for quite a while. Then I was breathing through the crown of my head, and there were inner lights.

All the time those energy threads kept disentangling, very gently, and there were soothing and very soft tactile sensations against the skin of my face.

After the session I had to rush to work to attend a seminar, and during the seminar, meditation occurred on its own even as I was speaking. There was a beam coming out from my third eye, following a pressure on the temporal lobes, and I could see and feel the flux of energy fields in the seminar room, and hear the nada sound. I had only had a few minutes to prepare the seminar, but I was able to take part like averyone else and make points that others later referred back to. A funny thing is that the whole discussion could have been about dependent origination. It was about participatory agency.

I feel as if the process that started during the meditation needs to keep going. I must go home and meditate some more. It wasn’t finished. I’ll bring my computor with me so that I can work later.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/26/19 9:52 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I did another hour which was mainly formless, and then some more which was more third vipassana jhanaesque, turning the senses inside out again, and then fell asleep. Now I feel great.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/26/19 10:26 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Nice!  Keep noticing emotions as they arise too.  Also, see if you can find where joy is in the space in front of you.  It's just around the corner of the open bits.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 6:26 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 6:26 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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curious:
Nice!  Keep noticing emotions as they arise too.  Also, see if you can find where joy is in the space in front of you.  It's just around the corner of the open bits.


Is that what gives those very pleasant caressing touch sensations in my face and makes breathing so easy? And a weird but pleasant lightheadedness? I can tune into that while working. It almost makes me giggle. Okay, yeah, there’s rapture too. At the same time it almost feels as if I’m stepping out of my body. Ah, rapture comes when I step back into it. I can step in and out of it. Haha, how weird! I feel lighter and less dense when I step out in front of my body, and there seems to be more texture in the space, but then writing feels strange. When I step back into my body I get rapture in it and can more easily control body movements. Hahaha! This is great!
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 1:06 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 1:06 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
curious:
Nice!  Keep noticing emotions as they arise too.  Also, see if you can find where joy is in the space in front of you.  It's just around the corner of the open bits.


Is that what gives those very pleasant caressing touch sensations in my face and makes breathing so easy? And a weird but pleasant lightheadedness? I can tune into that while working. It almost makes me giggle. Okay, yeah, there’s rapture too. At the same time it almost feels as if I’m stepping out of my body. Ah, rapture comes when I step back into it. I can step in and out of it. Haha, how weird! I feel lighter and less dense when I step out in front of my body, and there seems to be more texture in the space, but then writing feels strange. When I step back into my body I get rapture in it and can more easily control body movements. Hahaha! This is great!

So lots of good stuff going on here and in the next post.  Be slightly careful of jumping too far ahead before you build firm foundations. Some suggestions for practice.

- Stay mindful of the flux that leads on to bubbles.  Let that mindfulness be a substrate of your awareness all day, all the time.  If you feel too lightheaded or disoriented, focus more back inside your body, and try to move your awareness from the upper part of the head down into the torso or limbs.  You might want to try moving it into specific chakras.  Or, you can let your attention wax and wane on the flux in different parts of your body - hands, calves, thighs, biceps .... 

- Work on getting those emotions and jhana factors to arise and pass as you wish.  Rapture, no rapture.  Bliss, no bliss.  Joy, no joy.  Verbal thinking, non-conceptual thinking.  You can already do this with rapture by moving your attention, and you are aware of your non-conceptual cognition.  Do it with other emotions too.  Focussing attention in specific areas might help.  Fontanelle - bliss (although there are lots of different types of bliss in slightly different locations).  Heart chakra - compassion.  Brainstem - flat equanimity.  15cm above your head - light spacious equanimity.  Try to be precise about the exact emotion being experienced, and the ability to turn it on and off.  If you can combine these factors to turn jhanas on and off, so much the better.  From this exercise, you can probably also find the right locations to dwell in to help function in your day job. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 2:00 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Those are very tangible advice. Thankyou! I can work with that.

Grounding. Yes. I know how to do that. Before, I needed to go out to the woods and walk barefoot in the mud for a long time. Lakes or the sea and pine treas were helpful, not to mention lightning. Now I can usually get grounded quickly by focusing on the more solid aspects of touch and the ground, or whatever sensations that function as an anchor. The same exercises that help in dissociation also help to get oneself grounded. I have a thick book on the topic: Coping with trauma-related dissociation by Boon, Steele, and van der Hart. It’s a great book, whether one has trauma or not, because it’s full of grounding exercises for all tastes. I used to be very ungrounded. I hadn’t been for a while, so I had almost forgotten. I even have stones that are supposed to help with grounding. I don’t know what to think of that, but I like how those stones resonate with my vibrations, so touching them is pleasant. It’s good to be reminded of that, because I’m probably too fond of the bubbliness. It’s like I wouldn’t mind evaporating into thin air. I enjoy the feeling. But yeah, I can’t do that all day. I need to get things done too. So yeah... I can get grounded. I just need to actually want it.

It sounds great to be able to switch all those things on and off. If I know that I can easily return to a state, I’ll probably be more motivated to let go of it too. But isn’t this kind of a trap? It seems to strenghten the illusion of a doer. Also, I should probably be able to let go without any guarantees. But I guess I could do it like I do in balance exercises where I pretend that I’m located in my heart chakra without really buying into it. I could pretend to be in control, for practical purposes.

Now, after a yoga class, I feel more grounded, because I had to get back in my body. For practical purposes.

I do seem to have the kind of mind that wants to skip ahead too fast. At least one of the Gestalts ”in there” is like that, and it seems to be strong at the moment. It has a counterpart, though. Maybe I should gently evoke that. It seemed to work last time (I wrote about it in my thread on grasping equanimity).

When it comes to stepping in and out of those different emotions, Catherine McGee has really good exercises. Maybe I should do more of those, for example those in the soulmaking dharma retreat with Rob Burbea. I’ll see what I can fit into my schedule.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 10:07 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 10:07 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I meditated for an hour in a reclined position because I felt that I had to. I didn’t plan anything special, but let the process enfold on its own. It seemed to be more disentangling of the self on the agenda. It was subtler this time, but the identification point jumped around. I was unable to merge with it this time, because I was too selfconscious. The separation remained. I think that may have changed with some more time, but I need to go to the office and return some books and print out a manuscript before yoga class.

In the beginning I could notice some subtle emotions, such as subtle anticipation and subtle worry and subtle relief and subtle joy, but soon I got into a neutral state which was very pleasant but not really emotional.

I think I regularly drop into jhanas when doing vipassana. I don’t intend for it to be shamatha. I focus on the three characteristics. I just enjoy it so much that I get into these states. I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter, because it’s not my doing anyway. The process knows the way.

I noticed that those mental processes that do metacognition stay alert in some states even though other thoughts power down. That’s convenient, because it seems like they are the processes that do noting.

After the session: Reality still feels very unsolid. The nada sound is so loud. It’s like there are thousands of crickets around me. The color of the light inside my apartment is weird. Maybe the brain doesn’t compensate like it usually does. Things keep cracking open in my head, and the breath is so light and smooth. I feel lightheaded and slightly nauseaus, in a good way but also in a way that makes me wonder how I’ll manage to get to the office and then do yoga. Somehow I will manage, but I feel like I could faint.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 3:52 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 3:52 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Did 35 minutes while waiting for dinner to be ready. Yes, it’s true that there is bliss at the fontanelle and flat equanimity at the brain stem. I had felt that before but not made the connection about location.

There are a lot of soft touch sensations going on in my face. I’m not sure what that’s about. I notice how they keep changing. It is very restful.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 6:44 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 6:44 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Michael Taft thinks I had stream entry. He asked a bunch of questions about my fruitions/cessations and the moments leading up to them and about my life both on and off the cushion. He then told me very firmly that directly after a fruition/cessation one should be compassionate towards oneself, because the world will be so intense. One should not rush away in the traffic to get to a yoga class. One should not do energy orgasm exercises. Yeah. He’s right, of course. I wouldn’t recommend it. I thought today that I should start writing a list on what not to do directly after stream entry, lessons learned the hard way.

He agrees that this was the impermanence door with no self as secondary aspect.

Now we’re heading for the no self door. That was my request. My assignment is to let thoughts and feelings dissolve before they materialize and also do the same thing with the doer, paradoxically enough, and with any sense of location or thing-ness. I was already heading that way. I just need to do it more thoroughly and more fundamentally. I got to try a little during our session, and I recognized that kind of confusion. That’s the feeling that I have never been able to name although it always seems so familiar. I know that terrain. I get to go home.

I’m also allowed to play with jhanas and all sorts of good stuff. He thought it was a good idea to step in and out of my body as I did earlier today. There are many possibilities for play. Mastering jhanas and nanas and all sorts of stuff with precision is a good thing. Thus I can still follow Malcolm’s advice too.

He believed me when I said that I thought I had dropped into fourth jhana on a seminar at work. He also believed me when I said that I thought I had been in pure land jhanas before my first fruition. And he said that I had used Shinzen’s favorite method to get a fruition and that Shinzen would be pleased. I like Shinzen, so that makes me happy.

It’s probably a good idea to focus on no self right now, because otherwise I might get too full of myself. We wouldn’t want that, would we?

Yay, I get to evaporate! Cool!

He also said that I should gently set intentions for my sittings (not that I’m actually sitting, as I mostly lie down). I already do that, but I could probably be more precise. I have been very careful.
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Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 9:42 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/27/19 9:42 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 1038 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
Congratulations Polly (I think I'll call you that now - it seems to fit better). Stream entry seemed pretty obvious, but great to have it confirmed. It is just a massive change in life and a huge reduction in suffering, although of course there is further to go. Anyway, well done.  You have made a really assiduous effort and it has paid off.  

I'll check back sometime, but right now I'm going to drop off the board for a while to just let everything settle. I think you have plenty to be going on with. But I will be thinking of you and your practice, and putting the good thought on it.   
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 12:51 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 12:51 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Many thanks, Malcolm, for your support! It was great feedback that helped a lot.

Yeah, I’ll be fine. And busy, it seems.

It doesn’t feel like an effort. I have had so much fun. It has been super fascinating. I have done a lot of effort in my life (finishing writing my thesis while teaching, parenting a small child, and getting a divorce without yet having support for my disabilities was one hell of an effort) but this wasn’t it. The rest of the journey will probably be tougher.

Polly is fine. I have had many online aliases over the years. Weird how they all seem more accurate than my real name. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t aspire to be a real name (and Polly Ester is so obviously synthetic). Thereby I don’t feel like an impostor.

...

I had confusing dreams about the self. When the alarm went off I was even more confused. It felt as if I was on the verge of getting a fruition from it. Weird. I feel grounded now, though (although the nada sound is still loud), thankfully, because I’ll be giving a lecture this morning. I’d better not meditate before that. After this busy work day I’ll meditate the shit out of this self. Looking forward to it.
Jyet, modified 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 3:04 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 3:04 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Congratulations Linda, it has been a pleasure to ride along on the current of truth through your journal. Your dedication to flow with it and let it grip you, paid off. 

Enjoy the unfolding mystery....

All the best.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 3:49 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 3:49 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Thanks Jyet! That was a very nice comment. All the best to you too.
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 7:27 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 7:27 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 73 Join Date: 7/5/18 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
[...]
It’s probably a good idea to focus on no self right now, because otherwise I might get too full of myself. We wouldn’t want that, would we?
Hi Linda,
I would want that. Please go be full of yourself. Enjoy!
emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 7:59 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 7:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Haha! But I want to experience the no self door, so I need to remember that it was never my doing. The no self door is probably much more fun than being full of oneself. I have a feeling that it may be difficult for me to go through the no self door right now, because pride is blocking the way. Eventually that will be self-regulating, I suppose, because pride needs the feeling of success to thrive.
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 9:17 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 9:17 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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OK, so here's a challenge:
  • Go really be full of yourself. Drown in pride like you're getting paid for it. Turn it to 11.
  • Have fun.
  • Notice the 3Cs of being full of yourself and feeling pride. btw this includes "no self"
Alternatively, you could use the following strategy:
  • Worry about being full of yourself.
  • Spend time thinking about how to get rid of pride.
  • Notice the 3Cs of worrying and thinking about pride and being full of yourself. btw this includes "no self"
The latter is the strategy you're currently using.

Those 2 options are the only two ways of how to deal with this situation. There are no other ways. Do not even think about it.

                              emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 9:27 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 9:27 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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How about I just keep meditating and see whatever comes up? It will probably be a little bit of both.

How come giving a lecture to students about my disbilities in case they meet somebody like me in their professional role still fells like throwing up my soul when I know that there is no self? Bleh...
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 3/29/19 7:54 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/29/19 7:54 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
How about I just keep meditating and see whatever comes up? It will probably be a little bit of both.
Yeah. I'm just joking around trying to point you at two things I noticed which you are doing:
1) Worry about completely normal human reactions, which will probably never go away and aren't actually a real problem anyway.
2) Considering to defer to authority. Who cares what a bunch of internet strangers think about you being full of yourself for some weeks? Who cares if some grumpy old nun does not want you to eat sweets because OH NO CRAVING? How would you react if a celibate monk lectures you about how your poly lifestyle is bad because another celibate monk called Buddha somehow did not endorse it? And so on.

I'm not saying you need to change those things. Those are typical beginner behaviours which eventually fade away with growing experience. But you might want to reflect if those behaviours are really in your best interest. You might already be aware of this of course, but sometimes we are not aware of a behaviour we do, and we completely fail to recognize that we could act differently until someone points it out to us.

How come giving a lecture to students about my disbilities in case they meet somebody like me in their professional role still fells like throwing up my soul when I know that there is no self? Bleh...

Let me give you a bunch of probably non-helpful but possibly entertaining answers:
Very traditional monastic who has read lots very old texts and thinks they are the hottest thing since slide bread (or possibly some random dude on dhammawheel.com):
That's because you haven't realized stream entry at all. Stream entry is this very rare and advanced achievement, for which you need to prepare thousands of lives. Of course that's different than it was in the time of the Buddha when there were stream enterers popping up everywhere, but then people were just more spiritually advanced which totally makes sense somehow.
Daniel Ingram style answer:
That's because stream entry changes something about your perceptions of things, but not necessarily the things themselves. [Link to models of enlightenment chapter in MCTB2] [Link to chapter in MCTB2 which says that you should treat the 3 trainings as completely separate from each other]
Bill Hamilton:
I put the whole path in neat one-liners, which people keep forgetting, which is so disappointing. So let me reiterate this very neat one-liner which neatly describes what happens to your life when you get stream entry: Could get better, could get worse, could stay the same. (probably some different permutation though).
Nitpicking newbie Buddhism enthusiast:
You get this completely wrong! There is no soul in Buddhism! This is belief in the atman! It means you haven't realized no-self at all!!!!111!!1
My current take on this, sorta going off on a tangent and not actually answering your question:
See, this is what you get for bothering with map theory. Lots of unrealistic expectations and lots of suffering when they are not fulfilled. Lots of confusion about what this or that means. Lots of uncertainty "where I am on the map". Lots of wasted time and space in your brain. Nothing that is actually helpful. And on top of all this, despite getting stream entry (or not getting stream entry, or maybe getting stream entry and never really figuring it out for the rest of your life, or maybe figuring it out and still being wrong about it) you still think that for some reason it is important to reach equanimity nana which is helping your practice... how? .
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 7:48 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/29/19 1:32 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I got your point the first time.

I don’t agree with you. I’m not worried about authorities. I and my internalized gestalts would not want me to be full of myself. If a monk were to interfere with my lovelife I would gently remind him that judging is not good for one’s heart, because the poor thing could get a heart attack.

I happen to think that the maps are the best thing that happened to me. I’m not having a lot of expectations. I’m just whining sometimes, because you know, I’m a human being. That’s what we do.
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 3:01 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 3:01 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 73 Join Date: 7/5/18 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:


I happen to think that the maps are the best thing that happened to me. I’m not having a lot of expectations. I’m just whining sometimes, because you know, I’m a human being. That’s what we do.
OK. I mention this because for me, knowing the maps caused a lot of damage. First I thought they were great and they gave me a ton of faith. (In fact I'm not sure if I would have continued meditating without reading MCTB.) But then, they also made me put in MUCH too much effort and I would spend lots of time wondering "what is this state". Neither did me any good. It took me years to really get over this. Today, I completely understand why meditation teachers may decide to not share the maps with beginners or even intermediate meditators.

Since I can't detect a single thing how the maps would have helped me (except for giving me faith that all of this is real and doable), I wonder how they help your practice?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 4:14 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 4:14 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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They help me navigate. I know what to look for and know when I need to secondguess myself and what challenges to take on. They make the darknight predictable and managable. Recognizing the nana and naming it takes away so much of its power. Also, I can be mentally prepared for the next challenge. I can see why it might be problematic for many people, but I’m the nerdy type. I already had faith, but the maps gave me detailed knowledge of the terrain. I’m not interested in comparing myself to others. I just want to know what I’m doing so that I can avoid the traps. The maps have successfully helped me with that so far. Also, they inspire me.
Anna L, modified 4 Years ago at 4/2/19 4:37 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/2/19 4:37 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
They help me navigate. I know what to look for and know when I need to secondguess myself and what challenges to take on. They make the darknight predictable and managable. Recognizing the nana and naming it takes away so much of its power. Also, I can be mentally prepared for the next challenge. I can see why it might be problematic for many people, but I’m the nerdy type. I already had faith, but the maps gave me detailed knowledge of the terrain. I’m not interested in comparing myself to others. I just want to know what I’m doing so that I can avoid the traps. The maps have successfully helped me with that so far. Also, they inspire me.

Nicely put. I agree.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/2/19 4:52 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/2/19 4:52 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Thanks, Anna!

...

It just dawned on me that my ongoing difficulties at least partly can be explained by the fact that I have not taken my ADHD medication properly lately. My brain feels different, so I don’t get the same kind of confusion when it’s time for the next pill. Therefore I forget it. Also, I may have needed some time to integrate my new wiring without too much intereference from narcotics. But of course I still have ADHD (didn’t expect anything else and didn’t wish for it to go away either, just to be clear), and now it’s probably time to get back to my regular regime. Haha, Because I didn’t feel confused, I forgot my medication and thus got too confused to be able to get confused enough (Michael told me to aim for total confusion). There really shuld be a more diverse terminology for confusion.
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Lars, modified 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 1:21 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 1:20 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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In one of your recent posts you mentioned something similar to this (from MCTB2):

He told me more about the maps and gave me some pointers on how to perceive some subtleties about impermanence, drawing an incomplete circle on the ground with a stick to represent the arising and passing of phenomena; that somehow made a strong impression on me, and helped me get a sense of how to see the end of phenomena to help achieve stream entry.

Could you elaborate? You mentioned the experience of sensations being like a circle with pixels on the edge.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 2:01 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 2:01 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Lars:
In one of your recent posts you mentioned something similar to this (from MCTB2):

He told me more about the maps and gave me some pointers on how to perceive some subtleties about impermanence, drawing an incomplete circle on the ground with a stick to represent the arising and passing of phenomena; that somehow made a strong impression on me, and helped me get a sense of how to see the end of phenomena to help achieve stream entry.

Could you elaborate? You mentioned the experience of sensations being like a circle with pixels on the edge.



I don’t know what you are referring to. Sorry.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/29/19 2:31 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/28/19 11:28 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I meditated on no self for three hours after work yesterday, and it was exactly what I needed. A lot of tensions were released with regard to perception. Now I seem to be cycling again, though, because my neck and back hurts badly. They usually do when I’m darknighting. There is no substance to the pain. There is no muscle knot, just pain. I’d better get up to equanimity again. That helps.

EDIT: No, this is worse than darknighting. It’s a histamine reaction. Apparently mango is off limits now. I only had a bite. So that’s why I was knocked out yesterday. Can’t cure this with meditation. It sure tries. There’s piti all over the place but that doesn’t help. Maybe together with proper medication.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/29/19 8:47 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/29/19 8:47 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Sat for 40 minutes on my new real meditation cushion, focusing on emptiness. Apparently I’m really scared of emptiness, because I felt a panic reaction coming up. I noted it and stayed on a sensate level. The nada sound was loud. It still is. I was lightheaded; still am. I felt very unsolid; still do. It’s like the molecules of my body spread out. They probably don’t, but that’s a mental formation that comes up. I wonder why this is so much more scary than impermanence. It’s not like they are unrelated. I’ve got myself a challenge here.

Before the panic attack, I felt that it was restful to tune into emptyness. I know how to do it. I know what it feels like. It’s the letting go of the part that feels it that is scary. That’s where the panic arose, when I was about to let go of that control.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 7:47 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 7:47 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I did 15 minutes of yoga exercises to get stagnated energies flowing instead of causing pain. That made the tiny bubbles appear and move through my body. Directly after that, I sat for 40 minutes and then lay down for another 20 minutes. I was focusing on no self. This time I did not panic. I noticed some distraction in the beginning, though. There was resistence with regard to emptiness. However, the nonsolidness of everything that is ”me” is quite the relief when I dare experience it. I believe that the pain is caused by solidifying and separating a field that should be in constant flux and in touch with everything and nothing. When I let go of that ”control” to some extent, piti was streaming through my body and dissolving tensions.

Michael’s instructions with regard to the no self door make sense but they sure make it difficult to determine whether there are enough concentration and clarity. How do I know if I succeed in noticing the emptiness of every thought and feeling and sense of direction before they form or if I’m just dull? There is a sense of flow to it that is not present in dullness. I guess that’s my clue. Also, there’s a clarity in the confusion. It’s sort of a chrystal clear confusion. And I do know that mind state from before. It feels so familiar. That aspect that feels this and recognizes this needs to let go, too, for just a moment. That’s the challenge. It’s a tricky one, but resistence is impermanent too, like everything else.

I don’t think I should get too stable. It hurts. I think I need to live with the feeling of nonsolidness and constant flux instead. I wouldn’t mind. Solidness is only an illusion anyway. Being separated hurts. It hurts so badly. I don’t want to live like that anymore.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 9:23 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 3/30/19 9:23 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Things I do on a subway train:

- stare at a grey wall and make colored spots appear, one color at a time: red, green, pink, blue

- focus on the crown chakra to make it breath and ignite an inner light

- focus on the third eye to get into a light version of something formless with a lingering sense of duality

- tune into the soft vibrations in front of me and have my face gently caressed
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 5:56 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 5:53 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I was at a Shambhala center in Stockholm today. It was supposed to be a whole day meditation program today, but apparently my registration had not been received and nobody else had signed up, so it was cancelled. A woman came there anyway, just in case, so she told me about their activities and their mentoring system and then we sat together for two sessions with a walking meditation inbetween, and it was very nice. I got a half day. She told me about the ungoing investigation of their teacher for sexual harrassments and what a crisis this is for the entire organization. They had taken away his portraits, and now they are having discussions about the leader structure and how to avoid things like this in future. It seems like a constructive process, albeit a tough one. She said that some people had felt devotion to him as a guru, and for those this has been especially tough, and she also said that devotion is part of the problem. As a newcomer I appreciate that she told me this. It felt like a responsible approach.

So, now they don’t have a guru. They have separated themselves from him. That’s fine with me. I’m not looking for a guru, but for a context of people doing meditation together. I’ll think about getting a membership, but I’ll at least go there for another whole day sitting in a month (they’ll see to it tha there’s actually a program that day). She also gave me information about a retreat they’ll be having in July. I’ll think about going there. She thought they would be prepared to accomodate to my special diet somehow, so that’s promising.

In their tradition, meditation is done with eyes open because they want to be part of the world. That made it possible to see the visual effects of meditative states, which was cool. Sometimes there were waves in the floor. Sometimes the floor was rising and falling with the breath, like it was also breathing. Sometimes the details of the pattern of the floor stood out with exceptional clarity and sort of came out from the floor. The floor pretty much behaved like the murk behind closed eyelids when in a concentrated state. There’s not much of a difference between having eyes closed or open.

For a while I got into sort of a hypnanogic state and could hear inner voices talking. They were male voices.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 8:00 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 7:57 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I meditated lying down for I don’t know - an hour or so? I think I among other things was in the eighth jhana, neither perception nor yet non-perception. What a weird state that is! But very restful. For a while I was also in something where there was sort of a cord going down from the back of my brain, holding me down. It felt liberating when that cord was cut. I was also in that place where extremely subtle vibrations caress my face. I don’t remember the order of anything. Now I’m freezing. I should have used a blanket.

It would be helpful to go through the jhanas with guidance some time, to get the landmarks sorted out accurately. I’m not sure that I would be able to do it fast enough, though. That somebody would have to be vary patient and not in any hurry.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 2:56 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 3/31/19 2:56 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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It’s getting easier to tap into meditative states in daily life, such as focusing on subtle vibrations in the lips while doing grocery shopping. As I carried the groceries home to my partner, those vibrations were not so subtle any more. My lips pulsated and had waves in them, and points and whole chunks flickered in and out of existence.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 3:19 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/1/19 3:19 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I’m having difficulties in following Michael Taft’s advice to dissolve any perception, thought, feeling or sense of location before it takes solid form to reach the no self door. Yesterday night it felt as if I was going somewhere, but I wanted to cuddle with my partner before he went to sleep (we live in different towns, so I treasure the time we have together). This evening I have spent hours navigating between dullness and short glimpses of formlessness and too much monkey mind popping up because it seems to believe that I’m not doing anything. Focusing on impermanence was much easier. Now it seems that I need to focus on not focusing on anything, which is paradoxical. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the task. Well, at least I got some well neaded rest.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/2/19 9:45 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I’m having difficulties in following Michael Taft’s advice to dissolve any perception, thought, feeling or sense of location before it takes solid form to reach the no self door. Yesterday night it felt as if I was going somewhere, but I wanted to cuddle with my partner before he went to sleep (we live in different towns, so I treasure the time we have together). This evening I have spent hours navigating between dullness and short glimpses of formlessness and too much monkey mind popping up because it seems to believe that I’m not doing anything. Focusing on impermanence was much easier. Now it seems that I need to focus on not focusing on anything, which is paradoxical. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the task. Well, at least I got some well neaded rest.



I think I get it now. It’s not about cutting these things out of experience, but rather the opposite. The sensations are not a problem, but distinctions are. I need to realize on a sensate level that nothing is separate. I need to merge with everything and thereby with nothing. The suchness or thingness of reality will go away and reveal the emptiness. I have experienced glimpses of this but not the real thing.

Today I have spent hours dropping in and out of different states. I have felt the subjective point moving around and turning around toward itself and felt very subtle vibrations in my face and champagne bubbles through my body and pressure against my third eye and felt my forehead breathing and the crown of my head breathing and felt anchored to my brain stem and cut myself loose from any anchor to drift in space and felt both very dense and very spacious. However, I have not merged with everything. Duality remains. And where there is duality, there is also tension.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/2/19 6:47 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/2/19 6:47 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Today turned into a mini retreat on my own. I have spent almost the entire day meditating, probably around 12 hours. I did the void dakini exercice by Ken McLeod to deal with my resistance, and after that I had a few near misses.

Maybe it was a bad idea to head for a new door, I don’t know. I guess time will tell. In the meantime I’m learning things. There is a lot of letting go of control and tension.

Now I should probably get some sleep, because I have started dreaming. I was going for a hike together with an elephant. I made a shelter big enough for the elephant to crawl in. It was a circus elephant and I thought it was in need of some time off in the nature. It seemed to agree.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/3/19 2:41 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I don’t know if I’m going about this the right way. When I try to focus on no self according to the instructions, I get into states with jhanic qualities. This morning I had soft tactile sensations on my scalp while having very few thoughts, but it still felt like ”my” scalp. This turned out to be a hard nut to crack.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/3/19 8:08 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Oh, now I get it. It is the same process but in reverse. Instead of following the subjective point and merging with it, I follow the objectification point and merge with it. This turns something seemlingly solid into a subjective vantage point, which dissolves it into a blind spot. Then a new objectification point appears, and I repeat. When I do that, the subjective point moves accordingly, as a biproduct. This makes it apparent on a sensate level that there is no continuous self.

For some reason, this direction of the process is more difficult for me, but I’m starting to getting into more of a flow. Some objectification points come in pairs or clusters, like both ears or both eyes, and different points on both sides. This makes it more bouncy. Maybe that’s a potential for getting fully absorbed in the process in a way that makes me forget that I’m striving for fruition, and for getting into the kind of flux that makes nothing solid for a moment.

This is fascinating.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/3/19 9:19 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Before I understood this, there were increasing tensions between sense organs, certain parts of the brain, and objects of perception. It felt as if there were electromagnetic fields, sort of, and it was causing some pain. At the same time, I could also sense that the sensations were there effortlessly independent from any active perceiver. Still, I didn’t know how to turn off this apparatus of attention and conceptualizing.

I started out trying to dissolve everything at once, allowing nothing to take any form, and that was hopeless. I probably took the advice too literally. I felt stressed out because there were sounds and other perceptions that stopped before I had any chance to dissolve them. I thought the mission had failed if something stood out as separate enough for me to identify it, haha, so I ended up with the wrong kind of confusion and little clarity with regard to no self. It is if course much easier to do it with one object at a time. Now I do it with the point that causes the most tension. Instead of trying to dissolve it, I just sort of move in there, and the relative dissolution follows. When I do, it is very clear that it can only be an approximation because it is not separate, not clearly demarcated from its context. In this mode, everything is continuity. That is not a contradiction from the fact that everything is impermanent. It is still impermanent. It’s just impossible to single out separate entities and point to when they arise and pass, because all distinctions are constructions. There are no given or natural distinctions. They are all dependent on something.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/4/19 2:28 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I spent 3-4 hours in different jhanic states that I don’t know how to map. There were visual and kinesthetic effects of various sorts and there were states where there were little to no sense of a body. I remember an instance of noticing that I did no longer categorize perceptions. They were all just a stream of sensations. No, not sensations either. They were just there. There were no experiencer there to sense them and they no longer had any anchor in space. There were also a number of unknowing events that I believe were all drops into eighth jhana or something similar, because it feels sort of incomplete. There were afterglows, but of a different kind than from a fruition. There were moments when sounds disappeared. The difference was very clear, because one of my cats made a lot of noice (he’s not allowed to go out on his own because he is on medication and tends to stay out for too long). Furthermore, I was sort of sucked out through different chakras, or had parts of me torned out from them. There were several instances of tripping and falling. There were a lot of champagne bubbles being released. There were instances of visual bubbles coming towards me and hitting my face with tactile sensations. There were also a lot of very soft tactile sensations in my face, like gentle brushes from feathers. However, there were also more prickly sensations throughout my body and a lot of lightheadedness and some distortions of my body with aspects of senses being turned inside out. Now I’m so hungry and wish I had some food beside from my lunch box. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep. It’s time to wake up in one and a half hour anyway.

EDIT: Maybe one or two of these unknowing events were fruitions after all? I don’t know. Everything feels unusually crisp today. How does one recognize a fruition when departing from formless realms? I know that some of them were not fruitions, becuase they definitely did not feel like it, and the breath was not in synch. The trippings and fallings might have been fruitions, though. There was sort of a cutting of frames between falling and reflecting on the falling, and there was a freshness afterwards. These things are so subtle! They should come with a big sign attached to them.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/4/19 4:04 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I know it’s silly, but I’m a tad disappointed that I haven't been able to see that image staring back at me that is described in MCTB2 with regard to the no self door. I realized today that the prospect of experiencing that was probably the main reason for my wanting to go through that door. The descriptions of what the self door is about all sound very nice and are good enough reasons for such a wish, and I think I imagined that to be the reason. When it comes down to it, I really wanted that particular experience because it sounded so cool. I realize that it’s very similar to wanting a particular doll because it has the longest hair without really having an idea of why that quality is even important. I also realize that I may need to go through hundreds of fruitions in order to get a decent picture of what it was like, so I’m being unreasonably impatient. And I feel great, so no need to complain. I just want to put it out there, to be honest with myself. Yup, there’s a disappointed three-year-old somewhere in that construct, and that three-year-old wants to have its own face looking back at it in a weird way just because it would probably be cool. Maybe I just want to understand that strange image. It makes me curious. Anyway, I’m beginning to suspect that those many kinesthetic experiences of having all the senses turned inside out, turned towards themselves, are my version of having an image look back at me. In that case, I have actually already had that experience that I’m so eager to have, and it was very cool indeed. So maybe I can actually let this go.

Another thought that has been bugging me today is that shamatha and vipassana really have the same relationship to each other as multiplication and division, at least when it comes to certain forms of shamatha. It’s the same process, only from different vantage points. So why all the fuzz about choosing? If one doesn’t understand division, one doesn’t really understand multiplication either, and vice versa. It is possible to apply one of the operations without having learned to apply the other one, sure, but you don’t go about telling people to choose between those two operations. That would be absurd. Sure, Maths books have to choose which one to present first, but it’s always possible to skip ahead and read the chapters parallelly. That’s what I would do. As a matter of fact, I think I did. Linear thinking has never really been my thing. Everything needs to be understood from different directions at the same time in order to be understood.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/4/19 1:54 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/4/19 1:15 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I have just listened to this, https://youtu.be/FCR_RfVzmRs, Michael Taft’s guided meditation on the formless realms, and realized that this is what I was doing many years ago when I was just doing my own thing without any knowledge whatsoever of how meditation should be done. Back then I lacked the phenomenological concepts to make sense of it. I just did it because it felt good. 

Apparently it is also at least partly what I did tonight instead of sleeping, and I feel unusually well rested.

Talking about sleep and being well rested - I realized yesterday that daylight saving time started several days ago and I didn’t even notice it. That’s a first. It’s usually a trauma every year. When it is finally enough light in the mornings for me to be able to wake up, I have to get up an hour earlier. Normally I have jet lag for at least a couple of months, and that’s added on the still remaining winter depression. This year I neither had winter depression nor jet lag. I give my meditation practice credit for this.
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/4/19 5:32 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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How wonderful to see your practice coming along so nicely, Linda emoticon

I first remember getting into light versions of the formless realms (I forget the terminology, subjhanas of equanimity or something?) as a kid when exploring math concepts like infinity, zero, etc. Wasn't until not so long ago that I realized most people didn't learn math that way! No wonder they didn't like it as much as I did...
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/4/19 6:15 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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emoticon Thankyou!

That’s cool. I don’t think I ever had that kind of experience from Maths. I made stories about the digits instead. They all had different personalities. One could say that my approach to Maths was more Vajrayana than Shamatha. emoticon

However, I have come to realize that I wasn’t wrong in the beginning when I thought that I had accessed Jhanas as a child and teenager. Light versions, sure, but definitely Jhanic according to some standards. There seems to be a lot of debate on what qualifies as ”real” Jhana, but I’m not particularly interested in that. I just wanted to understand what it was that I was doing and make sense of it. For instance, I think I have spent time in the formless realms to heal when I have needed the rest from having to be responsive to a world that was overwhelming. That makes sense. I think I have done that a lot over the years. 
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/4/19 7:07 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
emoticon  For instance, I think I have spent time in the formless realms to heal when I have needed the rest from having to be responsive to a world that was overwhelming. That makes sense. I think I have done that a lot over the years. 

Yes, I did the same thing from childhood--often resting in space so as to get a break from overwhelming sensations in the body. Thank goodness for that, or my ability to function in the world might never have developed. It was a healthy and much needed coping skill.

Later on, in more mature stages of practice, what became key for me was recognizing and letting go of subtle attachment to those states. And learning to rest peacefully in whatever painful/unpleasant sensations were present in the body without having to "escape" into the formless realms. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/4/19 3:15 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Yeah, I can see why that is an important point. There is so much work left for me to do, but I am starting to get a glimpse of the possibilities of a life that is much more open to the world, and this makes me very happy. I have definitively had tendencies to escape, and I still do. However, for the first time in a very long while I think that I actually really want to experience the world, not just endure it becuse it is the most constructive thing to do and the alternative is less attractive and the people I love make it worthwhile. Now I really want to experience life to its fullest. That was... unexpected. I really am a very constructive person/set of mental processes, but I have also been very tired. I actually pretty often felt that joining the Borg collective would be a relief (yeah, bingewatching StarTrek has been one escape). That’s how tired I was. It’s strange how liberating it can be to realize something as depressing as the three characteristics. At least I used to think of them as depressive, but I guess the point is that they aren’t. Hm, I think I thought initially that the liberation would be a liberation from those ”depressing” truths, but the liberation lies within them. In plain sight. Of course.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/4/19 5:27 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I feel as if there are champagne bubbles trickling out through my ears and through the pores of my skin during job seminars. I can easily tune into such qualities.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/5/19 9:48 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I can’t find that damn kazoo player. He seems to be gone, for now at least. I can do the kazoo playing manually, but that seems awfully unnecessary. So - much less obvious bouncing of the mind. That’s a relief, but it also means that I need to find new tools for my meditation. Other kinds of tension are coming to the surface now, so I guess that’s somewhere to start. I feel like there is unproportionally much head, like when I was a child. I would guess that there are some aspects of mind and body coming up. I don’t know what to expect there, really, because I never experienced the first three nanas as a meditator.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/5/19 2:01 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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After my session with Michael Taft, I did a 70 minutes long climbing up and down the jhanas, trying to notice the shifts. Now I finally know what those curious instances of very noticable and audible breaths are. That’s the shift down to second jhana from third where the airways are tightening and focus increases and sensations get radically more prickly. That’s a very noticable shift between states, but I didn’t understand what it was before.

I find it difficult to stay in the very narrow focus of first jhana. Second jhana tends to enfold on its own, and third not long after that. I don’t find the same joy in the first two that I did before. I was surprised, though, how very easy it was to get into them now just by focusing on the breath at the tip of the nose, an exercise that I honestly have found pretty boring. I could very easily find a very small point of the nose to focus on and feel a huge variety of sensations there in terms of pressure and temperature, and the change of state came almost immediately. Soon there was also a big bright spot behind my eyelids. I have yet to learn landmarks pointing out clearly where the shift between first and second jhana occurs.

Michael says that the skin feels like silk in third jhana. For me it has been more like cotton candy and pending between prickliness and numbness before, not really stablizing, but lately more finegrained qualities have shown up. I suppose the sensations of being gently brushed by very soft feathers together with that very pleasant calmness is what he is talking about. I wasn’t aware that third jhana could be so gentle. Up til now I have vipassanized it so much that it has been distorted. There are other aspects of third vipassana jhana that I have always enjoyed, though: I always enjoyed that figure-ground shift when the periphery suddenly stood out with clarity whereas the center disappeared. Next landmark for me (before) was when my hands felt as if they were turned backwards, sort of a mirroring and touch of collapsing between subject and object. I guess that was also more of a vipassana landmark. I didn’t experience that now. It was all softness and pleasant calmness.

The shift into fourth jhana is pretty clear, I think, because that chrystal clear awareness is precious. I think it’s also there that the breath gets that exceptional lightness and sensitivity. Coming back into third again makes the shift even clearer, because then it goes from crisp clear chrystal to something more... honey like? Sweet but less clear, more dense.

Michael talked about climbing down the jhanas in order to uphold concentration when a higher jhana is about to break up. If one climbs down to second jhana, for instance, it is possible to build up more focus. I think my mind does that intuitively, because I recognized it. I found that it was rather easy to climb back up again after a while and I knew that I had already been doing this without realizing it. That’s what makes it possible for me to just happen to meditate for hours and hours. I have been thinking of it as building up bubbliness, because when I aim for a fruition I need that bubbliness. It’s my short word for apparent impermanence and no self. Nothing continuous and nothing solid. Just champagne bubbles building up and popping. Gotta love those bubbles.

I tried to focus on space, getting into the first formless realm and learn to distinguish it. I’m not quite sure where the shift occurs from the more spacious qualities of fourth jhana to the realm of space, but I do recognize that there is a shift somewhere. I think I only got into a light version of it this time. Then pretty soon I sensed a shift from space to the noticing of space, so I think I at least had a glimpse of the realm of consciousness. There was a noticable shift in focus, but the difference was subtle.

I don’t remember if I visited the realm of nothing and the neither perception nor yet non-perception this time. I know that I have been there before, but I’m not sure about this time. I do remember a sense of not being attracted to any sensations. I vaguely remember the hint of a decision to get out of there because I wanted clarity and felt like I could get stuck in limbo. Maybe I stood in the doorway, hesitating.

When I had climbed down from fourth jhana to third I was aiming at second jhana but found myself getting back into fourth. When I finally managed to climb back down again I realized why. I really don’t like second jhana that much anymore. Going into it from higher jhanas, it is barely recognizable. It is too prickly and rough. I was looking for something pleasurable and clear and focused, and second jhana didn’t fit that description.

I was adviced to reread the MCTB2 section on the shamatha jhanas and also Culadasa. Will do.

I was also adviced to aim for as many different fruitions as possible. Will do that too.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/6/19 1:41 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Before I went to sleep last night, I did the guided meditation on how to enter jhana by Michael Taft, SF Dharma Collective, available on youtube. This time I did not try to do vipassana but just focused on the pleasurable aspects. I let the phenomenology junky rest. I’ve got to admit that this makes the jhana so much deeper and smoother. Third jhana without the vipassana really is soothing. It was probably the kazoo player that created all those weird tensions that I used to experience in third vipassana jhana, or some version of the observer’s paradox.

When the guided meditation was over and he started lecturing and answering questions, I wasn’t ready to go back to a conceptualizing mode, so after a while I just turned it off. I continued listening this morning instead. Then I noticed that it had taken me quite a while to even snap out of it enough to pause. I remember that I was very reluctant to move because I was in such a nice place.

Jhana really does itself. There is no effort whatsoever. It’s very obvious that there is no doer there. That’s no self right there. Going out of it is an effort. I imagine that at some point staying in it is an effort, too, and eventually one that causes a lot of suffering, because there are neurotransmittors and hormones involved and they are not and endless resource.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/6/19 8:33 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Today (tonight) I have taken part in two of Shinzen Young’s home practice programs: introduction to spontaneity and explore flow. That was eight hours, practically a one day retreat. Before that I did a one hour session focusing on pleasant sensations to build up more bubbliness and thereby increase concentration and clarity. It has been great, although I was tired during the flow course because that was in the middle of the night for me here in Sweden. There is a lot that I would like to write down about my experiences today, but that will have to wait until tomorrow (uhm, today, but after I have slept). I made some notes on paper so hopefully I will still remember it. I was very happy to realize that spontaneity is much more accessible to me than I have thought. I think I have blocked it out for many many years (basically since I realized that I’m weird, and long before I realized that weird can be fabulous), and now things are opening up. It is probably related to the bubbliness, which is what Shinzen calls flow, so combining those two courses connected the dots.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/7/19 1:40 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Okay, so I’ll try to sum up my experiences from the home practice programs. I’m feeling sluggish today, but it would be nice to get it done.

The first program was introduction to spontaneity, with auto think, auto move and auto speek. That’s the part of Shinzen’s teaching that I have honestly thought of as too weird even for me, and at the same time too difficult because of blockages and poor automatization. For some reason I thought ”The heck, why not?” and signed up for it, and I’m glad I did. It turned out not to be so far from me as I thought. It is really the other side of the coin of what I usually do. I have a lot of faith in letting things unfold on their own because the process knows the way, but I tend to do that in a passive and rather submissive ”surrender” kind of way and just explore the experience of it when the bubbliness happens. The spontaneity exercises are a way to shake the bottle a bit, to make things happen. Not by force, but by opening up to it. I need more of that in my life.

I realized that I have actually done quite a few things to cultivate this, after all, even though much more is needed. There are other contexts in my life where I do exercises that remind a lot of this. Explorative yoga, workshops about playing with one’s voice, workshops exploring touch, drama (that was too long ago - I miss it!), gatherings for autistic people where stimming (using sensory input for rehabilitation purposes) is socially accepted... And all of it has been helpful, so that’s something to explore more.

It turned out that motion really unlocks things for me. I didn’t just auto walk. I had a whole coreography going on. I’m glad nobody was watching, hehe. It started out like flowing stimming motions while walking, not onlike what I usually do in water because I find so much pleasure in the sensations. Then it gradually turned into a weird dance with fractals of the larger motions added as layers, and more variation. Then symbolic motions started to appear on their own, like brushing away layers of me both in rough ways and more subtle ways. Different layers seemed to call for different approaches. Then I got sort of extatic for a while. I had to lie down and rest a bit, but the motions kept going. I found myself drawing in the air, and I could see subtle traces of it in the air. I could even add hints of colors in a way that I could actually see. It was almost like how people describe LSD trips, albeit in a milder version.

After these exercises, when I opened up to cover mind space and a global unfixated state appeared, there were not just the usual vague murmurs and occasional spikes of thoughts popping up from the unconscious. It was more like a whole popcorn factory and a vortex of really loud murmurings and flashing images and flashing smells and flashing tastes (the taste of popcorn appeared really often because I made a mental noting of the spikings that were also referred to in the material as ”popcorn thoughts”, and the taste of champagne turned up a lot as well because I was feeling bubbly and had phenomenology thoughts about it going on).

One aim of this practice is to cultivate ”wisdom activity” with thoughts popping up without a thinker in a way that is creative and deeply insightful. It dawned on me that I have actually had occasional instances of this. I’m thinking especially of that time when I was struggling ridiculously hard to get to equanimity in a way that contradicts the very essence of equanimity. During that time I found myself in a scene where I was trying to climb a glider plane from the ground. The plane was gliding effortlessly and I was using a ridiculous amount of effort trying to get into it, and it was out of reach. That scene was such an obvious analogy that I instantly got the message.

The material from the program also includes information on how to work with the global unfixated state to accelarate one’s practice. That seems to be a very tangible way to integrate a vipassana practice in one’s daily life and remain mindful. I can work with that.

The second program was about flow/impermanence/anicca and it was elegantly put and great exercises of the kind that I have been doing working with Michael Taft. By that time it was night here in Sweden and I found myself cycling into a mildly dissolution like state which I may still be in, if this isn’t just jet lag. I had to take ADHD medication to stay alert, and then I couldn’t sleep for several hours after the program has ended. So, no new insights from that, due to the state I was in, but I enjoyed the presentations a lot. Also, even though my clarity wasn’t the best, I had myself a nice dip in the flow of consciousness with bubbliness all over the place. I find that soothing and restful.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/7/19 2:27 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Okay, so it’s late evening and I’m realizing that the only way I’ll manage to take my morning medications at all is to decide that I don’t need to take my asthma inhalation, eye drops and nasal spray, so I guess that settles it: I’m in dissolution again. That’s an anticlimax. I was supposed to do a lot of work reading today, and lots of other stuff too. I’d better get used to budgeting my time for periods of dissolution again. That sucks, because I’m really lousy when it comes to budgeting my time due to impaired executive functioning. Anyway, good to know. Time to be compassionate towards myself and remember to secondguess myself when something seems overly negative. I have gone through this before so I can do it again.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/7/19 6:40 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Sometimes when I go about my daily business, the bubbliness of impermanence and no self just strikes from the blue with a sense of ”me” just being a field of bubbles building up and popping. I can’t decide whether it’s weird when that happens or weird that even impermanence is impermanent insofar as I don’t have that kind of perception all the time. I have taken a liking to this bubbliness, even though it makes me lightheaded from time to time, so I guess the attatchment I need to be mindful about right now concerns not being solid rather than the opposite. That’s a funny development, as I remember being terrified for this state not very long ago.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/7/19 4:42 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/7/19 4:15 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I did this guided meditation https://youtu.be/aCjaSLooUjw by Michael Taft on deconstructing space, and despite being in a sluggish state today, clarity and concentration arose. I really did experience both infinite space and the collapse into nothing. That was cool. Also, I recognized it from before, somewhat before stream entry, so now I understand what that was that I experienced back then. It was formless realms. Cool.

I warmly recommend Michael’s dharma talks available on youtube.

I find his alternative version of noting, just noting ”present”, very helpful. It helps me to stay focused without forcing me to conceptualize and categorize.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/7/19 6:01 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/7/19 6:01 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Noting ”present” for every sensation is a really good way for me to get into both a global unfixated state and formless realms. I did that for 50 minutes. Then suddenly I realized that concepts and space and all the aggregates came back.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/8/19 7:46 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/8/19 7:46 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
This morning: guided meditation on formless realms. It was easy to let go of tensions in the relaxation part in the beginning. I think I went into a light version of third jhana almost directly. It was pleasantly calm with soothing sensations on the skin. I started out focusing on tingling in my lips, and very soon my lips disappeared whereas other parts stood out. In the part of the formless realms, I’m not sure whether I just lost mindfullness in the neither perception nor yet non perception or simply fell asleep. One way or another, clarity was lost. Afterwards I kept feeling dull and sluggish but also bubbly. That’s a weirdly confusing combination, bordering on derealization or depersonalization. I wasn’t worried, though. Been there, done that. It will pass.

Did some errands and chores with help from disability support. Kept feeling both sluggish and bubbly and had some trouble finding words. Didn't recognize my neighbors at first when I met them, which is ironic, because one of them has moderate stage dementia and she recognized me. I got a lot of things done, though, so I guess I have been worse off before.

30 minutes fire kasina practice. The red dot was very detailed, but only when I did not look at it directly. If I did that, it disappeared. A variety of versions with halos in different colors. For a while I had a rainbow colored dot. No yellow dot with spiralling tentacles this time, and all phases were shorter than usually.

50 minutes choiceless awareness. Got into formless realms spontaneously. I probably needed the rest. The nothing realm was not pure, but some kinesthetic sensations remained, which caused pressure sensations in my head. It was a relief to let go of sensations entirely, because then the pressure went away.

Definitely feels like dissolution.
Jyet, modified 4 Years ago at 4/8/19 3:08 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/8/19 3:08 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Dipping into your unfolding dharma adventure to say thank you for the tip on Michael W Tafts formless realms meditation. It made me happy to get a good hinge of them again. Not like when on retreat. But it was a good taste anyhow, nice.

I had a secret hope that doing them would dissolve the forehead tension I have been feeling for some days. That didn't happen, however.

Can you bless me with a fruition for that Linda?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/9/19 12:15 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/9/19 12:15 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
At the moment I can’t even get fruitions of my own, so that might be tricky. May we both be blessed with fruitions, to the benefit of all sentient beings!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/9/19 2:37 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/9/19 2:37 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I started the morning with a couple of hours’ meditation on impermanence. I treated every little bouncing sensation in the head as any other quality and could relax. I seemed to blank out as soon as I got momentum, or maybe I just dozed off. I have been very tired lately.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/9/19 5:03 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/9/19 5:03 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I did this guided meditation by Michael Taft https://youtu.be/x3A3VxYi11Y sitting up straight, because apparently the privilege of being able to stay alert in a reclined position is now over (easy come, easy go, just to be expected). It felt good. Some tensions were dissolved. I felt piti working with my myscles and stagnated energy being released as bubbles, and lightness arose. Now afterwards I feel less dense, lighter, more bubbly, and maybe even less tired. I feel more connected to the source, but I can also sense that I’m still somewhat closed up. How did that happen? Maybe it’s just the rhythmic nature of things, beyond my control. I suspect wanting to fix this is just another symptom of it, so I should probably just trust that it will open up and take joy in the fact that is is now less closed. Yup. That realization dissolved even more tension, so I will trust it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/10/19 4:58 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/10/19 4:58 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Just like that, the mode where meditation does itself regardless of my intensions came back and woke me up in the middle of the night, the bubbles were everywhere and were forcing their way through my body and especially through my sense organs, one dominating at a time. I felt as if I were ripped apart. I welcomed it.

Starting this afternoon I will be on an online retreat, Immersion (Unified Mindfullness) for five days. I have taken a few days off from work and turned off my telephone.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/11/19 9:25 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/11/19 8:37 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
This second day of the online retreat I have had a fruition (early evening on April 11th in Swedish time) and constructed a threedimensional model of different ways to fruitions based on the dimensions I have observed so far (very early morning on April 12th in Swedish time). I did not get to meditate that much after the fruition, because I wanted to take part in the Q&A:s and a couple of workshops.  It was a Q&A interaction that had helped me resolve my ongoing challenge, resulting in a fruition, and the person who gave me that answer (Eduardo Zambrano) hosted one of the subsequent workshops. And then I got occupied with that model. This wasn’t exactly what I had planned, but I think it’s relevant for my goal of attaining fruition knowledge. The phenomenology junky in me just couldn’t resist it. I will wait a bit before I post my model, in case it’s just rubbish due to jet lag brain. Regardless, it helped me to straighten out some question marks, so I’m pleased.

This fruition was the release of an enormous amount of tensions and compulsions that had surfaced and escalated since my last fruition due to stagnation/coagulation of the flow. I don’t know how others would classify the door, but for me subjectively, suffering was a major part of the threshold to it, and it had to do with resistence against the process and against impermanence in particular. Going through the door, on the other hand, was the opposite of suffering. The coming out/back part of it was about letting go and it was amazing - the best afterglow so far. It was the kind of stuff that makes people religious. Mercy. Salvation. And getting there was surprisingly easy once I realized what was needed. I got there doing metta on myself, focusing on making all the different me:s feel safe and welcome. I forgot all about getting rid of painful tensions and getting fruitions. All that mattered in that moment was making all the gestalts feeling safe, because I really wished that for them. It wasn’t the means to an end, just compassion. And so they surprised me by collectively making the jump, trusting that they would be okay. The next thing I knew, there was a shockwave of relief (yup, both shock and relief at the same time) going through my entire system, bringing me back to life totally relaxed and genuinely happy.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 7:44 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 7:44 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Now I have added the option of making the model fourdimensional. Here goes:

3D version

Imagine a cube. It has three dimensions. The three dimensions are impermanence, emptiness and suffering. All these dimensions are subject to tension between two extremes that only make sence if there is a reference point of some kind and thus polarity. The tension is a force of both expansion and contraction, because it is also polarized. 

The impermanence polarity is between the expansive extreme of infinite flow a shaken bottle of mineral water on the one hand and the contractive extreme of absolute stillness (stagnation/rigidity/coagulation) on the other hand. The balance point within polarity (which is of course a subjective construction and dependent on scale) is a balanced flow of motion. Nibbana is the non-polarity option with regard to all dimensions, and the ultimate balance point.
The emptiness polarity is between the expansive extreme of separation (dividing, making distinctions, analyzing into smaller and smaller parts) on the one hand, where everything is shattered, and the contractive extreme of unity where everything is merged on the other hand. There is an infinity paradox in both those extremes. The separation extreme paradox is explained pretty well in Zenon’s paradox. The unity extreme paradox is that if everything is one one side, there is nothing on the other side, and thus there can be no sides. The balance point is realizing that emptiness and suchness are pretty much the same thing, only dependent on whether it is looked upon from the inside or outside, as Culadasa puts it, which is in itself a paradox dependent on a reference point and thus polarity.

The suffering polarity is between the expansive extreme of craving/clinging on the one hand and the contractive extreme of having no will on the other hand, which in polarity tends to become indifference/apathy. The balance point within polarity is letting go but still caring. Compassion if you will (and with the realization that dependent origination means that there isn’t really a nondependent will because that would imply a separate self).

Fruitions are sort of a discharge that gives release. They tend to bring us closer to the center of the cube where all dimensions are balanced. In the fruition, the polarity between the expansive and the contractive side is gone. Thus there is no experience. When we come back to the polarized mode we also come back to experience. When we do so, we are relatively balanced.

The different doors are approximating constructions having to do with what kind of discharge was most apparent to us. If the cube was an actual threedimensional map with real coordinations, it would be possible to pinpoint the exact location with regard to all three dimensions. That is not really the case since all these dimensions are paradoxical because they depend on referent points and scales, but we can still use the idea of it for the purpose of sensemaking. The six sides of the cube are only relative directions, but there is no endpoint. The sides are thus not the doors; they are just these constructed extremes. The eight corners of the cube do not really exist, because that would require that the sides were actually there and that there was finity, that is, something outside of the cube. There isn’t. Thus, the corners are not the doors. In fact, there are no doors. Doors imply that there is something outside. There is nothing but dependent origination. But (once again) for the purpose of sensemaking, it is useful to understand it as if there could be intersections resulting in a center and different sides and corners. The closer one gets to a side or a corner of the cube, the ”bigger” release results from the discharge. ”Big” refers to the noticability of the change when coming back and thus getting centered in the cube. I would assume that it is at least theoretically possible to get to fruition from any ”coordinate” within this cube. They are all have a relative position with regard to all of the three dimensions, although since there are no endpoints they are more like angles than actual coordinations (I have very little of Maths in my baggage so I’m probably using the words wrong here; please, bear with me).

I don’t have enough empirical data to say anything about what ”coordinates” are most common, but I would guess that certain clusters are more common than others, or at least most commonly distinguished and reported. It makes sense to assume that it is common for one dimension to be more dominant than the others, hence the notion of three doors. With enough clarity, it makes sense that it would also be possible to distinguish a secondary aspect of there is one, hence the notion of the six different doors. But in reality there should be an infinite number of doors since there is no endpoint in any direction.

For sensemaking purpose, the six door versions relate to the cube in the following way:
- The impermanence door with no self as secondary aspect deals primarily with the tension between flow and stillness and has a flavor of either unity (merging) or separation (dividing). Cf the wave-particle model. Everything as continuous flow or everything as vanishings.
- The impermanence door with suffering as secondary aspect deals primarily between the tension between flow (change) and stillness and has a flavor of either caring or letting go. Caring enough to taking or welcoming initiatives or being able to let go of craving or clinging.
- The no self door with impermanence as secondary aspect deals primarily with the tension between separation and unity and has a flavor of or stillness.
- The no self door with suffering as secondary aspect deals primarily with the tension between separation and unity and has a flavor of either caring or letting go.
- The suffering door with impermanence as secondary aspect deals primarily with pain caused by either too much attraction or too much aversion or apathy and has a flavor of flow (opening up something that had stagnated) or stillness (calming down something that is too speeded).
- The suffering door with no self as secondary aspect deals primarily with pain caused by either too much attraction or too much aversion or by apathy and has a flavor of unity (making connections, belonging) or separation (boundaries, integrity).


4D version
Flow and stillness are concepts related to time, but as it is about expansion and contraction it is also related to space. Things change in relation to time and in relation to space. Time and space are related in a space-time continuum that is hard for us to grasp since we do not exist outside of neither time nor space. In polarity, there is distance both in time and in space. That adds an axis to the cube and transforms ot into something that cannot be represented in our reality other than as a theoretical model. A fivedimentional being would be able to represent the model clearer.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 10:42 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 9:09 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Now I have added the option of making the model fourdimensional. Here goes:

3D version

Imagine a cube. It has three dimensions. The three dimensions are impermanence, emptiness and suffering. All these dimensions are subject to tension between two extremes that only make sence if there is a reference point of some kind and thus polarity. The tension is a force of both expansion and contraction, because it is also polarized. 

The impermanence polarity is between the expansive extreme of infinite flow a shaken bottle of mineral water on the one hand and the contractive extreme of absolute stillness (stagnation/rigidity/coagulation) on the other hand. The balance point within polarity (which is of course a subjective construction and dependent on scale) is a balanced flow of motion. Nibbana is the non-polarity option with regard to all dimensions, and the ultimate balance point.
The emptiness polarity is between the expansive extreme of separation (dividing, making distinctions, analyzing into smaller and smaller parts) on the one hand, where everything is shattered, and the contractive extreme of unity where everything is merged on the other hand. There is an infinity paradox in both those extremes. The separation extreme paradox is explained pretty well in Zenon’s paradox. The unity extreme paradox is that if everything is one one side, there is nothing on the other side, and thus there can be no sides. The balance point is realizing that emptiness and suchness are pretty much the same thing, only dependent on whether it is looked upon from the inside or outside, as Culadasa puts it, which is in itself a paradox dependent on a reference point and thus polarity.

The suffering polarity is between the expansive extreme of craving/clinging on the one hand and the contractive extreme of having no will on the other hand, which in polarity tends to become indifference/apathy. The balance point within polarity is letting go but still caring. Compassion if you will (and with the realization that dependent origination means that there isn’t really a nondependent will because that would imply a separate self).

Fruitions are sort of a discharge that gives release. They tend to bring us closer to the center of the cube where all dimensions are balanced. In the fruition, the polarity between the expansive and the contractive side is gone. Thus there is no experience. When we come back to the polarized mode we also come back to experience. When we do so, we are relatively balanced.

The different doors are approximating constructions having to do with what kind of discharge was most apparent to us. If the cube was an actual threedimensional map with real coordinations, it would be possible to pinpoint the exact location with regard to all three dimensions. That is not really the case since all these dimensions are paradoxical because they depend on referent points and scales, but we can still use the idea of it for the purpose of sensemaking. The six sides of the cube are only relative directions, but there is no endpoint. The sides are thus not the doors; they are just these constructed extremes. The eight corners of the cube do not really exist, because that would require that the sides were actually there and that there was finity, that is, something outside of the cube. There isn’t. Thus, the corners are not the doors. In fact, there are no doors. Doors imply that there is something outside. There is nothing but dependent origination. But (once again) for the purpose of sensemaking, it is useful to understand it as if there could be intersections resulting in a center and different sides and corners. The closer one gets to a side or a corner of the cube, the ”bigger” release results from the discharge. ”Big” refers to the noticability of the change when coming back and thus getting centered in the cube. I would assume that it is at least theoretically possible to get to fruition from any ”coordinate” within this cube. They are all have a relative position with regard to all of the three dimensions, although since there are no endpoints they are more like angles than actual coordinations (I have very little of Maths in my baggage so I’m probably using the words wrong here; please, bear with me).

I don’t have enough empirical data to say anything about what ”coordinates” are most common, but I would guess that certain clusters are more common than others, or at least most commonly distinguished and reported. It makes sense to assume that it is common for one dimension to be more dominant than the others, hence the notion of three doors. With enough clarity, it makes sense that it would also be possible to distinguish a secondary aspect of there is one, hence the notion of the six different doors. But in reality there should be an infinite number of doors since there is no endpoint in any direction.

For sensemaking purpose, the six door versions relate to the cube in the following way:
- The impermanence door with no self as secondary aspect deals primarily with the tension between flow and stillness and has a flavor of either unity (merging) or separation (dividing). Cf the wave-particle model. Everything as continuous flow or everything as vanishings.
- The impermanence door with suffering as secondary aspect deals primarily between the tension between flow (change) and stillness and has a flavor of either caring or letting go. Caring enough to taking or welcoming initiatives or being able to let go of craving or clinging.
- The no self door with impermanence as secondary aspect deals primarily with the tension between separation and unity and has a flavor of or stillness.
- The no self door with suffering as secondary aspect deals primarily with the tension between separation and unity and has a flavor of either caring or letting go.
- The suffering door with impermanence as secondary aspect deals primarily with pain caused by either too much attraction or too much aversion or apathy and has a flavor of flow (opening up something that had stagnated) or stillness (calming down something that is too speeded).
- The suffering door with no self as secondary aspect deals primarily with pain caused by either too much attraction or too much aversion or by apathy and has a flavor of unity (making connections, belonging) or separation (boundaries, integrity).


4D version
Flow and stillness are concepts related to time, but as it is about expansion and contraction it is also related to space. Things change in relation to time and in relation to space. Time and space are related in a space-time continuum that is hard for us to grasp since we do not exist outside of neither time nor space. In polarity, there is distance both in time and in space. That adds an axis to the cube and transforms ot into something that cannot be represented in our reality other than as a theoretical model. A fivedimentional being would be able to represent the model clearer.


It should be possible to go through a door that is equally dominated by two of the dimensions.

It should also be possible to go through a door that is dominated by one dimension and with the other two dimensions equally involved.

I suppose it might be also possible to go through a door that is equally much about all three doors. Maybe that’s the ultimate door, to nibbana. Or death, if once isn’t enough to balance it...
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 11:49 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 11:40 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
This second day of the online retreat I have had a fruition (early evening on April 11th in Swedish time) and constructed a threedimensional model of different ways to fruitions based on the dimensions I have observed so far (very early morning on April 12th in Swedish time). I did not get to meditate that much after the fruition, because I wanted to take part in the Q&A:s and a couple of workshops.  It was a Q&A interaction that had helped me resolve my ongoing challenge, resulting in a fruition, and the person who gave me that answer (Eduardo Zambrano) hosted one of the subsequent workshops. And then I got occupied with that model. This wasn’t exactly what I had planned, but I think it’s relevant for my goal of attaining fruition knowledge. The phenomenology junky in me just couldn’t resist it. I will wait a bit before I post my model, in case it’s just rubbish due to jet lag brain. Regardless, it helped me to straighten out some question marks, so I’m pleased.

This fruition was the release of an enormous amount of tensions and compulsions that had surfaced and escalated since my last fruition due to stagnation/coagulation of the flow. I don’t know how others would classify the door, but for me subjectively, suffering was a major part of the threshold to it, and it had to do with resistence against the process and against impermanence in particular. Going through the door, on the other hand, was the opposite of suffering. The coming out/back part of it was about letting go and it was amazing - the best afterglow so far. It was the kind of stuff that makes people religious. Mercy. Salvation. And getting there was surprisingly easy once I realized what was needed. I got there doing metta on myself, focusing on making all the different me:s feel safe and welcome. I forgot all about getting rid of painful tensions and getting fruitions. All that mattered in that moment was making all the gestalts feeling safe, because I really wished that for them. It wasn’t the means to an end, just compassion. And so they surprised me by collectively making the jump, trusting that they would be okay. The next thing I knew, there was a shockwave of relief (yup, both shock and relief at the same time) going through my entire system, bringing me back to life totally relaxed and genuinely happy.


About that fruition:

The balance between caring and letting go was very central, and in both directions. I had to let go of control enough to care about the wellbeing of the different Pollys above anything else. That was what made the fruition possible. But at the same time, the multiple Pollys also had to care enough to let go. That letting go was the fruition, and as the result there was relief from suffering.

Letting go of control is both about self and impermanence. Self is perhaps most obvious, since being in control is strongly related to the notion of a doer. Time is necessary, though, or else there would be no action, no doing, and no direction.

The suffering was related to both compulsion (strongly related to self) and to pain because of stagnation of flow/moving energy in the body (strongly related to impermanence - at two different levels since the contraction-expansion dimension of impermanence also means a fluctuation over time with regard to flow and stillness).


Connecting this to the model:

I think the fourth dimension would solve a lot of confusion here. Or perhaps more dimensions are needed? The different directions of caring and letting go have to do with a concept of cause and effect, which is dependent on both time (change) and self (separation that creates the possibility of subject and object). Direction seems to be a possible dimension, though.

Similarly, with regard to the impermanence door with no self as secondary aspect, I noticed the possibility of two different directions: merging with the subject and merging with the object. Both required time, or otherwise there wouldn't be the dynamic aspect of direction. Time is one possible direction. In order to sense this change I had to experience ”bouncing” sensations in my head. They thus had location and direction in space as well. That’s two dimensions of direction. Or no... there are more than one possible direction in space. Space as we know it has three dimensions in itself. Time is added to that. So I guess the concept of expansion and contraction actually adds four dimensions...? Or maybe that’s not the way to do Mathematics on dimensions. i wouldn’t know. I chose the line of education that involved the smalles amount of Maths and Physics.

In addition to this, there are also a number of physical and chemical senses. They add diversity as well. Since we know that inner and outer is a very arbitrary boundary and in itself a dimension in the model I’m sketching, the senses might as well be added as dimensions as well.

I don’t know how many dimensions this is. In daily life I have a very poor sense of direction and a very poor sense of how my body occupies space, and my visual imagination is also very poor, so I lost count a long time ago.

Also, there seems to be differing opinions about how many senses there are. One sence that deals with space has also been suggested, I think? Proprioception? I don’t know how that comes into the picture if the sences and the dimensions of space are put together in the same model. And how does one distinguish between taste and smell? I think I have seen a suggestion of distinguishing between contrast and color in the visual field. Maybe more variables could be added to that. I know that there are more variables in software for dealing with raw data of photos. Colors can be divideinfinitely, I guess. Also, many (?) animals illustrate that vision can be divided between still image and seeing motion, and that brings us back to spacetime again. Regardless of how one looks at it, the possibilities for distinctions are endless and the connections with the rest of it are equally endless, which brings us back to the dimension of separation and unity.

Everything just collapses. And expands. Both at the same time. And in the end, that is the same thing. Only there is no end, so ”in the end” is totally empty.

I need a fruition now. Otherwise I might implode. Or explode. Or both at the same time, or neither. WHATEVER. But, no, apathy is not an option either. Well, apparently ot is to some extent, at least empirically, but if drawn to its extreme maybe one actually seizes to exist? Apathy is caring just enough to be able to suffer from not caring. Nihilism is not caring just enough to be able to cause suffering for those who do care, but not not caring enough to vanish from existence.

Dependent origination is the only option.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 11:59 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 11:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Heh, this is why there are no perfect models. If reality were perfectly ordered in a way that could actually be represented in a model, it wouldn’t be able to exist. What they say is true: everything is created from nothing, and that breaks up the perfect order to chaos. Existence is an unbalance. I guess we’ll just have to deal with that.

Compulsions of different sorts are defense mechanisms with regard to this imbalance. That’s why symmetry is so central in many tics and in OCD and also why change is so difficult to deal with for many autistic people. I have also noticed that my tics increase with a higher degree of flow in the body. It is resistance with regard to flow. Maybe that’s both because of the aspect of change and because the flow eventually makes it evident that there are no real boundaries between inside and outside of the body and inside and outside of the mind.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 12:12 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 12:12 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Fruition really is mindblowing insights from just a blip of nothing. emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 5:41 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 5:18 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
It has calmed down. After all, there is rest everywhere if you know how to look for it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 6:38 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 6:38 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
This second day of the online retreat I have had a fruition (early evening on April 11th in Swedish time) and constructed a threedimensional model of different ways to fruitions based on the dimensions I have observed so far (very early morning on April 12th in Swedish time). I did not get to meditate that much after the fruition, because I wanted to take part in the Q&A:s and a couple of workshops.  It was a Q&A interaction that had helped me resolve my ongoing challenge, resulting in a fruition, and the person who gave me that answer (Eduardo Zambrano) hosted one of the subsequent workshops. And then I got occupied with that model. This wasn’t exactly what I had planned, but I think it’s relevant for my goal of attaining fruition knowledge. The phenomenology junky in me just couldn’t resist it. I will wait a bit before I post my model, in case it’s just rubbish due to jet lag brain. Regardless, it helped me to straighten out some question marks, so I’m pleased.

This fruition was the release of an enormous amount of tensions and compulsions that had surfaced and escalated since my last fruition due to stagnation/coagulation of the flow. I don’t know how others would classify the door, but for me subjectively, suffering was a major part of the threshold to it, and it had to do with resistence against the process and against impermanence in particular. Going through the door, on the other hand, was the opposite of suffering. The coming out/back part of it was about letting go and it was amazing - the best afterglow so far. It was the kind of stuff that makes people religious. Mercy. Salvation. And getting there was surprisingly easy once I realized what was needed. I got there doing metta on myself, focusing on making all the different me:s feel safe and welcome. I forgot all about getting rid of painful tensions and getting fruitions. All that mattered in that moment was making all the gestalts feeling safe, because I really wished that for them. It wasn’t the means to an end, just compassion. And so they surprised me by collectively making the jump, trusting that they would be okay. The next thing I knew, there was a shockwave of relief (yup, both shock and relief at the same time) going through my entire system, bringing me back to life totally relaxed and genuinely happy.


About that fruition:

The balance between caring and letting go was very central, and in both directions. I had to let go of control enough to care about the wellbeing of the different Pollys above anything else. That was what made the fruition possible. But at the same time, the multiple Pollys also had to care enough to let go. That letting go was the fruition, and as the result there was relief from suffering.

Letting go of control is both about self and impermanence. Self is perhaps most obvious, since being in control is strongly related to the notion of a doer. Time is necessary, though, or else there would be no action, no doing, and no direction.

The suffering was related to both compulsion (strongly related to self) and to pain because of stagnation of flow/moving energy in the body (strongly related to impermanence - at two different levels since the contraction-expansion dimension of impermanence also means a fluctuation over time with regard to flow and stillness).


Connecting this to the model:

I think the fourth dimension would solve a lot of confusion here. Or perhaps more dimensions are needed? The different directions of caring and letting go have to do with a concept of cause and effect, which is dependent on both time (change) and self (separation that creates the possibility of subject and object). Direction seems to be a possible dimension, though.

Similarly, with regard to the impermanence door with no self as secondary aspect, I noticed the possibility of two different directions: merging with the subject and merging with the object. Both required time, or otherwise there wouldn't be the dynamic aspect of direction. Time is one possible direction. In order to sense this change I had to experience ”bouncing” sensations in my head. They thus had location and direction in space as well. That’s two dimensions of direction. Or no... there are more than one possible direction in space. Space as we know it has three dimensions in itself. Time is added to that. So I guess the concept of expansion and contraction actually adds four dimensions...? Or maybe that’s not the way to do Mathematics on dimensions. i wouldn’t know. I chose the line of education that involved the smalles amount of Maths and Physics.

In addition to this, there are also a number of physical and chemical senses. They add diversity as well. Since we know that inner and outer is a very arbitrary boundary and in itself a dimension in the model I’m sketching, the senses might as well be added as dimensions as well.

I don’t know how many dimensions this is. In daily life I have a very poor sense of direction and a very poor sense of how my body occupies space, and my visual imagination is also very poor, so I lost count a long time ago.

Also, there seems to be differing opinions about how many senses there are. One sence that deals with space has also been suggested, I think? Proprioception? I don’t know how that comes into the picture if the sences and the dimensions of space are put together in the same model. And how does one distinguish between taste and smell? I think I have seen a suggestion of distinguishing between contrast and color in the visual field. Maybe more variables could be added to that. I know that there are more variables in software for dealing with raw data of photos. Colors can be divideinfinitely, I guess. Also, many (?) animals illustrate that vision can be divided between still image and seeing motion, and that brings us back to spacetime again. Regardless of how one looks at it, the possibilities for distinctions are endless and the connections with the rest of it are equally endless, which brings us back to the dimension of separation and unity.

Everything just collapses. And expands. Both at the same time. And in the end, that is the same thing. Only there is no end, so ”in the end” is totally empty.

I need a fruition now. Otherwise I might implode. Or explode. Or both at the same time, or neither. WHATEVER. But, no, apathy is not an option either. Well, apparently ot is to some extent, at least empirically, but if drawn to its extreme maybe one actually seizes to exist? Apathy is caring just enough to be able to suffer from not caring. Nihilism is not caring just enough to be able to cause suffering for those who do care, but not not caring enough to vanish from existence.

Dependent origination is the only option.


Is it possible to have sort of a meta-dimension? One that levels up the abstraction level and creates fractals? Or maybe that’s just the consequence of the multidimensionality in all, or a consequence of a certain combination of dimensions. The clarity is falling now so I’m just jotting down the thought to reflect on when clarity comes back.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 7:28 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

Dependent origination is the only option.


Hey Polly, great to see all the progress you are making.  I'm not really here emoticon but did just want to drop momentarily in to say ... watch out for the dharma karma.

The more you make contact with fruitions, enjoy them, crave them, attach them to the concept of the self, and give in to urges and desires in pursuit of that attachment ... then the more there is the birth of self and future dukkha. That's not so bad when it comes to the dharma, but it can create problems later in accessing more advanced stages of knowledge and vision. So a little more spaciousness, a little more subtle emotional variation, a little more lightness, a little less applied and sustained thought - all these will help you to avoid burning in an unskilful clinging to fruitions.  At the moment it looks like the fruitions are running you, rather than you running the fruitions.

To put it another way - can you see the three characteristics of the fruitions?

Much love

Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/13/19 4:04 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Oh hi Malcolm! *whispering* I won’t tell anyone I saw you. emoticon Your secret’s safe with me.

Actually, I have only had at a maximum 7 fruitions for all this time, so I don’t think there’s a need to worry about that just yet. Michael adviced me to try to get as many as possible, and others have as well, and I was a bit stressed out that I wasn’t doing enough of it for a while. But getting this one when I expected it the least - and from just being compassinate towards myself - got me to cool down in that respect. I don’t worry about it anymore (for now, lol).

This last fruition was significant for me. It helped to to put a lot in place. It also uncovered a lot of stuff, hence the racing mind. I think I’ll work with that stuff for a while and let it integrate. It laid bare new tensions too, but these are not as involved with compulsion. Rather, they seem to be about stress that I have built up slowly over the years, and I feel ready to work with that at a sensate level and let it go. I found that I could stop the mind racing by using more metta. It really is surprisingly powerful when the timing is right. I remembered the phrase ”I bow to the lord of compassion” from Tashi Nyimas dharma talks, and that phrase almost magically gives me peace. No need for fruitions to get peace.

I think the point of fruitions is purification. They are not an end in themselves, but a means.

So yes, I see the three C:s of them. Very clearly, actually. Still a phenomenology junky, though, and fascinated by the technicalities of them.

They are sooooooooo not me. The thought of attaching self to them is absurd. I’m glad I can see that now. Because yes, I can totally see how one cpuld get trapped in it in spite of it being absurd. I did crave them in a very selfconscious way. But when I describe a process where I’m not in charge, that’s not it. That’s trusting that the process knows the way and balances itself. It’s the opposite of getting caught up by craving.

Thanks for your compassion! ❤️
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 4/13/19 4:28 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Sounds perfect.  I'll leave you to it.  See you in a while.  emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/13/19 7:13 AM
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Today I’m in a very restful place mentally. It’s like I’m bathing in light. When I close my eyes, there’s brightness everywhere too. The nada sound is loud. I feel peace.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/13/19 8:44 AM
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LOL

I think I’ll stick to the original three dimensional model, being fully aware that it is a simplification. The other layers just add confusion.

Welcome to the world of ADHD super focus and Tourette associative mind spins. emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 12:28 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I get more and more detailed after images of the zoom virtual rooms of the conference. They are not photorealistic but getting there. They also turn into kasinas. The nimitta occurs in the middle of the image and thus replaces the presenter’s face. The peripheral after image lingers longer.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/11/19 7:01 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I can also sense that I’m still somewhat closed up. How did that happen? Maybe it’s just the rhythmic nature of things, beyond my control.


Yup. I got the chance to talk to Jeff Warren yesterday, the guy that wrote that article about Daniel Ingram some years back, causing some scare here as far as I could see in an old thread. Apparently he kept meditating after that article and now he teaches it. I haven’t looked at any of his stuff, but I really liked him as a person. Anyway, he reminded me that this flow, as Shinzen Young refers to it, goes through both expansion and contraction. It sort of coagulates or freezes on a regular basis.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/10/19 10:47 PM
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Okay, so now I know from experience what a mercy it is to have access to jhanas when in pain from hours of sitting.

This is a very non-silent retreat. It’s good to be able to ask questions, and generally a great experience, but I’d love to go on a silent retreat some day. All the interaction takes away momentum from the practice.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/12/19 2:37 PM
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I think my inner and outer visual fields are starting to sort of merge. When I close my eyes as hard as I can while wearing a blindfold, if I move my hand in front of my closed and blindfolded eyes I can actually see the faint image of my moving hand in the murk. Not long ago I could not even imagine what my hand would look like. I couldn’t even answer the question of what the wall behind me looked like in my home where I had been living for a decade; it turned out to be white when I checked. I’m not kidding. I knew that it was pale, but I didn’t remember for certain.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/13/19 10:06 PM
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I think I have been resisting solidness lately. My muscles tend to cramp up when the bubbliness comes to stillness. I think I need to accept that I will feel solid and unbubbly on a regular basis. That’s just bubbliness at a larger scale. It’s not stagnation. It’s the resistance that’s causing the pain.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/14/19 5:12 AM
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This (the attachment) is exactly the kind of images that I have sometimes been seeing in meditation. I think I need to read about sacred geometry. I have no idea where to start.

Today I have been listening to The Tibetan Book of the Dead on youtube twice. When I listen to it I see bright light, blue and white. Yesterday morning when I woke up bathing in light, that was the same kind of light. I’m not dying, am I?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/14/19 6:00 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/14/19 9:19 PM
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I think I’m finally starting to be equanimous of getting back to a more still and solid state as well. In the beginning I was resisting being too unsolid. Then I became attached to that very feeling that I had been fearing, and solidness felt like stagnation causing tangible physical pain as I was, subjectively, cut off from the source. That was such a misunderstanding. Being cut off from the source is impossible. It is always there. It’s only natural to rest once in a while, experientially.

No pain! That feels like quite the miracle.

Please remind me of this, should I need it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 7:05 AM
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One thing that I have noticed stands out more now when I’m mindful of my perception is what Shinzen Young talks about as the tug of the senses, which is sometimes there and sometimes not there. I have been thinking about this before, but more in terms of realizing that I sometimes did not have it. I was less able to observe it happening when it did happen. Now, that is something that stands out. In his last practice session in this video he applies the note ”rest” for this phenomenon.

https://youtu.be/2VColeBskMY
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/18/19 11:10 AM
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Crossposting a comment from another thread here in irder to relate it to questions I have had before:

Your observation about the different drives behind these different noting systems is very observant and has a lot of sensory clarity to it. Now that you said it, I see it clearly, and that clarifies a lot for me. So thankyou!

Yes, that’s right. Mahasi noting is not about that tug of the senses drawing one’s focus. It’s more about how the monkey mind lets its attention be hijacked in different ways that have to do with what I would refer to as defense mechanisms. It’s about catching them in the act, hence the very rapid noting. Mahasi is more dry vipassana. Noticing all these layers of defense mechanisms with precision and as much distinction as possible is the emphasis. That can really get one’s mind shattered and speeded at the same time. The shattering is about deconstruction. It works great for that purpose. It does however not cultivate the kind of samadhi that Shinzen often talks about. It doesn’t allow the time for ”soaking in” to the experience of what one is noting that is emphasized at least for the beginner’s practice of the unified mindfulness system. I’m not qualified to tell what they recommend for more advanced practice since I haven’t seen them giving instructions at that level explicitly within that system. I have been working with Shinzen’s notings with Michael Taft as my coach, though, and I did use very rapid noting there because I was focusing on vanishings. I think that the difference between the drive behind the noting in these systems diminishes as the practice advances, because later in the practice one’s perception is altered.

I have mixed and matched between the systems. I often find that when I use Shinzen’s notings, I still automatically do Mahasi noting for aspects that are not distinguished in Shinzen’s system when I feel the need to. The Mahasi notes come up as an additional layer sometimes as I’m noticing something in my introspective awareness that stands out as significant in a way that does not have to do with distinguishing between senses and between in and out.

Also, I have done modifications to Shinzen’s system in order for it to work with how my perception works. I’m very kinesthetic, so there are often kinesthetic elements to my thoughts. That is not covered in Shinzen’s system at all, whereas in Mahasi noting that is not a problem. With the Mahasi noting I find that one problem is that the noting itself sometimes causes me to conceptualize more, in order to make all these distinctions, instead of just going with the sensate experience. On the other hand, sometimes having to decide what senses are involved in a sensation does the same thing (which is also why Shinzen offers alternatives for that). So I basically go with what is the least effort for me in order to achive my current goals.


I have been wondering before which rate of noting is the ”correct” one and been puzzled about the variety of instructions from people that are all very qualified. I think I get it now. These are just different ways to achieve the same thing. Mixing them up can be confusing and holding one’s practice back. If one is perceptive enough about what works for different purposes, that is not a problem.

In addition to the reflections above, I find that the slower version of noting can be very grounding. Sometimes that is very useful in daily life, especially either when one’s mind is racing or when one feels disconnected.

EDIT: I have realized that I in this comment did not do justice to how Mahasi noting progresses both in speed and complexity over time. Also, I did not mean to imply that it does not help cultivating concentration. Of course it does. It just emphasizes vipassana first, shamatha later.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 8:04 AM
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Just a mental note to myself: vipassana is not the cause of my occasional mind spinning. It’s the cure for it. There are different ways of doing vipassana, though, and it is important to be mindful of the effects of any ongoing practice. What Shinzen calls ”recycling the reaction” is a helpful way not to get caught up in mind spins.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 7:10 PM
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When I do choiceless awareness, I very soon go into a restful state.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/18/19 11:13 AM
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Crossposting in order to diminish my own confusion:



One of the reasons that I appreciate this forum so much is that it is socially accepted and even encouraged to be a phenomenology junky, as it turns out that I am one. Should have seen that one coming, hehe. Anyway, I sometimes find that language is a crude instrument for understanding complex matters, not least because it requires a linear presentation. I often find that I need to think in more than one direction in order to make at least some justice to the objects of my interest. Unfortunately, I lack both the mathematical and the technical skills to visualize how I think. After having gone through a few different doors to fruition I felt that I had to try anyway, because I needed that kind of framework to integrate my experience in a way that made sense to me. Being unable to communicate central aspects of my experience just drives me nuts. Thus I started to put together a tentative model of what the insights were about. The model is based on very little experiential data (7 fruitions, I believe), so it is of course very crude, and I will probably need to change it over time. It's not an attempt to represent any ultimate truth, just my personal attempts at making sense of something that is of course too complex to make sense of. Constructing the model helped me to straighten out some question marks that I had about my journey so far. It would be interesting to get some input from others if possible.

Here goes:

Imagine a cube. It has three dimensions. The three dimensions are impermanence, emptiness and suffering. All these dimensions are subject to tension between two extremes that only make sence if there is a reference point of some kind and thus polarity. The tension is a force of expansion vs contraction. The tensions of the different dimensions are represented on the cube in such a way that one side of the cube represents one of the extremes of that dimension and the opposite side the other extreme. The six sides of the cube are thus representations of polarized constructions of the three characteristics, two extremes per characteristic.

The impermanence polarity is between the expansive extreme of infinite flow a shaken bottle of mineral water on the one hand and the contractive extreme of absolute stillness (stagnation/rigidity/coagulation) on the other hand. The balance point within polarity (which is of course a subjective construction and dependent on scale) is a balanced flow of motion in time and space, with periods of more stillness. Nibbana is the non-polarity option with regard to all dimensions, and the ultimate balance point. "Ultimate" shall not be understood in a normative way; change is the nature of life, and there's nothing wrong with that per se. Let us represent this polarity as flow <--> stillness, thus naming one side flow and the opposite side stillness.

The emptiness polarity is between the expansive extreme of separation (dividing, making distinctions, analyzing into smaller and smaller parts) on the one hand, where everything is shattered, and the contractive extreme of unity where everything is merged on the other hand. There is an infinity paradox in both those extremes. The separation extreme paradox is explained pretty well in Zenon’s paradox. The unity extreme paradox is that if everything is on one side, there is nothing on the other side, and thus there can be no sides. The balance point is realizing that emptiness and suchness are pretty much the same thing, only dependent on whether it is looked upon from the inside or outside, as Culadasa puts it, which is in itself a paradox dependent on a reference point and thus polarity. (EDIT: The two opposite sides of the cube reflecting this polarity may be named separation and unity. Another options is ”I am nothing” vs ”I am everything”.)

The suffering polarity is between the expansive extreme of craving/clinging on the one hand and the contractive extreme of having no will on the other hand, which in polarity tends to become indifference/apathy when driven too far to that extreme. The balance point within polarity is letting go but still caring. Compassion if you will (and with the realization that dependent origination means that there isn’t really a independent will because that would imply a separate self).

Fruitions are sort of a discharge that gives release for the purpose of purification. They tend to bring us closer to the center of the cube where all dimensions are balanced. In the fruition, the polarity between the expansive and the contractive side is gone. Thus there is no experience. When we come back to the polarized mode we also come back to experience. When we do so, we are relatively balanced.

The different doors are approximating constructions having to do with what kind of discharge was most apparent to us. If the cube were an actual three dimensional map with real coordinations, it would be possible to pinpoint the exact location with regard to all three dimensions. That is not really the case since all these dimensions are paradoxical because they depend on referent points and scales, but we can still use the idea of it for the purpose of sensemaking. The six sides of the cube are only relative directions, but there is no endpoint. The sides are thus not the doors; they are just these constructed extremes. The eight corners of the cube do not really exist, because that would require that the sides were actually there and that there was finity, that is, something outside of the cube. There isn’t. Thus, the corners are not the doors. In fact, there are no doors. Doors imply that there is something outside. There is nothing but dependent origination. But (once again) for the purpose of sensemaking, it is useful to understand it as if there could be intersections resulting in a center and different sides and corners. The closer one gets to a side or a corner of the cube, the ”bigger” release results from the discharge. ”Big” refers to the noticability of the change when coming back and thus getting centered in the cube. I would assume that it is at least theoretically possible to get to fruition from any ”coordinate” within this cube. They are all have a relative position with regard to all of the three dimensions, although since there are no endpoints they are more like angles than actual coordinations (I have very little of Maths in my baggage so I’m probably using the words wrong here; please, bear with me).

I don’t have enough empirical data to say anything about what ”coordinates” are most common, but I would guess that certain clusters are more common than others, or at least most commonly distinguished and reported. It makes sense to assume that it is common for one dimension to be more dominant than the others, hence the notion of three doors. With enough clarity, it makes sense that it would also be possible to distinguish a secondary aspect of there is one, hence the notion of the six different doors. But in reality there should be an infinite number of doors since there is no endpoint in any direction.

For sensemaking purpose, the six door versions relate to the cube in the following way:
- The impermanence door with no self as secondary aspect deals primarily with the tension between flow and stillness and has a flavor of either unity (merging) or separation (dividing). Cf the wave-particle model. Everything as continuous flow or everything as vanishings.
- The impermanence door with suffering as secondary aspect deals primarily between the tension between flow (change) and stillness and has a flavor of either caring or letting go. Caring enough to taking or welcoming initiatives or being able to let go of craving or clinging.
- The no self door with impermanence as secondary aspect deals primarily with the tension between separation and unity and has a flavor of flow or stillness.
- The no self door with suffering as secondary aspect deals primarily with the tension between separation and unity and has a flavor of either caring or letting go.
- The suffering door with impermanence as secondary aspect deals primarily with pain caused by either too much attraction or too much aversion or apathy and has a flavor of flow (opening up something that had stagnated) or stillness (calming down something that is too speeded).
- The suffering door with no self as secondary aspect deals primarily with pain caused by either too much attraction or too much aversion or by apathy and has a flavor of unity (making connections, belonging) or separation (boundaries, integrity).

It should be possible to go through a door that is equally dominated by two of the dimensions.

It should also be possible to go through a door that is dominated by one dimension and with the other two dimensions equally involved.

I suppose it might be also possible to go through a door that is equally much about all three doors. Maybe that’s the ultimate door, to nibbana.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/17/19 3:24 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Working with my defilements is quite the challenge. Let us say it’s humbling, if not in the preferred way, then at least another way.

I have also listened to guided meditations working with subtleties, which is interesting.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/18/19 2:13 PM
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Right now I’m actually not quite sure what I want to do in my practice. Today was session 9 out of 10 with Michael Taft, and we talked about different options for going forward. I think I’m leaning towards continuing with vipassana as my main practice, but with the seven points of mind training as something to return to regularly to remind myself of what matters and stay sane. I’m not sure, though. Until now there has sort of been a given progression to things. The challenges have presented themselves clearly. Now things feel so... I don’t know... normal? There is still bubbliness, but the bubbles feel so ordinary now. They don’t seem to build up and force themselves through my ears and pores... or maybe they do in a day or two; come to think of it, they did just a few days ago, so I’m probably reading too much into minor subcycles, haha. So yeah, I’m just talking about here and now, at this very moment, but I kind of have the feeling that the process awaits the forming of an intention. I may be wrong, but that’s what it feels like. I have gotten so used to just surrendering to the process that it feels weird to have it wait like this.

If I form the intention to move on with the next path, what shall I expect? How messy will it be? How difficult will the dukkha nanas of the next path be? I guess nobody knows. Could I live with not finding that out for myself? Probably not.

There are of course other traditions out there as well, and maybe I should keep an open mind for a while. I don’t know. Maybe I should try out different things and see what captures my curiosity the most. I do have an online sangha focusing on Rob Burbea that I feel I have neglected a lot. Maybe I should try focusing on that for a while? I don’t know. I have done a few of the exercises before, and it’s powerful stuff. Much of it involves the energy body, and that resonates with me. But I don’t know.

I could go all Shinzen package, too, of cource. That might be the easy way, in a practical sense (not diminishing the practice!), because there are home practice programs and free online events and there are a lot of coaches available. I like most of that practice, I do. It’s just that... I’m not really a package kind of person. There’s nothing wrong with the package per se. It works. There are a lot of good people involved in it, too. It’s a very sane community. I guess I just don’t like boxes. Also, the format for their online courses for self study reminds me too much of marketing ads. Maybe it’s a cultural thing. I will definitely take part in more online events and do some home practice programs, but I think I may need to be driven by something else, if that makes any sense. Although, using their framework for deconstructing the ”outer” world in a Michael Taft way could be an interesting and doable option. That would be a managable combination of familiar and new. It would give me some direction.

Going towards subtler and subtler levels of deconstructing self is of course also a direction. It does appeal to me.

There are a few other things that I need to check out.

One lesson with Michael Taft remains. Then I’m on my own. There are resources, though. I’m not that worried, and it’s good to know that Michael is not worried either.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/18/19 3:55 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I’m a little confused right now. Whatever new tradition or practice I look into, there is usually something in it that I feel is familiar from stuff that has popped up on its own in my practice. I’m starting to wonder if I have done any practice at all properly. It seems like I have mixed all sorts of stuff unknowingly. Or maybe that’s just how it is - all traditions and practices overlap in a variety of ways and on different levels?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/19/19 6:59 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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If this https://youtu.be/FW33mNmcG14 happens by itself (not the talking part) when I meditate, does it mean that I’m actually not doing vipassana? This is supposed to be non-dual practice. I don’t get why it’s so different. ”I am nothing” and ”I am everything” are just different extreme perspectives on the emptiness-suchness dance as it apperas when we are conscious, and while all sorts of selves are mere constructions, we are stuck with some form of construction as long as we stay alive and conscious.

I see parallelles to when Daniel talks about things being aware of themselves. I see parallells to Shinzen’s ideas of auto talk, auto think and auto move.

Michael Taft said that doing some non-duality practice after stream entry might be a way to broaden one’s awakening. He also came to think of Loch Kelly when I talked about my model, so that’s why I’m looking into it. I haven’t made any decisions. I’m just trying to get a grasp of the alternatives. I don’t see the differences. I was wondering whether I have to choose, and there is of course no rush there, but he said that if one does too many different things there is the risk that one doesn’t get anywhere with anything. That sounds very reasonable. It’s just that I see so many shared features. Maybe I’ll eventually end up with focusing on some intersection that seems like the obvious choice to me, and then people from all the traditions that it touches upon will give me a strange look for focusing on that peripheral phenomenon that they had never even though about singling out from the rest and then connecting with something else. That’s usually what happens in my research. and luckily people usually later finds that it totally makes sense. I don’t know if I’ll be that lucky this time. Maybe I’ll just mess around and increase my own confusion.

Or maybe I’ll se the differences when I’m no longer slightly feverish and dissolution-like fog-minded.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/19/19 2:04 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Working with layers of tension. Not much to report. In the beginning of the meditation, there was a noticable movement of the entire field of space sideways from left to right and back to left and so on, back and forth, about twice per second. I think that’s a new one.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/20/19 5:32 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I find that I don’t have the same drive to meditate, even though I still enjoy doing it.

Two things make me genuinely happy today. One is that my cats get along in this moment in time. Morpheus, who has the tendency of being pushy around the others, respects Zeke’s boundaries without pushing them even the slightest. Zeke, who is prone to caution, finds it in him to open up to trusting Morpheus to respect his boundaries. That is beautiful. The other thing is that I was able to enjoy gardening for the sake of gardening regardless of the results. I don’t really have a garden; it’s just a patio, but it’s full of life. I found myself tending to it just because I took pleasure in the doing. There was no sense of ”Oh, I really should...” Nothing like that. I just enjoyed the sensory experiences of it. And when I wasn’t enjoying it fully anymore, I just stopped, without the unsatisfactoryness of all that was still not done. I looked at the mess still remaining and loved it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/21/19 8:03 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I still have a daily practice, but things have been rather slow lately. Coughing hasn’t exactly helped with concentration. Tonight I finally gained some momentum after a few guided meditations (Tashi Nyima, Michael Taft, Jeff Warren) and got into fourth jhana. Loved the clarity. Have missed it. Then my awareness sort of moved into one of my ears for a while, and then jumped out of my body, and then back in.

I promised to write an email to Jeff Warren. He’s interested in getting in touch with other neurodivergent meditators. Cool.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/22/19 7:32 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Ouch! I was in neither perception nor yet non-perception, and suddenly I was spitted out and back into my body. The contrast was so sharp that it felt like jumping from something and falling onto the ground. I could have sworn that I sprained my ankels, but they don’t hurt.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/23/19 3:23 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I don’t mind feeling unsolid and flowing, but apparently parts of me do. I still notice reactions of rapid heartbeat and subtle fluctuations in blood pressure with regard to the unsolidness. I guess those parts of the awareness will just have to learn for themselves that there is nothing to fear.

Hearing is weird. Sometimes it is very clear that the perception of sound differs between the ears, sometimes it is just one stereo mix, and the shift between these modes can be very abrupt. Sometimes hearing doesn’t seem to occur from a subjective point at all. It just is. Sometimes it comes together with an instant activation of all the senses, with the exception of taste most of the times. Like a flash of complete beingness. It is very evidently based on concepts, so it’s not some ultimate beingness, and since people’s perceptions vary a lot, it’s certainly not objective in any way. Yet it’s not subjective in the sense of having a subject, a perceiver. It’s just one variety of the beingness of a phenomenon presenting itself as it is in all its relativeness. Does that make sense?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/23/19 5:47 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Took up Mahasi noting again. It felt good. It really brings things back to a sensate level and to what is rather than to what ”should” be. Also, there is always something there to work with.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/24/19 7:42 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Today I meditated in the laundry room in the midst of all noice. It was amazing. I would never have been able to do that before. I used to get nauseaus for the rest of the day after spending some time there, due to sensory overload. Come to think of it, I don’t remember the last time I had that. Wow. I hadn’t even noticed that the sensory overload was gone. When I think about it now, I can’t recall any form of overload lately. Situations that used to overwhelm me no longer do. Situations that used to cause fatigue no longer do. Wow. How is that possible?
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/25/19 9:33 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Today I meditated in the laundry room in the midst of all noice. It was amazing. I would never have been able to do that before. I used to get nauseaus for the rest of the day after spending some time there, due to sensory overload. Come to think of it, I don’t remember the last time I had that. Wow. I hadn’t even noticed that the sensory overload was gone. When I think about it now, I can’t recall any form of overload lately. Situations that used to overwhelm me no longer do. Situations that used to cause fatigue no longer do. Wow. How is that possible?

It sounds like what happened to me at what I think was about the same stage you're at, but this was getting on two decades ago now and I didn't encounter the maps until much later (and I am not nor have I ever been very mappy). It was a tremendous relief. (Actually, I had no idea what had happened and thought I'd hit some normal developmental milestone late and was getting more normal--ha!) As perception untangled and the stickiness/friction decreased, I was able to withstand more and more without becoming overwhelmed. However, the sensory overload problem didn't totally go away, it's just that the threshold at which it occurred got a lot higher. And of course there's always that shifting baseline of what we're able to tolerate at any given time depending on our personal resources and various factors.

Also, what happened to me was that even though my threshold became higher, what I was able to perceive also went up. So the threshold had to go up again. And over the the years there have been many shifts along the way of what was able to be perceived increasing and then the threshold having to also move up. So like most other things, it was a process that unfolded in a nonlinear way with practice over time. And as the way we perceive reality changes, our perceptual habits change, which means our behavioral habits change as well--all interesting things to take note of. That was an incredibly rich time for me--looking back, my entire life changed dramatically for the better and I was able to communicate/connect with other humans in ways I had previously not been able to do. It had been so incredibly painful prior to that.

I could probably babble on about this for awhile, but I'll spare you! 

One particular type of exercise that has been helpful for me in this vein is what is described in Tibetan Buddhism as ecstatic practice, an energy-producing way of opening to sensory experience. To use the auditory channel: take a piece of music and try to listen to all the instruments at the same time, noticing all the subtle harmonics, and then rest in the experiencing. You should feel a pleasurable shift. When attention collapses down to one instrument, you basically treat it like a distraction and just open up again to all the instruments. And my personal favorite, to increase the challenge given my history of painful sensitivity to sound: do the same thing with a noise that makes you hurt like a jackhammer at a construction site. Make sure you maintain an awareness of any pain experienced in the periphery rather than trying to shut down or avoid it. I made a game out of doing this with every "unpleasant" sound (and other sensory stimulus) I encountered throughout the day and it worked as a sort of counterconditioning and desensitization, not to mention just being good practice. It can really raise energy, though, so you have to pay attention to that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/25/19 11:31 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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You are very welcome to ”babble on” as much as you like. It is more helpful than I can describe.

Yup, the baseline varies, of course, and yes, I have also noticed that there is a difference in what I’m able to perceive. What you describe makes a lot of sense to me and explains a great deal. I have even doubted that there were as significant changes as I first thought, because these two different processes sometimes sort of even out. But there is definitely no way that I could have meditated in the laundry room before; of that I’m certain. I didn’t even realize until afterwards what a peculiar idea that was. I just found it convenient since I was doing laundry anyway.

As for the mapping, I’m not so sure that I’ll be able to keep track anymore. I don’t get how all the different insight cycles and subcycles and the described jumping up and down between levels correspond with there being four paths.

As for connecting with other human beings, I thought I had already gone through significant shifts. Not meditation-related at all (at least not related to any formal practice), but now afterwards I think it may have been insight-related. It did come with the belief that boundaries between people are only an illusion, but most of those changes were more in line with accepting my limitations and communicating them to people. Some were also about daring to be vulnerable. Before that, it was very painful to me too, especially when I was young, so I was very happy with the changes I had made already. I didn’t expect more shifts there. I thought I already fulfilled my potential, given the diagnoses that I have. But yeah, there have been remarkable changes lately. I no longer have any problem with eye contact. I find it easier to forget about me and take in others with my full focus, interest and compassion. I worry less about making a fool of myself (not that I have been so worried about that for the last decade or so, but in some situations I did worry and I did feel awkward and inadequate). I need much less time to prepare myself mentally. People are so much nicer to me now.

The practice you describe makes sense. When I was doing noting in the laundry room, I also did something like that with all the different sounds. That was the amazing part. I couldn’t describe it. I must look into that. I find myself being more and more curious about Tibetan Buddhism. When it comes to music, I think that’s the only way I have ever been able to listen to it. Then again, I have always preferred music that is less dense, more spacious, and there has been a very clear limit to how much I have been able to take in. Is there a name to this type of practice? I can see why I would need to watch out for the raising of energy, so I’ll be careful.

Now I need to eat something before I have my last coaching session with Michael.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/25/19 2:10 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Feeling sad and happy at the same time. My last session with Michael Taft was great. All of them were great. I haven’t had any other teachers to compare with, but my guess is that most of the available teachers would have trouble measuring up to the way he teaches, and I’m also very confident that he knows his stuff. I’m spoiled and picky now. And I think he is very cool. Awsome, actually. Another layer to work with, perhaps. Attachment to teacher. But I have to let go of that right away, because there are no more scholarships right now and he is way too expensive for me. I got plenty of advice to take with me, though, and I’ll be okay. We’ll stay in touch, and I appreciate that.

I could totally fall in love with him, but luckily I’m not that stupid. I know what transference is.
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/25/19 4:27 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Mapping and the 4 path model: most people in this community are seriously mappy, which makes me a black sheep. Goal-oriented practice turns me off and I'm more process-oriented and intuitive anyway. That doesn't work for everybody, but it's worked out well for me--perhaps because I tend to also be quite obsessive and driven, and am good at following my inner compass. Dunno.

The Tibetan Buddhist ecstatic practice--I don't know if it has any other name--this is basically what I've been doing since childhood, just in a more formal way. Maybe you as well. I think of it as having dials (or maybe apertures) for sensory channels that can be adjusted, and this practice is opening one up all the way. Opening wide to pleasurable sensations created due to rocking, for example. Or becoming totally immersed in the wave tank exhibit at a museum. Versus closing the aperture/dialing it down to reduce sensory stimulation. And of course you can open wide to all the senses at once, or try to totally shut down. There's more info on page 361 in Ken McLeod's Wake Up to Your Life, which is an excellent resource for Tibetan Buddhism if you're interested in learning more about that. Tons of great free stuff on his website Unfettered Mind as well and he sends out a very thoughtful monthly newsletter.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/25/19 5:59 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Inner compasses rock.

Oh, that. Yup. That’s basically my life. Of course the Tibetans have cultivated a practice out of it. Being autistic in Tibet must be heaven on earth. They really get this stuff there, it seems.

I really must buy that book.
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/25/19 6:31 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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More thoughts on maps--I did spend some time years ago rather map obsessed, but more of my time was spent reading about maps of moral and psychological development than insight. I periodically revisit these things, then forget all about them for long periods of time.

Pretty sure I would have been very happy growing up in premodern Tibet. 

I've been doing that ecstatic practice with the visual sense lately. What a novelty to sit with eyes open! You take something that can be used as a frame--I'm using a bookcase in the mornings before the sun is up, but you could use a window or door or whatever--and then open to everything within it. And using things like trees, etc. when outside. All sorts of ways to play with it. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/25/19 7:09 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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I guess the 7 point mind training is that kind of map. I love it. Good for reminding oneself of what is important and what needs developing.

I think I have mostly done that ecstatic sort of practice more singlepointedly. It can be vast and spacious, but then mostly much of the same thing, like an ocean, or heather moors as far as one can see (oh, how I long for Scotland), or the water in a lake, or the rugged beauty of barren landscapes.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/26/19 11:46 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

I think I have mostly done that ecstatic sort of practice more singlepointedly. It can be vast and spacious, but then mostly much of the same thing, like an ocean, or heather moors as far as one can see (oh, how I long for Scotland), or the water in a lake, or the rugged beauty of barren landscapes.


Lately I have come to take in more impression simultaneously, though. I have the capacity now that I did not have before. I know that I have done it occasionally, though, taken in lots of details, but that has mostly been overwhelming before.
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/26/19 3:36 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

I think I have mostly done that ecstatic sort of practice more singlepointedly. It can be vast and spacious, but then mostly much of the same thing, like an ocean, or heather moors as far as one can see (oh, how I long for Scotland), or the water in a lake, or the rugged beauty of barren landscapes.


Lately I have come to take in more impression simultaneously, though. I have the capacity now that I did not have before. I know that I have done it occasionally, though, taken in lots of details, but that has mostly been overwhelming before.

Building capacity is exactly what this practice does. But it happens slowly, over time--months, years. The body-mind has to rewire itself.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/26/19 6:27 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 2

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That makes sense.

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