Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/4/20 3:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/7/20 1:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Not two, not one 6/7/20 4:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/7/20 4:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/7/20 4:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 6/7/20 7:29 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/7/20 10:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 6/7/20 10:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/7/20 10:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 6/7/20 10:45 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/7/20 10:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/8/20 8:33 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/8/20 1:46 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/8/20 4:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/13/20 3:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 hae1en 6/25/20 1:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/25/20 1:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/13/20 3:51 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/14/20 4:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/15/20 2:32 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/16/20 9:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/22/20 10:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 6/22/20 11:15 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/23/20 8:21 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/23/20 11:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/23/20 9:17 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/24/20 2:22 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/26/20 6:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/27/20 12:51 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/28/20 12:16 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Not two, not one 6/28/20 4:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/28/20 8:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 6/29/20 7:11 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/29/20 9:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/30/20 5:03 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/30/20 10:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/1/20 5:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/2/20 12:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/2/20 2:31 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 7/2/20 2:35 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/3/20 1:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 7/4/20 2:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/4/20 3:41 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 7/5/20 4:02 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/8/20 5:02 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/7/20 5:09 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 7/8/20 7:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/8/20 5:31 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/8/20 5:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/9/20 5:32 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/10/20 5:20 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 7/11/20 2:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/20 2:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 7/11/20 2:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 7/11/20 2:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 7/11/20 2:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/20 4:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/20 4:57 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/20 10:16 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/20 11:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Not two, not one 7/11/20 3:12 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Siavash ' 7/11/20 3:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/20 11:55 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 7/18/20 2:51 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/18/20 4:35 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Olivier S 7/18/20 5:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/19/20 2:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 7/20/20 5:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/20/20 6:38 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 7/22/20 3:03 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/23/20 10:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/12/20 12:12 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/13/20 9:53 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/13/20 5:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/14/20 2:39 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/15/20 7:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/15/20 12:12 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/15/20 1:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/16/20 6:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/18/20 2:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/18/20 4:56 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/19/20 5:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/19/20 5:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Siavash ' 7/19/20 5:54 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/19/20 6:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Siavash ' 7/19/20 6:19 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/19/20 7:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/20/20 5:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/20/20 6:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 7/21/20 6:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/22/20 8:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/22/20 8:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/22/20 11:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/23/20 12:35 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/25/20 4:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 7/25/20 7:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/25/20 8:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/27/20 3:16 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/27/20 6:08 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/28/20 10:22 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/28/20 10:41 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 7/28/20 11:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/29/20 11:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/30/20 8:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 7/31/20 1:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/31/20 5:03 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/1/20 1:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/1/20 5:13 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/1/20 9:17 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/2/20 4:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/3/20 10:18 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/3/20 3:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/6/20 1:34 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/6/20 4:24 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/7/20 7:53 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/7/20 6:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 8/8/20 5:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/8/20 9:10 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/8/20 9:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/8/20 9:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Olivier S 8/8/20 2:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/8/20 3:46 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 8/9/20 12:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/9/20 1:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Bagpuss The Gnome 8/8/20 7:12 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/8/20 8:12 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Hector L 8/8/20 2:08 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/8/20 3:47 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/8/20 4:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/9/20 2:24 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/9/20 8:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/9/20 10:28 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/9/20 5:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/11/20 3:55 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 8/11/20 6:57 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/11/20 2:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 8/11/20 3:15 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/11/20 8:51 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 8/12/20 3:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 8/12/20 12:21 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/12/20 1:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 8/15/20 1:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/17/20 1:58 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 8/18/20 12:09 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/22/20 11:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 8/12/20 1:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/12/20 3:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 8/12/20 6:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 8/12/20 6:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 8/11/20 1:30 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/14/20 7:17 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/15/20 1:43 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/17/20 2:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/17/20 2:55 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/17/20 4:30 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/17/20 6:35 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/17/20 7:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/18/20 10:09 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/19/20 12:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/19/20 12:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 8/20/20 12:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/22/20 11:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/22/20 11:09 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/26/20 10:29 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/26/20 11:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/26/20 2:30 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/26/20 3:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 8/26/20 3:45 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/26/20 3:58 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/26/20 4:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Olivier S 8/26/20 7:16 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/27/20 2:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Olivier S 8/26/20 7:18 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/27/20 2:45 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 shargrol 8/26/20 8:36 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/27/20 2:57 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 8/27/20 3:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/27/20 3:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 8/27/20 3:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/27/20 3:51 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 8/27/20 5:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 shargrol 8/27/20 11:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/27/20 12:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/28/20 2:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/27/20 7:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/27/20 8:12 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/28/20 1:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/28/20 8:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/28/20 10:44 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/31/20 2:38 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 8/31/20 7:40 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/31/20 8:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 shargrol 8/31/20 8:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/31/20 8:10 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 shargrol 8/31/20 8:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 9/1/20 12:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 9/1/20 7:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/1/20 8:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 9/2/20 2:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/31/20 4:16 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/31/20 9:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/1/20 9:12 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Tim Farrington 9/2/20 2:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/2/20 2:37 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/3/20 1:24 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/4/20 10:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/20 3:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/20 3:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/20 5:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/20 10:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/7/20 2:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/7/20 2:08 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 9/8/20 7:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/8/20 9:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/8/20 2:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/8/20 7:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/8/20 9:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/9/20 9:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/9/20 9:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/9/20 4:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/9/20 10:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/17/20 5:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Not two, not one 9/18/20 4:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/18/20 8:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/19/20 4:11 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/10/20 1:27 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 9/18/20 7:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/18/20 8:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 9/18/20 10:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/18/20 12:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 9/18/20 12:58 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/19/20 4:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/12/20 5:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/13/20 5:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/13/20 6:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/13/20 5:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 George S 9/13/20 7:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/14/20 3:35 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/14/20 4:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/15/20 2:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/15/20 5:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/20/20 4:36 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/21/20 1:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 9/21/20 4:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 George S 9/21/20 5:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/21/20 5:56 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/24/20 1:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/26/20 6:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/27/20 7:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 9/27/20 9:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/27/20 10:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 9/27/20 11:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/27/20 12:17 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 9/27/20 5:54 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/27/20 7:44 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/27/20 8:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/27/20 3:58 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/28/20 1:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/28/20 1:38 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/28/20 5:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 9/28/20 6:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/30/20 11:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 9/30/20 12:25 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/30/20 1:34 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/3/20 3:53 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/9/20 1:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/9/20 3:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/10/20 7:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/13/20 10:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Ni Nurta 10/14/20 2:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/15/20 3:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/14/20 5:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/18/20 2:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/18/20 2:16 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Siavash ' 10/18/20 2:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/18/20 4:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Siavash ' 10/18/20 4:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/18/20 5:38 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/18/20 2:30 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/19/20 6:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Steph S 10/20/20 11:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/20/20 12:56 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Steph S 10/20/20 1:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/20/20 2:16 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/20/20 9:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/20/20 10:41 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/20/20 11:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 10/21/20 1:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/21/20 4:17 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/21/20 4:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 10/21/20 4:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/21/20 4:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 10/21/20 5:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/21/20 5:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 10/21/20 6:29 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/21/20 7:16 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 10/21/20 7:49 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/21/20 11:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Papa Che Dusko 10/21/20 11:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/21/20 2:16 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/21/20 4:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/22/20 9:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/22/20 10:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/22/20 1:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/22/20 1:07 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Siavash ' 10/22/20 1:17 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/22/20 2:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Chris M 10/22/20 1:51 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/22/20 2:22 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/23/20 4:21 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Siavash ' 10/23/20 4:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/23/20 6:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Siavash ' 10/23/20 7:10 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/23/20 8:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/23/20 8:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 10/23/20 1:53 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/4/20 3:05 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/4/20 3:05 PM

Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Starting a new log for the time period of attending Michael Taft's six months long course "Reversing the stack".

My practice is very uneven for the moment. I practice consistently every day, but sometimes it's restless, sometimes dull, sometimes both, and on rare occasions incredibly focused with visuals in perfect screen 2, with sacred geometry in color. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 1:39 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 1:39 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I'm a mess right now, which tells me exactly how much I still have to work with. I suppose I should be happy to know that, but the circumstances around it are breaking me. I let somebody under my skin who is reactive in an unpredictable way and that makes me reactive. I'm back to having dissociative seizures for the first time since I started my daily practice. They do no longer build up to anything big as I know what they are (kundalini burning away these new hindrances), but they are very recognizable. Now they just look like large kriyas, but it is very obvious what triggers them and it has nothing to do with meditation. It has to do with an old trauma, built up over a lifetime, that has been laid bare several times during this relationship. Unintentionally - there is no question about that, as this is a very warmhearted person who loves me very much - but repeatedly. I don't know if there is a way for me to move beyond this reaction through my practice. I hope so. 
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Not two, not one, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 4:22 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 4:22 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 1038 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
Dunno if you can feel it, but lots of love just washing over in wave after wave from down here. 

<heart>

Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 4:39 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 4:39 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Thanks! <3 I really needed that. I think usually I would have felt it, but now I'm cut off. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 4:49 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 4:49 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Survival plan: more space for practice in solitude, just being, and sleep. It has never been more clear to me that those things are what keeps me alive. I just came back from what very recently was my favorite yoga class. It was torture. I could barely do half of it. If it goes on like this, I'll be back in chronic fatigue in no time. My health and stamina have steadily been decreasing the last few weeks. I must take my autistic wiring seriously. Not doing so kills this mammal, or at least any spark in it. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 7:29 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 7:29 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 2680 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
My Metta force is on the weak side as I'm no Jedi and all I can do is send it over Öresund as far as Malmö emoticon  But I can send you this new tune that sprang from my 3C's stage of mind. Hang in there and don't give into the "content". 
https://youtu.be/m2EA7g3StDs
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:35 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:35 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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That's very sweet of you. Thankyou! I like your sound. 

As for the content, you are right, of course, but I still want to add the nuances that sometimes relationships face severe challenges without it being anyone's fault. It's just possibly incompatible wiring even though the people involved love each other very much.
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:34 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:34 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
I'm a mess right now, which tells me exactly how much I still have to work with.

If it's any consolation, we all go through these periods and we always will. Our human lives are very human. No practice can relieve us of that. It's the deal we get when we're born. This is the beauty we are blessed with, even when it's hard to bear.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:39 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:39 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Chris Marti:
I'm a mess right now, which tells me exactly how much I still have to work with.

If it's any consolation, we all go through these periods and we always will. Our human lives are very human. No practice can relieve us of that. It's the deal we get when we're born. This is the beauty we are blessed with, even when it's hard to bear.

Thankyou Chris! I guess it is both a consolation and something that I need to grieve. I appreciate you being upfront with this, because there are plenty of voices out there - both within and outside of spiritual contexts - that suggest that I should somehow be able to rise above and beyond being limited by my hardwiring. 
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:45 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:45 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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... there are plenty of voices out there - both within and outside of spiritual contexts - that suggest that I should somehow be able to rise above and beyond being limited by my hardwiring. 

Yes, I know. Those voices are full of shit.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:52 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/7/20 10:52 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Amen to that! 

They are often (albeit not always) wellmeaning, but they cause so much harm. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/8/20 8:33 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/8/20 8:33 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Actually, this relationship turns out to be a veritable goldmine for awakening and for growing as a human being. I'm learning so much about my reaction patterns, and the learning curve for us together is the most impressive thing ever. We are acing this thing. I don't think I have ever learned how to deal with some new discovery of my own shit as quickly before in my entire life. Not that I have any illusions whatsoever that I won't find new ways to mess things up or relapse, but now I know how much of a difference can be done with ease by just not grabbing onto that trigger. Working together with triggers and one's personal sets of very human limitations can really be incredibly powerful and helpful once you treat it as a blessing rather than as a threat. 

(The autism thing still stands, in case somebody were to interpret this as a change of stance with regard to that. That's not what this is about.)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/8/20 1:46 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/8/20 1:46 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
There is some kind of unexpected mercy showing up, revealing the illusory nature of stuff. For instance, this morning I woke up in despair after barely no sleep and with pain here and there and everywhere. Then I let go of the stories that were paining me, because I couldn't afford to hold on to them. My body still felt like shit, but I took my medicines and some painkillers and had something to eat and had some positive interaction, and it put things into perspective. It was so obvious that the same "facts" have very different implications depending on the stories putting them together or not putting them together. Cycling can't be ignored in social interaction anymore. It's parodic. Conditions affecting the mammalian body are deeply intertwined with it. Like, not sleeping leads to very unnecessary crankiness that doesn't make anyone happy. Duh. Lots of the cycling could really be dealt with by actually realizing my limitations and taking responsibility for them. 

There is a whole bunch of life situations for me right now that make it clear that I can't afford anything but letting go of identity stories and selfing patterns that are so deeply embedded that it hurts. Letting go is possible but so challenging. 

During yoga class today I noticed how much clarity there is in total exhaustion and confusion. Detailed clarity. I could see the actual happening of missing out on the arisings and only being able to see the passing away. That was interesting. I could let go of having to see the arisings. That entailed a sense of deep stillness in the rapid falling away of everything. I could be with the awareness of that. 

Despite sleep deprivation the yoga class went really well. I was able to adjust to a pace where I could maintain precision. I learned a number of ways that I often use my muscles wrong and damage weak points, and how to do instead. There was still a point of the spine that hurt so much that I thought I had damaged it. I was about to ask the teacher about it. Then during the rest I had insights about letting go of ego stuff. Then suddenly the sore point was all gone, as if there had never been any pain. I realized that the point had marked the navel chakra. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/8/20 4:23 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/8/20 4:23 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Forgot to write earlier: much comes down to how much of an asshole you are willing to be just to be right about something.

30 minutes of fire kasina:
clear persistent dot with great detail. Rapid changes. Layers of rings. Black dot. Murk very much alive: textures, movement, layers, tiny colored dots rapidly arising and passing away, sometimes forming some kind of pattern; grey smoke, subtle images, lots of morphing, wide visual field. While watching the flame the peripheral visual field was vibrational. Taste of spaciousness. Things cracked open behind the nose. Sense of stillness and presence in the midst of everything being vibrational. The joyous curiosity of the practice is back. A ring around the dot started to disconnect from the dot. Elemental qualities. Loud nada sound.

Early this morning before I went to sleep I saw lots of faces in the murk, sort of overlapping each other while replacing each other sequentially. 

Nothing seems quite solid today.

Happy, calm, connected. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 3:34 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 3:31 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I was unable to publish this entry yesterday due to technical issues:

I'm lagging behind with my logging but not with my practice. I'll start with today's practice and then add a few lines about recent practice for which I have neglected the logging.

About 75 minutes of reclining shamatha. I'm a bit rusty there so I was focusing on a combination of breath, nada sound and inner light, all at the same time, and probably never reached beyond first jhana. I had a partner sleeping next to me, sort of (the hedges pertain to "next to me", not to "partner" or "sleeping") and I'm still not used to doing shamatha without being alone, but I think this was more about me being rusty than having company, because I didn't feel disturbed at all, which is a great development. There were instances of the murk coagulating into interesting textures and shapes, but it never developed into any clear image. Kinesthetically everything felt vibrational, but I could still distinguish outer sounds and have occasional discursive thoughts. Eventually I stopped because my hands and feet were getting stiff and rigid and it felt like that blocked the flowing of energy. It seems like there is an energetic development with blockages moving further out in the periphery. They started out at the center of my body in my early practice and then moved outward. For quite some time now I have had issues with blockages in my ankles and wrists, and now it seems to have moved to the back of my hands and the upper side of my feet, especially on the left side. I have no idea whether this is a common development or not. The development isn’t entirely consistent, as I very recently had a blockage at a vertebra of the spine at the navel level.

I have been doing fire kasina. It dawned on me that fire kasina actually accomplishes what the course is about. The course is called "Reversing the stack". It is based on Michael's map for insight, which maps the degree of deconstruction rather than chronology. The map is not so much about getting from a starting point to the end point as much as it is about covering the whole ground. The idea for the course is that vipassana tends to drill down from concept level via phenomenon level and vibrational lever to awareness level. Mahayana practices, on the other hand, start out from the other direction. The course is for practicioners who have done the drilling down already and want to go the other direction. I realized that fire kasina already does that in a way. The murk is like awareness of awareness and then it gets all vibrational before it coalesces into phenomena that are distinguishable at a concept level. That means that I can easily combine the fire kasina practice with the course.

I have started to have the feeling that during fire kasina there is someone there in the candle flame, relating to me. That’s probably just me reflecting back to myself since the distinction inside vs outside is an illusion, but still... It doesn’t feel trippy. It just feels natural to relate to the flame as a person.

In my yoga practice I have found a new stability. I think at least part of the lack of flow recently was that developmental step. It had to get more clunky before I could reach that new level of precision. I'm developing some muscles that have never been very developed before and learning how to use them properly, for more purposes than I have previously realized. Triceps, new parts of the upper back, the sides of the core, and the upper part of the butt. Also, my wrists are getting much stronger and more stable. Sitting in some version of the full lotus position is getting rather comfortable. My thighs are too fleshy for my feet to go all the way up, though. The muscles there hurt from that kind of pressure, and it might hurt the knees.



Late night: I did Michael Taft’s latest guided meditation, https://youtu.be/J0AGfM7tH2o, World and self as dream. I was able to maintain focus throughout it. Then I remember being space before falling to sleep.
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hae1en, modified 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 1:26 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 1:26 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 99 Join Date: 10/13/19 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

I have been doing fire kasina. It dawned on me that fire kasina actually accomplishes what the course is about. The course is called "Reversing the stack". It is based on Michael's map for insight, which maps the degree of deconstruction rather than chronology. The map is not so much about getting from a starting point to the end point as much as it is about covering the whole ground. The idea for the course is that vipassana tends to drill down from concept level via phenomenon level and vibrational lever to awareness level. Mahayana practices, on the other hand, start out from the other direction. The course is for practicioners who have done the drilling down already and want to go the other direction. I realized that fire kasina already does that in a way.

The murk is like awareness of awareness and then it gets all vibrational before it coalesces into phenomena that are distinguishable at a concept level. That means that I can easily combine the fire kasina practice with the course.

I have started to have the feeling that during fire kasina there is someone there in the candle flame, relating to me. That’s probably just me reflecting back to myself.

since the distinction inside vs outside is an illusion, but still... It doesn’t feel trippy. It just feels natural to relate to the flame as a person.


I start to comprehend why you conceptualize fractals and other sacred geometry visuals as a result of vipassanizing the murk or any substrate of experience. After some digging it turned out that in dzogchen the basic cells of experience are dots/drops and rays/lines/contours. It does corespond to the first phase of construction of meaningful objects in visual cotrex. 

My doubt is - why does one find awareness at the bottom as if it's subtlest support wasnt constructed? What happened for me - I think - after vipassanizing objectless pure awareness was a discovery that there was only a collection of luminous or spacious or seemingly empty objects filling uniformly the formless realms and pretending to be a Big Self/Mind. Then the fractals appeared. What's your current take on this?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 1:59 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 1:59 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
My current take on it is that all experience is constructed, but some experience involves fewer layers of construction. "Pure awareness" is as minimal as it gets, but it's important to see the emptiness of that as well. Striving to become like a vegetable that does nothing but being aware of itself for the rest of our lives is hardly the point of it all. We need to construct, but we can choose to construct wisely and compassionately. I don't know if that answered your question?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 3:51 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 3:50 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Fire kasina, first about 75 minutes with the flame, then another half an hour reclining after I had put it out. It had finally started to get trippy. In the beginning of the session I could have sworn that I saw one of my cats watching me from the other end of the room. Then I realized that they were all outside. One of my previous cats maybe? The flame felt like a friend, or a lover. The murk was sparkling with life already from start, around the flame. Lots of colored dots arising and passing away rapidly. When looking at the flame, there were bright colors playing around it. The nada sound was loud. I felt high. At least I think so; I have never tried drugs apart from alcohol. Sometimes the dot was flat with sharp contours around it, in bluegreen, and with a reddish haze around that. Sometimes it alternated between red and black, as layers shifting sides. Sometimes the dot was like a cigar-shaped glowing object with thin spirals all around it, of golden threads. Sometimes there were like tentacles around it. There were vivid details. Sometimes it was like a vagina-shaped opening to a cave that was glowing in deep red.

For a while the flame seemed to follow my intentions. That happened last time too but I didn’t write it because I thought I must have just imagined it, but this time it was so striking. The flame was tilted toward one side the whole time and I felt the urge to straighten it up, and so it straightened itself. I tried elongating it, and it stretched itself out. I imagined it being short and chubby, and lo and behold, so it was. I kept this going for a while but then it stopped responding. I don’t know if I was just predicting its movement or if it was indeed responding.

Then I saw my nose through my eyelids, as if watching it through an infra red camera. I checked if my eyelids were slightly opened but they weren’t. I lifted up my hands in front of my closed eyes. I couldn’t see them as clearly as my nose but I could see them vaguely. This was after I had put out the flame so they weren’t blocking a light source.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/14/20 4:59 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/14/20 4:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I have never really gotten into the habit of doing morning sits, but I had a very nice short reclining session this morning that wasn't dull at all, but very spacious and bright. Someone pointed out to me that I'm just to vain and too macho to do morning sits because I have this idea that my sessions nowadays are supposed to be long. That's a really good point. It's basically what I would say to others. I'll try to start doing short morning sits every morning, to set the baseline.

Then I had yoga. It was challenging and I hated parts of it (such as standing split!) but it felt good and it didn't wear me out (partly because I was gentle with myself and allowed myself to rest a bit). I'm getting healthier again. 

This morning I woke up from a nightmare, but as soon as I told a partner what it was about, he immediately saw that it was a blessing rather than a nightmare, as it was dharma related and was about losing my social identities or my sense of self. In the dream I couldn't access any social media account because I couldn't prove that they were me. I culdn't even access profile images of me. It felt very Kafkaesque. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/15/20 2:32 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/15/20 2:32 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
More fire kasina, yesterday 30 minutes, today an hour. New today was an intense heat wave in the beginning of the sit and an instance of the dot being a vertical line of dots in all colors of the rainbow, similar to those chakra jewels that are popular with a certain population. More of the golden thread spiralling around the cigar-shaped dot. Distracting thoughts concerned with life changes and turbulence. Loud nada sound. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/16/20 9:20 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/16/20 9:20 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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1h 40 min reclining meditation in the afternoon: lucid dreamless sleep. When about to fall into sleep, I seem to go through at least some of the aspects of the elements falling apart just like described with regard to the dying process. It starts with the earth element as the limbs feel heavy and will no longer move. Ken McLeod also describes how the consciousness is like a shimmering mirage. I don't know exactly what he refers to, but I experience the onset of hypnagogic swirls like flourescent violet veils and I always felt like it was my consciousness that was swirling around like that. Then it turns into a smokey haze, which according to McLeod is the water element dissolving. Then there is a strong heat wave - fire element. In this case I managed to move my limbs after all, to remove the quilt, before I descended again. I don't recall whether there were sparks and fireflies this time, but I know that it usually is. Then my breath changed into sleeping breath. Maybe that qualifies as the air element, I don't know. I never arrived at the dissolution of sense faculties, which would be space, and the dissolution of sense of self with different kinds of brilliance (although I recognize those descriptions from previous experiences). Instead I found myself dealing with the direction of energy in the breath. I noticed that they tend to take a wrong turn on the outbreath when I sleep. I have learned from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche that from the crown chakra you are supposed to let the energies rise through the crown chakra and out that way, through the top of the head, while the air goes out through the nose. When I don't do that, an obstruction arises that makes a snoring sound, especially now since my nose was a bit swollen from allergies. As I noticed that, I redirected the energies upward. I don't know how that even works physically, but it made it much easier for the air to come out. It took away the snoring. I think I may have changed the angle of the air slightly too. It felt like there was a passage slightly behind the obstruction. I continued with this for quite a while, until I felt the urge to breath more deeply and stretch my body.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 10:26 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 10:26 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I have a hard time focusing right now due to what might be either reobservation or 3C nana. There are some weird energetics going on with my head, with what feels like pressure changes and small electrical surges, and the back of the head is hot for some strange reason. Yet I feel that things are slowly getting back to normal after a long period of energetic turbulence. Daniel helped me get through it. I didn't take notes, so all I can say about it is that I'm grateful for his help. He knows what he is doing, in many respects. 

I have some practice notes from June 18th that I didn't have the energy to transcribe from paper. Here goes:

I did an hour long meditation based on the latest "Reversing the stack" class with Michael Taft (from the night to June 17th). The meditation was divided into four sections according to the following:

Section 1 was shamatha with an object, and the object was visualization of a bright white full moon on a dark night skye. It didn't have to be projected on a screen but was allowed to just be where it was, without effort and with eyes relaxed, and if it faded, we were instructed to just let it re-arise again. Then we should let awareness rest in the full moon. 

Section 2 was a mix between shamatha with an object and shamatha without an object, sort of an expansion-contraction variant. During the inbreath I was instructed to continue with the visualization. During the outbreath I was to let go of it and of everything else and let it all dissolve into vaste spacious awareness. 

Section 3 was about letting go of the object entirely and let my mind be space, or vaste spacious awareness - boundaryless and timeless.

Section 4 was about letting that boundaryless, timeless awareness notice whatever would come up; letting it investigate the core of it to see that there was nothing there; letting it follow it to its source to see that there was no source. Letting it look deeply into that something and find that there's nothing there, regardless of what sense phenomenon and even with regard to the sense of a meditator. Noticing that awareness itself is unfindable. 

Practice notes from June 18th:

Section 1 - some distracting thoughts. Visualizing is getting easier. Not disturbed by the murk or the "pre-murk" anymore. Can switch to mental imagery.

Section 2 - focusing on the full moon started to make me nauseous for some reason, and switching focus back and forth didn't help. Motion sickness. Soon skipped to section 3.

Section 3 - It took some time to let go of the tension of the eyes and the coagulation of a "self" behind them. When it worked, it was such a relief. Dropped into flow. Mainly kinesthetic. The murk was also flowy. Managed to switch sound to flow, but not always. Some sounds came through as distinct. There were instances of everything commapsing into... I don't know... like flatness but with closed eyelids? No viewpoint. Pended back and forth between flow and awareness level. Such a relief.

Section 4 - Wow, the clunkiness of manifestations! So grainy, so unstable! I thought I knew that, but coming from the other direction like this and staying on that level for a while rather than getting back straight to "normality" gives a new perspective. 

---

After Daniel helped me, among other things I have been reconnecting to the elements of nature and to the spaciousness. I so need the space and the silence. I need to spend time just being, without communicating. I need to transcend the selfing, and that needs to happen on its own without forcing it by neglecting personal needs and boundaries. I require more alonetime than most people. That's just how it is. Without that freedom I wither and die. That can be hurtful for others, but I can't do much about it, except gradually dying, and that doesn't exactly make anyone happy either. Luckily I have a selected bunch of people in my life that love me just as I am and who don't take it personally when I need space. Those who can't live with my boundaries are better off without me. Now that the balance has been restored, the process talks to me again, somewhat hesitantly. Some perceptual shifts occur now and then, with vision and hearing sort of lacking viewpoint. At least I finally understand why people need retreats. I hadn't realized to what extent I had turned my daily life into a retreat. Not until there was no room for it anymore, as I compromised it away. Never again. Never ever again. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 11:15 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/23/20 8:21 AM
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Yeah, something like that. I need to tap into the source, and I need my alonetime to be able to do that. Otherwise I have my tentacles out in the relative world. Even though I realize that nibbana is always there in the midst of samsara, I can't access it the way I need to. Maybe I will eventually learn, maybe not. This mammal will continue to be autistic, after all, and I'm autistic in a way that involves an abundance of sensitive tentacles rather than a lack thereof (something that I share with my many autistic friends, even though it might be possible that the stereotype is also true for some). 

---

Today so far I have done an hour of shamatha. I was planning on doing Michael Taft's latest guided meditation for SF Dharma Collective, which only started with shamatha and then went on to see through the sense of self and so forth. However, I'm having a stress reaction in my body today, caused by a number of current challenges in daily life including the loss of my job, and when I accessed jhana it felt so healing that I stayed with that. It was light jhana and I'm not sure which one(s), as I find it hard to distinguish between the light ones. I think it was mostly first jhana and then a shorter period of second jhana before the intention got lost. I have booked a yoga class for the evening. At 2:30 in the morning it is time for my meditation class again. I haven't decided whether to try to sleep early or stay awake until the class starts. I'll let my body decide. If I can't sleep early enough, I'll spend the night meditating in the nature until it's time for class. I did that in the midsummer night and it was astonishingly beautiful. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/23/20 11:59 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The yoga was lovely. It was the kind of teacher that starts with thorough breath exercises before warming up the body. That was exactly what I needed now that my body is recovering. I noticed that directing the energy out through the crown chakra on the outbreath, as I have been practicing according to the Bön tradition, is not just imagery; it means directing the air up to the paranasal cavities behind the forehead and letting it turn around there as it hits the "ceiling" and then seep out through the nose. 

Note to (not)self: Kundalini as spiritual antabuse
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/23/20 9:17 PM
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I managed to fall asleep early. Waking up in time for class at 2:30 in the morning was initially challenging, but this time I maintained relaxed alertness throughout the whole class instead of struggling with staying awake. I think this is the way to go. 

The methods used today worked really well for me: starting out with a mantra (the great compassion mantra), then letting go of the mantra (shamatha without an object), then letting sounds be where they were, sort of, and then letting go of the sounds to just let awareness be aware of itself, and finally investigating stuff from that vaste awareness. There was an oscillation back and forth between emptiness and form that was... exquisite. The walls between senses fell apart. It all got very synesthetic, and the mind's construction of sensory information according to different sense gates appeared very arbitrary. This isn't exactly news to me, but I got to notice the falling apart and coming back more gradually. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/24/20 2:22 PM
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This evening I did Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga on a wooden deck overlooking a bay and then immersed myself into the warm water and lay there floating for a long time. Then I sat on the sun-warmed stone in the golden evening light and read about elements practice according to Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and did the shamanic practice of the raw natural elements, which is pretty much what I have done throughout my life, except for times when I have been disconnected. Merging with the elements is the best thing I know. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/26/20 6:48 AM
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The day before yesterday was exquisitly equanimous and pleasantly serene, but I think I may have dropped down to another round of dissolution. Both last night and today my meditation ended up in lucid dreamless sleep. Today there were brief glimpses of centerlessness, though, and those were staggering in a new way. So vaste, so clear - and so short. 

Starting my practice with a silent mantra and then letting go of the mantra seems to be fruitful. Mantras are less sensitive to allergy season than the breath, too. I heard the mantra in two parallell tracks, with a harmony in perfect fourth. 

In daily life I find that my eyes often relax into an unfocused mode without having a bad effect on my vision. It feels like my right eye squints a bit. This comes together with a subtle sense of thinning out and spreading. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/27/20 12:51 PM
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I had the idea today that I'd do my formal meditation by the lake, as it is a hot day and I'm fascinated by the elements anyway and reading about different takes on Tibetan practices with the elements (only some of them work with the external elements in nature, but still - I enjoy feeling connected to those physically). Then, facing the conditions here by the lake, I had the idea that I wouldn't be able to do formal practice here. The sun is too bright, the water too cool, and the horseflies seem particularly hungry today which makes it really hard to relax (yes, I'm aware of the dukkha in anticipating and remembering the pain when it's not really there in the moment), and so I find myself in constant movement between water and land and flapping my arms to avoid nasty bites. Then I laughed inwardly. What an idealized notion of meditation! All I have to do is stay aware of all these experiences and of how they arise and pass away and how none of it is independent and how it is all related to dukkha. Easy peasy. It may not be the most pleasant meditation ever, but it is the present, and when I let go of my expectations about what the present should be like, I might actually enjoy it the way it is. Also, I don't have to sit still. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/28/20 12:16 AM
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I woke up in severe frustration about itching itching ITCHING (insect bites, pine needles inside my clothes, itching notes with washing recommendations in the seams of clothes) and felt like I was ready to crawl out of my skin. Then I read someone else's practice log and saw that they might need to rest in the space around their negative experiences. Of course that applies to me as well. It rings a bell. emoticon It's probably time to work with chanting the warrior seed syllable A again, focusing on the crown chakra and the feeling of space. That is usually helpful for me. I feel better already, just remembering that there is space around and within the sensations.
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Not two, not one, modified 3 Years ago at 6/28/20 4:48 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Just thought I'd let you know that I am still here, and still reading (supportively).  Nothing to say, other than that.  emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/28/20 8:23 AM
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I appreciate that. Thankyou!

I'm a bit freaked out today. I'm not sure what scares me the most - the possibility that we are all just nuts, or the possibility that we aren't. And if it's the latter, I'm not sure whether it is because of what awakening is or because of what it is not. I'm not even sure if I am scared. It might just be a hormone thing and an ego that looks for a story behind it. That actually seems very likely. But that's kind of creepy too, not being able to distinguish... whatever from whatever... but I guess that's just how it is. Dependent origination. The intertwined-ness of everything, and the stories we weave to make it all seem coherent and linear. It's not like there is a separate me that is affected by the hormones. I'm an ecosystem, not a separate entity. 

I have been able to find empty space in spite of all the entanglement. Even where the knots seems tight, solid and dense, it's there. Sometimes when I find it, I get confused. I feel like I have forgotten something, and I'm not sure how I got there. 

My head has been popping today while resting and listening to some meditation music with a gong and some singing bowls and a rattle. I heard myself stop breathing for a while and then snore, which seems odd. If I knew that I wasn't breathing, why didn't I do something about it? Maybe I just recognized not breathing in retrospect. Maybe I was just aware but not aware of something. 

I feel less freaked out now that I have written this down. I can't help but seeing the humor in how crazy I sound, and as long as I can laugh at it, I'm probably not entirely screwed. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/29/20 7:11 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I appreciate that. Thankyou!

I'm a bit freaked out today. I'm not sure what scares me the most - the possibility that we are all just nuts, or the possibility that we aren't. And if it's the latter, I'm not sure whether it is because of what awakening is or because of what it is not. I'm not even sure if I am scared. It might just be a hormone thing and an ego that looks for a story behind it. That actually seems very likely. But that's kind of creepy too, not being able to distinguish... whatever from whatever... but I guess that's just how it is. Dependent origination. The intertwined-ness of everything, and the stories we weave to make it all seem coherent and linear. It's not like there is a separate me that is affected by the hormones. I'm an ecosystem, not a separate entity. 

I have been able to find empty space in spite of all the entanglement. Even where the knots seems tight, solid and dense, it's there. Sometimes when I find it, I get confused. I feel like I have forgotten something, and I'm not sure how I got there. 

My head has been popping today while resting and listening to some meditation music with a gong and some singing bowls and a rattle. I heard myself stop breathing for a while and then snore, which seems odd. If I knew that I wasn't breathing, why didn't I do something about it? Maybe I just recognized not breathing in retrospect. Maybe I was just aware but not aware of something. 

I feel less freaked out now that I have written this down. I can't help but seeing the humor in how crazy I sound, and as long as I can laugh at it, I'm probably not entirely screwed. 


Linda, 

I think entirely screwed is the best place. But laughing at it is even better, whatever degree of screwed we happen to believe ourselves to be at any given moment. Humor is the antithesis of crazy. You're good, sweetheart.
love, tim
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/29/20 9:26 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Aaw, thankyou Tim! <3

I have been faking normality fairly well today. After cleaning the apartment together with my housing support, I rearranged the furniture to make more room for both meditation and online meetings in my living room, and then I had an online meeting with an administrator at an institute that helps people who have become redundant after being employed by the state (they have surprisingly much to offer, and for a longer time than I expected, so maybe I'll actually find a job eventually). She will set me up with a job coach. Now I'm exhausted. That's enough normality for one day. 

---

I started the day with a short yoga stretch, nine breathings of purification, 20 minutes of Dzogchen, and dedication of merit. I would like to cultivate that as a habit, in addition to the meditation that I normally do either in the afternoon or the evening or both. Over time I would like to increase the time for morning meditation, but first I need to set the baseline. I also want to cultivate the habit of starting with an aspiration prayer and strengthen the habit of ending with dedication of merit (which I remember to do much more often than the aspiration prayer), and add some Bön tradition rituals such as offerings and chanting. I'm hoping that it might support me in getting started with the day and in searching for jobs and writing that book. I think that if I plan the rest of the day with short breaks for meditation too, it may be less overwhelming, maybe even fun (except for filling in forms; expecting that to be fun is just unrealistic). My practice will be the pillar that supports me through the day.

I have one other thing planned today: Vinyasa yoga. And then meditation, of course.  

It doesn't really matter that much that it is sometimes a bit scary to think of the implications of the awakening process. I still need the practice to get by. I can't live without it. 

Today there is that weird combination of contractions (with lots of tics) and spaciousness alternately or even simultaneously. That's much more bearable than yesterday's more contracted state - even though when I looked for it I noticed that the space was there even in the midst of the contractions, the feeling tone yesterday was contracted. The feeling tone today is more like rather spacious - definitely not on any top list, but there is an okayness and an openness - but with many contractions interspersed in it. I can hear the nada sound, and the energy channels are clear. Breathing is easy. I do my check-ins with tawa. My posture supports itself. I'm centered enough to feel some centerlessness. I'm mindful of body and mind, and I have some vague sense of not having to be restricted to the limitations of this body and this mind, but having awareness that encompasses more. For instance that what I see and hear "externally" is really a 3D-reality that is created by that same awareness that is aware of my body and mind. That is, what I can access of it (which partly overlaps with what other individuals can access, and thereby it's of course not an individual creation). When I write this, it comes out as a story, a view, and I use story components that I have come across in the dharma in order to put it together like a story. That's not how I experience it. As I said, it's more of a vague feeling. It actually doesn't feel like I'm processing all sensory expressions in my sense organs and in my brain. It feels like the awareness of the billowing wind in the tree's foliage is there, in the wind and in the tree, which is basically how I experienced the world as the autistic child I once was, before I was forced to unlearn it. How I have missed that! 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/30/20 5:03 PM
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The morning routine today (which was a bit too late to be called morning routine, to be honest) involved distractive thoughts, but I did walk that road in spite of the hard weather and difficult terrain. I believe in the routine. I'm really not a morning person, but that is one of several reasons for meditating in the morning too. During the day I did many brief check-ins with tawa (the Dharmakaya nature of mind). It's getting more reliable. During the night a had a brief period of lucid sleep, which woke me up. There was a huge space that opened up.
[edited to add: ]
Sort of a wow-feeling arose from what was only entailing a minimal amount of distinction before that. 

I also did an hour of reclining meditation during the day that was pretty unremarkable but not entirely bad. I was actually sort of hoping to fall asleep while doing it, because I needed the sleep. In a couple of hours, at 2:30 in the morning, my meditation class starts, and then I have a busy day coming up as I need to register at the unemployment service among other things. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 6/30/20 10:01 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I meditated some more before the class and was reminded that something new has started to show up lately, as it did again. My awareness of awareness is getting interspersed with sudden very clear visuals of a perfectly round black disc, like in fire kasina third jhana. If I'm not mixing things up in my memory, which is possible, I think this also happens during lucid sleep. 

At meditation class today I learned that having dream visions while meditating is supposedly a deep stage of meditation and qualifies as dream yoga. I used to believe that was dullness. Apparently I have been doing dream yoga much longer than I thought. I remember that Shargrol once tried to tell me that, but I dismissed it because since I had no control over what happened in the dream visions at all, I thought it was rather the opposite of lucid dreaming. 

In the class we got to do what is one of my very favorite things to do in daily life: playing with going back and forth between emptiness and form in different sense gates. That's basically how I make meetings bearable. I love to do it while walking - it has done miracles for my safety in traffic, as counterintuitive as that might sound - and especially in the nature. The latter is what charges my batteries. So - my homework is to do what I usually do. That shouldn't be to hard. 

I also got the advice to play with that black disc if it is available. Maybe I should take up fire kasina again to enhance that. I sort of had myself a little scare about magick recently, which is why I stopped. However, it doesn't seem like I screwed anything up that couldn't be fixed. Fixing it hurt quite a lot, but it would have done that without the magick too, and I never really understood the idea of refraining from experiences because they couldn't last anyway. I mean, nothing lasts. What am I going to do, just withdraw from reality and hope to die? Nah. I learned a lesson about hubris and getting energetically intertwined with somebody else, though. I'll be more careful in future, at least in that regard. What scared me the most was the prospect of harming somebody that I care about if the energetic connection would be too complicated to disentangle. If I read the situation correctly, thankfully I didn't make things worse. I was scared about my own health too, because things really got energetically weird for me. I'm sensitive that way. I'm grateful to Daniel for giving me the courage to perform a ritual to heal that, in the mildest possible way for the healing to actually occur (which was still too abrupt to really be mild). Anyway, my hubris was a bigger problem than the magick per se, and magick doesn't go away just because I avoid looking at it, so there really is no point in avoiding fire kasina. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/1/20 5:56 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The rhythm of the day is divergent today because of the meditation class during the night/early morning, and I had to register myself for unemployment service first thing, but at about lunch time I managed to do the morning routine with a brief yoga session and 20 minutes of Dzogchen. It felt good. I was mindful of distractive thoughts (mainly planning and keeping track of what I have to do) and got back to awareness. There were visuals, colorful hypnagogic swirls. Breathing was easy although I forgot to do the nine breathings of purification. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/2/20 12:42 PM
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I woke up late today, with brain fog and a headache. That's what dissolution used to be like for me most of the time earlier in my practice and before I started my practice, so I'm guessing it was dissolution today too and that I'm currently in a bad shape. Then I got to think about everything I need to do, and fear arose. I did the morning routine, although it was midday, with a very short yoga session, dedication, nine breathings of purification, aspiration prayer, 20 minutes of Dzogchen, and dedication. I felt disconnected but I sat through it. As I started preparing for the complicated stuff I need to do, fear increased and turned into panic, and then I felt completely worthless (misery). I took a break to watch some netflix but couldn't even understand what was happening in the episode. I comtinued to look into the stuff that I ned to do, such as looking for jobs, and felt more worthless. It took me a while to realize that I was following the typical dukkha nana sequence, but when I did, I felt some relief. It reminded me that the situation isn't inherently as bad as it feels (not self) and that the feeling will pass (impermanence). I went to a yoga class in the evening, 75 minutes of Hatha yoga. I had to work hard, and I reacted with a very mild nausea (disgust?). On my way home from class I got a bit mappy and thought about how to get through to EQ (desire for deliverance). I played with shifting back and forth between different degrees of form and emptiness in sensory experience. I was starting to feel a bit confused. The mantra that has been stuck as an earworm for more than a week now ("Om mani padme hum" with a complex melody) felt like a disturbance and I was annoyed and wanted it to just shut up (reobservation?). Part of me feels like a three-year-old who needs to sleep but doesn't want to, although it's more like the opposite: I would love to just sleep, but I have to do grown-up things. At least the nanas are progressing while I'm regressing. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/2/20 2:31 PM
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There have been snaps or clicks in my head today, rather fierce ones. 

After I came home from yoga, I lay down to meditate. I got into jhanic territory, or close to it, but my cats kept interrupting. After half an hour I gave up and decided to have something to eat.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 7/2/20 2:35 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I woke up late today, with brain fog and a headache. That's what dissolution used to be like for me most of the time earlier in my practice and before I started my practice, so I'm guessing it was dissolution today too and that I'm currently in a bad shape. Then I got to think about everything I need to do, and fear arose. I did the morning routine, although it was midday, with a very short yoga session, dedication, nine breathings of purification, aspiration prayer, 20 minutes of Dzogchen, and dedication. I felt disconnected but I sat through it. As I started preparing for the complicated stuff I need to do, fear increased and turned into panic, and then I felt completely worthless (misery). I took a break to watch some netflix but couldn't even understand what was happening in the episode. I comtinued to look into the stuff that I ned to do, such as looking for jobs, and felt more worthless. It took me a while to realize that I was following the typical dukkha nana sequence, but when I did, I felt some relief. It reminded me that the situation isn't inherently as bad as it feels (not self) and that the feeling will pass (impermanence). I went to a yoga class in the evening, 75 minutes of Hatha yoga. I had to work hard, and I reacted with a very mild nausea (disgust?). On my way home from class I got a bit mappy and thought about how to get through to EQ (desire for deliverance). I played with shifting back and forth between different degrees of form and emptiness in sensory experience. I was starting to feel a bit confused. The mantra that has been stuck as an earworm for more than a week now ("Om mani padme hum" with a complex melody) felt like a disturbance and I was annoyed and wanted it to just shut up (reobservation?). Part of me feels like a three-year-old who needs to sleep but doesn't want to, although it's more like the opposite: I would love to just sleep, but I have to do grown-up things. At least the nanas are progressing while I'm regressing. 

Note: patient's sense of humor intact.

Prognosis: real good.

love, tim
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/3/20 1:59 PM
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Thanks Tim, that's sweet.

---

I did the morning routine - in the morning this time -  but I changed to only 10 minutes of Dzogchen after the few minutes of yoga and aspiration prayer and breathings of purification. There was a shortage of time before my housing support was to arrive. In the evening I did Michael Taft's latest SFDC guided meditation, https://youtu.be/oiXuIkIQCRw, which would have been great if I wasn't totally stressed out by my unemployment situation. Doing all the stuff that needs to be done to search for a new job and get unemployment funding takes more time than working, because I don't know how to do it and I feel so utterly stupid. How the hell am I supposed to write a book while doing this?! It is really hard not to get caught up by all those thoughts. In spite of that, there was a nice smooth silky piti. I could enhance it and spread it, but was interrupted over and over again by those fearful thoughts. I missed some of the instructions because of the thoughts. In the end I was still able to do the emptiness part. I would like to do this meditation again with a better focus, because I think I'd love it. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 7/4/20 2:46 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Thanks Tim, that's sweet.

---

I did the morning routine - in the morning this time -  but I changed to only 10 minutes of Dzogchen after the few minutes of yoga and aspiration prayer and breathings of purification. There was a shortage of time before my housing support was to arrive. In the evening I did Michael Taft's latest SFDC guided meditation, https://youtu.be/oiXuIkIQCRw, which would have been great if I wasn't totally stressed out by my unemployment situation. Doing all the stuff that needs to be done to search for a new job and get unemployment funding takes more time than working, because I don't know how to do it and I feel so utterly stupid. How the hell am I supposed to write a book while doing this?! It is really hard not to get caught up by all those thoughts. In spite of that, there was a nice smooth silky piti. I could enhance it and spread it, but was interrupted over and over again by those fearful thoughts. I missed some of the instructions because of the thoughts. In the end I was still able to do the emptiness part. I would like to do this meditation again with a better focus, because I think I'd love it. 

hey Linda,

acceptance is the fruit of grief--- you are grieved over being overloaded with Mundane Necessities right now, and know those necessities are compelling and real. They take time and--- crucially--- energy. To push hard to keep up your "normal" (by which i mean, extraordinarily intense and time-devoted) practice as well is just not realistic. Grieve that, and accept it in the end as the way irt is. ESPECIALLY with the book, which requires just about everything you've got, as you well know. Let the book ripen, right now. Let yourself let that be. It's not going anywhere. I've written a shitload of books, and every one of them just sat there inertly like a pile of shit until i was done with them. They never got an inch away. They were there when i was able to address them again (usually after recovering from a nervous breakdown, but i digress . . .)

Not that your book is a pile of shit, dear, lol.

Baby steps: mundane baby steps right njow, one practical, real, true, solid, banal check-list task after another, are heroic karma yoga right now. And so, dhaarma yoga as well. Just do it. Put on your pink and blue Nikes and just fucking do it, one baby step at a time. And rest, when you've done the baby steps. Watch Netflix, take a good bath. Your fucking practice isn't going anywhere either. This is a flood, quit trying to hang out your laundry to dry just because of what day of the week it is. You know this. Karma yoga, karma yoga. Baby steps. Take them, and rejoice at each one taken. And let this pace now be your dharma pace.

love, tim
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/4/20 3:41 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Yeah, I know, but I'm not going to pretend that I like it. That would be dishonest and hence counterproductive. 

---

I just did that guided meditation again and was able to sink into it, after a whole day of taking care of myself, and I did love it. I popped out of it a moment before the bell, as the body felt like stretching after being still for so long. Actually, I really do need to be able to do this even when life is hectic. This is how I survive it. This is healing. I didn't keep my eyes open this time, because I needed rest more than experimenting.

This morning I skipped the morning routine because I had an early yoga class that covered it. It was a pretty tough class, for me anyway, but it felt good. When I relaxed on the mat before the class started, I experimented with the visual field as I usually do. The depth disappeared a few times. During the day the hearing has been funny. Sometimes it sort of seeped out from the ears. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 7/5/20 4:02 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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emoticon
Yeah, I know, but I'm not going to pretend that I like it. That would be dishonest and hence counterproductive. 
 
dear linda,
 
the first rule of improv comedy is called, in shorthand, “YES! And . . .” 

I don’t know the second rule. there may not be one. if there is, i haven’t needed it yet. (Probably it is “Keep your language suitable to your audience.” If so, fuck that.)
 
I recently went through two distinct waves of Robin Williams grief. (cf this on Wayne Brady’s own struggle with depression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MJo5EPBZaA )
 
And so I watched a lot of the master at work. YouTube is a sub-bardo of heaven, in that way, and i have a visitng scholar’s pass. And i found this treasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ar42_PDOs&list=PL5C4AD9BBC1B42490 (anything you can watch from this episode is gold)
 
Your own improv technique is similar, i note. It is “Yeah, I know. But . . .”
 
I don’t think that’s as funny.
 
love, tim
 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/8/20 5:02 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Tim Farrington:
Your own improv technique is similar, i note. It is “Yeah, I know. But . . .” 


I’ve got to admit that you spotted a pattern there. AND I’ll be mindful about it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/7/20 5:09 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I did something that could have been really stupid today, but I trusted that it wouldn't be stupid, and it wasn't. I went out late at night to meditate on a little rocky hill close to the woods, reclining on the rock in the rain. I was properly dressed, but the rain cooled down my body temperature anyway, and the meditation did too, because I was so still and so relaxed. I did zhine without an object and then shifted to the Dharmakaya nature of mind. I sometimes had my eyes open, sometimes had them closed. My body started trembling from the cold but I was so relaxed that I had no motivation to move it. I had sort of melted. Although I was aware of the temperature drop in my body, I didn't mind, because I wasn't the body anymore than I was the rock and the skye. If I had fallen asleep like that it might have been dangerous. I knew that. I had set the intention of identifying with my body again after an hour, because then I would have to take care of that body - move it, take it home, get something warm to drink. I kept monitoring the state of the body to some extent, because I know how fast a too low body temperature takes away all your judgement and I didn't have a death wish, but it was really cool to actually feel that I'm not my body. It really was just one of many things going on. 

When the bell rang I got back into my body. Thankfully I have learned the hard way how to get back into my body, because I used to dissociate. I know how to cut through that. All it takes is a very minimal amount of movement. One finger, or the toes. Whatever feels most available. Taking control over the whole body at once is just too much to grasp. That feels impossible. But a toe or a finger is usually doable. That's all it takes. It sends signals through the nervous system that moving with intention is possible. From there I can get back in the driver's seat very fast nowadays. And so I stood up, started to get my body temperature back up, and walked home. By then I was troubled by the cold. The delusion of being the body was back online. That's okay. I find that healthy. It means that the egoic judgement is still working, which is good for survival. 

I had an experience of centerlessness. It was still a separate mindstate, or so it seems (although I know in theory that it really isn't), so not the real deal yet. However, now I know that it is possible to feel that the body is just one of many things going on, not the center. That can't be unfelt. Yay!

I didn't do this as some macho thing. I did it because I needed to merge with the rock and the skye. It's a healing thing. 
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 7/8/20 7:06 AM
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I did it because I needed to merge with the rock and the skye. It's a healing thing. 

Nature - there's nothing else like it!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/8/20 5:31 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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It is what keeps me sane and healthy and motivated to stay alive. I once took part in a workshop where all participants were to work in pairs to describe what is restorative for them. I heard everyone around me describe all sorts of situations with people in them. All I could think of was nature experiences, alone. And cats.

---

This evening I did an hour of zhine without an object. It was rather effortless but not much to report. Earlier in the evening I did 75 minutes of Ashtanga yoga. Either the teacher took it unusually slow today or I'm back to being in better shape. Honestly, I think it's the first case, or maybe a bit of both. In daily life I have tried a technique for breathing out reactions. It worked rather well, once applied. I should have tried it sooner and spared myself some draining irritation. Oh, and my props came with the mail today. I'll try some smudging and some smoke offerings. There are chrystals too. For some reason, they make me shiver, and I kind of like that. Most of them are supposed to be for psychic protection. It just happened to be so. I chose the ones that felt right, before I read up on what they are supposed to do. Coincidence? I really don't know. Regardless, they are beautiful and provide tactile pleasure. That's very much an autistic thing. I can totally merge with a chrystal. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/8/20 5:00 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Morning (well, lunch actually, but I had a meditation class at 2:30-4:00 in the morning, so...): 
- earth element qigong out in the patio with bare feet
- nine breathings of purification 
- setting the intention for all negative influence to be washed away while letting only those remain that serve my highest good for the benefit of all sentient beings
- 15 minutes of Dzogchen

Now I feel grounded. This was a good one. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/9/20 5:32 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I seem to be in that wired up state of nana reobservation with subnana A&P. Body contracting and clenching, mind being all over the place, and yet there is clarity if I could just be still enough to let it. An unstable and easily distracted good mood that keeps contracting into worries and obsessions but without the heaviness. Lots of energetics. Lots of colors - strong, bright ones. Lots of detailed texture. Very obvious kinesthetics of contracting and expanding as I go back and forth between picking up thoughts and letting them go. 

At least I feel energetically more healthy. It really seems to be true that by maintaining the bodily posture of feeling well and secure, the energetics follow along. That makes me feel safe. 

I have fallen in love with Goloka gum dammar resin incense, and I have found a way to balance a coconut coal brick on top of a metal thingie over a candle with resin on it so that it burns without having to buy an incense burner. It's a very fresh smell, not heavy and sticky. Like a pleasant mix of pine tree and eucalyptus and lemon. It just so happens that the incense is said to clear negative energies and heal, balance and protect both the physical body and the energetic body. I don't know about that, but I love the smell. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/10/20 5:20 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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This has been an interesting day. I was at a restorative yoga workshop with reiki healing in it, with my favorite yoga teacher. She comes from a family of healers. On my way there I felt that all the different kinds of worry in my life right now had taken its toll. I had just had an experience of great relief as things happened that made it possible to let go of a big chunk of worries, for the time being anyway. I think my body felt that it was a good time to process some stuff that had been too much to deal with, because suddenly there were heatwaves and inflammatory pain all over the place. It felt like even the aura was inflamed, if that makes any sense, but it also felt like a good thing that ot came to the surface. What better timing could there be? I was on my way to a healing session after all. I approched it as a good thing, welcomed it, trusted that there would be purification. I allowed it to keep coming to the surface. I didn't hold anything back. That took my to a very good place. I could feel it seeping out from my body and moving about, disentangling, returning to where it was supposed to be, falling into place. There were lights of different colors popping up. I felt like I was floating. The process did its job. It knew exactly how to shift things on the energetic level. There were some kriyas of varying intensity, and the relief from what they set free was tangible. The energy channels and blockages were being cleared. Pain dissolved. Inflammatory heat seeped out from the body. Sometimes the outbreath was reeking of toxins. It smelled bad and reminded me of thick yellowish smoke. Not that it looked like that, and I don't think anybody around me could smell it, but I could. At the end of the session I felt lots of electric tingles around the left side of my scalp. They lasted for a while even after the session as I was walking home. 

The teacher said to me that she could see that my energy field was spacious and flexible and floating around and reaching out far from my physical body, that it was so clear how the energy channels were wide open all the way, and that she could see the energy field shifting around, moving things, repairing itself. The latter confirmed what I had been feeling kinesthetically. I was happy to finally have someone be explicit about what they mean when they comment on my energy field. Several people in totally different contexts have in various ways commented on energies around me and my moving of energies, but most of them haven't been very detailed. I'm starting to trust it now. I think I must trust it, because when I don't, the fears manifest too. I'd rather have trust manifesting. 

After the class I was in a video chat where I noticed my energies floating around outside my body, and I found that I could intentionally move them. I could let them float out, which they wanted, and I could summon them back into my body. The part of summoning them back into my body is new to me. I think that may be a good thing to learn, because the body needs the energies. They need to come back inside and get centered regularly. Centerlessness and centeredness need each other. Being onesided isn't healthy. I think this might be a breakthrough. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 2:03 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I have been a Reiki practitioner for close to two years between 2008-09. Even got attunements for Reiki 1 and Reiki 2 levels. If you feel Reiki being of help maybe you could ask that healer person to teach you how to do Hands On Self-Reiki. It certainly did help me back then. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 2:14 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Oh, how cool! I asked where I could learn and she said everybody can do it, which wasn't exactly the hands-on advice I was looking for, lol. If an opportunity arises, I'll try to rephrase it. I have done some hands on healing on myself, improvised, and it did work, and I have been told that I have done it with others when I didn't even try (it was a touching workshop, for the sake of touching, not healing). I think I mainly need to stay out of the way for it to happen by its own mercy. I would love to learn the real deal, though. I just can't afford to pay for it. 

Hey, if you are up to it, you are very welcome to teach me.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 2:37 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Oh I'm also money-less and always seek those who do it for free or for some small amount. I learned it via a Reiki forum but am struggling to remember its name ... I guess google and see what Universe throws at you emoticon 

Yes, indeed, reiki hands on is not about "you" healing but just letting reiki flow from the palms and just be with that (I find it to be Always pleasant) sensation between palms and body part being touched. 

The whole hands on technique takes about 20-30 minutes but time here is a non-issue. One doesn't use timers for this emoticon One stays naturally on some body parts and shorter on others. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 2:44 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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"Hey, if you are up to it, you are very welcome to teach me."

I haven't done it since 2009 emoticon but I'm sure I could try and find the illustrated hand on positions that I used ... (will need to do some searching). 

I have really disconnected with it from the moment I discovered Shamatha back in 2010 emoticon maybe it's time for me to reconnect to it as I'm feeling lots of sadness and feeling of loss off sorts, as of late. Usually off cushion. 

Self Reiki can be a very powerful Metta excercise. 

p.s. as I write this I sense strong pulsating and vibrations in my palms and arms. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 2:58 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I found the exact excercise I followed; 

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 4:44 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Papa Che Dusko:
"Hey, if you are up to it, you are very welcome to teach me."

I haven't done it since 2009 emoticon but I'm sure I could try and find the illustrated hand on positions that I used ... (will need to do some searching). 

I have really disconnected with it from the moment I discovered Shamatha back in 2010 emoticon maybe it's time for me to reconnect to it as I'm feeling lots of sadness and feeling of loss off sorts, as of late. Usually off cushion. 

Self Reiki can be a very powerful Metta excercise. 

p.s. as I write this I sense strong pulsating and vibrations in my palms and arms. 

Sounds like a reminder from the universe.

thankyou so much! I appreciate it. And you know what? I already do that, because it just feels right.

I talked some more to my yoga teacher today after class (she wasn't leading it today but participated). I told her that after I talked to her yesterday I had learned that I can summon my energies back into my body. She confirmed that's what I need to do. I seem to have done things backwards as usual. I need to learn to have my energies centered. I don't need to learn to send them out, as they do that on their own. I need to let them inhabit my body and heal it before I can heal others. She saw that I had already started that process. Things were different from yesterday. My body is repairing itself. 

I'm amazed by how warm my body gets when I summon my energies back, especially my hands. If I do that and then put my hands on a sore part of my body, I can feel that it heals. And when I have my energies centered, there is something there to send out. It can be directed. There's lots of it! I'm strong!

She also adviced me to set the intention of not letting anything stick to my aura, because if it's all out there it can otherwise easily get lots of stuff attached to it. I can choose not to let that happen. 

Apparently I don't have a strong shell. My aura is porous and open. And big and flexible. 

She gave me the task of centering my energy for a couple of weeks. That's probably very good advice, so I'm listening. That's what I have been needing to do the whole time. Instead I have been focusing on expanding. No wonder I have been drained. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 4:57 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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One important take away from all this is that I already know how to heal. That power has been there all along. It isn't mine, but it is available. I just need to open to it. There's an abundance. Abundance doesn't mean that I can give all my energy away, though. I've got to let it do the maintenace work. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 10:16 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

And you know what? I already do that, because it just feels right.


Okay, that was highly exaggerated. I sometimes do something similar, but not as systematic and thorough, and not often either. I just happened to do something today spontaneously that reminded of it, and I got cocky. Sorry!

I’ve got to do something about that pride, damn it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 11:05 AM
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A weird thing: when the touchpad of my ipad doesn't recognize my fingers as fingers, now I can fix that. I summon back my energies, feel the energy in my hands, and suddenly it works. As simple as that. 
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Not two, not one, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 3:12 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
A weird thing: when the touchpad of my ipad doesn't recognize my fingers as fingers, now I can fix that. I summon back my energies, feel the energy in my hands, and suddenly it works. As simple as that. 

Cool!  Sometimes I think this forum really needs a 'like' button"  emoticon
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Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 3:21 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Not two, not one:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
A weird thing: when the touchpad of my ipad doesn't recognize my fingers as fingers, now I can fix that. I summon back my energies, feel the energy in my hands, and suddenly it works. As simple as that. 

Cool!  Sometimes I think this forum really needs a 'like' button"  emoticon


A Like button, and a Thanks button emoticon

This was really interesting Linda. While working with fingerprint scanners of smartphones, I always notice that sometimes they read the finger easily, but other times they have difficulty. I now see that I should pay attention to this energy factor too when working with them. Maybe related to the vibrations level or temperature? Who knows!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/11/20 11:55 PM
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I ruled out the temperature. That didn't help. I think it must be electromagnetic signals. 

I have always had some weird stuff going on with my electromagnetic field. Back in school, you know at the Flintstone's age, I crashed two computers just by sitting down in front of them. One of them was never restored. It was the kind of computer that was connected to a central one that was in a huge cupboard that you weren't even allowed to go near. i seem to have been too much for that shit. I used to drain batteries freekishly fast and make all kinds of electronic equipment go heywire, but I suppose they found ways to make it more sturdy, and maybe my field also settled down a bit, I don't know, lol. It was at it worst when I was in my teens. My Latin teacher asked me to move away from the copy machine because it just wouldn't work when I was around. It could of course be mere coincidences, but if so, there were lots of them. People asked me not to go near things. 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 7/18/20 2:51 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Sometimes the outbreath was reeking of toxins. It smelled bad and reminded me of thick yellowish smoke. Not that it looked like that, and I don't think anybody around me could smell it, but I could.
When you get sensitive to "stuff" you can feel/smell all sorts of energies around people and in the air generally.

For many years now I specifically just avoided these energies and only practiced any energy manipulation on myself. Recently however I decided I was ready and started to do work with what is around.

Generally three things I tried:
- taking energy as is and somehow dealing with inside - bad idea. while it can work it is not very pleasant when energy you take is specifically something that should not exist and it goes in to cells and surround them. once taken to the body, and especially when silly idea of actually assigning energy to neurons is made then it is exidingly hard to get rid of,
- compressing energy in to a kind of black hole and then taking it in - more useful, energy just adds to energy field. it does not show itself much. still there is weight to it and it does radiates itself outwards, though in a kind of "processed" way so much better overall
- creating portal to nibbana and moving energy there - pretty good solution, nibbana can take anything in any amount and provide instant clensing
- compressing energy in to black hole and then moving it to nibbana - so far the most skillful solution I have and one which I will use the most, at least to bad outside energies. nice energies I can at least taste before sending out ;)

To increase sensitivity / power level tin order to be able to deal with a lot of stuff at once more of physical body need to be active at once. Not in energy space but actually physical neurons need to wake up and start being active. Increasing energy in energy space is quite pointless and not very buddhist thing to do imho, no matter what kind of energy it is. Buddha does not care for what energy it is, everything is gonna end the same fate, all beings from all six realms.

Other thing which can increase throughput other than multiplying how many neurons participate in action is feeding them proper diet to give tem something to work with. I do not mean drugs (which pretty much only change activation and do that in not very skillful ways) so much as what changes their composition eg. Amrita. Because however only buddhas can safely consume it I will abstain from explaining what this is supposed to exactly be. I believe that anyone really interrested can figure it out by themselves =)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/18/20 4:35 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Ni Nurta:

When you get sensitive to "stuff" you can feel/smell all sorts of energies around people and in the air generally.

Yeah, I have noticed... and yet this is only the beginning. I suspect that there’s much more to discover as it deepens.

I have been able to smell feelings for a long time, but for most people only in close proximity. I think I smelled cancer in a close friend. I just didn't know what it was until he got the diagnosis. Thankfully it wasn't too late. It smelled strange - rank and pungent. I get vibes from people, with some people even through text. Sometimes I have a sense of something hovering over/around people. I sometimes get a flash of what someone is thinking of; it's like I'm synching up with them. I have had many clairvoyant dreams. I can feel energies moving. I can feel energies from places. Lately I seem to pick up on suppressed feelings in a very embodied way.


For many years now I specifically just avoided these energies and only practiced any energy manipulation on myself. Recently however I decided I was ready and started to do work with what is around.

Generally three things I tried:
- taking energy as is and somehow dealing with inside - bad idea. while it can work it is not very pleasant when energy you take is specifically something that should not exist and it goes in to cells and surround them. once taken to the body, and especially when silly idea of actually assigning energy to neurons is made then it is exidingly hard to get rid of,
- compressing energy in to a kind of black hole and then taking it in - more useful, energy just adds to energy field. it does not show itself much. still there is weight to it and it does radiates itself outwards, though in a kind of "processed" way so much better overall
- creating portal to nibbana and moving energy there - pretty good solution, nibbana can take anything in any amount and provide instant clensing
- compressing energy in to black hole and then moving it to nibbana - so far the most skillful solution I have and one which I will use the most, at least to bad outside energies. nice energies I can at least taste before sending out ;)

To increase sensitivity / power level tin order to be able to deal with a lot of stuff at once more of physical body need to be active at once. Not in energy space but actually physical neurons need to wake up and start being active. Increasing energy in energy space is quite pointless and not very buddhist thing to do imho, no matter what kind of energy it is. Buddha does not care for what energy it is, everything is gonna end the same fate, all beings from all six realms.

Other thing which can increase throughput other than multiplying how many neurons participate in action is feeding them proper diet to give tem something to work with. I do not mean drugs (which pretty much only change activation and do that in not very skillful ways) so much as what changes their composition eg. Amrita. Because however only buddhas can safely consume it I will abstain from explaining what this is supposed to exactly be. I believe that anyone really interrested can figure it out by themselves =)

Have you invented your own techniques? I appreciate your sharing. I’ll keep the nirvana part in mind and avoid intentionally taking energies into my body. I'm not ready to experiment like that, though. Also, my teacher Michael Taft adviced our class to avoid any intentional manipulation of energies, as it isn't pretty when it goes wrong. I find it difficult to understand exactly what he means, where to draw the line, because it's so obvious that everything we do is a manipulation of energy. I'm pretty confident that what you describe would fall into the category of what he finds risky business, though. Still, i find it very interesting. 
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 7/18/20 5:23 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Hi Linda emoticon

I'm also getting more sensitive to these kinds of things. For now it's still in the realm of something I notice and don't necessarily follow immediately, but it feels like that's the next development, in a way, and that it's a pretty major area for existence................ So interesting to see this happening to others too.......

Thanks for sharing.

Metta.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/19/20 2:39 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Thankyou for sharing! I was afraid that I started sounding like som new age witch wannabe. But this kind of development really comes with the territory, doesn't it? At least it seems that it does for some. For me it's still very underdeveloped and may very well always be, but it's still something I need to learn how to deal with. 

Oh, and metta, of course!
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 7/20/20 5:58 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

Yeah, I have noticed... and yet this is only the beginning. I suspect that there’s much more to discover as it deepens.

I have been able to smell feelings for a long time, but for most people only in close proximity. I think I smelled cancer in a close friend. I just didn't know what it was until he got the diagnosis. Thankfully it wasn't too late. It smelled strange - rank and pungent. I get vibes from people, with some people even through text. Sometimes I have a sense of something hovering over/around people. I sometimes get a flash of what someone is thinking of; it's like I'm synching up with them. I have had many clairvoyant dreams. I can feel energies moving. I can feel energies from places. Lately I seem to pick up on suppressed feelings in a very embodied way.
I do not know how cancers smells like but I do feel some kinds of sicknesses that people have. At work for example all the people who I noticed had bad aura were later confirmed to have some sort of ilnesses. What was interresting was that intensity was so high for me that I could literally not stand to be around these people and yet others seemed to not notice it at all.

Now I would try to do the things I described to help them. Then however I avoided any energy manipulation as I was not quite sure how to do it. These things are not to be played with when not sure what needs to be done, especially when energy is not very nice.

Have you invented your own techniques? I appreciate your sharing. I’ll keep the nirvana part in mind and avoid intentionally taking energies into my body. I'm not ready to experiment like that, though. Also, my teacher Michael Taft adviced our class to avoid any intentional manipulation of energies, as it isn't pretty when it goes wrong. I find it difficult to understand exactly what he means, where to draw the line, because it's so obvious that everything we do is a manipulation of energy. I'm pretty confident that what you describe would fall into the category of what he finds risky business, though. Still, i find it very interesting.
Pretty much yes, I practice touch visualization since almost twenty years but other than basics which I got from Robert Bruce - New Energy Ways I left myself without any teachers because I like inventing more than learning from others. Not very time efficient way learn things but this is just a hobby of mine and doing this way gives me better knowledge about its inner workings.

I agree with your teacher, energy manipulation is dangerous including everything I wrote emoticon
Even freeing energies to Nibbana is dangerous if done intentionally to external energies as it tend to create a kind of energy vacuum which then draws these energies by a kind energy wind. I do however feel that if skill are there and when it is being done carefully then one can and even should try to improve reality.

Thing to note is that even when power level is there it is better to not go overboard and try to do large scale energy manipulations without testing them first on smaller scales. Otherwise one solution might lead to next issue. Some energies balance each-other out and removing one demon might lead to another bigger demon waking up. Not that waking up demons is wrong when you can deal with them but then again you never know if you can until you face them directly. Avoiding large scale manipulations and not disturbing demons is not how I
always do things though... but I am pretty stupid and listen to no one, not even myself. That is why I know "stuff"... emoticon

In any case actually maybe it is best to do this Nibbana visualization in remote "well ventilated" place and just let all energies naturally fall in to it instead of focusing on specific energies and moving them around by yourself...
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/20/20 6:38 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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That's the kind of sensitivity that seems to be developing for me, although so far I seem to be very selectively tuned in. What the heck am I supposed to do with this? I definitely do not know how to work with it. I appreciate your input. It scares me, but I'd rather know about it than not. At least I need to know what not to do. I don't want to mess things up. 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 7/22/20 3:03 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
That's the kind of sensitivity that seems to be developing for me, although so far I seem to be very selectively tuned in. What the heck am I supposed to do with this? I definitely do not know how to work with it. I appreciate your input. It scares me, but I'd rather know about it than not. At least I need to know what not to do. I don't want to mess things up. 
I would rather say that any practices should be safe as long as you keep then local to your body and your house. Just having intention that any energy work you do will not affect space beyond set boundaries should be enough to keep things local.

Intentions which you have are the most important aspect of any such practices, be it visualization, moving energies, doing magick, etc. but also general existence in this world. Check Daniel's texts and podcasts as he talks a lot about importance of intentions. It is usually in relation to his magick practices but it is generally applicable to everything.

It is also worth reviewing own thoughts thoroughly for any intentions which are there and which are not clear to us. Blocking yourself from being able to do things to not be able to do anything you will regret is also an intention and one hard to shave off. Gradually however you can work yourself up to trust yourself enough to allow yourself to be able to do more.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/23/20 10:34 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Ni Nurta:

It is also worth reviewing own thoughts thoroughly for any intentions which are there and which are not clear to us. Blocking yourself from being able to do things to not be able to do anything you will regret is also an intention and one hard to shave off. Gradually however you can work yourself up to trust yourself enough to allow yourself to be able to do more.

That's something I need to ponder with regard to my entire daily life. 

Thanks for all input! I'm listening and trying to integrate.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/12/20 12:12 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I had some visuals during my meditation yesterday. After the grainy flat still spiral thread pattern in gray shades, there was text. The image was sharp but the text was still unreadable. Parts of the letters were missing, but that was not what made it unreadable. That was just how I rationalized it. It was unreadable because of some censor function. It was subconscious stuff in print. 

Then during the night, the same thing showed up in a dream. This time it was even more text, in a language I couldn't understand, and the words just couldn't stick in my memory either. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/13/20 9:53 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I want to write this down before I forget it, for monitoring purposes. It seems like I'm getting back some kinds of perceptiveness that I thought I had lost due to ageing or with some of my burnouts. I used to brag about how I could sense even the smallest little tic crawling on my body (I would brag about this to my mum because she just can't stop worrying about the diseases those little guys spread), and it was true. I could easily feel it even when the tic was so small that I could barely see it with my eyes when looking for it. The feet and the crawling style on those guys are so unique, somehow. They feel completely different from any other little bug. I couldn't understand how anybody would ever miss that, as it tickled freekishly intensely. Then somewhere down the line I lost that ability, and I even had a couple of tics sticking to my body before I could sense them. That was about the same time as I stopped feeling x-ray. Now I can sense those microscopic little tics again. I wonder if I can feel x-ray again too. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/13/20 5:21 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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1 h of reclining meditation, just letting it unfold on its own. In the beginning, I had the "Om mani padme hum" mantra stuck in my head with a melody, so I took that as my concentration object. It built up piti in my body and made the visual field pleasant and the nada sound louder. I could see the murk sort of hinting at possible imagery hidden in the dark. It felt playful.There was a point where the mantra was let go of. Instead there was a pull, something in front of me that caught my attention. It reminds me of the "handle" that I have seen Chris Marti and Not two, not one discuss, something to grab in order to get into first jhana. I grabbed it, that is, I let go of the mantra and picked up sort of a visual shimmer in front of me. It took me on a trip. I was drawn into something with rapid movement, sort of like how going through a portal can be visually represented in TV series. There were some kriyas happening, with tensions that were let go of with a sense of relief. I could sense the ride getting smoother. A very persistent cat kept calling for my attention and jumping on me, so eventually I lost focus. The mantra was back. My body wanted to stretch out. 

---

Today I have tried some NLP exercises for cleaning my own shit, so to speak. I have been working very tentatively with anxiety related to procrastination, using holographic representations. First I was very unsecure about how to apply the techniques. I had difficulties imagining the stiff that I was supposed to imagine, and I didn't notice anything happen. I did get started with some stuff that I need to do, though, after that. It didn't involve the usual anxiety. It just sort of happened. 

In thinking about it, a scene then pop up from my childhood that I haven't thought of as contributing to those issues. It makes sense that it might. I used a technique on that imagery, letting the image be put inside a bog black frame. That took quite a while, because it wasn't a limited image. It didn't have edges. It was all around me, like I was in the middle of the scene. I improvised and just decided that the frame would have a size that made it possible for me to reach out and touch all of it. Then I pulled and pushed to move the image inside the frame. It wouldn't adapt in size. Then I decided that it could be like a window, allowing for the image to expand on the other side of the frame. That was doable. As a biproduct, it made me step out of the scene. I now had the frame between me and the scene. I then reached out and found the button regulating the brightness of the screen. I turned it all the way to the right to make it all white. That didn't change the feeling much. Then I turned it all the way to the left, making it black.That made a difference, to my surprise.

I then used my right index finger and wrote on the screen all the lessons from the situation, without knowing what I was writing. I wrote until it felt like it had all been properly documented.  Then I grabbed the frame and diminishing the image until it was small as a stamp. I let it float over my head and back far behind me, then nailed it up for storage there. I made a sound effect to get the feeling that it was really nailed up.

As there was still some remaining imagery, I associated it woth a color. It turned out that it was like TV statics rather than a color. I noticed what direction the dots were moving: clockwise. I made them spin anti-clockwise instead, and faster and faster. They shifted character. Then I took the image and put it back inside me. I didn't expect anything to happen from that, but something shifted. Something loosened up. The visual field changed. The image was gone, and instead there was a pleasant shimmer there. It felt like new possibilities could open up from there. Soon after that I lay down to do the meditation described above. I felt less hindered than I have for a while. 

---

This is the first time I have had full dosage of my allergy vaccination shots in the midst of allergy season without feeling a bit knocked out afterwards. No brain fog whatsoever. No tiredness. This time I opened up to receiving energies before and after the shots. It made me feel strong and alive and centered. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/14/20 2:39 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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For the purpose of keeping track, I'll paste here what I have written on the slack channel for my meditation classes. Some of it is repetition from stuff that I have already written here, but I'm keeping it for context.

Here goes:

An issue has come up in my practice lately that I don’t know exactly how to express. It seems like I have focused too much on spaciousness and expansiveness without balancing it with grounding. I really enjoy sort of thinning out and hovering around a larger spatial territory than this physical body, but it seems to be draining. It’s as if my body feels abandoned, if that makes any sense, and it doesn’t get enough energy for maintainance work. At the same time, all sorts of weird energies get attached to ”my” energies. That’s a very dualistic phrasing and it doesn’t do justice to what I mean, but it’s the closest I can think of right now. I don’t believe that there are any energies that are essentially mine, but what happens is that the energetic signature changes into something more chaotic, and that’s challenging to deal with. My favorite yoga teacher also does reiki healing and she says that she can see that my aura is very expansive and also very porous and therefore open to influences in a way that has lots of potential but also needs a break once in a while. Lately it has been going through lots of changes, she says, and is shifting around and rearranging itself and changing the infrastructure and repairing itself. The way she described it was very close to what I have been feeling kinesthetically.

I have chosen to deal with this by way of learning to ”summon” energies back to my body. I don’t really have to do anything for the floating out into spaciousness to occur. It happens on its own. I do seem to need to ”do” something for energies to take care of this body and deal with the chaos that arises from influences that are sticky. I suppose that it really isn’t so much of doing as it is opening up to something that would naturally occur if I wasn’t somehow messing with it, but still, there is something to learn there, or something to unlearn, and I’m starting to do that. It’s like a paradigm shift for me. I can feel that it makes a tangible difference for my health, to the better. It makes my body more resilient and takes away the feeling of having all my energies being sucked out.

Basically what I’m doing is that I allow the energies to float out as they wish, but I regularly welcome they back to inhibit my body. Sometimes I use breathing as the rhythm for this, sometimes I allow longer trips, so to speak, but I let the energies come back to check in with my body and embody it. I guess this could be seen as an elemental practice, connecting to the earth element in my body. Sometimes I also use the Medicine Buddha mantra to accentuate the healing aspect.

I’m also learning some ways to clean out and deal with ”my own shit”, adressing it on all levels with neurolinguistic programming as taught by Dr David Snyder who also practices several kinds of energetic medicine. I’m not into the success story that many NLP practicioners seems to buy into, nor do I want the power, but I appreciate some hands-on techniques for dealing with the growing up part of the path, especially the ones that are mainly kinesthetical.

Altogether, I think I’m starting to find a balance that I have been lacking. Some recent events have accentuated the need for it, and I choose to welcome the lesson. I hope this isn’t in any way contradictory to the classes. I’m thinking that it isn’t, because spacious awareness isn’t really about some mind state but something that is there all the time, even when we are centered in our bodies. I remember Michael telling me not to favor feeling ”unsolid”, as I referred to it, over the opposite when we did our one-on-one coaching. I guess I’m finally getting the message.



The perfect black disc nimitta hasn’t appeared again since I mentioned it. It seems to have become shy. Instead I have had some text showing up in super sharp and yet unreadable images (due to some weird censor mechanism that comes into play because the content is subconscious) lately. I have also been drawn through something wormhole-ish with nice visual effects.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/15/20 7:50 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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At the meditation class this night/morning we practiced shifting between emptiness and form in different modalities: visual field, auditory field, thoughts, and sense of self. From that I made three observations:
1) Emptyness is much more restful than form. It takes effort to go into form.
2) Form really feels empty too, just as emptyness feels very rich and nuanced. Even though there is a difference in the mindstates, that difference is shallow. 
3) Somehow this has become so easy. How did that happen? It differed a bit between modalities. Thoughts were most difficult, but it's also the one I learned to recognize first, historically. That's that non-feeling that is so elusive and yet so familiar. 

---

I'm listening to lots of teachings on clearing out one's energy field by way of dealing with suppressed emotions from early childhood. Some refer to it as the lower chakras. Others use other models, such as the elements. Many (all?) seem to agree about the necessity of grounding, and as that is basically very healthy stuff, I'm thinking that it can't hurt. I have noticed that it isn't impossible for me to do visualizations nowadays, so I'm open to trying a huge variety of grounding exercises. While listening to one teaching, where they talked about how memories from past lives could pop up while working with the lower chakras, I suddenly remembered a room that I insisted on remembering as a kid and teenager whereas my parents had no idea what I was talking about. I just assumed that either my parents had forgotten it or it was a figment of my imagination. Now it dawned on me that it could actually be a memory from a past life. If so, I have had a past life memory all along. I just didn't have that framework for it at the time, and then I forgot about it. The memory is still there, though. I haven't forgotten it in that sense. I just haven't been thinking about it actively. It's a white room and I know that I was living there. Quiet, still, secluded. Simple and sparse furniture, yet not boring or necessarily low-budget. Nothing more than what is needed. Very clean. Very bright white linen. Outside the windows it is lush and green. As a kid I thought it might be a mental hospital, but it is much too peaceful. It felt like it was some kind of asylum. I could feel that very clearly. It was a place to retreat from the world. I think it might be a monestary. I have never been to one in this life. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/15/20 12:12 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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After a great class of Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, with better precision than before, I felt a strong jhanic pull. Unfortunately I had to leave the premises. Now I'm connecting to the water element in a park on my way home. It's cold today so I'm the only one wading around in the water. Michael adviced me to go for the positive, whatever makes me feel alive and healthy, rather than coming up with a story about the causes of my energetic drain. That's good advice. I can do that. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/15/20 1:59 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Some notes as a reminder to my(not)self, even though they hardly involve any shocking revelations... what distinguishes a great yoga class from one that feels less great is that I manage to stay in the present. Rather than thinking "oh no, after this round I have to do the same series another three times", I just do the practice, one asana at a time, with as much precision and care and compassion for my body as I can muster. Totally different experience. I also find the stillness in each position. I keep activating all muscles that are supposed to be activated, which is usually a lot of them, but there is always rest available somewhere, such as in the face and in the breath. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/16/20 6:42 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Lots of disentangling going on in a deeply restful and yet bright state. Occassional kriyas with tensions dissolving into light. The murk is alive. 

I did Hatha yoga today. It went well despite sore muscles. Then I listened to singing bowls with headphones. It was trippy. My jaw drew itself back into relaxation again. There were visuals, the grainy kind. After that I did reclining meditation without sound, just letting the journey continue. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/18/20 2:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The drain that I have been feeling is gone, and it wasn't mine to begin with, the part that I have been expressing fear of. The part that seemed to happen because of an energetic cord. It turned out that the drain was at the other end of the cord, but suppressed. I'm so relieved. Energy wasn't actually being sucked somehow. I just picked up on something that needed to be picked up on. I can live with that. No need for fear. 

On my way to yoga class, feeling very much alive. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/18/20 4:56 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I did metta today, which felt great, and a challenging yoga class (challenging for me, that is). I have a weird combination of calm ease and intense tics, both verbal and motor ones. I can sense that the tics are empty. This mammal body is neurologically conditioned to tic, and is in a phase where those tendencies are heightened, but I don't need to engage with the tics. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/19/20 5:21 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Today I have done 75 minutes of traditional yoga, 30-40 minutes of fire kasina, about the same amount of time of reclining meditation following that, and then some untangling while listening to singing bowls. My tics have been bad. I found myself complaining about my difficulties with fire kasina. The advice I got made me embarrassed, as they addressed problems that I have never had. I'm being such a baby about it. I get effects from my small dosage that others invest much more time and effort to get, and I still get so impatient. It seems like the fire element brings out all my worst qualities. I should probably work with that. I'm not blaming the fire; it just makes my character flaws extremely visible. That's part of my conditioning. Back when I did earth kasina, it was a completely different thing. That was stabilizing. I was surprisingly content and harmonious without any fancy effects whatsoever. With fire kasina I get pissed off because it doesn't get mindblowingly psychedelic within half an hour. That's just ridiculous. What's that even about? Some suppressed immature persona that hasn't had a chance to grow up? Probably. I guess I will have to let it out to give it a chance to find more constructive coping mechanisms. I have noticed a tendency lately for character flaws to leak out that I was hoping that I had worked through. Apparently I haven't. That shit never ends, does it? 

Heh, the problem with my touchpad failing to recognize my fingers as fingers just came back, but summoning energy to my hands worked. Weird thing. My teacher strongly advices against moving energies in any way, so I probably shouldn't do it, but letting my hands be without energy can't be good either, can it? I mean, we are really supposed to have enough energy in our hands for touchpads to work, right? I have no idea why it leaves my hands in the first place. I have tried everything to get my touchpad to work, with no effect, until I started to just summon energy to my hands. There is nothing wrong with my touchpad. It works for others. Temperature and moisture are not the issue. Being present in my hands works instantly. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/19/20 5:40 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I have noticed that a word game I play on my ipad triggers lots of tics and tensions. One obvious way to deal with that would of course be to just stop playing it, but I'm experimenting with just noticing the urges to tic and tense up and just refrain from acting on the impulses. Maybe I'm just fooling myself because I'm addicted to the game, but if so, I'll probably notice that soon enough. I think there might be some important insight here, so instead of avoiding the trigger, I'll be mindful of my reactive patterns.
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Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 7/19/20 5:54 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Maybe the power that words have on the energy. I notice power of words more recently. Just repeating some word a couple times, changes the body and posture, and mind-state.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/19/20 6:10 PM
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That's interesting. Yeah, why not? Text and lines from films/TV series always triggered my tics, because the impulse to pronounce all of the words is so strong. Some letters/sounds trigger more than the others because they involve more explosive kinesthetics, so to speak. German is awful in that sense, although I really like the language. But it is probably not a coincidence that words trigger those impulses so much. As you say, words have power. We invest so much in them. Probably lots and lots of selfing involved. 
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Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 7/19/20 6:19 PM
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Someone had shared a quote from Bruce Lee (I am not sure it's from him, but it could be. He used to talk like that), that said: "Words are energy and cast spells, that's why it's called spelling". It got me thinking. It's like each word is a shortcut to a whole series of ideas, memories, worldviews, selfviews and a lot more, and by using each word, we let that package to explode into our body-mind.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/19/20 7:13 PM
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That feels very true. Thanks!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/20/20 5:04 AM
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I’m pondering the difference between energies and presence, and if making sense of stuff in terms of presence makes a difference with regard to risks.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/20/20 6:38 PM
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Doing metta with stubborn hungry ghost midges in the room during reobservation is a humbling experience. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 7/21/20 6:58 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Doing metta with stubborn hungry ghost midges in the room during reobservation is a humbling experience. 

compared to demons and hungry ghosts, which are relatively easy, midges are impossible. I would recommend nuclear bug spray, but i know it would kill you first, lol. prayer is no help here, except for patience and surrender.

love, tim
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/22/20 8:59 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Thankyou Tim for that humorous reply, and love right back at ya! Patience and surrender would probably be the most Buddhist way to approach it, but sometimes I just suck at it. I'm embarrassed to say that I killed that midge. I did say "may you awaken in your next life - sorry!" but I doubt that made much of a difference. 

---

Yesterday I felt my energies suddenly weakening again from being exposed to pain indirectly. It's such a weird thing, and hard to explain, and it seems pretty useless as it doesn't help me to help anyone but rather the opposite. I need to find a way to deal with this. It feels like people's terror, pain, guilt, shame hover around in the air, like an invisible gas that is alive. Like a weakening spell in WoW, sort of. Anyway, directly after being "exposed', I lay down to let things just disentangle on their own, and that's basically all I did for the rest of the day. There were lots of disentangling happening. Maybe being "exposed" was rather a triggering of something that was latent and in need of processing anyway. I really don't know. I just know that I had to stay out of the way and let it happen. There were lots of stuff that I had planned to do yesterday because I'm running late with the job search and everything, but I was incapacitated by the process, hopefully for my highest good and the benefit of all sentient beings. 

Today I tried free online reiki healing from a grande master, because reiki seems to help with the process of disentangling. It made me see photo quality moving pictures of myself and some process going on, on a video screen. Weird. I was just watching the murk, and suddenly there it was. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/22/20 8:59 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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By the way, I had misinterpreted my teacher's warnings. He doesn't say that energy work of all kinds must be avoided, just that it is very powerful stuff that needs to be approached with much caution, and the more so the more directed and specific it is, and that any energy work requires a skillful teacher and preferably as much awakening as possible before one starts. He said that it is more serious than regulating one's heart manually. 

I think I need to find myself a teacher, someone who knows what they are doing and can minimize harm. Here in Sweden I find that it is very difficult to know who really knows their stuff and who are just playing with fire. Internet searches wade in endless swamps of new age fluff. 

Reiki seems like something that could be wise to start with, as it is very nondirected. I seem to respond well to it too. I can't afford any courses right now, so I guess I'll start with youtube as usual, to learn more about it before I do anything. I probably need to clear out my own shit before I could possibly be of any use to others anyway. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/22/20 11:52 AM
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Before I saw myself on that screen in front of me, I saw my limbs (?) reaching over there. I was so surprised that I had to doublecheck that my eyes were still closed and my body reclining and that I wasn't sleeping. The images were so clear. 

On my way home from an Ashtanga yoga class. Pausing in a park to connect with the elements. I'm feeling a bit detached. I just walked out in front of a bike and scared the crap out of an old man who reacted with rage. Very understandable. The weird thing is that I think I may have seen him but just didn't react to it. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/23/20 12:35 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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About 37 minutes of just sitting while receiving reiki heeling from youtube (two in one).
An hour of guided meditation (reclining) by Michael Taft at SF Dharma Collective (July 16th, 2020), a combination of zhine with and without and object and Brahmaviharas. It had jhanic qualities, very smooth, very pleasant, very calm. Parts of the body fell away. This way of doing the Brahmaviharas made it easy to evoke the feelings/qualities. Smiling happened on its own and it really felt radiating.

Before the meditation I was stressed out and confused due to daily life stuff. Now I'm sort of floating. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/25/20 4:54 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I'm panicking about my life situation. I feel like I'm expected to play a game that I don't know how to play, and the stakes are a matter of life and death. It's the dukkha nanas, sure, but they align very much with real life conditions, which makes them hard to empty out. It's possible for limited amounts of time, while doing a challenging yoga class, and even while relaxing on the mat, because that's sort of a safe space and all the stuff in the visual field while looking up to the ceiling is easy to let go of the content of: pipes, fans, structures... The depth vision deconstructs itself. Outside of the yoga class, however, I'm freaking out. I feel so utterly useless when I search for jobs and all the jobs seem like something that would break me apart. Not self feels like something very abstract suddenly. 

I think I'll try to do some Bön lineage practice today. That usually feels stabilizing. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 7/25/20 7:20 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 7/25/20 7:20 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I'm panicking about my life situation. I feel like I'm expected to play a game that I don't know how to play, and the stakes are a matter of life and death. It's the dukkha nanas, sure, but they align very much with real life conditions, which makes them hard to empty out. It's possible for limited amounts of time, while doing a challenging yoga class, and even while relaxing on the mat, because that's sort of a safe space and all the stuff in the visual field while looking up to the ceiling is easy to let go of the content of: pipes, fans, structures... The depth vision deconstructs itself. Outside of the yoga class, however, I'm freaking out. I feel so utterly useless when I search for jobs and all the jobs seem like something that would break me apart. Not self feels like something very abstract suddenly. 

I think I'll try to do some Bön lineage practice today. That usually feels stabilizing. 
Linda, you've got this. Collect your unemployment for a while and relax.

Do Bon lineage stuff, lol.

love, tim
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/25/20 8:33 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Several of the jobs I had planned to apply for turned out to require a three year plan for research... each... in different fields. Ain't gonna happen. I'm too burned out for that. And I have to apply to a certain amount of jobs every month to get unemployment funding. Next month I'll be more prepared and sent spontaneous applications to places where I would feel good working, telling them that I can get public subvention for it. I want off the career train. I just want to talk to people with dementia, read to them, take them on walks, sing with them and maybe lead them in some mindfulness meditations. I'd love that. And it wouldn't disturb my writing about dementia self-help groups, but support it with inspiration. So I'll do that. I figured it out while chanting the warrior seed syllables. It really helped. But this month I'll just have to send in applications to some jobs that would break me apart and hope that they won't hire me but that my applications are still valid enough. 

Thanks Tim! 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/27/20 3:16 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The cycling is intense. It feels extreme, but I think I'm dealing with it as well as I could possibly do during the circumstances. At least I think so right now. I probably won't in a few hours. I remember the cycling being this extreme about a decade ago, long before I started any systematic practice, during a somewhat similar life situation. I think I might be in the darknight of paths, but at least it's not worse than I have gone through earlier in my life. It's only the worst since I started this practice. And I'm writing this to remind myself when I look back during some other challenging period: I did great with my kid today, in her tough situation. That's what matters most. And I did that even though my own situation is challenging in so many ways. And I did great with a friend who needed my support even though the support had to do with troubles in her romantic relationship with one of my partners, my most long-time one. And in the midst of all shit, such as the unemployment authorities having misplaced the information that I'm disabled and put me in a program that doesn't take that into account, my body responds to healing and complies with the yoga practice more than ever. 

The extreme cycling makes it difficult to "empty out" the stories of what is going on, on the one hand, and on the other hand it makes it extremely clear how empty they are. I guess I'll have to see that over and over again until that insight sticks even in the midst of the storm. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/27/20 6:08 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I seem to follow my old pattern for a path that is not yet mature. I don't quite reach equanimity, but get into reobservation nana with A&P subnana, which is pretty much the usual ADHD high. I suspect that it somewhere down the line glides over to pure A&P or A&P nana with reobservation subnana, so I'll probably wake up in the midst of dissolution tomorrow when I have to deal with some tough shit and need to be alert, and then there will be a fear reaction and I will feel miserable and so forth. Then I need to remember that it is the cycling and that the siuation isn't necessarily quite as bad as it feels (and that both the "situation" and the bad feelings are empty) and that the feelings will pass. 

I don't particularly like this stage of the cycling, but I like that I recognize the pattern and that I can see the subnana part of it and understand what part the subnanas play in the quirks of my cycling. 

The combination of reobservation and A&P isn't entirely bad either. It makes it possible to get things done in spite of all the stress and to stay alert, for that limited time. It is very unstable, so the alertness doesn't last long. On the other hand, the cycling is so rapid that I'll get there again soon. It's the kind of alertness that comes with a cost, as it's very wired up, but at least it doesn't make me feel completely useless. Lots of selfing here to investigate, related to my specific conditionings. 

Learning from this part of the cycling is what makes equanimity possible. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/28/20 10:22 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The "reversing the stack" class this night/morning was amazing. We are now working with the stuff that triggers us in ways that feel like they are taking us away from emptiness, the stuff that grabs us. We are getting to see how that is in itself already liberation. Departing from Michael's vipassana map with four levels (concepts, phenomena, vibrational, awareness), we first identify whether the grabbing uccurs on the way back up the stack or while we are still drilling down. If we are coming from emptiness, the task is to just be with what arises without doing anything about it. Just witnessing its display and letting it have its form, with awareness. Allowing awareness to be with the material. Not letting it dissolve. That's it! On the other hand, if it occurs already while we are on our way "down" to emptiness, then we do the Vipassana thing and let it tremble and vanish, over and over again, seeing its void nature. That helps going down the stack. 

Applying this to the panic I feel about job searching and all the executive functioning around it and the games I'm supposed to play, I discovered something that gave much relief. In the safe space of not having to do anything about it, the stuff that so often triggers anxiety and avoidance, actually was full of impulses to go about doing the tasks. Those impulses came from a drive within that was more authentic than the games that make me feel so bad. They were spontaneous drives to do the stuff in a different way, a way that was more in line with my inner purpose. So that's what the feelings are trying to tell me. 

Some of that did show up earlier today too, when I think about it. I have found that I feel much better about doing job applications when I see them as a way of sowing seeds for positive change. I can tell them exactly what would make the job meaningful, how it would actually make the world a better place, and if they find that troublesome, then we are not a good match. In many cases this will probably mean that I won't get the job, but maybe at least once in a while a seed for change falls into fertile soil. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/28/20 10:41 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Also, I'm writing a long list of the stuff that grabs me as described above. A looooong list. That list is for me to work with, not for public display, for the time being. I think it will work better that way, because then I won't have to explain in ways that are understandable to others. Doing so would create a distance rather than being close to the actual raw experience. Note to (not)self: for reference, check the notes app on my ipad, "Stuff that draws me out of emptiness" from this date (or later, as it is a document in process). 

Seeing that the agony is the other side of the coin of a pure compassionate drive in awareness itself was beautiful. A very very healing experience.

Oh, and I found that there is a focus object that works really well for starting the meditation for me: the divine grace that allows healing - welcoming it, surrendering to it, and being grateful for it. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 7/28/20 11:38 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 7/28/20 11:38 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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emoticon

Applying this to the panic I feel about job searching and all the executive functioning around it and the games I'm supposed to play, I discovered something that gave much relief. In the safe space of not having to do anything about it, the stuff that so often triggers anxiety and avoidance, actually was full of impulses to go about doing the tasks. Those impulses came from a drive within that was more authentic than the games that make me feel so bad. They were spontaneous drives to do the stuff in a different way, a way that was more in line with my inner purpose. So that's what the feelings are trying to tell me. 
wow! What an arc over the last half dozen posts. You go, girl. Uh, woman. Uh, non binary high path aspirant to supragender nirvikalpa samadhi. Whatever. Shit!

I mean, Wow!!

love, tim
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/29/20 11:46 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Shush, don't wake the hubris... On the other hand, do wake it so that it can be emptied out. That energy can be better spent. 

---

So that's where all the piti was: locked up in anxiety and attemps at control. Well, hello and welcome back! May that freed-up energy work for the highest good for me and all sentient beings, so that I can fulfill my purpose in the world. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/30/20 8:52 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 7/30/20 8:52 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Concentration is coming in chunks that don't last very long but give a taste of what is to come. The murk starts to turn into shapes and sounds fall away. 

I had a hard time trying to sleep because of a strained shoulder. Then I remembered that I know how to heal, and so I lay my hand on the pain and let it just lie there, and just like that, the inflammatory part of the pain is all gone. Now it's just regular soreness from working hard with the muscles (a little bit too much yoga lately, too many chaturangas). That part of the pain is as it is supposed to be. It's healthy and very mild and it doesn't bother me. How come I didn't think of that sooner? I mean, I even booked a class with an intuitive healing teacher today, for next week. 

Doing this opened up space behind the nose, making breathing easier, and made the nada sound loud. 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 7/31/20 1:06 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I had a hard time trying to sleep because of a strained shoulder. Then I remembered that I know how to heal, and so I lay my hand on the pain and let it just lie there, and just like that, the inflammatory part of the pain is all gone. Now it's just regular soreness from working hard with the muscles (a little bit too much yoga lately, too many chaturangas). That part of the pain is as it is supposed to be. It's healthy and very mild and it doesn't bother me. How come I didn't think of that sooner? I mean, I even booked a class with an intuitive healing teacher today, for next week.
Sounds awesome, this healing skill.
I do not think I have anything like this yet.
Any charectiristics to what you do?

When something is up I always try some things but these things develop slowly because I am not exactly seeking health issues to develop my self-healing skills emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 7/31/20 5:03 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I don't really do anything. I just... trust...? The life force itself seems to know what to do if I let it. I haven't tried it on anything else but inflammatory pain, though, and after all pain is a very subjective thing. 

I have booked an appointment with my favorite yoga teacher who is clairvoyant and an intuitive energy healer, to see if there is a potential there to work with. She seems to think so. It will be interesting. Several people have said to me that they notice energy around me, or that I move energy, so I'd like to know what's going on. The weird energetic fatigues lately contributes to my motivation. A ritual performed according to advice from Daniel was helpful, and so was advice from this yoga teacher. An unexpected positive effect from her advice to collect "my" energies closer to my physical body is that the touch pad on my ipad suddenly recognizes my fingers as fingers, which it has had a tendency to refrain from doing. Thus I think that getting those energies to stop messing around is a first priority. When I was younger I seemed to have a fatal effect on electronic equipment now and then and drained batteries freakishly fast. Something is weird with my electromagnetic field. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/1/20 1:39 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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After a whole day of doing one single job application, because I suck at doing things fast, I was exhausted. Still I was drawn into meditation. Parts of my body dissolved into smooth vibrations that gave the impression that there was no flesh there. Outer sounds vanished and were replaced by the nada sound. It felt like my entire body fluctuated in existence. There were waves to it. It reminded me of the time before stream entry when all my senses were turned inside out in a rather brutal way (which I enjoyed), in third vipassana jhana, but there was nothing brutal about it now. It was exquisitely soft and gentle, yet forceful. It was lovely. There were a few instances of disruptive snaps in the head, like very tiny electrical surges, possibly repeat fruitions from an earlier path. Definitely not a path moment. I'm not there yet. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/1/20 5:13 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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My body was rather sore and tense this morning after an entire day by the computor, until late night, so my yoga class was challenging. The meditation experience from the night had a bit of an afterglow, though, so I felt an enormous appreciation for the sun and air on my skin when walking to the class, and I stayed present to my body. At the end of the class there were glimpses of that precious real equanimity that I hadn't felt for a while, the kind that goes beyond mere relief and a good attitude. It was that pristine and profound simplicity. The body just knew exactly what to do on its own, and instead of struggling with the asana, it found a vibrant peacefulness and relaxation in all muscles that weren't supposed to work hard, freeing up energy to activate the muscles just right. Nothing else was there but that presence.

Pausing in the park on my way home now, fascinated by the reflections of light in the water in the kid's pool and enjoying the tactile sensations from the elements. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/1/20 9:17 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The process demands space. Therefore I'm taking a break from the job application work during the afternoon. The process wants to draw me in. The nada sound wants to transcend into complete silence beyond the vibrations. There seem to be blockages in the ankles and wrists and fingers and toes that hamper the process. I think the blockages are loosening up compared to before, but they stand out. I trust that it will find a way to open up. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/2/20 4:25 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I have hurt my hand during yoga. There is a dent on the back of my hand, on the bone structure. I tried healing it with my other hand. Something happened. I could feel a tangible shift in the energies. The dent is still there, though, and it's still sore. The qualitative difference is that it doesn't twinge in that off-key way anymore, if that makes any sense. I think it may have removed a blockage in the subtle body. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/3/20 10:18 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 8/3/20 9:33 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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What are the odds... the universe sent me a medium today, haha. For some reason there had been a change in the schedule with regard to my housing support, so I got a different person at a different time. Immediately when I opened the door I felt relief, because she was very apparently my kind of crazy and the energies felt just right. While helping me doing my chores, she saw my Avalokitesvara art print and started talking about her own spirituality. She was just about to start learning energy healing. She seemed suprised that she opened up like that and said that she wasn't supposed to talk about it. I said no worries, I'm just about to start with the same thing. We talked and talked and talked. She said that I have lots of angel energies around me. Before she left, later than she was supposed to according to the schedule, she adviced me on how to get in touch with basically everybody who are involved in spirituality in this town. Apparently there is a movement here that I didn't know about. How crazy is this?!

Edited to add: There seems to be a weird mix of people involved in that network, though, including anti-vaxxers and people who think covid is a conspiracy, so I'm very sceptical to say the least. It might be a way to find out what people to avoid. Spirituality sure attracts some weird people, and not everyone are weird in a good way. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/3/20 3:52 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I meditated for hours today without much happening. I seem to be at the bottom of the spiral again. Purification going on. Some kriyas. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/6/20 1:34 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The last few days there haven't been much to report from my practice. There has been some lucid sleeping. In the class there was a sense of time slowing down and very slow swirling movements when emptiness turned into form, and a blinking with empty frames inbetween. Not like cessations, just space between the embryos of thoughts popping up. We talked about going blank as a moment of emptiness, which was an interesting perspective as I have always seen that as a threat rather than as a resource. That's something to investigate, if I dare.

Today I have been going through the dukkha nanas. I felt so scattered between the different alternative futures in this job application process and the practice and the writing projects. Someone close to me adviced me to approach all those thoughts and feelings as seeds and put them back into the ground as they popped up, the ground being the emptiness. That metaphor helped. It took away the fear of losing control, because seeds need to be in the ground in order to grow and develop. I meditated on that for an hour or so and it made me feel much better.

Now I'm sitting in stillness by a forest lake in the sunset. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/6/20 4:24 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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There was an exquisit dance between emptiness and form there by the forest lake at night, revealing the emptiness in the form. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/7/20 7:53 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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One hour of shamatha, first on pleasant body sensations until the nada sound was loud enough, then on the nada sound so that I could let go of the body sensations. Since I'm spiralling my way through the dukkha nanas over and over again, focus wasn't on doing the jhanas but on finding what works. I know that the nada sound has been very effective before, as it drew me into the whole jhanic arch over and over again with multiple fruitions. Since then it has never been the same, though. I think I know why now. There's a huge difference between listening to the sound, as if at a distance, and being the sound. Somehow I intuitively knew that the one time that it worked so well, but as I didn't really register the difference, I haven't been able to repeat it. Being the sound doesn't leave any room for distracting thoughts. Also, it takes away the tension that it takes to manifest the artificial listener, and so that energy is freed up for the jhana. Good to know. For a while the nada sound started to distill itself into light. My intention wasn't strong enough for that to keep going this time, but at least now I know how it is done.

I need to do this kind of systematic investigation more often. My intuition and the guidance from the process itself have taken me far, but I have to put in the work too, to make use of that intuition and guidance. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/7/20 6:02 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Lots of spaciousness in daily life today. Sometimes my lips sort of dissolve into an energy field, in the midst of going about my daily business. This is accompanied by my eyeballs relaxing back into their sockets and silence breaking through and doing its swirling dance. 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 5:07 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Lots of spaciousness in daily life today. Sometimes my lips sort of dissolve into an energy field, in the midst of going about my daily business. This is accompanied by my eyeballs relaxing back into their sockets and silence breaking through and doing its swirling dance. 
Sounds quite nice
Also nice post count for the occassion 4444 emoticon

Do you feel lips, eyes or body normally?

I kinda do not feel my body at all and rather experience all sensual experiences of things in space-time my attention is pointing to. Physical senses acting more like devices which will redirect my attention to somewhere and work only when there is change on them, otherwise this fade away quickly along with whatever I experience there is except when I keep my focus there. So for example when I touch something I will experience its taste or when I watch TV I will eg. experience the smell of the air or when I see a person I will experience how they experience their body. This however include also the same kind of perception which I have, though usually it seems that large part of them is per-occupied with the kind of their-body and sense of self experiences which I do not focus myself on and which made me experience my body and myself all the time.

My understanding is that my cells could not experience anything at all anyway with their limited connections so if they could experience anything other than being stimulated by limited amount of triggers on receptors then they need to have some kind of god-like quantum devices with which they can experience Vajra Samadhi (literally "the experience of everything at all times") and the rest is function of where they focus their attention to so so it is a matter of training them to be able to focus themselves to fun places and my sensual apparatus to help them with this task using the same mechanism... and if you have an idea about what might constitute "fun places" to my cells then it is probably not incorrect... emoticon

In any way please ignore my ideas, I am most probably not enlightened but just batshit crazy emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 9:10 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Ni Nurta:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Lots of spaciousness in daily life today. Sometimes my lips sort of dissolve into an energy field, in the midst of going about my daily business. This is accompanied by my eyeballs relaxing back into their sockets and silence breaking through and doing its swirling dance. 
Sounds quite nice

Yes, it’s a relief (hopefully not in the sense you use the word relief when you advice to avoid relief). Liberating, transcending, even if it’s limited to one body part. It reminds me not to get caught up with and identifying with form in a limiting way. Sometimes I really need that reminder. I have been so stressed out by my life situation now and then lately that I find it a great mercy. And it really is available if I just take that step back. Somehow I still can’t always do that.



Also nice post count for the occassion 4444 emoticon

Oh, I didn’t see that. Haha! Some people read a lot into that kind of syncronicity. I don’t know what to think of that, but I remember reading in a book by Jung that 4 signifies wholeness, and the number 4 had great significance for me as I grew up, and meta-levels of fours played a major part in my obcessive safety rituals. It still has a very pleasant symmetry to it for me. 4444 is a great number, and it has basically the same vibes for me as the experience described in that post. 



Do you feel lips, eyes or body normally?

Well, yeah, probably much more than the average person, but not necessarily in the way that people would normally feel them. Also, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I feel the form or the location of them. It’s not entirely easy to distinguish what has to do with the practice or with my wiring here. One aspect that I know has to do with wiring is that I’m extremely sensitive to tactile sensations. I feel the air against my skin even in a room where all windows are closed. There is always movement in the air, and so I feel those changing sensations. I feel the clothes against my skin. I feel an almost microscopically small tic clamp around on my skin. I feel the bacteria tickle my teeth when I need to brush them. Until a few years ago I had no idea that I'm not supposed to feel x-ray. Still, before I took on a systematic practice, including a regular yoga regime, I had great difficulty estimating the whereabouts of my limbs. I always bumped into things and accidently blocked the way for people and stuff like that and had no body image whatsoever when my eyes were closed. I was like a big formless blob, sort of. I had to learn very systematically how it feels when I hold my arm straight up in the air, because as far as I knew it could be basically anywhere. Imagine the dukkha of being totally overwhelmed by sensations and not knowing where they are located!

When it came to balance, people would advice me to look at a firm spot as a reference point, but when I did that, I was in that spot. That didn't help me to keep my body in balance. I had to learn to imagine myself being located inside my chest first. So basically the development has gone from being anywhere and nowhere to having the possibility of being embodied, and now I'm learning to shift back and forth. Something like that. 

When my lips dissolve into an energy field, as I describe it, I still feel them. They just don't feel like lips anymore, and I can't feel whether or not they are touching each other because in my mind they are not separate. It's like that part of space is just a continuum of source. It's both empty and aware. Within that field of space there is no separation. Still there is separation with regard to what is outside that field. Hence there is still duality, of course. Otherwise there would be no experience. And yet it's clear that the duality is an illusion. I like playing with that.


I kinda do not feel my body at all and rather experience all sensual experiences of things in space-time my attention is pointing to. Physical senses acting more like devices which will redirect my attention to somewhere and work only when there is change on them, otherwise this fade away quickly along with whatever I experience there is except when I keep my focus there. So for example when I touch something I will experience its taste or when I watch TV I will eg. experience the smell of the air or when I see a person I will experience how they experience their body. This however include also the same kind of perception which I have, though usually it seems that large part of them is per-occupied with the kind of their-body and sense of self experiences which I do not focus myself on and which made me experience my body and myself all the time.

Yeah, if I understand your description correctly, the part of feeling what is other people’s (including for instance my cats) sensory experiences happens to me too fairly often. I can sometimes sort of feel the sensory experiences of objects too, if that makes any sense. I can feel sensations in body parts that I don’t have. I can feel the sensations of the ground against my wheels. Still, most of the time, the sensory experiences of this particular body tend to stand out more than others. I love it when I can transcend that illusion. For me that's rare. I want more of that. I suspect that there is still a need for me to work on the embodiment, though. I came into this backwards. The process seems to be telling me to back down from abandoning the body, if I understand correctly what it is communicating. 


My understanding is that my cells could not experience anything at all anyway with their limited connections so if they could experience anything other than being stimulated by limited amount of triggers on receptors then they need to have some kind of god-like quantum devices with which they can experience Vajra Samadhi (literally "the experience of everything at all times") and the rest is function of where they focus their attention to so so it is a matter of training them to be able to focus themselves to fun places and my sensual apparatus to help them with this task using the same mechanism... and if you have an idea about what might constitute "fun places" to my cells then it is probably not incorrect... emoticon

I'm not sure how to interpret any of that. Are you saying that you have to deliberately focus on directing the awareness to your body to experience it as yours? If so, that has happened to me when coming out of deep nondual absorption. 



In any way please ignore my ideas, I am most probably not enlightened but just batshit crazy emoticon
Enlightened or not, I find your ideas very interesting. As for what I'll use in my practice, that depends on where the process leads me. It knows the way. I don't. Not that there is any I separate from the process, ultimately, but the I that is constructed as separate from the process does not know. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 9:25 AM
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Ni Nurta: I realize that I basically only replied about feeling my skin. You also asked if I normally feel my eyes, and eyes don't have skin. Yes, I do feel my eyes. I feel the friction as they move around. Even if I hold them still, they aren't usually completely still. When they are open I feel that the air dries them out gradually. I also feel the muscles that drive their movement, and I feel the membrane or whatever it's called in the inner corners. I feel if my eye lashes are somewhat disordered. I often feel blinking. If I think about it, I notice if one eye blinks harder than the other one and if one eye is wetter than the other. I feel my right eye squinting as I get more spacious. In meditation and often also in daily life I feel that directed attention involves tension of muscles in the eyes whereas a broader awareness involves the eye balls relaxing back into their sockets. 

As for the body, thanks to yoga, nowadays I know the location of different sensations, unless I'm in a formless state. 

Hehe, it just happened again: the touchpad stopped responding to my fingers. I moved awareness into my hands, and problem solved. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 9:33 AM
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Interesting. Writing this made the nada sound loud and increased spaciousness and made parts of the body flicker between form and energy field in my experience.

I forgot to clarify one thing: I'm often very aware of sensations in my lips because I have tics involving tensions of my lips. The tics seem to be a defense mechanism against nonduality. When I remember to just let go of the tics, that specific body part tends to pleasantly dissolve into an aware field of energy. There are strong karmic tendencies to contract into tics even though I no longer believe that it will be unberable if I don't give into the tics. I know that I don't have to actively fight the tics - that makes them much worse - but can actually just refrain from ticcing. I know that refraining from ticcing is lovely and takes me into spaciousness. Yet the karmic tendencies are what they are. I suppose I will have to patiently form new pathways in the brain of this mammalian body. 
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 2:28 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Interesting. Writing this made the nada sound loud and increased spaciousness and made parts of the body flicker between form and energy field in my experience.

Hi linda emoticon

Could you elaborate on the phenomenology of this flickering please ? 
It feels to me like i get something like that with body parts these days, particularly the face, but i wouldn't have known how to describe it. I like the way you describe things.

May you be well.

Olivier
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 3:46 PM
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Olivier:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Interesting. Writing this made the nada sound loud and increased spaciousness and made parts of the body flicker between form and energy field in my experience.

Hi linda emoticon

Could you elaborate on the phenomenology of this flickering please ? 
It feels to me like i get something like that with body parts these days, particularly the face, but i wouldn't have known how to describe it. I like the way you describe things.

May you be well.

Olivier

Hi Olivier! Best wishes for your wellbeing as well! 

I guess you could say that awareness shifts focus from form to emptiness. Distinctions fall away. It's all just a field of energy. Until I move, because the movement needs distinction. Something like that. It's very pleasant, much less restricted. Making all those distinctions cost a lot of effort, and refraining from making them frees up resources, sort of. Also, there is less separation. I'm not trying to come up with a theory here. This is what it feels like, phenomenologically. It's a great relief to just let it dissolve, and it feels free and spacious and vibrant and light. Much less dense. Like a void that is vital and aware. Does that make sense?
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 8/9/20 12:26 AM
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There are two experiences of the body.
1. What I call "the body image"
2. Experience of cells themselves
The second one is as much from the perspective of cells as it is of cells experiencing other cells.

The body image is specific process that generates a kind of experience of external image of your body. It is in form of outlines and how you imagine it looks from outside where experiences such as touch are kinda drawn over it. This body image might be sustained if during its processing queue at some point it loops back on itself to re-trigger itself to happen again and again. Any persistent processes are persistent because of this looping back mechanism and once this feedback loop is severed they won't be persistent but momentary and "on demand". It might be that there are processes which are not currently experienced but they do have this looping back and these can be recognized by the fact that once you do trigger them they will set in and won't be easy to disable again.

The body image process is one of such processes which is normally our normal working experience and which might get disabled by meditation but which might get re-triggered. It is in itself not bad process but I do think that the re-triggering mechanism should be severed as to make this body image process in to momentary on-demand process so that you are free to use it any time you for some reason need to use it eg. to be able to experience how other people experience themselves to be able to relate to their experience more. This is better approach than merely conditioning yourself from using this process completely. Same story is actually is with sense of self which should also be momentary and on-demand and in which case it is never causing any suffering. Suffering being in this case literally pain which neurons experience when they are overstimulated by continuously being triggered by re-triggering itself processes.

Because you notice things like air in the room and small tactile sensations I would say you are moving away from body image (which tend to ignore subtle details) and this imho very good thing. This is the mode which I am myself using. I can also experience body image freely on-demand and because it doesn't re-trigger itself for me anymore it is but a momentary experience which last literally one moment which is so small time to merely allow me to know it is there. I can sustain it for longer also but as soon as I stop doing it then I am back to second mode. The experience of no body at all which I mentioned is merely modification of focus of cells which can can be what is experienced but if they themselves are focused at something else eg. jhana then they won't be even felt except moments they are stimulated. If cells are focused on themselves they also experience their neighbors and this second body experience mode will be feeling like your body. This is good thing to be able to experience it, for example to feel if all is right and also because feeling own body is fun in itself. For most time however I find it even nicer to experience cessation of body and mind. When you do not experience part of mind (experience of the body is also experience of the mind) at all then this part is in cessation. Any mind focus mode can be used so all formed jhanas, all formless jhanas, cessation and all other what I internally call "Anatta derived mind states" which include likes of Nibbana, Vajra Samadhi, etc. and which are actually pinnacle of "per cell" experiences because it is individual cells which need to realize they are not anything else they can experience and then turn inward to their own experiences. Though I guess this per-cell perspective gets used to and at first it is strange if not creepy feeling. If it is making you uncomfortable then just know that over time as you get used to it then it becomes quite liberating. And I mean it in the context that I do not find unskillful =)

In any way what you describe is imho the good stuff and you are moving in the right direction emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/9/20 1:50 AM
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I think I understand what you are saying. Thankyou! 

It doesn't feel creepy at all. It feels just right.
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Bagpuss The Gnome, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 7:12 AM
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Linda:
Nada sound


Wat dat den?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 8:12 AM
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Bagpuss The Gnome:
Linda:
Nada sound


Wat dat den?
Oh, sorry! I get lazy. I appreciate that you ask when needed.

It's a commonly used term for the sound of silence. It's sort of like a high frequency swirling, not unlike crickets. It can take different shapes. It is possible to zoom in on a part of it, which turns it into a tone. For me it tends to have different frequencies depending on the current nana. In dissolution it's tangibly lower than in equanimity, for instance. There are some theories about what it is, and quite frankly I don't know. I'd guess something along the line that it's the vibrational mode of auditory meaning-making, sense-making and world-making. The world as it comes to being and dissolves, processed in the field of sound. 

For me it's both a tell (for how in touch I am with awareness), a reminder (to get in touch with and stay in touch with awareness), and a handy meditation object for both vipassana (dissecting it) and shamatha (using it as a nimitta).
Hector L, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 2:08 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Bagpuss The Gnome:
Linda:
Nada sound


Wat dat den?
Oh, sorry! I get lazy. I appreciate that you ask when needed.

It's a commonly used term for the sound of silence. It's sort of like a high frequency swirling, not unlike crickets. It can take different shapes. It is possible to zoom in on a part of it, which turns it into a tone. For me it tends to have different frequencies depending on the current nana. In dissolution it's tangibly lower than in equanimity, for instance. There are some theories about what it is, and quite frankly I don't know. I'd guess something along the line that it's the vibrational mode of auditory meaning-making, sense-making and world-making. The world as it comes to being and dissolves, processed in the field of sound. 

For me it's both a tell (for how in touch I am with awareness), a reminder (to get in touch with and stay in touch with awareness), and a handy meditation object for both vipassana (dissecting it) and shamatha (using it as a nimitta).
Is the nada sound the same sound as tinnitus? It is usually high frequency because those are the hair cells in the cochlear that tend
to get damaged first.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 3:47 PM
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Hector:

Is the nada sound the same sound as tinnitus? It is usually high frequency because those are the hair cells in the cochlear that tend
to get damaged first.


I don’t know. I don’t know what tinnitus sounds like. I don’t think the nada sound is caused by damage. It is very context dependent and increases in meditative states when the breathing suddenly gets much easier through both nostrils. I really like the sound.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/8/20 4:06 PM
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I'm reading up on Kundalini Vidya because so much of it explains aspects of my health that I have been wondering about as well as the inner guidance that I have to obey with regard to my practice (the process knows the way, and if I don't listen, it shouts). I'm not buying the whole package, but there are definitively lots of cherries to pick. One of those cherries is a very hands-on method for cultivating a sattvic (peaceful and spiritual) mind. Tendencies for inertness (tamas) are to be gradually replaced by activity (rajas), and tendencies for activity (rajas) are similarly to be replaced by peace (sattva). I decided to do at least ten such replacements today. I had made a list of tamas that were good candidates for replacement, a separate list of rajas that I would be better off without, and a third list of sattva manifestations that I want and need more of in my life. I let those lists guide my choices today. As a result, I have gotten things done without being stressed out and I haven't wasted time on soul-less activities. Also I have generally been more present. I have taken care of myself and been supportive to people around me. That's very useful. What a great implementation instrument! 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/9/20 2:24 AM
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That implementation tool of cultivating a sattvic mind does miracles. The day has only started and I have already done six replacements, all really good moves. For someone with poor executive functioning, this is a goldmine. Not only does it help tremendously with priorities; it also helps increasing awareness about the intentions that precede actions (including non-actions) and thereby enables me to respond rather than react. I will keep using this tool, making ten per day the minimum for challenging times. 

At 9 am on a Sunday I had already had a high quality meditation, flossed, taken out the trash, made myself a really healthy breakfast and been outside, for instance. For me that's a great improvement. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/9/20 8:26 AM
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A new observation from being present with the moment: some foods that I tend to eat too fast and have the idea that I love, I actually eat too fast because the taste is too intense. If the taste is too intense for me to want to stay in touch with it, it seems very counterproductive to eat lots of it, and yet that's what I have been doing. Interesting combination of craving and aversion. It actually explains a lot about this world. 

---

Just came home from a private session with my favorite yoga teacher on healing and intuition. She is not one of those mumbo jumbo new age spiritual people. I have no doubts that she is awake. Awake and psychic. We had a very interesting meeting. There's lots to integrate. Feels good. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/9/20 10:28 AM
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I think that implementation instrument for cultivating a sattvic mind addresses a lot of confusion that I have been having lately. It was no coincidence that it came to me right before I had the session mentioned above. In trying to understand lots of stuff, I have been stuck in a binary model. For instance, I know that I'm dominated by the space element, but some of my serious issues are typical earth issues, which I found weird. Using a tertiary (is that how you say it?) model solves the illusory paradox. I need the sattvic kind of grounding, not the tamasic kind. Trying to fit myself into binary thinking has created an artefact persona that has earth issues. This resolves so much. I always said that the twodimensional models are too limiting, and still I tried to adapt to it. I have the hypothesis that the majority of any beings tend to think in one less dimension than they perceive in daily life. Since humans tend to approach the world as threedimensional, we tend to think in two dimensions, because that allows for an accessible overview of diagrams and tables. Fourdimensional beings probably have threedimensional screens and papers. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/9/20 5:06 PM
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I was taught today that you can say no to unwanted energetic influence by consciously evoking the law of free will, out loud. That's a way of working with intentions, I guess. I just had the opportunity to try it. Some guys were shouting "damn whore" to me, and it kept bugging me. Then I remembered, and so I evoked my free will and said to the universe that I did not allow them to latch onto me energetically but wanted those vibes to go back to their source, and my energy to come back to me, for my highest good and for the benefit of all sentient beings - with the caveat that if the highest good meant something better than what I was able to phrase, then I wanted that, as long as I wasn't entangled energetically with them. I happened to say "by all means", so then I added that I did not mean that literally, but only the means that were in line with the highest good. I evoked my free will for that too, just in case. The universe has taken my wordings literally before. Anyway - it worked! 

This evening I watched Lama Lena teach about dream yoga while I was sitting by a forest lake. Wonderful! When I was swimming in it earlier, I was drawn into emptiness.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/11/20 3:55 AM
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In situations where I go blank, I take a step back to appreciate the emptiness of it, as adviced in the class with Michael Taft. Can't say that I'm impressed with that kind of emptiness, though. I think there may be phenomenologically different ways of going blank - some where the processing of a task just stops, and others where they go on and on and on but in the background where they are no longer accessible. There is a hypothesis about autism that says that the autistic brain tends to have lots of processes going on in the background in situations where neurotypical people's brain just let go of them. It feels like that's the case for me most of the time, unfortunately. Ultimately, that's empty too, of course. Still, it might mean that the path to liberation differs somewhat from the most common one. When I go blank, the brain hasn't necessarily let go of something yet. In some instances I can feel that it has. That's an entirely different taste.

I'm doing dream yoga with Lama Lena. I made a decorated stick to have by my bed, or in it, to tell my dreams to as much as possible. That's a schamanistic way of training oneself to remember dreams more reliably, I think it may have been from the Lakota. I prefer that from writing them in a dream journal, because it's easier for me to stay in the mode close to sleep while talking to the stick than when I try to write. It seems to help, because I have been able to recall dreams both nights that I have been using the approach. I also made myself a clunky ring to wear during the day as a reminder to approach daily life as a dream and check for tells to see if it's a night dream. Hopefully that habit will follow me into the night sleep. The checking for dream signs doesn't take long, but I aim at doing it very often. The other aspect, approaching daily life as the dream that it is, is very enjoyable because it makes me appreciate the miracle of the world coming into being so vividly and with such great detail. 

Yesterday I did some extended mantra singing. I observed that I can tell when the central channel activates, and that mantra singing - slowly and with focus on the vibrations - very effectively activates it. 
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 8/11/20 6:57 AM
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In situations where I go blank, I take a step back to appreciate the emptiness of it, as adviced in the class with Michael Taft. Can't say that I'm impressed with that kind of emptiness, though.

Can you describe what you mean by "go blank?"
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/11/20 2:59 PM
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Chris Marti:
In situations where I go blank, I take a step back to appreciate the emptiness of it, as adviced in the class with Michael Taft. Can't say that I'm impressed with that kind of emptiness, though.

Can you describe what you mean by "go blank?"

Situations where I was about to do or say something or in the midst of doing/saying it and it suddenly isn't available anymore. I find that some of those situations are very restful because the papancha is self-liberating, but others are more like system overload. 

@Ni Nurta: Yeah, I think I get what you are saying. 
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 8/11/20 3:15 PM
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Thanks. For me, the "go blank" times are called "senior moments."
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/11/20 8:51 PM
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I have had them my entire life, so I guess I was born a senior then. emoticon
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 8/12/20 3:56 AM
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Chris Marti:
Thanks. For me, the "go blank" times are called "senior moments."

Thanks, Chris. I always counted these blank moments as sheer stupidity or pure fugue. Now i feel validated to elevate them to sheer stupidity with seniority, the elder wisdom aspect of sheer stupidity, the most ancient of pure fugues. You remain an inspiration to us all here. 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 8/12/20 12:21 AM
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If some services are not available then it might be overload.

Though it might also be activation/creation of some structures which then continuously run and your awareness is kinda sitting on top of them. In this case you might be trying to activate something which you know is somewhere in your mind but actually instead of activating the thing you want you merely disturb some running process that happen to be covering parts of mind you try to refer to. And often such process do not really care because it has some source and some destination and disturbing it only affect destination. If destination is not affecting the source then affecting running process does not cause it to go away. Processes which are directly triggered by themselves can be stopped by distributing them.

When you notice something does not work in such "blank" mind state then you might want to review how exactly you are trying to activate given functionality. It might be that you always kinda are in some place and move some sort of virtual tentacle from this place to where you have always found given mind service. If that is the case then some other running processes can get in the way. This is why I used running stream of water analogy in previous post, it might be very transparent, like almost non-existing but when touched it will get in the way and create some random noise of splashing water/sensations making it seem like something is not working. Instead of trying to get through it with fancy rafts try to directly activate given service that is beneath. It might be as well possible that everything is working just fine emoticon

In any way this issue with things getting in a way is something that happens from time to time. Even if I learn where things are and work with them directly it might happen that after months or even years I simplify using it to doing it by kinda reaching to it because that is simpler workflow. In this case it works just fine for as long as something doesn't get in the way and when it does it might not be so obvious why given function doesn't work. Stuff like that happening is not an issue for as long as I am aware it can happen and know how to deal with it. It also kinda show I should spend more time on maintenance/meditation because both using simplified control schemes and having random running processes getting in the way are signs of getting too comfortable and lazy emoticon

Actually we have backups for each function so overload in one copy should not cause functionality loss... and overload also tend to manifest itself by given place being covered by some running processes. If something doesn't work and I do not really know how to handle it then I switch to 1st path mode and just generate random noise over some area of my brain. Noise of mixed activation and Nibbana. Sooner or later I will hit something which will allow me to construct map of what is happening there and where things are and where there are parts which can be used as some sort of backups. From there it is doing whole process up to 4th path again until it all feels like "the 4th path state" which is itself rather hard to miss when it happens emoticon

BTW. I kinda start explaining things all the time... but just imagine how hard time my mind has to have with me. Some neuron fires too enthusiastically and there we go... poor neuron gets full dharma lecture and it must hear about paths, all ten states of concentration, anatta (Nibbana and Vajra Samadhi) and that there are dozen like it to replace it... no wonder they tend to keep it quiet emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/12/20 1:43 AM
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How did you begin to develop that kind of precision?! I don't have it, so following your instructions isn't easy (or even possible???) for me. I wouldn't know where to start. I can't just decide which path mode to use. 

I don't know how I try to access something. I haven't really thought of it. Now that I do think of it, I think I did it differently this last time, as I was trying to appreciate the emptiness of it by having the kind of global awareness that I find is there when all parts of the body feel themselves. That actually worked, so your hypothesis might be right. Maybe I go blank so often because I tend to do the sweeping with tentacles instead lf activating directly and often run into barriers on the way. If there are many sweeping processes going on (can that happen, or is the sweeping done by the direct attention and thus only one at a time?), I guess they are bound to bump into each other and disturb each other. 

I wonder if letting some part activate itself is what Shinzen Young refers to as auto-thinking, or of it's the opposite. He talks about getting into a state of global awareness and let the thinking do itself. It sounds like that could be a way to let parts activate themselves directly. On the other hand, when he talks about it, manual precision doesn't seem to be part of the package. On the contrary, it seems to be about letting the process do its own thing. Ni Nurta, do you mean very manually governing each brain process, or is that just a misinterpretation on my part?
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 8/15/20 1:33 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
How did you begin to develop that kind of precision?! I don't have it, so following your instructions isn't easy (or even possible???) for me. I wouldn't know where to start. I can't just decide which path mode to use.
When you meditate and go through process of insight parts of your brain reconfigure itself from normal way that they work to eventually non-dual 4th path way that does not use what feels like sense of self. This is separate from how senses work and senses need to go through the same process to get to level where they work in "4th path mode" because even if you are 4th path it doesn't mean eg. your sight or your hearing are.

Since external physical sense of sight and internal sense of perceiving brain internals are very similar (though separate) senses you do practice them the same way. There is imho so much precision you can get from using sense of self to control internal sight and with it you can not improve it too much. I would even argue that if people did enlighten their sense of sight they would not need to use corrective glasses. Issues with focus which require people to use corrective glasses originate from wrong way they use their brain to focus their eyes and I can take both plus and minus glasses that people use and see normally, at least if they are not too strong. It is typical for people to start to undershoot or overshoot focus compared to distance they think they should focus at and over time this error grow and their eyes change shape If they used reference for sharpness and did not control their eyes at all with their sense of self then they would always focus correctly on given surface and if they always aimed at relaxation their eyes would correct their shape so that at distances they usually see there was least muscle strain required.

With internal sight it is even more pronounced because by its nature it all is like seeing in dark room. There is no way you will be able to focus internal sight on individual part of your nervous system if you try to do it "manually". It must be automatic and internal sight need to have reference.

The reference for sight is created by imagining small black dot. The smaller you can visualize it the better your sight will be, both internal and external. I do it by visualizing small black dot and then smaller dot inside, then smaller, then smaller, etc. At some point I experience a kind of clicking inside. Also to see properly I need not control eyes and need to practice calibrating eyes. So when I know what I am looking at I would make it smaller by either getting further away or scaling it down on monitor and I will just wait until I see it clearly without trying to focus manually. Eyes should be relaxed at all times and never strain itself to see more clear. After some time eyes will figure out how to focus and visual cortex will figure out which "pixel" from eyes correspond to which part of the image and how to use noise from eyes to construct image.

If image is of something I do not know how it should look like it still works because over time subtle details taken over time will start making sense and the image will be constructed and brain will learn how to see more clearly. Similarly in internal sight the way to get precision is to gaze at your nervous system without really trying to focus anything yourself. Just gaze at it with relaxed mind and over time it all will clear itself out and internal sight will improve.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/17/20 1:58 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Ni Nurta:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
How did you begin to develop that kind of precision?! I don't have it, so following your instructions isn't easy (or even possible???) for me. I wouldn't know where to start. I can't just decide which path mode to use.
When you meditate and go through process of insight parts of your brain reconfigure itself from normal way that they work to eventually non-dual 4th path way that does not use what feels like sense of self. This is separate from how senses work and senses need to go through the same process to get to level where they work in "4th path mode" because even if you are 4th path it doesn't mean eg. your sight or your hearing are.

Ah. Right. I actually do that, except for the 4th path mode, since I’m not there yet. I’m probably not 3rd path either, but somewhere between second and third. I suspect that there are a number of full insight cycles between second and third - either that or lots of fractals. I haven’t thought of it as intentionally navigating through the territory using different gears like that, but more like ”oh no, I’m back in newbie territory so now I need to use those methods again”, and then when I look back at it with some distance I can see that the way I have been adjusting my methods follows a distinct pattern of building skills and concentration and getting into a more nondual mode and then integrating that with skills and concentration. It just doesn’t feel like that when I’m in the midst of it. It feels very ad hoc. I’m just doing what feels possible at the moment, following my intuition and listening to ehat the process and my body tells me. It’s not a thought-out method. I’m not organizing it, but going with the flow. I often believe that I’m regressing and starting over again, but when I zoom out and look at the patterns in my logs over time, I can see how systematically it manifests just on its own and how it follows a spiral pattern of cycles within cycles with that very systematic methodological build-up. Maybe I’m better off not doing this deliberately. I suspect that planning such a complex organization of practice would overwhelm me completely. It would demand too much of executive functioning and strategic thinking.



Since external physical sense of sight and internal sense of perceiving brain internals are very similar (though separate) senses you do practice them the same way. There is imho so much precision you can get from using sense of self to control internal sight and with it you can not improve it too much. I would even argue that if people did enlighten their sense of sight they would not need to use corrective glasses. Issues with focus which require people to use corrective glasses originate from wrong way they use their brain to focus their eyes and I can take both plus and minus glasses that people use and see normally, at least if they are not too strong. It is typical for people to start to undershoot or overshoot focus compared to distance they think they should focus at and over time this error grow and their eyes change shape If they used reference for sharpness and did not control their eyes at all with their sense of self then they would always focus correctly on given surface and if they always aimed at relaxation their eyes would correct their shape so that at distances they usually see there was least muscle strain required.

Hm. I believe you have learned how to unlock different parts of your brain the way that is described in the book about Kundalini Vidya that I'm currently reading. The author warns about doing that deliberately as it might digress one's energy from the spiritual path and/or even damage the subtle body. However, she also warns about other stuff in a way that seems a bit... conservative... like any sexual position apart from the man on top of the woman (heterosexual relationships seem to be taken for granted). Thus I'm not necessarily buying into it, and you seem to be doing fine. Being able to compensate for different shapes of the eye ball seems like a great hack. I don't have that siddhi and I actually like my new glasses, but it is inspiring to hear about your experiences. I do know how to relax my gaze, and in some phases of the cycling I can see things pretty clearly 280 degrees, so it makes sense that it is also possible to make the images sharper. Very cool. 



With internal sight it is even more pronounced because by its nature it all is like seeing in dark room. There is no way you will be able to focus internal sight on individual part of your nervous system if you try to do it "manually". It must be automatic and internal sight need to have reference.

Yeah, I find that easier than external sight.



The reference for sight is created by imagining small black dot. The smaller you can visualize it the better your sight will be, both internal and external. I do it by visualizing small black dot and then smaller dot inside, then smaller, then smaller, etc. At some point I experience a kind of clicking inside. Also to see properly I need not control eyes and need to practice calibrating eyes. So when I know what I am looking at I would make it smaller by either getting further away or scaling it down on monitor and I will just wait until I see it clearly without trying to focus manually. Eyes should be relaxed at all times and never strain itself to see more clear. After some time eyes will figure out how to focus and visual cortex will figure out which "pixel" from eyes correspond to which part of the image and how to use noise from eyes to construct image.

If image is of something I do not know how it should look like it still works because over time subtle details taken over time will start making sense and the image will be constructed and brain will learn how to see more clearly. Similarly in internal sight the way to get precision is to gaze at your nervous system without really trying to focus anything yourself. Just gaze at it with relaxed mind and over time it all will clear itself out and internal sight will improve.

Interesting! I'm impressed by how systematically you approach this. As I said, that would be overwhelming for me, especially if I had to invent all those techniques the way you do. Now that you have shared it, I might try some of it, probably not in a very systematic way, at least to begin with, but if I get fascinated it might just take on its own life and then it would happen spontaneously. I appreciate that you took your time to share this in a way that I can at least partly understand. This is gold. 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 8/18/20 12:09 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I do not organize my practice either. Going with the flow usually. At times I have some ideas about practice but even then it oten feels like I should drop it for now for my own good and then I just drop it and pick up topic later, usually much better prepared for it. It is pretty random but I guess there is a method in this madness. At least it seems to work just fine emoticon

For eyesight I recommend books from William Horatio Bates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bates_(physician)) which inspired me. I did some modification because I didn't really need to fix my eyes as much as to improve them beyond what they were but the ideas in this book are imho essential.

When it comes to sexuality I am pretty liberal but myself I like feminine energies and other than come cosmic energies, crystals, metals, etc.  those are the only ones which I like to connect to... whatever I even mean by this sentence emoticon

I do not care for subtle body. It is hard body, like neurons which matter the most. If cells and neurons are good and know how to behave then they can organize to whatever configuration. Certain structures might often feel like they should not be broken because they are super important to be like they are. This is something Buddha described as house building. It is imho fine to build some structures to play with them but they should not be taken too seriously and it is best to drop them quickly and if anything use them in dynamic on-demand fashion and not something that runs all the time and define you. There like these strategies which I can use which might even make some sense and they immediately make me experience myself like I did many years ago but generally are very loud and supportive to viewing yourself as having "rigid" structures. I tend not to use them because sensual presentation (synesthesia) is better when I just am bunch of loosely connected cells which then can execute firing patterns from these rigid configurations if there is any function in these firing patterns which I need but without needing to having these rigid configurations running firing patterns which create impression of solidity.

One way to quickly condition yourself out of rigid mind configurations is practice of experiencing multiple objects at once. When you try to experience both hands at once your awareness will switch between them, then faster, then even faster. Some merging might be attempted by mind. Ultimately if you do it long enough and are intent on experiencing them literally "at once" then your consciousness will split in to two concurrent consciousnesses. This kind of consciousness is not supportive to any rigid mind configurations and awareness will keep itself pretty quiet. It is also how it is possible to easily experience jhanas while doing whatever or experience synesthesia. It will also show you quite a lot of your firing patterns and will make it easier to condition yourself to not have these because it is impossible to hide anything in mind that can see its separate consciousnesses. This is also framework from which I write about jhanas, path modes, etc. I literally mean these things as configuring these consciousness to some mind states which then simply becomes an option.

I do it for so long that I often forget that people practice meditation from within their rigid mind states and tend to hit mind states like jhanas which are maybe the same mind states but the context is completely different, hence people are often like "what the hell is he even talking bout...". Fortunately nothing of what I write about is really all that hard to see once the view is changed to seeing your soul as it really is. The hard part is dealing with these little rascals neurons which often know best and need some love to change their little minds emoticon In any way this view is reversible. It is however most likely that when you start experiencing things you won't want to go back and it will be occasional tendency of mind to go back that will irritate you. It is best to just repeat splitting consciousness and make any agitated part of mind experience jhana and metta rather than deal with structures from within these structures. I wasted years testing this to come to this conclussion which was obvious right at the start...
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/22/20 11:49 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 8/22/20 11:49 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Ni Nurta:
I do not organize my practice either. Going with the flow usually. At times I have some ideas about practice but even then it oten feels like I should drop it for now for my own good and then I just drop it and pick up topic later, usually much better prepared for it. It is pretty random but I guess there is a method in this madness. At least it seems to work just fine emoticon

Oh, okay. So we are basically describing a very similar process, albeit with different emphasis, and from different points on the path.


Cool.


I do not care for subtle body. It is hard body, like neurons which matter the most. If cells and neurons are good and know how to behave then they can organize to whatever configuration.

I just scratched myself with my subtle arm and it worked just fine.


Certain structures might often feel like they should not be broken because they are super important to be like they are. This is something Buddha described as house building. It is imho fine to build some structures to play with them but they should not be taken too seriously and it is best to drop them quickly and if anything use them in dynamic on-demand fashion and not something that runs all the time and define you. There like these strategies which I can use which might even make some sense and they immediately make me experience myself like I did many years ago but generally are very loud and supportive to viewing yourself as having "rigid" structures. I tend not to use them because sensual presentation (synesthesia) is better when I just am bunch of loosely connected cells which then can execute firing patterns from these rigid configurations if there is any function in these firing patterns which I need but without needing to having these rigid configurations running firing patterns which create impression of solidity.

This sounds like not building karma to me, to keep the empty space open to infinite possibilities.


One way to quickly condition yourself out of rigid mind configurations is practice of experiencing multiple objects at once. When you try to experience both hands at once your awareness will switch between them, then faster, then even faster. Some merging might be attempted by mind. Ultimately if you do it long enough and are intent on experiencing them literally "at once" then your consciousness will split in to two concurrent consciousnesses. This kind of consciousness is not supportive to any rigid mind configurations and awareness will keep itself pretty quiet. It is also how it is possible to easily experience jhanas while doing whatever or experience synesthesia. It will also show you quite a lot of your firing patterns and will make it easier to condition yourself to not have these because it is impossible to hide anything in mind that can see its separate consciousnesses. This is also framework from which I write about jhanas, path modes, etc. I literally mean these things as configuring these consciousness to some mind states which then simply becomes an option.

Ah. Yeah. That happened early in my practice but I didn’t have the words to explain it so I was told that it was poor clarity because attention can only feel one point at a time. And of course it can’t. I just didn’t use attention, but let different parts be aware of themselves. I think I really needed to investigate attention more before understanding awareness anyway, because there are insights there that probably shouldn't be skipped. I might have come to the wrong conclusions by skipping ahead. Thankfully, I intuitively knew that there was something right about that experience anyway, and so I kept letting it happen. It became one of my early landmarks for my meditation. I didn't know exactly for what, but it felt right, and so I would go through that shift on a regular basis. Thanks for reminding me! I understand it more now. I didn't really know how it happened. 


I do it for so long that I often forget that people practice meditation from within their rigid mind states and tend to hit mind states like jhanas which are maybe the same mind states but the context is completely different, hence people are often like "what the hell is he even talking bout...".

I think I may have been doing it similarly to you, but I’m not sure. Anyway, I started experimenting with different mind sets in order to understand how nondual absorption relate to the Theravadan jhanas, and I see them as very different things while also somehow related. The way I see it, the Theravadan shamatha is very much about one-pointed focus on some quality - very directed, very clean and clearcut, very... destilled. Like squeezing samsara into a diamond while being the diamond, sort of. Zhine, on the other hand, starts out with singlepointed focus on one object, too, but that’s just a step of the way to letting go of focus and turning to a global awareness that is not destilled but rather very all-encompassing in a way that zooms out until it’s obvious that everything was already a diamond making reflections as the light shines through it. There is really no need to squeeze it to arrive there.


Fortunately nothing of what I write about is really all that hard to see once the view is changed to seeing your soul as it really is. The hard part is dealing with these little rascals neurons which often know best and need some love to change their little minds emoticon In any way this view is reversible. It is however most likely that when you start experiencing things you won't want to go back and it will be occasional tendency of mind to go back that will irritate you. It is best to just repeat splitting consciousness and make any agitated part of mind experience jhana and metta rather than deal with structures from within these structures. I wasted years testing this to come to this conclussion which was obvious right at the start...

Yeah. Thankyou for this conversation! It has been very helpful.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 8/12/20 1:54 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 8/12/20 1:54 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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emoticon
Ni Nurta

BTW. I kinda start explaining things all the time... but just imagine how hard time my mind has to have with me. Some neuron fires too enthusiastically and there we go... poor neuron gets full dharma lecture and it must hear about paths, all ten states of concentration, anatta (Nibbana and Vajra Samadhi) and that there are dozen like it to replace it... no wonder they tend to keep it quiet 
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that poor neuron getting the full dharma lecture, lol. All it wanted to know was whether the bar was open yet!

love, tim
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/12/20 3:14 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I forgot to address that part. Yeah, I found it funny too. I can imagine it. emoticon

The neurons in my brain have a hard time too, but for other reasons. 

I recently overwhelmed a poor psychic energy healer who was trying to teach me (my favorite yoga teacher). The universe just wouldn't shut up about what to address, when guiding her on guiding me. It was too many different branches of information, each of them branching off in even more directions. She had to beg it to stop and wait several times. I smiled and said "Welcome to my world". 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 8/12/20 6:25 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Tim Farrington:

that poor neuron getting the full dharma lecture, lol. All it wanted to know was whether the bar was open yet!
It would take too much time explaining to them I that cannot drink at work... exactly to 3pm emoticon
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 8/12/20 6:48 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 8/12/20 6:48 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Ni Nurta:
Tim Farrington:

that poor neuron getting the full dharma lecture, lol. All it wanted to know was whether the bar was open yet!
It would take too much time explaining to them I that cannot drink at work... exactly to 3pm emoticon
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That neuron believes firmly that it is five o'clock somewhere, unfortunately! emoticon
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 8/11/20 1:30 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
In situations where I go blank, I take a step back to appreciate the emptiness of it, as adviced in the class with Michael Taft. Can't say that I'm impressed with that kind of emptiness, though. I think there may be phenomenologically different ways of going blank - some where the processing of a task just stops, and others where they go on and on and on but in the background where they are no longer accessible. There is a hypothesis about autism that says that the autistic brain tends to have lots of processes going on in the background in situations where neurotypical people's brain just let go of them. It feels like that's the case for me most of the time, unfortunately. Ultimately, that's empty too, of course. Still, it might mean that the path to liberation differs somewhat from the most common one. When I go blank, the brain hasn't necessarily let go of something yet. In some instances I can feel that it has. That's an entirely different taste.
Not to get too much in to specifics (and there are tons of heavy details) you have four rest strategies:
1. random noise
2. forming structures
3. forced sleep
4. forced arising

Mind is how it is and what it is. You got ideas for your mind from somewhere and went with them and this is always true. Suffering is caused by lack of rest and to have rest some more deliberate strategies need to be used. First is random noise strategy, what I call first path. Trying things, stream of things. Second is picking up what works and improving upon those things which work. Third is learning how to force picked up method to make mind rest in different situations. Fourth is reverse, being in rest all the time and picking only those things which are needed to be there for as long as they need to be there.

With the running water if you get flow just right then the water will appear completely still. It will seem to be at rest... It is as much at rest as the mind of run-of-the-mill person is at rest. The amount of movement should be used to gauge efficacy of mind state but it itself is not the goal so the final criteria should be the rest itself. It is better to have some operations done "manually" if that provides more rest to whole community which is your brain than to have apparent lack of operations if it requires you to continuously run processes that support this illusion of lack of action. If there is a lot of people in the community they can then take shifts or choose who actually want's to be the one who push the "make coffee" buttons in the morning. It might not feel empty, it might not even feel as if it is lacking self but if it is good rest strategy it will feel divine.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/14/20 7:17 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Observation: when working with the implementation tool for cultivating a sattvic mind, I have noticed that it is much easier to replace inertness with activity than replacing activity with peace. That's a risk for burnout right there (I have been close to crashing a few times and have had to do emergency breaks with meditation). I need to specify the goal in a way that creates balance. Instead of setting the goal to ten replacements as a minimum, I think I need to set the goal to five replacements of each kind as a minimum and also aim at keeping a balance between them if I manage to do more than the minimum. 

I really didn't think this would be a problem. I thought I had more problem with inertness than with activity and that I would easily prioritize the peaceful replacements. Apparently I was wrong. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/15/20 1:43 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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An hour and a half of shamatha on the nada sound. The jhanic pull was there but I wasn't alone and the covid situation has made me more sensitive to having people around, so now I'm a bit grumpy. I noted the aversion. 

I'll reply to Ni Nurta's kind descriptions/instructions later, when I have the brains for it. I had an allergic reaction today (apparently it is time to avoid carrots again, because of cross reactions, although it is usually one of my few safe foods), the kind that manifests as brain fog, exhaustion and stomach illness. The brain fog is gone thanks to a combination of western and auyrvedic medicines but I'm still not friends with having to translate thoughts into words. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/17/20 2:40 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 8/17/20 2:29 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The cycling is so rapid now that trying to define where I am just seems ridiculous. Lama Lena said something very wise: the point is not to move upwards but to get out of it. I took that to mean that I need to realize that the cycling just never ends and clinging to specific phases in it is hanging on to the very delusion that I'm trying to get out of. It doesn't really matter where I am in the cycling at this point. All the necessary conditions for seeing through it are in place, except for the fact that I still fall back into believing that the delusion is real. So I should just stop right? Over and over again, until it clicks. That seems doable, I guess. Special effects aren't necessary for that. Obsessing about having lost my flow in shamatha is irrelevant at this point. I can always work on my concentration later on. It's probably even easier to do that once I stop falling back into believing the stories about my life and self and about the world. The only thing I really need to do is to repeatedly open up to the ground of being. Over and over again, in different kinds of terrain, until it clicks. I know how to do that. I know several ways. I know ways that work even in the most contracted phases. I have a whole tool box for times when it doesn't seem to just synch up on its own in a recognizable way (of course it still does, but it's clouded by delusion, which is a paradox as even the idea that it can be clouded is the delusion).

So basically I think that my top priority right now is to simplify my practice to just this. Everything else is just bonus, if I happen to feel like it. I'm all for playing with stuff if that wants to happen, but the intention I'm setting is to just redirect awareness back to the ground of being over and over and over and over until it clicks. I have no idea how much time that will take, but it doesn't matter. I welcome that click and I'm prepared to put in the work.

Gosh, that felt good. Maybe I finally grew up. 

Maybe this seems like a contradiction to what I wrote just a moment ago in the post above, but it really isn't. I still find it fascinating to learn about precise techniques that people come up with in order to develop technical brilliance. It is very possible that I'll go all nerdy about that kind of stuff later on. I have that kind of curiosity as part of my karma, and that will probably still be in play even without the illusion of agency in the way people usually think of it. It will hopefully be a more genuine play, without the identity stories that it risks getting all entangled with now. I hope it will be the kind of play that is in alignment with the joyous creative dance of the Sambhogakaya. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/17/20 2:55 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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P.S. Paradoxically, I used three different maps to come to the conclusion that I'm now at the point of the maps where I need to let go of the maps. I find that comical. The progress of insight, the three words of Garab Dorje (Dzogchen), and Kundalini Vidya all say the same thing about where I am and what I need to do. By the way, I'm synching up the POI with Kundalini Vidya mapping as an ongoing project just for the fun of it. Fascinating stuff. I'm not ready to present it as a model yet, but I'm grokking it. I actually find that the Kundalini Vidya has some details to it that are missing in the POI. I haven't really found any contradictions between them yet. They just focus on different things. I see a potential of problematizing the A&P and pointing to some different routes which might affect how the rest of the nanas are likely to manifest. Maybe that could even have interesting implications for the work that Daniel does on integrating it into DSM and medical practice. Maybe not. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/17/20 4:30 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Hypothesis: directing awareness to the ground of being means that energy goes through the central channel, which requires for it to be open all the way.  
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/17/20 6:35 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I just did this guided meditation with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and found that it has some parallells to the classes with Michael, as it approaches strong feelings with regard to people from the perspective of emptiness and integrates that with the Brahmaviharas. It is a preliminary practice, though, so it includes a number of techniques to help with the approach. I highly recommend it for contracted phases when vaste empty space seems clouded and one needs some extra pointers to get in touch with the source.

https://youtu.be/e9Eh01arTpo
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/17/20 7:28 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Triangulating Michael Taft, Lama Lena and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is gold! Daniel's technically precise and engaged teachings and the Kundalini Vidya that I'm currently being nerdy about add complexities to it. They all shed light on each other's teachings. It's like a multidimensional jigsaw puzzle falling into place. Unlocking a piece in one dimension contributes to the patterns in the other dimensions. It's all connected. How exciting to see it fall into place and see the complexity transmogrify into profound simplicity! 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/18/20 10:09 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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This experiment with replacing habitual patterns turned out to be very fruitful in a way that I didn't expect. It went from amazement via total overwhelm and trying to deal with that constructively to a point of surrender that revealed the emptiness of it all. There is so much energy locked up in habits. It's easy to think that habits simplify life because they take away effort, and so we invest this huge effort in changing habits to something better, and we end up creating a shiny new prison with shiny new pathways. But what if the whole idea of an infrastructure in the brain is just a story? What if we don't really have to use the pathways? What if we are free in every moment to just open up to the spontaneous joy of awareness? That sort of simplifies things, doesn't it?

I guess that is part of what Ni Nurta has been saying, although it's easier for me to put it in less materialistic terms, but that's just semantics. I'll get back to replying to the comments later. 

Obviously the spontaneous joy of awareness manifests differently for different individuals, so patterns are still part of it, but I think there's a way to just let the patterns sort themselves out in a way that is much less limiting and much less invested/locked. I seem to be in a process of unlocking. It brings up lots of stuff, emotions that have been part of the investment. There are layers of layers of habitual overlays that have all been locking stuff up. Opening that sets it all in motion, but it turns out that the busy chaos of emotionally charged activity is nothing other than the stillness. It's just the other side of the coin. It's the dance of the stillness, or the stillness of the dance, or both at the same time. It's a totally dynamic stillness, or a very rich and nuanced emptiness, or a very still dynamic. It's caleidoscopic, except there are no fixed or substantial parts there to begin with and noone to observe it from the outside. 

So I guess I'll just let this process do its thing. In the meantime I just need to stay out of the way of the highest good and not push things. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/19/20 12:03 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Wow. I just dreamt an entire symphony, some kind of fusion between modern classical music and experimental jazz. It was so vivid. I was meditating in the dream and had the symphony show up in the meditation. I can't recall the music now, but that wasn't the point either. I think it was that spontaneous joy of awareness showing that I can trust it to perform. 

When I woke up I saw letters and geometrical patterns in the murk taking turns with mental images in rapid succession. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/19/20 12:10 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Wow. I just dreamt an entire symphony, some kind of fusion between modern classical music and experimental jazz. It was so vivid. I was meditating in the dream and had the symphony show up in the meditation. I can't recall the music now, but that wasn't the point either. I think it was that spontaneous joy of awareness showing that I can trust it to perform. 

When I woke up I saw letters and geometrical patterns in the murk taking turns with mental images in rapid succession. 

The dream was semi-lucid. I remember that after the meditation when it was my turn to comment on the practice I said that I had dreamt an entire symphony, not that it had turned up in the meditation. Then I recall reflecting on that, like "wait a minute, am I in class or asleep in my bed?", and then I woke up. I do however practice dream yoga with Lama Lena, in addition to the classes with Michael Taft, so technically it was both dream and meditation. 

About the visuals: it could be described as shifting rapidly between different kinds of screens according to the kasina terminology that I find is applicable also without the fire kasina. There were rapid shifts back and forth between first, second and third screen, sometimes like different layers sort of gliding through each other. Sometimes there was a partial overlay of one screen over another: a somewhat grainy but fairly detailed black-and-white graphic spiral pattern on a smaller centered sceen and dynamic text on a wider screen behind it. The dynamic text screen was more alive and maybe curved in space, less stiff if that makes any sense. Apart from that there were photorealistic dream scenes that flashed by very fast. Some of them seemed to involve Disney characters for some reason. I was only witnessing the scenes and did not interact with them. They were like fragments, totally out of context. Maybe the text had some clues about them; I wouldn't know because I wasn't able to read them. I could see them pretty clearly and recognized that it was words but couldn't read, partly but not only because they kept changing. Many of the dream scenes that were flashing by were subliminal too. I recognized that they were clear images but either couldn't conceptualize the content or forgot it immediately. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 8/20/20 12:35 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Wow. I just dreamt an entire symphony, some kind of fusion between modern classical music and experimental jazz. It was so vivid. I was meditating in the dream and had the symphony show up in the meditation. I can't recall the music now, but that wasn't the point either. I think it was that spontaneous joy of awareness showing that I can trust it to perform. 

When I woke up I saw letters and geometrical patterns in the murk taking turns with mental images in rapid succession. 

In my dreams, I have been working on a music/imagery transcription/translation program. I think that your dream symphony is still available in the Akashic records hard drive, so we could try having my program make your symphony and images into a music video. The letters and geometrical patterns in the murk also translate, via a little program I call Mandala Master, available for a small one-time price, with a slight extra cost for the Murk Buster Supplement. although we can probably barter the whole package for a little spontaneous joy of awareness. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/22/20 11:52 AM
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Tim Farrington:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Wow. I just dreamt an entire symphony, some kind of fusion between modern classical music and experimental jazz. It was so vivid. I was meditating in the dream and had the symphony show up in the meditation. I can't recall the music now, but that wasn't the point either. I think it was that spontaneous joy of awareness showing that I can trust it to perform. 

When I woke up I saw letters and geometrical patterns in the murk taking turns with mental images in rapid succession. 

In my dreams, I have been working on a music/imagery transcription/translation program. I think that your dream symphony is still available in the Akashic records hard drive, so we could try having my program make your symphony and images into a music video. The letters and geometrical patterns in the murk also translate, via a little program I call Mandala Master, available for a small one-time price, with a slight extra cost for the Murk Buster Supplement. although we can probably barter the whole package for a little spontaneous joy of awareness. 
emoticon

Thankyou for being you!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/22/20 11:09 AM
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I just did this guided meditation by Michael Taft: 

https://youtu.be/VK5ky96zG0A

In the midst of being with what is, as instructed, there was an itch. It didn’t really bother me, but I sort of imagined myself scratching the itch anyway, not intentionally but automatically, and that made it go away. My material hands did not bother moving. It’s like my energy body scrachted the itch. The weirdest thing is not that I was totally convinced that it happened, or that it took away the itch, but that it felt completely normal.

---

I sort of freaked out a couple of days ago. It felt like something was very wrong. Everything was vibrating and the nada sound was really loud and there was a huge pressure in my head and it felt like I would be drawn into nothingness - and for some reason that scared me. It usually doesn't. I was tensing up and had a terrible headache and didn't know how to deal with it all. I reached out to someone close to me who I know isn't easily shocked, and he was just there with me until I calmed down, and then he stayed with me while I was going through the same thing without the fear and resistance, but enjoying the spaciousness. I realized that it was really the same thing and that resisting it was what made the whole difference. It dawned on me that the fearful experience must be what it's like for all those practicioners who talk about their practice as a sacrifice and talks about Kundalini as some terrible force that is scaring them. Wow. That was... humbling. I'm not sure I would make it, having to go through that on a regular basis. I wish it were as simple as telling them that not resisting it will make it a wonderful experience instead, but as far as I know, words have little effect. On the other hand, not always... You who are in need of that kind of trust and fearlessness with regard to the awakening process, may you find it, in line with your highest good and for the benefit of all sentient beings! A Om Hung So Ha. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 10:29 AM
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Yesterday during my online meditation class I was instructed to notice the awakened quality of all sorts of emotions that turned up, especially the difficult ones. I found that I struggle with both feelings of being useless and unworthy AND pride issues. I noticed that I was being judgemental about the pride, so when I came into a territory that reminded me a bit of lucid dreaming, I silently said to the awareness ”Show me the awakened quality of pride”, not really expecting anything to happen. To my surprise I suddenly felt incredibly light. It’s hard to describe, but I got to see the spontaneous joy that was driving it, filtered through my sense-making of course but less so than normally, and that wasn’t a bad thing at all. Of course this doesn't mean that all sorts of pride behavior is skillful. It just means that even the character traits that we feel bad about actually do seem to have a drive behind them that isn't inherently fucked up. That's a great relief. 

The emotions tried to hide, but I noticed subtle stuff such as heavier breathing and subtle tightness, and through that some of it could be lured out, especially as I welcomed it. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 11:32 AM
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I have been somewhat sloppy lately, paradoxically (or not) because I have bee trying too hard. I have felt the drive to meditate and aimed at long absorbed sessions while still trying to just be with the ground of being. That doesn't work. The ground of being is still elusive and needs to be contacted often, in shorter sessions, over and over again, in a light and effortless way. I just did a 20 minutes sit. That was much more productive. I need to keep doing that, many times per day.

This time I said out loud to the awareness that I wished to be shown the awakened quality of my resistance towards just staying with the ground of being. The response was a click in my head, making it easier to breathe. I could feel the central channel activating. I kept investigating it, or rather just being present with what would show up, and found that somehow it was much easier to just stay with the experience now. "Is that it?" I thought. Then I felt that familiar pull of the process drawing me into the presence. It had been there all along. I think the awakened quality of the resistance is the surrender. Somehow they are just different sides of the same coin. Wow. No need to get rid of the resistance then. I guess that simplifies things. 

The ground of being in my experience is that feeling that isn't really a feeling, or that quality that really isn't a quality, that I have been wondering about for many years. I think it was about 17 years ago that I pinpointed it as something incredibly familiar and inherently fundamental and yet utterly indescribable and ungraspable and somehow yet managed to map it as something that can be recognized. I remember the occasion, and  a flashback of that occasion has been my label for the non-feeling, my frame of reference. It was during a walk with a collegue and visiting her in her home, when her child was about two or three years old, after she started her doctoral studies but before I was pregnant. The familiar and elusive non-feeling without any inherent quality except being fundamental felt like a good thing. Grasping for words I eventually named it "having the centre within myself", but that didn't seem correct either, as there really wasn't any centre to be found anywhere. Over the years that same non-feeling has popped up now and then, leaving me puzzled about how something so very familiar can be so elusive. It wasn't until I watched Lama Lena's teachings on youtube for the first time that I finally knew what it was and why it was so elusive and empty and yet felt so important and... safe, I guess. 

It's weird how it has now become so readily available and yet something that I find myself avoiding despite longing for it. That's why I felt the need to ask about the awakened quality of my resistance toward it. Michael says that every emotion has an awakened quality, so I thought that might be the case with resistance too. The answer surprised me, but there's also a "Duh!" feeling to it. Of cource. How tricky of the ego to hide the surrender to presence within resistance itself - that's why resisting resistance is bound to fail! - and yet so very predictable when you think about it. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 2:30 PM
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The ground of being has been more accessible the rest of the day, both on and off the cushion. 

I have gotten amazing words of advice from a new dharma friend whom I have become acquainted with through Lama Lena's teachings on dream yoga: a tantric practicioner. Most of it wasn't exactly new to me, but he put it together so beautifully and it was all important stuff that deserves repeating over and over again. What a treasure! There was so much compassion in it. I'm truly blessed with regard to meeting the right people. I'm so grateful for all the people that I have gotten to know, often in unexpected ways.

I have been trying to do both day practice and bedtime practice of the dream yoga. I just reviewed what I have been dreaming today (the regular daily life as dream). Interestingly, it was about as vague and incoherent as any dream review. Daily life is pretty elusive and fragmented and incoherent too. I knew that, as I have been struggling to make sense of it throughout my life, but this was the first time I told it to myself as a story about what I had been dreaming. The resemblence with the recalling of night dreams was striking.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 3:04 PM
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I just must recommend a dharma book, even though I'm only on page 18. It is just so exquisitely beautiful both with its poetic language and with its calligraphies. Spectrum of Ecstacy: Embracing the Five Wisdom Emotions of Vajrayana Buddhism by Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen. Very inspiring! It describes emptiness and the three kayas so poetically that I have to take long pauses just to taste the feeling of it. That kind of beauty opens up something for me. 
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 3:45 PM
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So you've fallen into the realm of Aro T'ger?

http://arobuddhism.org/
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 3:58 PM
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I can't say that I have. I just love the book so far. How so? Yay or nay?

To be honest, I'm tempted to seek refuge in Tso Pema where Lama Lena teaches when my kid is grown up, if I can bring my cats. It seems like my halftime disability retirement money would be more than enough for the cost even though it would barely cover my rent here in Sweden. Live in a cave. I should probably at least visit a cave first, in case I would get claustrophobic. It would be a shame to find that out when I have already left everything and moved to India. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 4:06 PM
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Vajrayana sure has its charm, but it seems to be unnecessarily complicated with all those imaginative practices in intricate detail. I think I might be too lazy. Dzogchen is more simplistic and to the point, much less memorizing and visualizing, and you still get the big prize.
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 7:16 PM
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Would you like to have a bat as a pet ? Apparently Ajahn Brahm has one. He seems to enjoy it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 2:35 AM
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Olivier:
Would you like to have a bat as a pet ? Apparently Ajahn Brahm has one. He seems to enjoy it.

Sure! I love bats. I'd have to wait until my cats have died, though, as they might kill it.
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 7:18 PM
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ps : could you give some details about her teachings ? Like, price, requirements, and such stuff ; and then the quality of it, although I know you've been praising her, i'd like to hear some more details if you please. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 2:45 AM
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Olivier:
ps : could you give some details about her teachings ? Like, price, requirements, and such stuff ; and then the quality of it, although I know you've been praising her, i'd like to hear some more details if you please. 

She doesn't charge anything but is dependent on dana for her survival. She doesn't check who gives and who doesn't. So far I have only had teachings online in group, so I don't know how she is one to one, although I do know that she replies to all e-mails (she prefers them short as there are so many of them). I suspect that to really take someone on as a private student, there are requirements. She has said that in her tradition it is common for a student to check out a teacher for 2-3 years before asking, and then the teacher checks out the student for 2-3 years before deciding. The cooperation between a teacher and a student is so sacred because their karma is intertwined. Therefore I don't know what that relationship would be like. I do know that she is inspiring, poetic, funny and perceptive and explains things in a way that makes it accessible to me not only intellectually but also intuitively. 
shargrol, modified 3 Years ago at 8/26/20 8:36 PM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
 The ground of being..."


 "having the centre within myself", but that didn't seem correct either, as there really wasn't any centre to be found anywhere.

so readily available and yet something that I find myself avoiding despite longing for it. 

Would you say that the ground of being is "presence"?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 2:57 AM
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shargrol:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
 The ground of being..."


 "having the centre within myself", but that didn't seem correct either, as there really wasn't any centre to be found anywhere.

so readily available and yet something that I find myself avoiding despite longing for it. 

Would you say that the ground of being is "presence"?
Hm, both yes and no. I'm trying to explain the Dharmakaya nature of mind as I first came to know it. I have other connotations for presence, although that wasn't really presence. This IS more present. Empty presence, perhaps? Yes, that's it, I guess. There is something primordial and very simple about it. The popularized mindfulness movement has destroyed the concept of presence for me with all those elaborate and effortful exercises of listening to raisins. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 3:25 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
shargrol:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
 The ground of being..."


 "having the centre within myself", but that didn't seem correct either, as there really wasn't any centre to be found anywhere.

so readily available and yet something that I find myself avoiding despite longing for it. 

Would you say that the ground of being is "presence"?
Hm, both yes and no. I'm trying to explain the Dharmakaya nature of mind as I first came to know it. I have other connotations for presence, although that wasn't really presence. This IS more present. Empty presence, perhaps? Yes, that's it, I guess. There is something primordial and very simple about it. The popularized mindfulness movement has destroyed the concept of presence for me with all those elaborate and effortful exercises of listening to raisins. 

wait a minute . . . The raisin thing doesn't fly? 

I'm leaving my raisin cult immediately.

love, tim

p.s. but i will miss those sweet moments with the raisins . . .
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 3:37 AM
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Wait a minute, didn't you join my cult?! You unfaithful acolyte! 

Seriously, though... A collegue of mine had terribly stressful working conditions as she didn't have the support and space needed for her development and duties and a schedule that didn't add up and was expected to perform miracles without the resources needed. When she raised the issue, they sent her on an intensive mindfulness course, in addition to her other tasks. She had to keep up all her other duties while also spending hours listening to raisins, and when she complained about that, they guilttripped her because they had invested in that fancy mindfullness course so now she should be able to cope with stress. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 3:46 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Wait a minute, didn't you join my cult?! You unfaithful acolyte! 

Seriously, though... A collegue of mine had terribly stressful working conditions as she didn't have the support and space needed for her development and duties and a schedule that didn't add up and was expected to perform miracles without the resources needed. When she raised the issue, they sent her on an intensive mindfulness course, in addition to her other tasks. She had to keep up all her other duties while also spending hours listening to raisins, and when she complained about that, they guilttripped her because they had invested in that fancy mindfullness course so now she should be able to cope with stress. 
Yes, that is the dark side of the raisin-listening scene. 

I DID join your cult, and am a faithful mindlessly devoted acolyte to this day! The thing with the raisins was just for the sense of presence I found with them, and also somebody told me to. It was for my job. Listening to raisins was so much better than working.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 3:51 AM
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I forgive you, acolyte, although you have to repent... by symbolically eating the raisins, spontaneously and without effort. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 5:04 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I forgive you, acolyte, although you have to repent... by symbolically eating the raisins, spontaneously and without effort. 

with apologies to william carlos williams:


This Is Just To Say
BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

I have eaten
the raisins
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

shargrol, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 11:49 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
shargrol:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
 The ground of being..."


 "having the centre within myself", but that didn't seem correct either, as there really wasn't any centre to be found anywhere.

so readily available and yet something that I find myself avoiding despite longing for it. 

Would you say that the ground of being is "presence"?
Hm, both yes and no. I'm trying to explain the Dharmakaya nature of mind as I first came to know it. I have other connotations for presence, although that wasn't really presence. This IS more present. Empty presence, perhaps? Yes, that's it, I guess. There is something primordial and very simple about it. The popularized mindfulness movement has destroyed the concept of presence for me with all those elaborate and effortful exercises of listening to raisins. 

Maybe "spacious vividness"?

Or maybe "spacious passion" or Ngakpa Chögyam’s full formulation: “spacious passion in passionate space.”

https://vividness.live/2012/06/19/spacious-passion-road-map/
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 12:05 PM
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The way I see it, that's more the Sambhogakaya than the Dharmakaya, but that's always the potential of Dharmakaya as the spontaneous joy of creation is always ready to burst into becoming and being. The empty and full potential (Dharmakaya) is the ground but the play of energy (Sambhogakaya) is what tends to happen, bringing the world into being as form (Nirmanakaya), either in a mundane way or in a sacred way. I guess one could also say that all of this is the ground, as it is a perpetual transformation (the dance of the stillness). Something like that. I'm writing this while walking so it is on the fly, so to speak.

Funny, Michael Taft recommended the same website today (or maybe yesterday).
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/28/20 2:01 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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shargrol:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
shargrol:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
 The ground of being..."


 "having the centre within myself", but that didn't seem correct either, as there really wasn't any centre to be found anywhere.

so readily available and yet something that I find myself avoiding despite longing for it. 

Would you say that the ground of being is "presence"?
Hm, both yes and no. I'm trying to explain the Dharmakaya nature of mind as I first came to know it. I have other connotations for presence, although that wasn't really presence. This IS more present. Empty presence, perhaps? Yes, that's it, I guess. There is something primordial and very simple about it. The popularized mindfulness movement has destroyed the concept of presence for me with all those elaborate and effortful exercises of listening to raisins. 

Maybe "spacious vividness"?

Or maybe "spacious passion" or Ngakpa Chögyam’s full formulation: “spacious passion in passionate space.”

https://vividness.live/2012/06/19/spacious-passion-road-map/
In the book I'm currently reading, by the very same author, the ground of being is defined as "the sphere of unconditioned potentiality […] which is empty, but from which the energetic and material aspects of being arise". The Sambhogakaya, being that energetic aspect, is defined as "the sphere of intangible appearance, the sphere of energy, the visionary sphere. This is the sphere of primal creativity, the sphere of energy, of light and sound. This sphere of energy is the bridge between emptiness and form. This is the sphere of magic." This is very much in line with how I experience it. I have also experienced that there is a passionate love-making going on between those two aspects, so sure, there is passion in the spaciousness. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 7:46 AM
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The resistance is still there, even though I saw that the resistance is in itself awake and the other side of the coin of the sweet passionate surrender. What a weird thing! The fear is less veiled now. It shows itself. I can just be with it, for 20 minutes at a time. It's not that bad. There's compassion within the fear. And a great aliveness. I just can't stand the full intensity of it. Not yet. But I'm getting there. It's like I'm gradually getting used to the idea of jumping out of an airplane. The idea of that terrifies me too, actually in a very similar way. At least I don't have to do that, lol. 

I'm having nightmares, the loss of control kind. Apart from the usual logistics issues (yes, my nightmares are usually about logistics, as I have never really been able to deal with time and space), they are now also involving letting my cats loose in a new territory and leaving my kid behind to make a journey by themselves, trusting that they will make it, and leaving everything behind. I'm not ready yet in the dreams. I keep grasping, packing stuff, holding on to my loved ones. My exhusband is there, as some kind of safety line and not as an ex, maybe as an attempt from the subconscious to remind me that I have already let go of that and it wasn't the end of the world.

Ugh, this makes me a bit nauseous. Weirdly enough, the idea of feeling safe makes me even more nauseous. I don't want any fake safety. I actually want the truth even if it means that I won't survive it. So why do I keep chickening out? There's a voice saying that it's ridiculous and pathetic, but somehow that just rings empty. It's just what it is. I can see the awakened quality of both the fear and the judging of the fear. It's really not any different from what I'm looking for. It's just nearsighted and perspectival, both in their own ways, and that's part of the caleidoscopic flickerings that constitute human life. 

I'm at a threshold of sorts. I don't think I can cross it. There will always be new I:s arising, though, so probably not that much of a difference, really, as that is already as it is. But it's not enough that I let go and accept that. It's funny how many of us fool ourselves into believeing that, as if that wasn't still fully dualistic. And yet it isn't. It never was, never will be. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/27/20 8:12 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
The resistance is still there, even though I saw that the resistance is in itself awake and the other side of the coin of the sweet passionate surrender. What a weird thing! The fear is less veiled now. It shows itself. I can just be with it, for 20 minutes at a time. It's not that bad. There's compassion within the fear. And a great aliveness. I just can't stand the full intensity of it. Not yet. But I'm getting there. It's like I'm gradually getting used to the idea of jumping out of an airplane. The idea of that terrifies me too, actually in a very similar way. At least I don't have to do that, lol.  

This sort of explains something... I find that I often procrastinate things that are dear to my heart, such as writing that book and applying for a job that I really want. Maybe the joy is there. I just can't deal with the intensity of it. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/28/20 1:46 AM
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I went to bed far too late yesterday because I was doing a job application. It's about developing activities for elderly people in residential care, so if any of you are on good terms with the universe, feel free to put in a good word for me. Right livelihood! Anyway, I was very tired. Still, I was drawn into absorption. It didn't last long, as I was too tired, but it felt so good. The nada sound was loud and I sort of merged with it. That made statics show up in the visual field. As I merged with that, it arranged itself into caleidoscopic patterns. Beautiful! What a mercy! 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/28/20 8:14 PM
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I was drawn into absorption as I was falling asleep. Then I dreamt that I was in Tso Pema together with the yogini whose refuge I have decided to sponsor. I woke up from the dream with this intense dharmatta experience. There was a roaring silence and activation of the central channels and a feeling of being anchored through the back of my head with a cord that reached the third eye in the forehead. Various points inside my head were activated and there were tinglings at the crown. I felt like saying a prayer but couldn't find words except Amitaba and Dewachen. Then the mantra Om Mani Padme Hung was available and I started chanting it mentally, which again intensified the experience. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/28/20 10:44 PM
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I wasn't able to fall back into sleep after waking up before three o'clock in the morning, so eventually, after eating some breakfast, I decided to sit. I sat for 20 minutes, Dzogchen. Then I repeated basic Ligmincha teachings to refresh my visualization of the energy channels in the nine breathings of purification. Then I sat again, and then chanted a dedication in Tibetan and recited the English translation. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/31/20 2:38 AM
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I dreamed that I was trying to explain the seed syllable peh to people but they didn't listen as they were much more interested in expressing their opinions on the syllable although they knew nothing about it. 

If one is familar with the meaning of the syllable, this is a very funny story. 
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 8/31/20 7:40 AM
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I dreamed that I was trying to explain the seed syllable peh to people but they didn't listen as they were much more interested in expressing their opinions on the syllable although they knew nothing about it. 

Convince me this isn't a dream about the DhO  emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/31/20 8:06 AM
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Chris Marti:
I dreamed that I was trying to explain the seed syllable peh to people but they didn't listen as they were much more interested in expressing their opinions on the syllable although they knew nothing about it. 

Convince me this isn't a dream about the DhO  emoticon

That was my thought too, when I woke up. emoticon The people in the dream were not familiar, though. 
shargrol, modified 3 Years ago at 8/31/20 8:08 AM
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...methinks you are on to something! emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/31/20 8:10 AM
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It does ring a bell, doesn't it? emoticon The sarcasm of the subconscious rocks. 
shargrol, modified 3 Years ago at 8/31/20 8:25 AM
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Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 9/1/20 12:15 AM
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Chris Marti:
I dreamed that I was trying to explain the seed syllable peh to people but they didn't listen as they were much more interested in expressing their opinions on the syllable although they knew nothing about it. 

Convince me this isn't a dream about the DhO  emoticon

Chris, this kind of insight is why they pay you the big bucks as moderator!  emoticon
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 9/1/20 7:07 AM
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That wasn't insight but a blinding flash of the obvious. And with what I make doing this here gig I could buy.... nary a thing.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/1/20 8:58 AM
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Lol, yeah, as far as dream interpretations go, this was about as straightforward as it gets. It sails up to the top list of obvious dreams together with the one I had as a teenager in which awareness itself spoke to me with a voice that said "It's a grace bestowed upon the few to be able to see through oneself", illustrated with a simplistic image of a ladder reaching up to the universe. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 9/2/20 2:33 AM
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Chris Marti:
That wasn't insight but a blinding flash of the obvious. And with what I make doing this here gig I could buy.... nary a thing.

exactly! nada, nada, nada . . . and even on the top of the Mount of Carmel, nada! The blinding flash of the obvious has ruined you for anything but utter poverty! Congratulations! You get a raise for that! Way more nada!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/31/20 4:16 AM
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A couple of days ago I was in so much pain, and I asked awareness to show me the awakened quality of that pain. Not only did it immediately illustrate to me that my fascia needs me to let go of stuff, but it also made me confuse my schedule so that I happened to end up on a yin yoga work shop that took care of the urgent contractions of the fascia. Yesterday it was much better, and today the pain is completely gone. I don't know how this works, but I will certainly keep asking awareness questions. 

My perception is shifting back and forth today. It's like awareness is drawn out from "me" and into the environment. Fear responses arise in the body, but as they are only a small part of what is going on and not particularly significant, there is no feedback loop that solidifies it into any lasting emotion. However, my tics and other strong impulses are trying to get me back into identifying with the narrow idea of me, and there are strong habitual responses to that. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 8/31/20 9:43 AM
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90 minutes of zhine. I started out with stillness and silence as objects and then let go of objects. I heard myself sleep there for a while. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/1/20 9:12 AM
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I've got to say that I'm so grateful for the practice today. I have had a job interview in a different town, for a position that differs from what I have been doing so far, and this was the first time ever that I had to inform potential employers about my disabilities. I had no idea what to expect and whether or not I would want the job or be able to handle it, and historically the type of situation where I don't even know what to hope for would scare the crap out of me. Now I was able to enjoy it! I figure that the universe is better suited than the narrow mind to decide what is for my highest good, so I approached it as exploring the possibilities. What a great approach! There's lots of space opening up. It enabled me to be fully authentic and to appreciate the moment. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 9/2/20 2:35 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I've got to say that I'm so grateful for the practice today. I have had a job interview in a different town, for a position that differs from what I have been doing so far, and this was the first time ever that I had to inform potential employers about my disabilities. I had no idea what to expect and whether or not I would want the job or be able to handle it, and historically the type of situation where I don't even know what to hope for would scare the crap out of me. Now I was able to enjoy it! I figure that the universe is better suited than the narrow mind to decide what is for my highest good, so I approached it as exploring the possibilities. What a great approach! There's lots of space opening up. It enabled me to be fully authentic and to appreciate the moment. 

The thing is, your actual presence is way more convincing than your "disabilities." The people interviewing you are not blind, deaf, and dumb. Your reality speaks for itself, and it sounds like they heard that. So glad to hear that you were able to enjoy the adventure.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/2/20 2:37 PM
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Thankyou, Tim!

---

Today I have more or less been knocked out because yesterday I tried to eat the kind of vegan icecream that I used to tolerate. Bad idea. I was awake for a very brief while at lunch time and did some listening inward and letting go. When I stopped doing the thoughts and just let them go on by themselves, I heard the inner voice change and speak in what sounded like Tibetan. Might have been just gibberish, though, as I don't speak Tibetan. There were a roaring silence and inner light. Then I fell asleep again and slept until 16:45 (!). As I did some practical stuff after waking up, I had flashes of emptiness. Then I took part of an online fullmoon purification mantra chanting event arranged by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Visualization, mantra chanting, silent meditation, dedication of merit.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/3/20 1:24 PM
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Today I have done online chanting of the Bön lineage purification mantra (visualization, chanting, silent meditation, dedication of merit).

Then I did the assignments for Michael Taft's "Reversing the stack" course.

After that I took part in an online Shambhala session based on Lojong. I had been hoping for more context to the very dense aphorisms by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje, as they need that. Instead we got to discuss them in small groups, based on our own views of what the words might mean. Apart from that we mainly did silent meditation. Now we are supposed to apply this particular aphorism in our daily life until we meet again. Luckily I have resources. I happen to know where teachings on the aphorisms are available on youtube. I wouldn't want to waste time on speculations about what practice to do. These are very specific teachings, not discussion topics. I'm all for active learning, but turning specific practice teachings into discussions of opinions is just silly. I'm starting to understand the complaints about mushroom culture. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/4/20 10:40 PM
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Yesterday I did shamatha in the afternoon with few jhanic qualities, and then zhine without an object. In the evening I did shamatha again and was about to get pulled into jhanas several times but were interrupted by one of my cats every time. The first time, I heard a horrified squeeking noise from the patio, as he was hunting a cute little leveret. I intervened and brusquely brought the cat inside so that the young hare could get away and hopefully find its mum. After that, my cat just wouldn't let me concentrate. Fair enough, I guess, but I was still pissed off. I guess  those who say that shamatha bring out their best qualities simply don't have cats. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/6/20 3:01 AM
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Yesterday I sat for 30+ minutes in the morning, after recapitulating my dreams for the dream yoga, trying to return to tawa over and over again (Dzogchen). It's hard in the mornings, as I usually feel a bit foggy. In the late afternoon/early evening I did a 90 minutes long online session with a group of other Dzogchen practitioners. We started with the Kargyo lineage prayer and ended with dedication of merits. There was a short break in the middle of the session. The group practice was good. It made tawa more available, probably partly because I had to sit there in stillness long enough. Then I had a group meeting with my meditation course. After that there was a dream yoga teaching with Lama Lena. The dream yoga is something that needs to be done consistently for years. I find that I too easily get tempted to watch netflix or read or be social instead, or even listen to dharma talks. Still, I have consistently been remembering dreams since these teachings started. That's a beginning. I have had semi-lucid dreams but not entirely lucid ones this time around. The dream about the yogini in Tso Pema might qualify as auspicious, but I haven't had any more dreams like that since then. A recent development is some kind of ironic dreaming where I'm amused by the story and the turns that it takes and by its absurdity. After waking up, I can get back into the same dream again. That's not new, though. 

This morning I recapitulated my dreams, did nine breathings of purification, and sat for 20 minutes. I need to check in with tawa more often, many times per day and more consistently. It's hard. My brain fights back and wants to do stuff, or gets dull out of lack of stimulation and sort of trances out. The group session yesterday showed me that after going through a period of that, a new clarity comes along. It has that sense of strong familiarity and doesn't need to be hung up on form to remain bright and clear. That's what I need to find more often. 

I have put myself on a waiting list for tantric practice with Lama Lena, extraordinary ngundro. As soon as 30 people have enlisted, the course will start. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/6/20 3:42 AM
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Okay, it is easier to find tawa again and again after having done one of those foggy morning sits, if I just return to it instead of distracting myself with other stuff. That's good to know. I'm still foggy, brainwise, but it's there anyway, and my central channels are activated. That connection goes beyond the fog. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/6/20 5:25 AM
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Nine breathings of purification, lineage prayer, refuge prayer. 30 minutes of Dzogchen. Dedication of merits.

It took about 15 minutes to get through the distractions and dullness and into the clear presence. Being there is not boring at all. It is rich. After about 10 minutes, contractions arise again, with distracting thoughts, restlessness and dullness, but there are flashes of clear presence intermittently. I get that eventually there will be no separation between being there and not being there, but I'm still constructing the duality. That's just the way it is. At least I can see now that the brain fog is not the problem. Intellectual clarity is not required for presence. Trying to get out of the brain fog is a problem with regard to just being present (it might be good for other reasons, if it means remembering to medicate something that needs medication in order to take care of the mammalian body, but that can probably be done with presence too). 

I think it might be helpful to learn landmarks like this, just as I did with vipassana, because it helps me not to give up. Landmarks are not a means to competetive behavior, but a means to get to know the terrain and its quirks and get the familiarity that gives confidence enough to keep going regardless of weather conditions. 

Dzogchen is supposed to be done with eyes open, at least the way Lama Lena teaches it. I find that once I get into that clear presence, keeping my eyes open is not distracting. In daily life I also get into that space while I'm going about my daily business, so I know that it can be done. Yet I find that it is at least sometimes easier to start out with eyes closed. I can still widen the internal gaze. I guess I forget to blink as much as I need when I try to start the session with eyes open, because my eyes get dry. Or maybe that's just distraction, subconscious resistance. For now I allow myself to back and forth between closed eyes and open eyes. I know how to relax the gaze, so that's not the problem. I do that a lot, have always had that habit, except maybe in times where I have had to be superfocused on stuff all the time (or thought so); those times never lasted very long, though, because there is something that brusquely takes back focus to just being sensations. Always has been. That could be very annoying when I needed to catch a bus or something. I guess what is needed is some integration where practical thoughts are seen as the sensations they are and given just the right amount of attention without distracting from other sensations. I probably either gave them precedence or shut them out, thus creating a duality. I probably still do most of the time. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/6/20 10:03 AM
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Lineage prayer and refuge prayer, then 35 minutes of Dzogchen, then dedication of merits. 

This time clear and relaxed presence was there instantly. Central channels were activated. Discursive thoughts did come up, but it was clear that they arose in emptiness and dissolved in emptiness. Keeping eyes open was effortless. After the first 15 minutes, there were about 5 minutes when discursive thoughts lingered a bit longer. Then 10 serene minutes. The last five minutes, part of me was a bit restless and part of me just enjoyed sitting. 

Okay, so there is no denying that practicing diligently several times per day makes a difference. 

Now there is a live teaching by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Then yin yoga. Then a live teaching with Lama Lena. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/7/20 2:35 AM
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I'm so not a morning person, but apparently starting the day with a sit makes a difference, so I did a 30 minutes long one, after nine breathings of purification and a lineage prayer and a refuge prayer, and then ended with dedication of merit. The first five minutes were rather dull. Then the dullness was gone, but instead I was easily distracted from tawa. Towards the end, my cat Ezekiel lay down in my lap to keep me company during the meditation. That made a difference, as he is good at holding both energy and space and my love for him is uncomplicated. 

Before doing any of this, I recapitulated my dreams for the dream yoga, holding the dream stick. I had been woken up abruptly by the phone and had to talk about housing support, so I had forgotten the dreams. When I lay down and sank into the space of the dream time, they came back. Then I lay there for a while and felt a clear calm presence. The nada sound was loud and my central channels were activated. Tawa was there. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/7/20 2:08 PM
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The dukkha nanas haven't really scared me since I learned about the maps. I'm not saying that I have always enjoyed them thoroughly, but it has been clear that they are transient and that the thoughts patterns they bring about shouldn't be taken that seriously. This particular insight cycle* has been unusually tough with regard to the dukkha nanas, though. I have needed support a couple of rounds, as I felt in way over my head, especially since there has been pretty much chaos around me in my daily life too. I think it may have started to turn around now, maybe. I was at a tram just now when I felt a combination of the fear nana and misery and disgust kick in with rather strong anxiety for no apparent reason at all, together with an impulse to lay down in fetus position as well as sudden nausea, but I noticed that I wasn't buying into it. It didn't affect my behavior or my body language and it didn't start a chain of thoughts about what "must" be wrong. I didn't even jump high when in the midst of the anxiety somebody suddenly grabbed my bag. It turned out to be my exhusband and kid joking with me, so it was a good thing that I didn't react impulsively. Those nanas just dissolved as suddenly as they arose, or maybe they just sank into the background. 

*)  I'm counting full insight cycles, with fruitions. I don’t bother counting how many times I cycle around the nanas, as that happens far too fast to keep count. I’m not actually counting the full insight cycles either, but I keep in my memory the development during the ongoing cycle, and I have some kind of reference point from the earlier ones.
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 9/8/20 7:32 AM
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When cycling in the dark night I used to think of the movie Groundhog Day  emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/8/20 9:20 AM
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That particular movie helped me and my brother to at least eat some chips during the shock when our dad had committed suicide. My brother's girlfriend rented it. Chips and movies kept us alive during that phase. It really illustrates the dukkha nanas very well: you just have to go through that same shit over and over again, with ridiculous predictability, until you learn what you're supposed to learn. That message might have helped my dad if he had just been motivated to listen to it. He really wasn't. Thankfully, I am. 

That's actually a very fun analogy. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/8/20 2:32 AM
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I'm finally taking a liking to morning sits. Apparently it's not too late to teach this dog to sit. I have done two morning sits today so far, one 30+ minutes and one 20+ minutes. There's a pattern to the sits. I get distracted, and I realize that's a defence mechanism. I get back to tawa, and that makes the following happen: the energy channels swiftly clear up and the central channels activate. The respiratory tracts open up widely, which makes it so much easier to breath. Then instantly my heart contracts from a fear reaction, from the emptiness, which makes the breathing movements difficult. However, that doesn't really matter, because the air is so accessible anyway. I don't really seem to need much breathing movement. Therefore I don't have to worry about it. Thus I don't buy into the fear reaction, and it stops. The emptiness is nothing to fear. It's wonderful. But then the ego struggles to get back into control, and the whole thing repeats itself, over and over again. 

I have booked therapeutic yoga at lunch time and a joint meditation sit at the yoga studio in the early evening.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/8/20 7:32 AM
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The yoga session was exactly what I needed - every single movement, every single word from the teacher was exactly in tune with where I am in the spiritual process. It is very much about not being the doer but just let things unfold. When I manage to surrender to that, things seem to fall into place in a better way than I could have done from my sense of what "should" be done. That doesn't mean that I need to be passive. It's more about following the stream - not any external stream such as social expectations, but an inner stream that comes from the interplay between the open emptiness and the play of energy as it takes place for me in this body. Some things just happen very easily if I go with the flow without pushing it. Suddenly opportunities open up for action that feels natural to do and benefits both me and others. 

I think my sense of duty is a trap. I know that there are others that have said so for quite some time now, but since I don't get things done very efficiently most of the time, that sounded like wishful thinking to me. I really thought I needed to ramp up my sense of duty. However, good actions seem to happen much more efficiently, especially in the long run, if they are just a spontaneous expression of joy. Even when good actions involve serious stuff, the kind of stuff that one wishes wouldn't be needed, there is still a possibility for uncompromised joy in being able to do something about it. That is a much better driving force than feeling guilt for all the stuff that one is not able to do. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/8/20 9:23 PM
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Just finished a class with the "Reversing the stack course", which is in Pacific time whereas I'm in Central European time, so I'll just quote what I wrote in the slack channel and leave it to another time to fill in the references needed for this to make sense to someone else. I need to get back to sleep.
This is awsome. Something shifted, and yet it really was already there. @Michael do you remember when I was trying to explain the sensations of ”touch in” when you were coaching me? That was this. Centerlessness. I never really understood that weird division between in and out, though, because it really isn’t relevant. I always mixed them up because touch out was centered in my body whereas touch in was outside it.

It also clicked how the sensations of my energy body scratching an itch come to being. That is the desire realizing that it’s already fulfilled.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/9/20 9:49 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Just finished a class with the "Reversing the stack course", which is in Pacific time whereas I'm in Central European time, so I'll just quote what I wrote in the slack channel and leave it to another time to fill in the references needed for this to make sense to someone else. I need to get back to sleep.
This is awsome. Something shifted, and yet it really was already there. @Michael do you remember when I was trying to explain the sensations of ”touch in” when you were coaching me? That was this. Centerlessness. I never really understood that weird division between in and out, though, because it really isn’t relevant. I always mixed them up because touch out was centered in my body whereas touch in was outside it.

It also clicked how the sensations of my energy body scratching an itch come to being. That is the desire realizing that it’s already fulfilled.

This was not any final shift, just a stepping stone towards stabilizing trekcho. It lasted longer than before and felt much less elusive and it was so effortless. So simplistic. So present. So obvious. The idea of being a perceiver just felt ridiculous, as every sensation was so tangibly self-aware. It's just that some of the sensations involve the notion of belonging. It's not that I as a perceiver own the sensations. They assembly together to do being me. Others involve the notion of being other than me but perceived by me. But they are all just awareness. Those that do not involve any notion whatsoever with regard to me, they just know themselves too, and most of the time the me-related sensations do not involve any knowledge of them. Sometimes they seem to do, and that's when it gets a bit woo woo. Other times, they probably don't, but the perspective changes so that the "reference point" is something other than me. For instance, for a while during this meditation, it felt like the self was in the body of my cat who was lying in my lap. I could also easily get the feeling of being a pillow on my bed or something. But the visuals were still coming from my eyes. I don't have enough visual imagination to shift figure and ground visually in a way that would change that, or at least that is what I believe. My beliefs probably set the limits to sensations. I could however imagine scratching that itch and getting the desired relief so vividly that I actually got the relief as if I had been scratching myself. I simply believed what Michael had said, that you can only desire an outcome that is already there in awareness. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/9/20 9:56 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Those that do not involve any notion whatsoever with regard to me, they just know themselves too, and most of the time the me-related sensations do not involve any knowledge of them. Sometimes they seem to do, and that's when it gets a bit woo woo.

This part is not phenomenological but just deductive and thus merely beliefs.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/9/20 4:37 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Discovery: what I tend to experience as brain fog and my body not obeying me when I wake up now and then is simply dreaming wanting to happen. I'm just still partly in sleep paralysis and can easily go back to dreaming. That's actually a resource for dream yoga. Lama Lena has the same thing going on. 

I wonder if some of the foods that I'm reacting to are just sleep inducing. Maybe I could eat them if I were doing a dream yoga retreat. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/9/20 10:59 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I often have dreams where the dream logic allows me to consciously change reality, without having the "Hey, this is a dream" moment. Is that common?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/17/20 5:52 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The meditation class the night between Tuesday and Wednesday felt great as usual, but after that I have had a couple of very tired days during which I have missed the opportunity for morning sits due to jet lag and what may be the onset of a cold. It still feels like I get trapped in duality when my practice is less frequent during the day and especially if I miss morning sits. However, now and then, there is a spontaneous shift. 

Today I had an online session with Shambhala based on Lojong again, apart from my own practice. Until next time I'll work on being less predictable. I will revisit my sattvic implemenation model and see how I can work with it in a balanced way. 

I have been called to a job interview as an organizer of activities in a residential care facility for seniors, which is exactly what I wish to do now. When I read the email there was this immediate spaciousness opening up, like a field of possibilities. That’s got to be a good sign from the universe. Also: right livelihood! 
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Not two, not one, modified 3 Years ago at 9/18/20 4:14 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

I have been called to a job interview as an organizer of activities in a residential care facility for seniors, which is exactly what I wish to do now. When I read the email there was this immediate spaciousness opening up, like a field of possibilities. That’s got to be a good sign from the universe. Also: right livelihood! 
Good luck!  You would be awesome!

Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/18/20 8:46 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Thankyou, Malcolm! 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/19/20 4:11 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I did both morning and evening sits today, both of them with company online. That helps holding the energy. I'm still cycling through the dukkha nanas and still under the delusion that they have something to do with me, so there have been some challenges, but there have also been glimpses of something that transcends the challenges without escaping them. 

Tomorrow I will take refuge in a zoom ceremony. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/10/20 1:27 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Three morning sits: 30+ minutes, 20+ minutes, 20+ minutes.
Online meditation with Shambhala in the evening, 90 minutes including 20 minutes just sitting, 10 minutes walking meditation, instructions about a slogan ("Whatever you encounter unexpectedly, join it with meditation"), contemplation on that after a moment of shamatha, and then group sharing and dedication of merit. 

Tawa is available.

Lots of nada sound in daily life. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 9/18/20 7:23 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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All the best with your new job! 


"Lots of nada sound in daily life. "

I assume you mean that high pitch frequency in hearing space right? If so I have it most of the time too and wonder if it indicates something? Thank you. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/18/20 8:56 AM
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Thanks, Papa Che, but it's too early to tell whether it will be my new job.

Yes, that's the nada sound. I think it may indicate expansion, which is a relative thing. The "ultimate" spaciousness has no sound, though (right before space loses its meaning because there is no movement anymore). 

It can be a very efficient shamatha object. It took me through the entire jhanic arch over and over again, with multiple fruitions. It didn't remain sound, though, but turned into light. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 9/18/20 10:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Thank you Linda. 

What would be the benefit for me trying the same, go through the entire Jhanic arc and even new fruition's? I find Jhanas not so interesting anymore. Granted I only ever got to 5th so can't say if the remaining would be interesting but knowing myself now I doubt it. 

Also, if you are familiar, would it be better for me to wait with this Jhanic travel until I pass A&P or would it even benefit while in 3C's? I find this stage rather agonizing because of the constant body stiffness and pressures and it would be great to pass it emoticon 

I look at Shamatha as my long lost friend who got shot on the battle field by Dukkha Nana back in 2011-12 emoticon I'm a bit apprehensive to rise it from the dead emoticon 

Maybe I should try it and see what it brings to the fore? Hm ... not sure. Ingram does suggest to just carry on with noticing/noting in his book. 

Sorry for bringing in uncertainty to your log emoticon but it helps brainstorming a bit. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/18/20 12:38 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I don't mind discussing the technicalities of the practice at all. That's what I come to this forum for. emoticon

However, I really don't know. In my case, I didn't exactly plan it. I was merely trying to find a reliable way to fourth jhana, as I had only arrived there without knowing what I was doing. I still haven't found any reliable way, and it's not any top priority, but it sure was effective that time. A little too effective, as I had to struggle to get out of that loop to get at least some sleep. I think it was the suffering door, too. It wasn't exactly pleasant. The cessations felt like gradually having consciousness get sucked into a black hole, with the whole spaghetti effect and everything. I still can't quite figure out how that was even compatible with having nothingness disappearing before that. It seems like there should be less than nothing there to get sucked in, so how could it even get drawn out like spaghetti? Maybe it was the duration that was still there, until it wasn't. 

I have never been able to do the jhanic arc in the 3C nana, so I can't tell if it's a good idea. I'm just too pissed off in the 3C nana to do jhanas. 

If you want to tune into the Dharmakaya nature of mind, you can tune into what's behind the sound. The silent space or non-space from which it comes. The eye of the hurricane that is completely still and silent. That's one of my favorite ways of doing it. If it works, it might be a way to get more space into that energy body of yours, instead of being like a champagne bottle with a cork that has somehow gotten stuck. I'm not suggesting that you should abandon your go-to method. Noting is a great method for that nana. However, if you need some rest inbetween your noting sessions, it's one thing to try. 

There are lots of things to actively investigate with the nada sound, too. You can zoom in on different parts of it and zoom out and turn it into clear tones. You can notice what happens with your mind when you zoom in on different parts of the sound. Or you can just ignore it and focus on something that suits you better. Or you can notice how different mind sets affect the nada sound. Of course the nada sound isn't really separate from your mind, but dualistically speaking. 

I don't know if any of this made any sense. Tired brain. 

At least I managed to do morning sits again today, 1h+ divided into two sessions. It was very well needed. That chatty brain of mine really needed some cleaning out. I had been helping my brother with a delicate situation, and it involved some heavy triggers. He isn't triggering me, but he has been treated unjustly. When it comes to keeping calm and finding the right diplomatic and yet assertive words in situations like that, my family counts on me. I can do it, but oy vey, is it draining. This was just a minor thing compared to the whole process, and things are going his way now, thankfully, but we wanted to make a statement for the record, one that was constructive but also rectified the wrongs that might others remain in the fake history. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 9/18/20 12:58 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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"Or you can notice how different mind sets affect the nada sound."

This is the one I already observe. Interesting about that silent space behind the nada sound! 
All you wrote makes sense and I will look out to tune into it as it pops out it's nada nose in more clarity. Until then I think I will push on with my noting and open eye Kasina simultaneously. Inevitably this 3C is going to resolve or my head will just fall off. In any case there will be a relief emoticon 
Thank you. 

All the best to your family and with your job! 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/19/20 4:00 PM
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All the best to you and your family as well! And I'm glad that you are back here.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/12/20 5:56 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Yesterday I woke up too late to be able to do morning sits (I had housing support scheduled rather early). Instead I just meditated in the evening, doing the latest guided meditation with Michael Taft after a meditative yoga session at my yoga studio. Then I stayed up
late taking part in an online retreat with Garchen Buddhist Institute via youtube, about Tara (beatiful chanting and some teachings), instead of 
doing the dream yoga and sleeping early. It was basically a sloppy day as far as trekcho practice goes. That was very noticable this morning, as it took 15 minutes just to get the energy channels to clear up, and then there was distraction all over the place. When I did touch the emptiness, the heart contracted tangibly. I really need to have patience with the process of getting all parts of the "individual" mind to be comfortable with empty spacious awareness. I understand now why it is so hard to find detailed phenomenology from the middlepaths and onwards. There just isn't much to say. It's just doing this very subtle and simplistic thing over and over again until it gets locked in. 

Morning sits: 30 minutes + 25 minutes + 20+ minutes.

I have a 90 minutes trekcho session schedueled for the early evening, then a meeting with my meditation course (Reversing the stack), and then Lama Lema teachings. There is also this Tara retreat partly colliding with the other sessions; I'll need to either skip some of that or do it in retrospect (I haven't signed up for it so that's no biggie; I just happened to find it on youtube and the chanting is led by this great singer Mercedes Bahleda - it's incredibly beautiful). 

I think I have sort of turned into a Buddhist after all. I'm finding myself putting together a Buddhist altar and enjoying it. It's not that I think I need one. It's more of a celebration thing and I never really decided to do it but noticed that I was doing it and didn't bother to stop. It's going to be part of an entire bookshelf dedicated to the dharma. I need somewhere to put all meditation related stuff. The pile of dharma books on my night stand has grown huge and there were meditation papers everywhere that I'm now organizing into a huge pile of meditation binders that will also go into the shelf once I get it, together with various props (kasina stuff, visualization materials, dream stick, singing bowls, smudging stuff, incense etc.). I have bought little lamps with solar cells that will light up the altar at night time. I'm enjoying this ridiculously much.  
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/13/20 5:37 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The evening sit yesterday felt great. Tawa was very accessible. Doing the morning sessions really pays off. 

Later at night I got into a restless mood of obsessively searching the internet for ritual objects. Very typical desire for deliverance. I want to make a smoke offering but I don't have the right equipment, but hey, what's the rush anyway? I don't even like the sound of those bells. I think they have a terrible sound. And why would spirits around here even have preferences for Tibetan symbols? They probably couldn't care less. I also got riled up because a person from my meditation class was sort of badmouthing Daniel based on what seemed to me like obvious misconceptions, and for some reason that just pissed me off. She had all sorts of opinions about awakening with no base in phenomenology whatsoever, and I got reactive the same way that I recently observed in a thread here and pointed out that one might benefit from looking into. Obviously I have attachments with regard to awakening and people's ideas about it. That's something to work with. It also kind of pisses me off that she has so many opinions about how the class should be taught. It sounds like she thinks that benefits from meditation is a package that you can buy and that as a customer you have the right to a certain experience and that you can sort of pick and choose what should come out of it - as if it could be designed. Apparently that bothers me. It also bothers me that I notice a tendency in myself to think of her as ignorant when she expresses herself like that. That's me being judgemental. I don't like it (and that is another level of judging). The question is: Why am I turning this into a personal thing? 

For both those reasons I couldn't sleep, so I ended up taking part in Michael's death sangha session via zoom at SF Dharma Collective. I don’t know if I’m morbid or suppressing things or just microslept through parts of it (it started at four o'clock in the morning in my time and we were encouraged to lie down and relax), but I loved it. It very soon turned into something vibrational for me. Already when I was settling in, I had sort of the tunnel experience. I was being drawn in. After the initial shamatha part, things were happening, different things, but most of the time Michael's voice was just sound. Still, things seemed to happen as a response to the different sounds. I can’t conceptualize most of it. There were kriyas and lots of letting go and it felt great. I felt completely safe. Hearing the reports from others afterwards, I came to realize that some pretty harsh details of the dying experience had been vividly described. I'm familiar with those from before, as they were the standard Tibetan desciption of the dying process.

Afterwards I dreamt that I was being choked to death. First I reacted with fear, but then I remembered that I had been doing death sangha and thought ”hey, this is what I’m practicing for”, and then the fear dissolved.

I have been doing a bardo prayer that describes the different stages of the dying process and what happens in the bardo. I like doing that before going to sleep. For same reason, I find it comforting. Also, I find that it somewhat resembles the stages of falling asleep.

---

Morning sit (well, more like lunch time sit, but morning for me after that night): 30 minutes. A combination of tawa and distracted thoughts. No embodied restlessness, with a few subtle exceptions, but an active mind going about its default business. Good mood. Loud nada sound. A sense of trust in the process. 

Now, afterwards, I have tics, which tells me that contraction is going on. It's not that bad, though. There is also a bright calmness in the background, shining through. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/13/20 6:01 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Writing about what was getting me riled up helped me to let go, at least for now. That's a great relief. I really don't have to engage with that in any personal way. It's weird what a contrast it is. Now I can barely understand how it could have such a hook in me, but I suspect that it will get back to that again many times. It really is like different subpersonality systems with different patterns. Some are more reactive than others, as they are more invested in stuff. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/13/20 5:04 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I'm getting more signs that the hardest part of the cycling of dukkha nanas might be over for this particular full insight cycle (but there may very well be many more full insight cycles before there is a new path moment). I did two yoga classes today, one vinyasa and one yin yoga, and there's a tangible difference. I'm not so contracted anymore. It still cycles rapidly, which involves an ongoing pending movement between expansion and contraction, but the baseline is much less contracted. There is more space both mentally and physically in bodily movements and positions. Checking in with and resting in Tawa comes more naturally. The silence is a symphony a lot of the time again. Noticing how much difference regular Dzogchen practice makes (I mean several formal sits per day and some brief check-ins and micro-hits in-between), I'm like a child (in a non-dysfunctional family) getting to open Christmas presents. It really is going somewhere (to the extent it ever does; of course it never really does). I'm so grateful. The process is doing its thing. Woohoo! 

I have signed up for taking refuge with Lama Lena. She will do online ceremonies via zoom. 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 9/13/20 7:21 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I'm like a child (in a non-dysfunctional family) getting to open Christmas presents. It really is going somewhere (to the extent it ever does; of course it never really does).

Hi Linda,

I thought this bit was very insightful.

I'm sorry to learn that your Dad died of suicide. It made me feel sad for you.

Best wishes,
George
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/14/20 3:35 PM
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Thankyou George! I can't really see the insight in that, but I'm glad somebody does. And thankyou for caring!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/14/20 4:21 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Today I observed how incredibly fast the progress of insight can be in something as simple as putting gentle pressure to trigger points with yoga balls. I was cycling like crazy, and the progression of nanas was very obvious.

Formal sits: two in the morning, about an hour altogether. Busy day. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/15/20 2:00 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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First morning sit, starting with nine breathings of purification and then contacting and resting in natural mind, 30-35 minutes.

The dullness I used to have in the morning is gone. Instead there is an abundance of distracting thoughts, but they have no substance, really. The Dharmakaya nature of mind is right there, pervading it all, and the Sambhogakaya aspect is there too and can be tuned into. There are still distortions, of course, but I can feel layers of veils falling away. Instead of focusing on how any of it feels, I just tune into the space from which it comes. The space that is nowhere and everywhere. The silence and stillness at the centre of everything - and the unveiled awareness that is the inherent tendency of it. That takes me to this great effortless presence which is spacious but not flickering around. There is such a great relief from the contracted state of focused attention. Natural mind. I love it. 

I think I was in first jhana for a while but took myself out of it because I preferred not to focus on any quality. It felt like a compact veil.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/15/20 5:00 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Two additional morning sits, 20-30 minutes each, starting with the nine breathings of purification and then turning into natural mind to the best of my ability. 

It really seems like I do get into first jhana but choose to pop it because it feels like this dense veil. I mean, sure, it's see-through, but it's still... dense. Like a glass wall with some nice light-bending effects to it. It's beautiful but it's still tight, limiting the space. Like, why would I want to sit on a fancy porch behind glass doors when I can smell the lovely summer night air outside? 

I had this idea that this practice was messing with my access to jhanas, but that's not what's happening. I'm just seeing that I don't need to put in that kind of effort for something that just squeezes the juice out of life for a while and then wears off. 

I guess I'm finally getting what Malcolm was pointing at a while back. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/20/20 4:36 PM
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I did four sits of trekcho today together with my morning meditation partner. We started with aspiration prayer and nine breathings of purification and ended with dedication of merit. This is growing into a routine. Very helpful. I'm starting to find my way back to the stillness, I hope, but just around that stillness things can spin very fast.

I have a Buddhist name now. Wohoo! I'm Yeshe Chodak, one who spreads wisdom through the universe. As a gift from Lama Lena I got a snowflake obsidian, related to the story about Chenrezig trying to save everyone in the hell realm. The beings would just fly back into the hell realm as in a snowstorm. That's when Chenrezig got shattered into a thousand pieces, but then arose again as a Bodhisattva with a thousand arms and an eye in each palm. "That's you", Lama Lena said. Wow. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/21/20 1:42 AM
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First sit, 35+ minutes, shared morning routine. For the main part of it I was just crying. I'm shattered allright. The thought that I might actually be enough some day... I just can't stop myself from crying. So much to do and so little executive functioning. I desperately need those thousand arms with an eye in each palm. Shit, now I'm crying again. For a while there I got into jhana that put some balm all over the pain, but that was just a nyam. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 9/21/20 4:00 AM
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You will be fine Yeshe Chodak emoticon one moment at a time. Don't stretch too far into future time.
I fancy that Snowflake Obsidian story! 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 9/21/20 5:56 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
For the main part of it I was just crying. I'm shattered allright. The thought that I might actually be enough some day... I just can't stop myself from crying. 

Maybe you are realizing that you are already enough?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/21/20 5:56 PM
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Thanks guys, both of you!

---

We did another morning sit, somewhat shorter. No crying. There were ticking sounds in my head. 

Later I felt like my face was melting, so I lay down to meditate, for approximately 45 minutes. There were some head-blippings, like very small electrical surges. Then I fell asleep lucidly. There was disentangling going on. 

Many times during the day there have been things going on with the hearing, like it moves out from me. It happens right now too. 

Evening: traditional yoga.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/24/20 1:54 AM
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First morning sit, close to 40 minutes. Learning to balance between dullness and restlessness, to find the sweetspot where relaxation and energy meet. The ground of being reveals itself on its own there without any doing, and central channels pop open. Loving the morning sit routine.

Reminder to self: write about yesterday including the class and the one-on-one advice from Michael.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/26/20 6:56 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Continuously loving the morning sits. They are gradually getting longer. Sometimes I do several sits in the morning, sometimes I just do one because I have other things to attend to. I have now added an altar procedure to the morning ritual, and I find that it's a good way to wake up and set the tone for the day. It helps activating the central channels. There was this weird thing, though. When I had put the altar into place, I was tired and didn't feel like doing the procedure that day because it would demand executive functioning and I didn't want to waste batteries for the battery candles and whatever, but that just felt completely wrong after a while, like I was taking away all the energy from this magickal construct and depleting it. Another thing that felt completely wrong was that I had moved too many objects from my previous altar, one that I had never planned to make but that sort of grew dynamically. There was this strong feeling of nausea. I had to put back the objects that belonged to that altar and do the procedures for the Buddhist altar. So now I have two different altars that apparently do something for me. I think the old one is sort of a grounding protection altar. It's very simple, especially now that I have moved away lots of props to a shelf under the Buddhist altar (which is in a book shelf with glass doors), but I love it. It's on top of a chest. 

That problem with getting my fingers to register as fingers on the touch pad is back. Moving energy back to my fingers still works, and it's the only thing that works. I don't know how to explain this scientifically. Maybe it has to do with electromagnetic fields or something. Right now I have to do it very often and it dosn't last very long.

There isn't much to say about my practice at the moment. I know what I need to do and how to do it, and I'm doing it. I will continue to do it until there is no illusion whatsoever that I'm doing it. The access to rigpa or whatever you want to call it varies, or that's how it seems. 

Apparently I can nowadays assembly IKEA furniture without going all Donald Duck about it. I have the practice to thank for that.

Last meditation class we were instructed to from empty awareness let a chosen subpersonality/behavioral pattern arise and just be with it. I chose the part that is keeping busy, the easily distracted airy aspect. That's tricky to work with because of what it is, so I didn't get that deep into it, but I managed to realize something new about it because I could feel kinesthetically what it was like. It was tiptoeing to accomodate the perceived needs of all the other aspects. It's not the "one" wanting to avoid awakening. It just perceives that there are other patterns reacting to the process, and it enables them to avoid it by offering distractions. It was like the nervous hostess never daring to sit down and relax and trust the guests to take care of their own needs. Meanwhile, she's missing out on the party and missing out on being present with the guests. All I need to do is to get her to see that her presence is what is most appreciated. Then of course those other patterns will have to grow up and face their own reality. I'm looking forward to that. It is happening, gradually. 

The one-on-one advice was about moving on in the middle paths. It was mainly about learning what small things make all the difference. Michael also said that beginning the practice with shamatha before dropping the ball usually helps stabilizing the nondual experience once it kick in.


Tonight there will be an online trekcho session, then meditation class meeting, then Lama Lena teachings on the six paramitas. Tomorrow the closed teachings on extraordinary ngundro will begin. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 7:43 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 7:43 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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It dawned on me what the touch pad not registering my fingers is. The universe is telling me in a very litteral way that my energy isn't in it. It happens when I'm trying to direct my energy the wrong way. My energy is wiser than my individual mind. I'm not getting depleted. It's just that sometimes my energy is where it's supposed to be whereas "I" am not. And if I keep insisting on being where my energy isn't, then I will get depleted. So the next time it happens, I'll try to just get some space to it and tune into where I'm supposed to be. 

How could I not see that? It's so obvious and so litteral. It's my dream language, for cryin' out loud!
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 9:44 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 9:44 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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You sound a bit like me, or maybe I sound a bit like you now, when I was into Reiki back in 2008 emoticon The reiki energy flows on its own basically and one is to stay out of its way but I always kept noticing "Me" trying to direct the energy. This very thing made me think about what this is all about and I kept seeking other ways to find the asnwers and that seeking brought me to Shamatha in 2010. And here we are today emoticon 

I aslo realised that all that reiki that was send to myself or others was basically like filling up a bucket with water but never realising that there was a hole in the bottom of that bucket. No matter how much Im to fill it up the enegry will leak out through that hole, needing constant refill. This was a wake up call for me to seek other ways to heal that hole in the bucket so the energy is not just wasted through it.

The mind is creating this hole and the mind will heal that hole. But how to do this? You said it; stay out of its way emoticon 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 10:52 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 10:52 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Yeah, we are supposed to follow the energy, not control it.
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 11:44 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 11:44 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Touch pad not working is a universe way of telling you that touch pad is broken.
It uses capacitance to detect you touch it and not your energy
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 12:17 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 11:54 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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No, the touch pad works just fine. It just refuses to register my fingers as human fingers at specific occasions. It does register my fingers when  I summon energy to my hands. It also works with other people's fingers and even cat paws. It's not related to body temperature or dampness - I ruled out all that. Also, I have had other electromagnetic weirdnesses going on throughout my life. You don't have to believe me. I'm just writing this down for my own track record. 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 5:54 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 5:54 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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If you want to verify if you can influence readings of electronic device by thoughts then touch pad is not very good for this puspose as it doesn't tell you values it reads. Any A/D converter with sensitive enough inputs (eg. via amplifier) to detect hand presence near wire connected to input should be viable for this purpose.

I have not tested it myself if I can control such reading but I once saw video of game device which you put on your finger and it was supposed to somehow read mind using this effect.
It was this device https://www.amazon.com/MindDrive-computer-product-operated-thought-PC/dp/B0007M12I0
Video I saw was [url=] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iPefnLfKlY
Unfortunately dude did not really put any effort to train himself to get any interresting result and it seems he just wanted to prove it is bullshit.

Actually making such device should not be very hard. Not that I suggest you should make it but that I should emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 7:44 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 7:44 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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It would be cool if you would do that. Meanwhile, I'm just happy both that I have found out how to overcome this problem and that I have realized that it isn't really a problem but valuable input. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 8:38 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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By the way, I used the wrong wording. It's a touch screen, not a touch pad. If you are that interested in the technical details, I suppose that could make a difference. I was just writing for the sake of my own memory so I didn't bother to check if I was using the correct technical term. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 3:58 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/27/20 3:58 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Okay, so now I have committed to doing a sadhana practice wholeheartedly for three months, several times per day, starting before sunrise, with repeated chanting in Tibetan and full prostrations and visualizations and "feelizations". How did that happen, haha? I think it's a beautiful practice, though. It has a magic to it. There is surrender and mercy and transcendence of the individual self. I might just like it. I'm so grateful that I have already started to set the alarm to get up in the morning to practice. I'll just have to set it earlier for a while, before it gets darker. Later I may actually get to sleep in, because the sun rises very late in the winter up here. Swedish daylight isn't exactly suitable for measuring the day. Parts of Sweden don't have any daylight at all during parts of the winter, and during the summer the sun is up non-stop. Where I live, closer to the south of Sweden, it's less extreme, but still... I'll use common sense. 

I did a live guided lucid sleep meditation earlier today. I asked someone close to me to do it for me. I had some stuff that needed integration. I went through a phase of dream images coming up while I was still able to talk. Then it got all vibrational, then almost completely still and yet conscious. Then I surfaced back up again, rejuvinated. 

I did morning sits of trekcho too, much later than I had planned due to health issues. I had a histamine hangover caused by very modest amounts of black pepper. Doing the altar ritual and the morning sits, all in good company by my morning meditation partner, helped me to overcome the pain and the brain fog.

Today I saw how I keep limiting myself with regard to what I believe is possible. I was talking about it as something I had learned from some isolated happenings, such as realizing that the universe gives me very strong hints about wasting my enegy on the wrong stuff. Then I was talking about how I would most likely continue to mess it up anyway. As an example I took some present challenges, such as dealing with all the office stuff that have been delivered to my home now that I don't have an office anymore. There are huge amounts of books and papers, quite the mess, and I don't have room for it and still I'll need much of it for the book I'm writing (one of them anyway). I said out loud, jokingly, "Why can't the universe just take care of that for me?" My partner asked me if there's any storage room available, and that reminded me that I actually have a storage room included in my rent that I have never used, because when I moved in it didn't have any floor and it seemed easier to just use the shed in my patio. Since then others have been using my storage space and I have never bothered to do something about it. Recently the landlord put up announcements in the hallway that anybody who is using somebody else's storage space needs to clear out their stuff, and otherwise they will empty the space for them on October 5th. So actually, the universe has already taken care of it. I just didn't see that. Isn't that sort of amazing? 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/28/20 1:26 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/28/20 1:26 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I did a live guided lucid sleep meditation earlier today. I asked someone close to me to do it for me. I had some stuff that needed integration. I went through a phase of dream images coming up while I was still able to talk. Then it got all vibrational, then almost completely still and yet conscious. Then I surfaced back up again, rejuvinated. 

I forgot to mention that the sense of energy in my hands grew stronger and warmer and spread to my heart. There was this feeling of incredible warmth in my heart.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/28/20 1:38 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/28/20 1:38 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Oh my goodness, there's juice in that sadhana! It's a version of Nyingma heart drops, a combination of a short text and the magic from a longer text, compiled together by Lama Lena to fit the group. I think I may have spent an hour doing the first round of it, because I wanted to repeat the mantras many times in order to learn them. Then I attended to the altar, then did my first sit of trekcho for about half an hour. I forgot to take my first round of ADHD medication but I didn't need it to wake up and clear my head. The sadhana was way more effective than dexamphetamine. I feel great! It's a combination of surrender, determination, confidence and peace. There is also a sense of priorities being much clearer. Wasting energy on worrying about all the stuff that I need to do just seems irrelevant and counterproductive. I'm having breakfast now and then I'm going for another round of sadhana practice. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/28/20 5:49 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/28/20 5:49 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Two more rounds of sadhana and trekcho before lunch. The sadhana takes much less time now, so I'll gradually add more rounds of the main component to it. My morning practice partner and I have figured out how to integrate this new practice of mine in our routine too, so it's all good. Now I'll have the afternoon off from my practice to do jobbsearching and deal with a number of practical issues. Then I'll get back to the sadhana again and hopefully also do a guided meditation for the course with Michael Taft.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 9/28/20 6:05 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Nice! It's a joy to read you feeling well and gaining a healthy and balanced sense of involvement with this practice and new people. 

Its inspiring!

Must look up on google what sadhana and the other Buddhist words mean emoticon 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/30/20 11:36 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/30/20 11:36 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Squeezing in practice into a job application marathon day. Had one morning session and one afternoon session so far, with both sadhana and a shorter sit of dzogchen at both times. I'm now on my way to yoga class. 

May all sentient beings find peace, develop healthy boundaries and have the motivation, skills and compassion required for seeing through their own reactiveness, especially in situations of perceived certainty and self-righteousness. 
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 9/30/20 12:25 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/30/20 12:23 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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 ... for seeing through their own reactiveness, especially in situations of perceived certainty and self-righteousness. 

And for seeing through our ignorance  emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 9/30/20 1:34 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 9/30/20 1:19 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Chris Marti:
 ... for seeing through their own reactiveness, especially in situations of perceived certainty and self-righteousness. 

And for seeing through our ignorance  emoticon

Sure. That's included. And the more we see through our ignorance, the more resources we have for working with our reactivity, if the motivation is there. May we all use our resources for the benefit of all sentient beings, and may we never settle and think we are done with that. 

I'm included in the prayer, by the way. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/3/20 3:53 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/3/20 3:52 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The day before yesterday: two morning sessions (a combination of sadhana and trekcho, if I remember correctly. Then yin yoga, then an online session with Ligmincha on zoom (24 hour full moon practice in silence; I did approximately 75 minutes), and then Lojong session with Shambhala for 90 minutes, including shamatha, contemplation of slogans, Tong-Len and some group sharing. 

Yesterday: two morning sessions, soft yoga, and an hour of reclining meditation before I went to sleep.

Today: two morning sessions, 90 minutes of trekcho in the evening, then an evening session of the sadhana (now with a better melody), a group meeting with classmates from the "Reversing the stack" course, and public teachings with Lama Lena on Mandarava, the female aspect of Amithaba. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/9/20 1:48 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The last few days I have been feeling really heavy energies, and I blamed pms and the lack of light (light changes really quickly in Sweden at this time of the year) and conditions around me (for a while it seemed like our option for helping my kid to get the right care had been taken away, but thankfully it has now been sorted out). Most of all I thought I was doing something wrong with my practice. Tawa felt much less accessible, and the energy channels seemed closed. I was back to normal breathing again, and since I have been spoiled with extraordinarily smooth breathing for quite some time, that felt awfully heavy. Yesterday it dawned on me that I was doing it again. I was letting "my energies" (or whatever it is) leak out, as if that would help anyone else. Someone I love is depressed now, so that's one of the directions they would try to go. So I did as adviced by my yoga teacher, the healer: I evoked my free will (which seems counterintuitive from a Buddhist perspective, but I guess it could be translated as setting an intention) and returned energies that weren't mine and called back energies who were mine (or whatever it is - I don't really believe in me or mine, but this body needs some kind of life force). I also asked the universe to send healing energies to my loved one from its greater supply. 

Doing this led to opening of the energy channels, just like that, and gave me back my smooth breathing. It was easier to open up to tawa. Wow. During the night, I sweated out the heaviness. I can feel that my thought patterns are more open now. 

I'm now on my way to a job interview. This seems to be right livelihood, so I'm asking Tara to be with me. Trying to connect to my inherent Buddha nature, the one that we all have. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/9/20 3:02 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/9/20 2:24 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Inspired by this great post by Matt, https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/21707104#_19_message_21711114, I decided to try out if the subtle pleasant sensations I often have nowadays are actually strong enough piti for developing jhanas. It's a sense of the face melting drip by drip and that sort of thing. It turned out that they are definitely strong enough. Subtle doesn't equal weak. I'm really untrained right now, and not even that motivated, and yet it took me to third. That's good to know. 

Gosh, those jhanas feel so dense and heavy compared to spacious Dharmatta experiences. I do appreciate the contrast between different experiences, though, so nothing wrong with that. I just wonder how I didn't notice that heaviness earlier in my practice. Well, actually I don't. It's very understandable. But it's sort of comical. I think I may have missed out on many opportunities for jhana just because I didn't recognize the onset of the lower ones now that they feel so heavy. 

By the way, I so want that job! It seems increadibly fun!

Tawa is readily available again. Breathing is easier. Central channels are easily activated. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/10/20 7:08 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/10/20 7:08 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Yesterday there were a number of subtle but distinct head pops, whatever that is. Today I woke up with a histamine reaction, fairly brain foggy and with a sore body, wounds inside my mouth, contracted fascia and lots of impulses to clench (tics), etc. Taking care of the altar and doing the sadhana and the trekcho still sort of holds the energy and creates space. Later I tried to do one of Michael's guided meditations, but the process decided that it was time for lucid sleeping instead. On the way down to mere awareness of awareness, I heard myself sleep breathing, including the kind of breath that cleans out toxins. This helped with the clenching. Then I did shamatha on relaxing the third eye. That made the singlepointed focus feel less claustrophobic and resulted in a fairly stable first jhana that didn't feel so dense and heavy. Then I did a longer version of the sadhana and then trekcho. Tonight there will be online group practice of Trekcho and then live teachings with Lama Lena.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/13/20 10:26 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/13/20 10:26 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Note to self: Don't try to drop into tawa (or awareness of awareness) by using memory of what it's like! That doesn't work. Just dropping whatever the mind is contracted around does work. And if I can't do that, then just listen to somebody else talking about their practice, or their life. Then - whoosh - it's right there. Or just noticing the emptiness of thoughts as they occur. 
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 10/14/20 2:13 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/14/20 2:13 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Note to self: Don't try to drop into tawa (or awareness of awareness) by using memory of what it's like! That doesn't work. Just dropping whatever the mind is contracted around does work. And if I can't do that, then just listen to somebody else talking about their practice, or their life. Then - whoosh - it's right there. Or just noticing the emptiness of thoughts as they occur. 
Memory of experiences can be used for guiding purposes but only for things which do not exist in mind and should be done carefully otherwise it will just slap something on your consciousness. And the word "slap" is I think very adequate. For running processes (eg. awareness) you have the object right there and can use it =)

I guess it is the tendency to refer to memory for retrieving memories that makes us also use this memory recollection mechanism to get in things like awareness of awareness. From experience it is best to also train retrieving memories without using this specific mechanism. Memories might be dimmer but more alive and potentially more luminous if you let them "develop" (like a film)

It can get so ridiculous with this memory mechanism that we actually use it for running experiences. Maybe rather: use something like this for normal sensual experiences. That is why they are not vibrant.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/15/20 3:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Very true. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/14/20 5:46 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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During the class with Michael Taft this night/extremely early morning, we were guided into the awareness of awareness and then into letting some thoughts and feelings take form. First we were to call up something we loved. I imagined a lake that I'm fond of. Then we were to let that  go, and after a while call up something unpleasant. I chose the boxes from my office and the chaos that takes form as soon as I try to unpack them. I really poked in it, recalling the piles of unsorted papers and all the work it will take to get it all organized, which is usually tangibly Angst-provoking to the extent that just the flash of a thought about it has involved immediate contraction of the entire chest area. Arising from the empty awareness, however, it just refused to be unpleasant. It was all joy. Amazing. I said to Michael afterwards that he would be a great housing support. When I think about it now, it's not the same joy, but that strong contraction is no longer there either. I think this took away a thick layer of aversion. It actually feels like it could be somewhat cozy to unpack those boxes and get the papers organized for writing that book. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 2:03 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The glimpses of the ground of being are much stronger now, but paradoxically that makes my experience more dualistic in the sense that the contrast is so much more tangible, which makes me feel farther from the target than ever before. And yet I know that the difference is but an illusion, because when I'm there it feels like this natural thing that has always been there. So how come I get so stuck with this illusion? I remember that after stream entry when I got more entangled again it felt like a cute little puppy was clinging to my face. This feels more like a giant octopus that refuses to let go and that uses its many arms and their suction cups to hold on tightly. It's heavy. 

Yesterday I only had short glimpses, so it felt like the giant octopus let go and then jumped back on again. How frustrating! I know that frustration doesn't help with it, but repressing the frustration probably helps even less. 

Now the touch screen refuses to recognize my fingers again. If I think of the letter I'm typing, however, that helps. How weird is that? It sounds so silly that I hardly believe it but it's the only thing that works. Magickal thinking. 

Speaking of that, it really seems like chanting "Om mani padme hung" is the most effective way of keeping one of my cats from playing too rough with another of them. It really calms him down, instantly. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 2:16 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 2:16 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

This feels more like a giant octopus that refuses to let go and that uses its many arms and their suction cups to hold on tightly. It's heavy. 

So how come I get so stuck with this illusion? 

Probably because I am that squid.
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Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 2:27 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 2:25 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Now the touch screen refuses to recognize my fingers again. If I think of the letter I'm typing, however, that helps. How weird is that? It sounds so silly that I hardly believe it but it's the only thing that works. Magickal thinking. 

Does this happen only with typing or with other actions on the touch screen too?
I mean, for instance, you should click (tap/touch) on the icon of a specific app to open it, or open certain page and etc. Do you have problem with those too, or it occures only in the editor when typing?
When you have problem with the typing, can you open and close the keyboard by touching its open/close or show/hide button?
What happens with long clicks? I mean tap and hold? Does that work?

Has this happened on any other device too? Or you have seen it only on one (your) device?

When the problem occures, have you tried rotating the device to have the keyboard in the other orientation (portrait/landscape). If so, does that halp?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 4:44 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 4:44 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I only have one touch screen so I can't compare, but it works for other people and it works for me when I call energy to my fingers. Long touch doesn't make any difference. Heating my fingers or moisturizing them doesn't make any difference. It's not just typing. Rotating doesn't help. It's not a technical issue. It's an energetic issue. People who can see auras have mentioned that they see lots of energy leave my body. I recognize the same dissociative state every time it happens. You don't have to believe me. I know what it is. I'm merely writing it here to keep record of it, not to get technical advice. Thanks anyway! 

It doesn't recognize my presence because I'm not present. Apparently that has electromagnetic effects in my case. It's barely the first time something like that happens to me. I've had similar issues since I was a kid, only with other types of tech. Maybe I should just make posts about it visible only for me and the mods. 

I have an apple pencil so it's not that much of a problem. I just find it useful to listen to the hints from the universe rather than waiting for it to scream. The touch screen thing occurs before the more chronic fatigue kicks in. I have spent enough of years with that, so I appreciate the tells as weird as they are. 
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Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 4:56 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 4:56 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I didn't mean that I question it.
Sure I believe you and I don't see any reason for not believing.
I've read the previous posts and I know the background.

I thought maybe there is another possibility. Sometimes it can happen that parts of the touch screen don't recognize touchs in a random way, so you can't easily say when it works and when it doesn't.

I'd like to to have these reports shared publicly, if you still like to do it.

Sorry, didn't want to give negative energy.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 5:38 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 5:38 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I understand. No worries. But it's really not just parts of the screen. It's like my fingers were dead. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/18/20 2:30 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Gah, I’m so frustrated right now. My mind suddenly seems to be geared towards something jhanic rather than the ground of being, after quite some time without being able to access jhanas at all. I suppose the sensible thing would be to enjoy that and see where it is heading, but for some reason I find them claustrophobic now. It’s so dense and heavy and the breath is... normal. Limited. I feel trapped. And as described above, the attention feels like a giant octopus is clinging to my face, and of course getting rid of it is not only a bad idea but also impossible, since I am the darn octopus. So I guess I’m being drawn into the vipassana jhanas, with an emphasis on third vipassana jhana. How I have missed that! And now that it happens, I really don’t like it. I have sort of developed a taste for the lightness. This octopus is so heavy and it feels like I’m not getting enough air. I realize that this is just part of the process and not something to resist, but I’m not going to lie to myself and pretend that it’s easy. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/19/20 6:21 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Access is back. The backlash seemed to be due to serotonine deficiency. I have run out of a dietary supplement (5-htp, the closest precursor of serotonine). I concluded this morning that decreasing the dosage to make the jar last longer was a really bad idea so I thought "screw it" and took the full dosage for the first time in several days. If I don't get the next jar in the mail tomorrow, I will have to temporarily increase the dosage of antidepressants (I need those chronically). Within 15-20 minutes from taking the supplement, the channels popped open and peace spread through the body. Meditating today has been such a grace. It is humbling to see just how fragile it still is, but most of all I'm grateful that the natural mind / tawa / rigpa / the ground of being is available again, discernable through the fog. It makes the world so much more beautiful. That simplistic clarity and presence - I don't want to live without it. Seriously, how did I even make it through all those years of it being clouded? The dualistic split sucks bigtime. I'm so going to flip that switch or die trying. 
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Steph S, modified 3 Years ago at 10/20/20 11:47 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I was reading back through some of the posts here and am curious about the Michael Taft classes. I went to his site Deconstructing Yourself and looked up events. Are you just watching the livestream on his YouTube channel that he does on Thursdays... or are you doing something else with him that's not listed on his site?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/20/20 12:56 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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He teaches a course called "Reversing the stack". I'm part of the first test round that is close to its ending now. It's closed sessions via zoom, and we have a slack channel. He is announcing about starting a second round now. If you sign up for his newsletters you will probably get information. It's not as tailored as his one-on-one coaching but he's a great teacher. 
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Steph S, modified 3 Years ago at 10/20/20 1:40 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Cool, thanks! I found a description of the class and it does sound interesting. "Resting the mind in awareness" is similar to what I've been doing but probably off by a little bit. I've moved more into being interested in Mahamudra type stuff, but it can be pretty vague and I feel like I'm needing some more pointers from someone qualified on it. I got on his mailing list so hopefully there's some info on the next class.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/20/20 2:16 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Otherwise I would suggest that you send him an email about it. There might be a long waiting list and maybe the next course is already full - I don't know - but somebody may need to drop out for some reason, and Michael choses participants in order to set up groups that have a good dynamic, not chronologically. There will be questions in the application.

---

I had a brief lucid dream this night. It was lovely. I was deep down in the ocean and there was a civilization there. So beautiful. I didn't change anything, just enjoyed the sensory experiences and the realization that it was all mind-created although it was so vivid. I knew that I would wake up soon because I needed to pee badly. 

I'm continuously amazed that my huge macho cat calms down immediately when I sing Om mani padme hung to him. It makes it so much easier for the three of them to get along. 

The ground of being is available. What a grace! 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/20/20 9:49 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Today while my serotonine level was coming back to normal, it was very helpful to listen to Michael Taft's latest guided meditation on SF Dharma Collective, pointing out instructions. I could really feel that dualistic attention octupus letting go of my face, one arm at a time. What was interesting about that was that it was very obvious that it wasn't some "other thing" that let go from my face. I knew all the time that it wasn't something other than me, but while in that dualistic split it felt like it. The letting go, however, was very tangibly a melting back into my face. I think having experienced that in a phenomenologically clear way can be a helpful thing, because now I have a muscle memory of how it is "done". It's sort of the opposite movement from what the dualistically oriented mind believes it to be. I also noticed that my jaw was once again moving into its correct relaxed position, just like it did a while back. There were some other kriyas occurring as well, all correcting the body into more relaxed positions (they differ from earlier kriyas in being more precise and seemingly more directed - less jerky, more obviously functional). It's interesting to notice all this happening again. That's some kind of middle-path shift happening. This time it went through all the movements faster, as it was known terrain. Some of this has been shifting back and forth regularly, but there is also a grander shift to it that had been more stable until it temporarily shifted back due to a lack of serotonine. Now that grander shift is almost in place again. I can feel that there is still a suction cup from an octopus arm right between my eyes that is causing some remaining tention. Thankfully I now know how to relax that - I can sort of lean/rest into it and almost integrate it. The relief from doing that is a great motivator for the practice. 

At class today we got to play with widening the visual field and letting it mix with awareness. That's my favorite off cushion practice. Michael confirmed that seeing stuff behind one's back (and knowing stuff that shouldn't be physically possible to derive from the physical senses of the individual body) is something that happens with this practice, so it's not just me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/20/20 10:41 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Another observation from this backlash experience: when I let go of the self-grasping, it becomes very easy to feel love. The love effortlessly fills up the space that was cramped up with tension. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/20/20 11:52 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Wow, the major part of that suction cup between the eyes just spontaneously let go in an impermanence fruition. I'm pretty sure it was not a path moment, as it's just back to how it was before the backlash. This is probably why there are fruitions from old paths - to get back on track after a backlash. How cool! I have had some possible old path fruitions earlier today too, but this one was clear. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 1:03 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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 "I have had some possible old path fruitions earlier today too, but this one was clear. "

Please explain. What do you mean by old fruition's BUT THIS ONE WAS CLEAR? emoticon I'm asking because I thought cessation is very much clear once consciousness comes back online. Are you saying that fruition's can happen in a different not so clear way? Where did you get this info and would you like to give us more details about those not so clear old path fruition/cessation's. emoticon When you have time that is. No rush emoticon 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 4:17 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The phenomenology around them can differ. There are many unknown events that seem fruition-like but don't have the kind of obvious effect that fruitions have, and others that seem to have some kind of clear effect but lack the clear phenomenology (they can be A&P events or maybe other insight moments). There's a grey area, and I think it's a good idea to be critical of what counts. The other ones I mentioned briefly did have both phenomenology and effect but the phenomenology was not quite as clear and the effect that came seemed to come at the same time but I didn't see the exact moment when it came so I can't tell for sure that it happened as a result of coming back online, so to speak. That's why I didn't mention them. I sort of discarded/disregarded them. When it happened again in a clearer way, they came to my recollection again as something that might be worth mentioning after all. 

Old path fruitions are mentioned in MCTB2, don't remember where, and I think Daniel may have mentioned them in some vimeo. They make it tricky to keep track of paths. One might think that there is a new path moment, but in reality it's just a repeat fruition from a previous path. Instead of progressing forward, one can easily call up the next nana from a previous path and continue the cycling from there. There are probably reasons for that happening. I have been wondering about that. In this case, it was obvious that I had backlashed quite a lot, so it probably took one or more previous path fruitions to come back on track. I had slipped out of the path I was on but was given a second chance. It was probably good that it happened, because it helped me to see some things more clearly. Hopefully that can make the insights of whatever path that was more stable so that I can stay on track. There is something called fruition knowledge that comes from repeating fruitions enough to mature the seed that the new path is. I always suspected that I missed out on that after path two or wherever it is that I am. I have had fruitions that seemed to be from full insight cycles more than twice but it seems like there are a much larger number of full insight cycles than there are paths, to add to the confusion as if old path fruitions didn't complicate it enough (and distinguishing between those occurrances can probably be tricky too). I do not fulfil the criteria of third path as described by Daniel, so my guess would be that I'm working towards third path. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 4:34 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I'll also add that I'm usually sceptic about anything that occurs only once. It seems to me that fruitions tend to not come alone. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 4:36 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Ok I see. So nothing is really for sure hence best to be treated like in Zen; all is Mara. Even if you see the Buddha, kill the Buddha (as it's nothing other but a projection). Cessation's, Nanas within Nanas, Jhanas within Nanas, etc ... all Mara, to be seen and let go of. I like that. Simple. emoticon More focus on chop wood and carry water and none on pondering about meditation stuff. I like it emoticon 

As in Mahamudra ; you will never be able to see the true nature of Mind. All there can be is a gesture towards looking at it. That very moment of  looking is referring back to no one and is as far as it goes in seeing the true nature of mind. The seeker bites the dust so to speak and vanishes. There remains only looking that refers back to no one. 

I think it's good to have strong insights and strong absorptions as they too show their fragile rotting nature and there is realization that nothing really can satify. I remember seeing 5th Jhana as the safest place there is. I really wanted it, even in my off cushion life. Couldn't have it though. All these when seen again and again loose their shine and become dull and tiny.

Wonder if some folks only get one cessation per path because they have boiled in the pot of pleasure and pain for long enough and they just got it (at least to that point). 
Matters little as the 3C's seem to be the best teacher anyway. 

(I'm just rumbling here)

Thanks for taking time to reply Linda! Best wishes to you and your family! 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 4:52 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Are you allright? You seem a bit... I don't know... disheartened? I don't know how what I wrote spurred those conclusions. Much metta to you and your family!

There are probably people who get it right away, like you said. My bet would be that it's very uncommon but not impossible. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 5:01 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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emoticon no, no, all good here. Disenchanted more likely. And also feeling a change in approach to both meditation and life off cushion. They seem to be becoming one and the same as of late and yet nothing is having higher status in any of the two. 

Something is brewing in the pot of the Universe ... emoticon (keep looking) ... 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 5:36 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Yes, life off cushion is important too. I don't believe in discarding wordly matters. 

There is satisfaction, though: the simplistic and yet utterly profound and excuisite beauty of the moment just as it is.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 6:29 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Where is satisfaction in a splinter being stuck deep  under the nail emoticon then all the taking out of it with a needle afterwards emoticon ouch! 

I find that;
Moment just IS. Nothing more. Nothing less. If there is more to it or less to it then something is relating to it. Looking at THAT, the great Clinger, Mara the Claimer emoticon "I see you architect!" emoticon 

(I hope you don't mind me many smilies) emoticon 

p.s. please excuse my silliness, I'm just out of a sit and something is brewing in the pot of the Universe) emoticon 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 7:16 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I think you need to see the emptiness of the concept of emptiness. You are missing something important. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 7:49 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I'm missing everything Linda emoticon I'm a Dhamma Dummy emoticon 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 11:05 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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No, you're not. You are a diligent practicioner and you have a good heart.

---

I may have covid. I recently met with a partner whom I have seen very seldom since the covid outbreak because travelling is a bad idea and he lives in another town. He drove here in his own car. Before he drove here, he met with a close friend (they are practically brothers and live close to each other) who would take care of his cats during the trip. We spent a few days together. A while after he came home, he received the news that the friend now has covid with symptoms that had started to develop very mildly by the end of the trip. Then my partner developed symptoms. Now I have a fever and a headache. We have both booked covid tests. Of course we are completely isolated now. If we have covid, then both cases of infection happened before symptoms appeared. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 11:32 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Sorry to hear about that covid situation. Do test to at least know as it might just be the "normal" flu or cold. Those usual viruses are also still around Im sure. In any case keep up that immunity with D3 at least 5000 IU per day (I use 10.000IU when actually feeling sick and still seem to be on the lower D3 level in my blood when tested, so no worries that you will overdose with it in our dark and cold climate).
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 2:16 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Yeah, this could be anything, really. Very mild symptoms. Best to check anyway, because if it is, I will need to stay totally isolated longer. I'll take your advice and increase my dosage of D3. I hadn't thought of that, but I get winter depressions anyway so it's a good idea. Thanks!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/21/20 4:46 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I just got the news that one of my best friends (one of the exes that I still consider family), who has covid, became free of his fever from listening to the medicine Buddha mantra that I sent to him. He had a high fever and fell asleep to the mantra after having some breakfast, and then woke up later in the morning without the fever. That's cool. Of course it's not over yet, and it may be a coincidence, and relaxing and resting is a good idea regardless of any mantras, but this does motivate me to use mantras in a more directed way than just enjoying the sensations from them. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/22/20 9:47 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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The wall-gazing practice from the last "reversing the stack" class seems to be exactly what I need right now to integrate the ”octopus arm/tentacle/suction cup” that remains between my eyes after my backlash. It has integrated several layers of it with fruitions through the impermanence door. I’m mostly doing it lying on my back, either gazing at the ceiling or just relaxing the eyes behind closed eyes. Whatever disease it is that I have, it makes me just a little prone to headache, so it’s very easy to notice the slightest tension of the eyes. That’s actually perfect for the practice. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/22/20 10:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
The wall-gazing practice from the last "reversing the stack" class seems to be exactly what I need right now to integrate the ”octopus arm/tentacle/suction cup” that remains between my eyes after my backlash. It has integrated several layers of it with fruitions through the impermanence door. I’m mostly doing it lying on my back, either gazing at the ceiling or just relaxing the eyes behind closed eyes. Whatever disease it is that I have, it makes me just a little prone to headache, so it’s very easy to notice the slightest tension of the eyes. That’s actually perfect for the practice. 


There’s so much selfing involved in assuming control of the gaze. In doing so, we establish ourselves as ”doers” and positioned in space with an individual perspective and thus separate. I suspect that the positioning in space is not that much of a problem per se, but rather the identification with it and the importance we give to sensations from that point of view, as well as the perceived need to control them with our directed attention? 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/22/20 1:02 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Earlier in my practice when I read in other practicioners' logs about the self that still remained behind their eyes or between them, I honestly thought it was nonsense. I couldn't see why anyone would believe that there was a little mini-me located there just because the gaze comes from that direction. Now I understand. It's not about what we actually believe intellectually, but what we take for granted in how we use our bodies to relate to the world. That's how we maintain the dualistic split that causes so much unnecessary struggling. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/22/20 1:07 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Back then I just wasn't able to feel how much tension it involves. That's why I didn't notice the selfing occurring there. 
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Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 10/22/20 1:17 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I sometimes take the room as the object and ask myself: Which parts of this space have "me" in it? Or, how "me" is distributed in the space of this room? Or, where in this room there is more "me" and where there is less "me/I". And then I start by checking from the opposite corners of the room, and it looks like those parts don't contain me, and if the body is relaxed, most of the body doesn't have it too, but often around and behind the eyes, and also in the hands, are where it feels there is me. Occasionally it happens that if I am able to relax body-mind, it seems that it leads to some kind of subtle even-ness, that none of those locations contain me, and at the same time all of it contains me, but the ordinary way of seeing things comes back quickly afterwards.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/22/20 2:05 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Siavash:
I sometimes take the room as the object and ask myself: Which parts of this space have "me" in it? Or, how "me" is distributed in the space of this room? Or, where in this room there is more "me" and where there is less "me/I". And then I start by checking from the opposite corners of the room, and it looks like those parts don't contain me, and if the body is relaxed, most of the body doesn't have it too, but often around and behind the eyes, and also in the hands, are where it feels there is me. Occasionally it happens that if I am able to relax body-mind, it seems that it leads to some kind of subtle even-ness, that none of those locations contain me, and at the same time all of it contains me, but the ordinary way of seeing things comes back quickly afterwards.
I can relate to that.
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 10/22/20 1:51 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I suspect that the positioning in space is not that much of a problem per se, but rather the identification with it and the importance we give to sensations from that point of view, as well as the perceived need to control them with our directed attention?

It's the assumed center of all things. We don't really control attention in the way we think we do. The control is generally an afterthought that occurs like a quick echo, or an eddy, in our perception of what happened a few nanoseconds before.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/22/20 2:22 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Chris Marti:
I suspect that the positioning in space is not that much of a problem per se, but rather the identification with it and the importance we give to sensations from that point of view, as well as the perceived need to control them with our directed attention?

It's the assumed center of all things. We don't really control attention in the way we think we do. The control is generally an afterthought that occurs like a quick echo, or an eddy, in our perception of what happened a few nanoseconds before.

I do know that.* I thought I dealt with that during stream entry. I had been bothered by that echo for some time before that. 

When I wrote "the perceived need to control them with our directed attention", I meant to include "our directed attention" in what was perceived rather than actually the case. 

Anyhow, there seems to be more layers to it that needs working. There have been times when tensions were gone that I hadn't known to be there, and now during my recent backlash the opposite happened. Tensions were back that had been gone for a long time. That's what I refer to as the attention octopus.

*) Maybe there is something more to what you are saying here that I'm not getting yet? Are you saying that the problem isn't really the perceived need to control the gaze, but that I still on some (embodied) level believe both that I can control it and that I should stop doing it?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 4:21 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I had a lucid dream this morning. I wrote about it in my dream diary. Will type in here later.

Then early morning sit. Nine breathings of purification, aspiration prayer, 30 minutes of trekcho, dedication. Then went back to sleep.

Took care of the altar and did the sadhana. Then 20 minutes of trekcho. Was distracted and had hypnagogia basically at the same time, without being dull. That's a new one. Was not content with it as trekcho. Decided to add five minutes of regular vipassana. Papa Che is going to love this: I did noting aloud. The noting soon became less loud, though, because it very soon brought me down the stack to flow and to tawa. I tuned into tawa when available. Was distracted again, applied vipassana again. Michael Taft has recommended this, using vipassana going down the stack and tuning into awareness going up the stack. I can see why. It gets more dynamic that way, less time wasted on distractions when stuff get in the way. I will do more of this, as distractions keep coming up. Cool how fast the vipassana illustrated the unnecessary echo in getting caught up in thoughts. I probably need to work more with that echo thing with regard to thoughts, that is, larger chunks than in my earlier vipassana practice that was more focused on a micro level of sensations. 
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Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 4:39 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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had hypnagogia basically at the same time, without being dull.

This happens a lot to me these days, and I think it's a great opportunity to see how concepts, meaning and understanding arise and form in the mind in terms of images and bodily feelings, and not verbal thoughts. Reminds me of what Shinzen often says, that: The bulk of thinking happens in the mental image space.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 6:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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Yes, I have had hypnagogia without being dull for quite some time, and yes, previously subconscious stuff keeps coming to the surface. Thenew thing was that it happened while I was being distracted by discursive thoughts. I was aware of the hypnagogia while at the same time being distracted by planning. 

I guess awareness just keeps track of stuff even though we are occupied with other stuff, and apparently it can be aware of both happening at the same time.
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Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 7:10 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

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I guess awareness just keeps track of stuff even though we are occupied with other stuff, and apparently it can be aware of both happening at the same time.

Yeah, I think so.
In recent months sometimes it happens to me that while doing something, suddenly I forget completely the subject that was on my mind previously, and it becomes kind of blank and I can't remember any of it (I guess you reported something similar to that before). A few weeks ago while chatting with a colleague, I needed to do something but I couldn't remember at all what is the task. But then I noticed that I am typing a question and then sent it, and it was about details of that task without remembering the task itself. Even after that, I couldn't remember it for a few minutes, but something was aware of it, and could send signal to the fingures to write about its details.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 8:37 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 8:28 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Siavash:
I guess awareness just keeps track of stuff even though we are occupied with other stuff, and apparently it can be aware of both happening at the same time.

Yeah, I think so.
In recent months sometimes it happens to me that while doing something, suddenly I forget completely the subject that was on my mind previously, and it becomes kind of blank and I can't remember any of it (I guess you reported something similar to that before). A few weeks ago while chatting with a colleague, I needed to do something but I couldn't remember at all what is the task. But then I noticed that I am typing a question and then sent it, and it was about details of that task without remembering the task itself. Even after that, I couldn't remember it for a few minutes, but something was aware of it, and could send signal to the fingures to write about its details.

Interesting. That's very similar to what happened in my lucid dream that I haven't typed in my report about here yet. Cool!

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45 minutes of reclining meditation while ceiling-gazing. Hypnagogic swirls occurred immediately while monkey mind was still going on. I decided to not resist any sensory input including thoughts. If I intend to do the "drop the ball" technique I too easily slide into throwing the ball away as if it were on fire, and that causes dualistic splits and echoing and very distracting back-and-forth movements. Focusing on one object in the beginning to get concentrated isn't really my thing either. I simply don't like it. In fact, I find it incredibly boring. It actually feels great to allow myself the thoughts that I HATE shamatha. I don't mind the higher jhanas, but having to focus one-sidedly on one object - so not worth it. I don't know how representative this opinion is for me, but I don't care. I probably sound like a rookie with weak character, but I don't care. Gosh, it feels so good to tell shamatha to fuck off. I also realized that I still love vipassana, which isn't really that much about noting for me. Noting is great to start out with when the mind is utterly obstructive, but otherwise the whole thing about picking some sensation out one at a time and noticing it separately feels like such a detour. What I love is to just immerse myself in all the sensations, welcome all of them and letting them move through me, regardless of what they are and how many they are. It's like getting a massage. There is so much going on at the same time, on all levels. I can notice tawa while at the same time getting massage from flow in several different sense gates and also notice textures of phenomena and have discursive thoughts applying concepts to some stuff. There really is no reason to choose. I can do it all at the same time, or rather just let it all happen. It's vipassana and trekcho at the same time, sort of, and this is what gets me concentrated, as a biproduct. And then I can accidently get absorbed with some quality of it all and just happen to get into jhanas, if that is what wants to happen, and that's okay. I'm done with limiting the practice to some idea of what is supposed to happen. So done with it! I may change my mind about that in a couple of hours or in a few weeks or in a few months or never again. It doesn't matter. This is what feels true right now, and I'm going to say it, uncensored. The only thing that's wrong with my practice is my ideas about how it should be. Fuck it! 

I had a GREAT meditation. I let awareness do ceiling-gazing and whatever else it wanted to do at the same time. It did lots of stuff and I loved it. And now I'm smiling because this is actually what Daniel has been saying all along. Just take in what happens in all sense gates in the whole field. Yup. That works. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 8:36 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 8:36 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Also, just letting awareness and attention and whatnot move around just as they please is what allows for stillness to appear spontaneously and effortlessly, because that's how they all come to realize that it all knows itself anyway and thus ease into trust, and sometimes that leeds to stillness. Other times it leads to movement that is smooth and dance-like. Regardless, the tension melts away, as it all integrates.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 1:53 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 10/23/20 1:53 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 9

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I did another 40 minutes of similar practice. I also did walking meditation on my way to and from the hospital to get testd for covid. I haven't received my results yet but my partner tested positive so I probably have covid.

I'll type in my hand-written report of this morning's lucid dream now. Then it's time to start a new log, because this one is getting lengthy.

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Lucid dream, although I didn't think about it as such. I had been dreaming that I had said yes to chairing a panel discussion on a conference on short notice as stand-in for someone who had been double-booked in the schedule. I thought it was mainly time-keeping and making sure that everyone got enough time to speak. Just before the session started, the professor I used to work with said that in his experience it plays out just fine as long as one has prepared good enough interview questions. That was meant as encouragement, because he took it for granted that I had. When I looked surprised and said that I hadn't prepared any questions, he put on that face that indicates that he is deeply worried. I think I may have woken up here and decided to go right back in to give the dream a happy ending in accordance with the dream logic. I said to the professor "But the questions are right here in the text". I don't know if it was the official abstract or some manuscript I had been given. I could only read parts of it. It indicated that different participants were to talk about different aspects of the topic at hand, using short keywords, like [name of an american professor in our network] - trust". He acknowledged that apparently that was the case. I still had to deal with the issue that I had a much more active part to play than I had prepared for. There were several hundreds of people in the audience, including my mum and brother.

Before the dream was lucid, I had also noticed that I had made myself too comfortable with regard to clothing. I had talen off my leggings and socks and shoes and had bare legs and feet under a skirt that was too short. That was also the case for my collegue E who had also jumped in on short notice to cover for another person, so at least I wasn't alone in the situation. However, when the dream went lucid, I decided that I had put the clothes back on in a break or something, and when I looked again I had them on. 

I realized that the dream hadn't been specific about the topic of the panel discussion or the name of the conference or the names of the participants (except for one). I really had no idea what we were supposed to talk about. The situation felt real even though I knew I was editing it. I approached it as if it was real (except for the editing). I was nervous. Just before the session was about to start, I was told that I would be the one introducing the whole thing. I thought it was a situation that called for spontaneous action / vajra speech / Shinzen's auto-talk, letting something larger than the individual me speak for me and trust that it would work. So I improvized, putting on a cordial and professional voice. I welcomed the audience to the conference and the session. I took the names from the text. I couldn't read them but I pretended that I could, acted as if in the dream I could. It worked. The names came out from my mouth. I couldn't even recall what I had said in some cases, but I approached it as if it made sense and kept going. I couldn't convince myself enough that I could read the subtitle of the session, so it wouldn't come out from my mouth. After a brief pause, waiting for it to happen, I just decided that it was good enough without it. Based on the keyword trust, I made a little speech that came out as sort of a dharma talk and phrased a question around it. This went on for a while. Then I needed to go to the bathroom and popped out of the dream. 

I have had so many nightmares about unprepared lectures. This was healing. It also had elements of no doer in a situation that would typically trigger the sense of a doer for me, which is something that is challenging in my practice. I'm also content that I remembered to follow what Lama Lena said about editing the dream while looking away and as if it had already happened (like kids do when they play and change the storyline, sort of), and following the dream logic. This was a stable lucid dream in which I both applied dream yoga methodology and applied other dharma teachings to work with challenges both in daily life and in my practice. 

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