Bagpuss' Notes - Discussion
Starting a new log as practice is confusing of late and it might be helpful to have a few notes. Any advice and comments would also be welcome.
Currently I’m sitting twice a day, occasionally three times. My bodily pain (all the big and small paraspinals and glutes) is extraordinary and seems to be a kind of all over tension and tightening.
For the last few weeks I had abandoned any focus at all in favour of “just do nothing” and this seems to have helped somewhat. I tend to over-strategise so prefer simple techniques or instructions.
Today I went back to using the pleasure in the body as focus but strongly influenced by what I’ve learned from “just do nothing”. Instead of worrying about what comes after what and how it should be I just lie down, take a deep breath and sink into it. With a tiny effort pleasure arises throughout the whole body I sink further into that. Letting the energy (which feels enormous) go where it wants. Sometimes it seems centred in the chest, sometimes in the forehead, sometimes everywhere at once.
In my morning sit I went through a very clear 4 stage process (these are not the pure Samatha Jhana’s. They’re very much linked to the nana’s and very vibrational). All experienced purely in the body - once in what I’ll call the 4th Vipassana Jhana I just “let go” again and again and again. Trying to ease gripping, clutching, tightening, expectation, etc as they were noticed in the body and mind. My big fear is “losing it” or “winking out” so I figure I probably need to work on that and If I practice letting go at this stage I can notice the sensations of subtle (or not so subtle) fear, confusion, expectation, excitement etc as they happen in the process of letting go.
My second sit was a bit more bells and whistles like. On the first out breath dropped way way down beneath the waves of energy in the body and the initial pleasure quickly faded as a lot of light came up in my visual field which I took the opportunity to take as object. Mist coalesces into nimitta, nimitta dissolves as it’s focused on, a new one appears (only brighter) and I dissolve that one. All the time the body is calming down more and more but the head tension although not painful is pretty intense.
Eventually it all goes to random black/grey/blue patterns with a nimbus of white at the edges and I start to mind-wander a little but still focus on the centre of the shifting patterns. New nimittas start to appear and I dissolve them, more blackness, more nimittas - it’s not following the expected pattern so Im noticing confusion, wanting, etc.
Sudden rushes of energy, long, continuous accelerations that appear to open out into entirely new depths of experience. It’s all going on this afternoon.
I end after about an hour with quite a bit of spread out back tension but feeling pretty good otherwise.
I know my notes are awful, I’ll try to make them better next time
~BTG
Currently I’m sitting twice a day, occasionally three times. My bodily pain (all the big and small paraspinals and glutes) is extraordinary and seems to be a kind of all over tension and tightening.
For the last few weeks I had abandoned any focus at all in favour of “just do nothing” and this seems to have helped somewhat. I tend to over-strategise so prefer simple techniques or instructions.
Today I went back to using the pleasure in the body as focus but strongly influenced by what I’ve learned from “just do nothing”. Instead of worrying about what comes after what and how it should be I just lie down, take a deep breath and sink into it. With a tiny effort pleasure arises throughout the whole body I sink further into that. Letting the energy (which feels enormous) go where it wants. Sometimes it seems centred in the chest, sometimes in the forehead, sometimes everywhere at once.
In my morning sit I went through a very clear 4 stage process (these are not the pure Samatha Jhana’s. They’re very much linked to the nana’s and very vibrational). All experienced purely in the body - once in what I’ll call the 4th Vipassana Jhana I just “let go” again and again and again. Trying to ease gripping, clutching, tightening, expectation, etc as they were noticed in the body and mind. My big fear is “losing it” or “winking out” so I figure I probably need to work on that and If I practice letting go at this stage I can notice the sensations of subtle (or not so subtle) fear, confusion, expectation, excitement etc as they happen in the process of letting go.
My second sit was a bit more bells and whistles like. On the first out breath dropped way way down beneath the waves of energy in the body and the initial pleasure quickly faded as a lot of light came up in my visual field which I took the opportunity to take as object. Mist coalesces into nimitta, nimitta dissolves as it’s focused on, a new one appears (only brighter) and I dissolve that one. All the time the body is calming down more and more but the head tension although not painful is pretty intense.
Eventually it all goes to random black/grey/blue patterns with a nimbus of white at the edges and I start to mind-wander a little but still focus on the centre of the shifting patterns. New nimittas start to appear and I dissolve them, more blackness, more nimittas - it’s not following the expected pattern so Im noticing confusion, wanting, etc.
Sudden rushes of energy, long, continuous accelerations that appear to open out into entirely new depths of experience. It’s all going on this afternoon.
I end after about an hour with quite a bit of spread out back tension but feeling pretty good otherwise.
I know my notes are awful, I’ll try to make them better next time
~BTG
