For the most part my practice of late has been less focused, more restless and in general more difficult. Post A&P, I was getting up at 5:30 almost every morning for an hour of practice. I'm still committed to an hour a day, but it has been bumpier. From what the maps say and what others have observed, it seems like I'm squarely within dissolution. If the length of my A&P window is any indicator, its likely to last quite a while, unless I've dropped down to a pre A&P state. That's still a part of the maps I don't understand. Clearly, it is common to cycle up the POI, miss Stream Entry and fall back down, but I haven't found good information on the details of how and when "dropping down" happens (a good question for a dedicated thread). Nonetheless, practice is what it is. Sometimes it feels focused and energetic, other times it doesn't. I can work on equanimity either way.

On advice of the teacher at the last weekend retreat I did, I'm trying to integrate more metta into my practice to keep my insight practice from being too dry. At first I was gung-ho about metta, and I was feeling some really powerful, warm feelings at first, but I've noticed the feelings lately aren't as strong, metta feels more like a chore, and its harder to keep my focus. Perhaps just part of a maturing metta practice. I did pick up Salzberg's Loving-Kindness as a reference. Hopefully that will be a helpful guide.

I'm also adding in more concetration work, just working on breath. This morning's session was all concentration and it felt like the right place to be. I'm thinking I'll spend the rest of this week with a bit of metta to start, followed by concentration. Many sources here and elsewhere have recommended concentration and metta as a good fit for the DN. I guess its time to start taking that advice seriously.

Did the same drill this morning: metta then concentration. Practice was erratic. Lots of mind wandering. With 22 minutes do go I decided to switch to vipassana and only did that for another 10 minutes before I got so restless I quit.

Kind of grumpy and irritable afterwards. I'm feeling like my diversion into metta and concentration has come to an end for now and I'm feeling drawn back to having a bigger focus on vipassana. Maybe I'll find time for another sit for today.

Reading through Travis's log right now https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/14271890

I'm finding it inspiring and encouraging to return to vipassana. Practice has been erratic and difficult for quite a while now and I am continually focusing on relaxing into what it is, but I have to admit that it is challenging. 

Hey Brandon enjoyed reading some of your logs. Sounds like we're going through some similar experiences. I too have notice the ebb and flow or cycling between periods of increased concentration/positive feeling vs. distraction/unpleasant feeling. For me it seems that these cycle every 1-2 weeks.  
Something I am trying this go-round is to be less concerned with the highs (the blissful states etc), letting them happen but not get too sucked into them (even though it can be fun as hell!).  I think this might help get through the negative states and make real progress vs. continued cycling.

To me what you describe here sounds like more of an A&P event, I think of 1st Jhana as being a calm concentration state where it's just easier to focus on an object.  I could be wrong there.

Yes, Noting is more taxing only because you are more Gaining.  

Btw, in my experience strong samadhi arises at times during noting. Noting Aloud also acts as a Mantra really. Using calm voice , as Shinzen is suggesting can help get into a more calm and concentrated state but at time this will not happen no matter what you do In that case there is only Note fast and Acceptance of what is. That too shall pass (unless I cling to it with aversion or desire). 

"Feeling good vibes is great, but it feels like a victory to see the dukkha there too."

yes being Awake really is liberating no matter what the experience is. And there is this rush from realizing this. Hence being Awake to This-ness becomes the home run! All else is just self-validating garbage that also is This-ness. All is equal under the hat of Noting.  

Nice one sais I  

 Btw, don't be disappointed if you don't awaken as Chris in 8 month time! You could awaken suddenly instead  


(I hope Chris doesn't notice me using smileys) 

I spent time in a Siddha Yoga Dham in the early 80s, and shakipat from the guru was big-time there, like pentecostal-level bop-them-on-the-forehead-with-a-peacock-feather-and-they- be-gate-gate-gate. You grew up in that that LSD cult in Utah, you said, Brandon, so you know the power of set and setting in altered states, it's mama's milk to you and the whole Joe Smith bunch out there, and all their wives too. (My first wife, whom I married twice, was a Mormon, and I lived in Logan, Utah for a number of years.) I think faith is where you find it, and that, as advertsied, a mustard-seed-sized dose will do for practice, but like you say, the occasional recognizable wave of inspiration is truly sweet. The fact that whatever Mama Shakti gave you, and however it was transmitted, moved you to feel that much more deeply that your practice is trustworthy, and that you can relax a degree or two, open up, and let it unfold---- that speaks for itself.

You were talking about pace up higher there, and for what it's worth, I have found that pace in the iteration of your technique can make a huge difference, and that it is often counterintuitive--- i.e., when it is most overwhelming and the obvious move is pedal to the metal, it sometimes happens that easing off on the gas is what does the trick. Like music, too, the tempo can change the song in qualitative ways, same notes, different beat.

Nice one!

Yeah that urge to check the timer and how noting cuts it down in its roots only to leave behind the Imagining of the timer in the mind. I place my phone a bit behind me so Im not able to see it as I practice with eyes open. At times there is this urge to check "how much" time and usually is accompanied with some preassure in the solar plexus and an image in my mind of the phone. So it goes quick, preassue in plexus, urge, unpleasant, imagining, and then attention moves to something else like itch or coolness or what ever. Practice goes on without the hindrance called restlessness. Works same with Ill will, Doubt and Sleepiness etc ... Noting really is a Plow for plowing through the hindrances Love this stuff!

And then the feeling of joy that comes up from realising that this shit works if one is on top it, tap, tap, tap, one after the other they arise and pass away ay ay ayyy  

Wow!

Still haven't hit any landmarks that would indicate a difinitive place on the POI. Generally feeling like I could be somewhere pre A&P again or still slooooowly sliding through dissolution. 3C's and dissolution sound the most accurate. In contrast I don't think I've experienced anything yet that would fit the description of any of the dukka ñanas. Don't know where I am, but it certainlly still feels like I am progressing. It's rare for me to have a session where something interesting doesn't happen.

Practice today was very chill and sustainable. Taking a cue from Contemplative Fitness I tried a pre-A&P practice where I investigaged a single spot. I ended up observing the sensations on and around the bridge of my nose for about 30 minutes. Lots of flux and shifting between sensations of pressure and pulling. Some subtle pinching, pulsing, folding, and dissolving. Ocassionally I would feel smaller sensations of rattling or shivering. Just seeing it for what it is and trying not to force a particular perception.

As practice progressed I got more and more tranquil and focusing on the nose area got harder. I felt like I could have sat for a very long time. My visual field started to get much more active. This is becoming more and more common in my practice. It is still mostly the dark screen you would associate with closed eyes, but I'm seeing a lot of motion and depth within the subtle variations of dark. I get the impression of complex forms, like you would get the impression of a body part while meditating. Nothing in full folor or defined contrast, but the forms nonetheless are fascinating and complex. As an artist I feel I could easily make a representation of them. They are organic and phantasmagoric -- faces and anatomies that are constantly shifting and recombining. Practicing in the middle of the day, there is nothing scary about them, but there is certainly a part of me that is wary of how things will unfold as practice gets darker.

The last 30 minutes was just open noting. After I was done I found myself in a very tranquil state with pleasant sensations accompanying the breath. I decided to hang out with that for about 10 minutes and just stay with the breath. I wouldn't have expected it, but it seems like an hour of vipassana makes my concentration stronger.

That's the ticket!

I will say something which might be of help or not. 

If we choose to believe that I have attained to SE then let me share one Maybe important aspect of my last years journey;

I NEVER , not even for a second assumed that out of that practice of mine SE will happen. Maybe because I believed such "serious" attainment might need decades of practice and many months of serious retreat time or even many lives of returning back to practice and then Maybe somewhere down the line in some other life that might happen. 

So. My only motivation was End of that DN Suffering. I've had enough of it and I knew deep into my bones that there was no way back and I must plow on forwards even if this makes me explode. 
From the old fall from EQ to Re-observation I knew I'm not to cling to the EQ if I ever get there again
But I Never, not even for a tiny second considered what this might lead to I was way too focused on that Suffering and not to fall back into it by clinging to EQ. This recipe somehow was the Key to enter SE. It happened when I least expected. Actually I did not even expect it. I guess I was stupid. Truth. 

What I'm trying to say is , maybe it's good to shift the focus from (as it is your mind after all) SE as it will happen in some other lives who knows when, and instead focus on not clinging to EQ but accepting all it has to offer and look at it until EQ becomes unsatisfactory (boring status-quo like). 

This is of course only if we choose to believe that this really was the case of SE for me and not some delusional stuff  

Any way, I think you are doing great by Noting those mind states connected to the desire to attain SE (or anything else) as that urge really is behind most (if not all) of Becoming. 

Im at the moment in a really Confusing state of mind, nothing much is clear, stiff neck, jaw is kind of clenching, ear frequency is high pitch, emotional irritation, hard to see where attention is ... but there is still this Awareness of all that I've just written above (I mean the confusion, non-clarity, stiff neck, jaw issues etc) Noting and Acceptance of this aspect will help see and let pass the mentioned nasties. It's not pleasant holding this Acceptance but it really brings fruits of purification. 

Ok I probably wrote too much already In case I missed the Mark feel free to ignore my rumbling  

This quote has helped me when faced with these thoughts.  Also my wife deals with similar anxiety related to this concept. We generally think about eternity as a concept of time, but really, what is time?  It doesn't really exist, at least not the way we think it does.  It's really more of a human measurement, meant to measure human things. Infinity, on the other hand, is outside of our human concepts of time, and outside of existence and outside of reality itself, at least as we understand it.

“Eternity has nothing to do with time. Time is what shuts you out from eternity. Eternity is now. It is the transcendent dimension of the now to which myth refers.” -Joseph Campbell

Hope it helps...
Cheers,
John

This is one of the most interesting things about the occasional quantum jumps that occur in practice: we recognize abruptly that This Shit Is REAL, that what sometimes can settle into rote dogged plodding is actually quietly revolutionizing us, and then, when the right pebble at the right time sets of the more or less inevitable landslide and the earth starts moving away beneath of feet, we get of glimpse of the power of the forces we have been blithely dabbling in, and see that it's real real real and serious as a heart attack. But then it is so way too late, that the best thing we can do is read more Shargrol on MOre Surrender and Gentleness and Slow Is Fine.

Because suddenly it doesn't seem slow at all, it is happening very very fast. But it is precisely in the times sensed as Very Very Fast that the long patient dry and grueling training without any apparent effect in Slow Is Fine is revealed for the priceless labor-intensive deep cultivation of better habits that it is. Because the best paradoxical counter-intuitive thing to do with Fast is to Go Slower Still, just as the best way to handle a car in a skid is to steer with it, and the best route out of a burning house is usually straight through the worst of the heat toward the exit, and not retreat to a briefly cooler, quickly disappearing place where the fire hasn't reached yet.
Perfect. One day at a time, come what may; one sit at a time, come what may; one breath at a time within the sit, come what may. This is also the way through the terror of infinity you discussed in another reflection above, on this thread. There is no eternity, if you go one breath a time. There is only the next breath, which none of us living has experienced as anything but ever renewed, by the gift of a spontaneously arising new inbreath. And if our worst fears come true and that next in-breath doesn't come, no big deal, we realize: it ain't a mormon picnic, where you find yourself, once the out-breath has evaporated and the in-breath hasn't arisen. That is a whole new place, there. Eternity takes on a whole new meaning, in that.

love, tim

After my experience where I thought I was in EQ (post with subject "Things feel good") things have come back down to earth -- a good indication it was probably not EQ but another A&P. I had a vivid dream the other night, the kind with the level of detail and clarity that only comes from doing lots of insight practice (I wouldn't call it lucid, as I couldn't control anything, but it felt orders of magnitude more real and detailed than regular dreams, and I've only experience these types of dreams since meditating. Is there a technical name for this?). It started out as banal and ordinary as a dream can be and suddenly became apocalyptic. I woke from the dream in a state of panic and terror. We had recently experienced 6.3 earthquake, which at the time I oddly found amusing, but now the memory of the quake reinforced a sense of impending, inevitable doom. I suddennly saw through the illusion of safety and felt a sureness of the death of myself and my family. There was nothing stable or safe. I thoughtfully calmed myself with some breathing and metta and eventually came out of the panic. After it passed I felt a surge of love and gratitude for my family and sense of soberness for how intense things can get on the path and a deep sense of humility. (kinda 6th ñana, no?)

That was basically the day when I got serious about finding some sort of teacher. It also gave me a deep sense of how important the support of others is on the path. Daniel makes the recommendation in MCTB that you have the right people on speed dial. I don't have anyone on speed dial. Once again, I am taking on a massively difficult project and not being humble enough to ask for the help I need in the process.

(For any other DhOers that are reading this, I should probably take this moment to express my gratitude that I have others that I can speak with about this stuff who will understand the experience. We all have to do this work on our own. I have to do this work on my own, but I can see how deeply I need the help of others to stay sane in the process. Thank you for any of you that are reading, and know that I humbly acknowledge how little I know and how much I rely on your support and wisdom.)

Fortunately, a few nights later I had another vivid dream, but it was a mix of tranquil and fantastical. When they're good, the dreams are really good.

Practice since then has been consistent, but less blissful, with a decent amount of craving, noticing dissatisfaction, aches in the chest, frustration, and boredom. I've been playing with things such as asking "who is experienceing this?" and paying attention to thought. I am noticing the pre-thought bubblings and pre-thought emotions. 

A very common experience lately is to be looking for thoughts and for thoughts to be happening and not realizing it until I notice a few seconds later! Very subtle stuff, much of which I am struggling to label. I feel something, and I am like "that was a thing, but I don't know what it was". I think much of that is probably emotion. I feel lots of subtle reactions, impulses, anxieties all leading from one to the other where I know where they are headed, but I don't give them time to emerge fully formed. I am paying attention to bodily sensations and mental impressions trying to sort out their order, but it's not clear enough to me. I can sit and note when I see a mental impression and when I am clearly feeling a sensation but the moments when I can unambiguously know it is one or the other come erratically.

Lots of spontaneous noting and awareness throughout the day. I am starting to see that it takes quite a bit of experience to really get a sense of the patterns. In life my interest in other things has dropped. I want to exercise, go hiking, meditate, work in the yard and write.

One thing this insight work is making clear is how many things in my life are driven by the achey craving feeling that is becoming so much more clear in my meditation. I can see this at the center of big ambitions and small past times and I just want to drop anything associated with that feeling. I think I've decided to drop Jiu-Jitsu for this reason -- It makes the decision easier with the gym being temporarily closed -- I have also lost interest in drawing for the same reason, which is tougher since this has been at the center of my ambitions for the duration of my professional career. It has been so ingrained in me that it was something I must do all the time, that I am having a hard time from detaching the ambition and tightness away from any pure enjoyment I once felt doing it. 

It's left me in a place now where I am very cautious about my motivations, and unsure how to judge and value my intentions, plans, goals and aspirations. Whatever plans I make in the future, I want to come from the right place (Right Livelihood much?) I want to take care of my family and anything on top of that I want to be driven by love and curiosity, not anxiety and ill-will. I clearly do not have the answer, but my priorities are quite radically shifting with practice. An emphasis on well being NOW does much to unravel unhealthy ambition.

I would honestly love to work with a teacher, for the exact reasons you've mentioned. A spot opened to work with Michael Taft a few months ago, but the finances weren't quite aligned at that time.

I feel like I'm constantly just throwing up my hands when trying to map. It's been almost a year since my A&P experience and I can't really say I've felt anything like the dukka ñanas (knock on wood), and now I'm in a place that seems to match all the descriptions of EQ pretty well. Maybe I'm just one of those. Maybe decades of depression already wrung some of that bullshit out of me, or maybe I've got it all wrong. A bit of work with a teacher would be nice give some perspective, but at the end of the day, like you say, it's just about what is happening from moment to moment.

I feel like what we are part of right now is an embryonic version of something that will hopefully become a much wider more integrated part of our culture some day. It doesn't seem optimal that the only support we have for our practice are other lone adventurers strung across the globe. And yet, at least we do have this community, we do share this practice, and we can make some sense out of all this. I'm not sure what I would have done with my A&P experience had I not found MCTB. It would have felt like a sick joke from God. 

All of that is just to say, that it would be nice if it wasn't so damn hard to get support to do this thing that should be a normal part of every human's spiritual development. 

If you ever wanted to make a referral I'd be interested in info about your teacher. I think it's always good to have as many options as possible when it comes to teachers.

OK! enough "stuff". Let's see if I can get in a bit more practice in before bed.

Brandon is a guy who keeps an eye on his friends.

Last night my teacher taught me the lesson of poverty,

having nothing and wanting nothing.

I am a naked man standing inside a mine of rubies,

clothed in red silk.

I absorb the shining and now I see the ocean,

billions of simultaneous motions moving in me.

A circle of lovely, quiet people

becomes the ring on my finger.

Then wind, and the thunder of rain on the way.

I have such a teacher.

Rumi

And when the student is ready . . .

"Waiter, I'll have what The Kid is having, please."

love, tim

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/h3iweeurzz6dxwe/nocheoscura.mp3

Hey Brandon that sounds awesome man, seems like whatever/wherever you are, it's working, so keep it up!

I don't know if this is helpful but maybe it will inspire some thought- the 'sublime' you talked about- i wonder if this is a manifestation of Anatta/non-self/the Void/Voidness? 

When shit hits the fan try and recollect that all beings suffer just like you. We all struggle with it hence it's in a way "ours". The suffering slaps you on one cheek, you offer it the other one. Note it. Slap! Unpleasant and acceptance. Slap! Unpleasant and acceptance. Slap! ... until timer goes off. 

"spent some time doing Kenneth Folk's "thinking-not thinking" practice"

Im not familiar with this! Can you tell me more? Cheers mate!

Welcome back! I missed your posts. Abre hasn't introduced the 7-point breathing with me. We meet for the 2nd time next week,