Andy's log pt. ii

a my les, modified 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 6:24 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 6:04 PM

Andy's log pt. ii

Posts: 13 Join Date: 11/19/19 Recent Posts
note: I didnt save this as a draft and had to C&P from a MS app so the formatting got messed up, sorry.

Not really part ii so much as attempt ii.
 


I posted a few times over the summer as practice was picking up, where I described bouncing back and forth between eQ and DN. I worked with a teacher and consistently entered equanimity territory, sitting multiple times per day during daily life, soaking up the tranquil beauty of that state of mind over a few months until, during the first week of August on a five day home retreat, experienced what appear to be fruitions (of various doors/presentations) and opened up to a new level of freedom. Not just of thinking or feeling or whatever, but really, a freedom of being.
 

*disclaimer: this isn't a claim to attainment thread, but. . .
 
if you feel the need to question or comment on what I'm claiming, I don't mind, as I understand it's quite a claim, and further am adopting the "wait a year and a day" instructions of my teacher, but I might not be interested in arguing or *proving* anything, as I find that going into these situations in order to prove something only exacerbates the bitter parts of my psychology.
 I've also found that the "act as if you are enlightened" to be quite useful for sila and daily life, and furthermore also find a lot in, for once, accepting and allowing the ease and beauty of this moment to happen, letting the inner critic have a break. This post is mainly to help me process things.  

Somehow, I ended up writing this anyways:
 
The initial fruitions seemed content-heavy: watching a stream of thoughts become hands pulling a rope, the thought "what if they just let go?" arises and the last three hands fall away, and so does everything, for a moment. After this I looked around, sat up, and had a particularly beautiful walk to my parents' backyard where a rich sunset came through the trees and I felt completely at home and re-united with something; also, a masked mysterious figure's face merges with/passes through mine; but also, just ba-ba-ba with a white light.
 

Since early August,I have only had a couple discernable repeat events, but they mimic the presentation of the previous ones. In fact one of the subsequent ones a week or two ago was more surprising since the face or image that appeared in/through me was a kind of crude cartoon face. As I will describe below, I have been facing some difficulties, so this was a pleasant surprise which reinspired my confidence and faith, and also really turned the lights on again.  

Moving on:
 Following this realization, shit has been confusing! Part of me woke up to this beautiful space that was always there, just constantly being filled with stuff. But other, less-awakened parts seem to have capitalized on the opportunity to make life messy. I did a lot of "reality testing": music is pure, driving is insane, coffee tightens up my nerves but I love it, alcohol often just depresses me, and I feel way more sensitive to "light" (more on that later).  

While previously, if my mindfulness broke in daily life I would have a strong sense of "forgetting" and "remembering", often accompanied by self-critical thoughts about not being mindful; however, since this shift, even if I perhaps go into a train of thought, I don't have that same worried absence, it feels like I never left . . .
 

I am still deeply conflicted about my livelihood and life direction and current job which is tangled up in family and offers its fair share of benefits and challenges. If anything, this shift has made sorting these things out feel more pressing, as they are active sources of suffering which might be skilfully resolved.  

There are a lot of selfing thoughts and volatile emotions that still really get to me (drum roll for next section), but it's been really interesting to observe how much activity just seems to happen on its own. Two points from this:
 

1) I wonder what it'd be like for someone to wake up early in life before all these habits/wiring/ways of being have been so deeply encoded (seriously, drumrolling to two paragraphs from now)


2) I have read others describe SE as the culmination of all the work one does leading up to it, and indeed, my experience is that hints or glimpses of certain qualities may have been visible but not stabilized in this manner. Sitting a lot over the last couple years I gradually started to observe the autonomy or not-self of many physical and mental phenomena, which at times has taken a big load off my intellectual labour. Now, it feels much more stable and remarkable to observe, for example, myself composing this while my hands type, or myself conducting a meeting with customers. There's something mysterious and also trust-worthy about this.

Pain and dimming 
Following that shift in August, I also smoked a lot of weed, which seemed to dim the lights quite a bit and made processing information and emotions a lot more difficult. I brought myself down to a very low level emotionally and mentally, but have found enough resilience andsupport from friends to kick it for a bit. This is a numbing habit I adopted in my teens, and with legalization in Canada, I live down the block from a shop, so it has not been easy to have that discipline or that self care.

Sitting again
I did a one week, social meditation life retreat with Buddhist Geeks and really enjoyed it. Social meditation is awkward but also opening. It feels like there is more metta baked into the practice. I got food poisoning on the first day, but after that, it didnt take much to ramp up into extended A&P territory.

I really enjoyed being in nature and feeling every illuminated petal of plant matter, and also seeing the light in my co-workers and also my family, which was very healing, encouraging. For this I am very grateful. Naturally, I crashed and, I don't know if I made it into eQ territory but I guess I found things work-able.

This territory didn't feel new, per-se, but it felt more stabilized and surprisingly accessible given that I only sat 1-3 times per day. Again, I really enjoy this practice and the way BG does things.

Moving forward AND Sitting again. . .
I will have to continue this next time as I am going for a walk with a friend. I also lost this draft once and had to recompose it which took ~15 minutes.

I have many curiosities and ideas on how to practice from here which is really exciting.

I also am quite convinced that I must be just cycling regularly and need to protect myself / my life from the negative moods associated with this. Even prior to SE I deal with a lot of negative emotion, can be quite grouchy and not good at hiding it, etc.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. May all being be happy.

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