Emil's Practice Log

Emil's Practice Log Emil Jensen 12/7/20 3:12 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log Emil Jensen 1/12/21 7:33 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log Emil Jensen 12/28/20 3:07 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log Emil Jensen 12/28/20 4:18 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log Emil Jensen 1/30/21 10:13 AM
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Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/7/20 3:12 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/7/20 3:04 PM

Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
Inspired by the many practice logs I see in here I am now creating my own in the hope that it will organize my efforts a little bit, which it really needs these days.

I will write all of this to myself,

but believe that writing it puclicly like this will create a good effect on my attention to details through articulation and sense of obligation to not just write anything. Let's see where it goes. Oh, and of course I would feel happy to discuss the contents of these loggings with anyone with valuable inputs, questions or whatever else.

First, a general update:
  • Started meditating in 2015
  • Got into Goenka style practice in 2016 and in 3 years I did 4x10 day sits and 1 voluntary retreat.
  • Stopped meditating for 2 years because I believed I was "there" or whatever. I believed that because I could see the three characteristics I understood and perceived what it was all about. This was my logic as I felt great and felt I had "super human powers" and stuff (with respect to suffering very little)
  • Hosted a presentation in front of 40 people for about 1.5 hours about "The Empirical Science of You" - my take on approaching "spiritucal insight" with a scientific framework. 
  • Realized I know jack shit about anything and wasn't enlightened after all.
  • Went on a solo 10 day retreat and did Mahasi Sayadaw noting style practice. 99% sure I reached equanimity
  • Spent 4 days in equanimity without bleeping out. 
  • Returned home and grew re-goddam-diculously depressed as I could see everything dissapear as soon as appearing, wishing for existence to be over really bad.
  • I felt that because I couldn't take the last step with 4 days of equanimity I couldn't possibly do it from at home with less ideal conditions.
  • Got my trip back together as I got back into a more normal way of living my life, losing grip of meditation power and concentration.
  • Feel pretty good again, making music, training and starting to feel motivated to see if I can progress in insight again.
Goals: I find it difficult to stick to 2 hours of meditation these days, which used to be my default for 3 years earlier on. However, for this log I will initially aim for at least one session per day, be it 30, 60, 90 or more minutes. With this little rigidity or fixed schedule, I believe I can stick to it.

How I meditate now: I find it difficult to do Mahasi Sayadaw style noting technique simply because it's too boring. If that's the case I do basic concentration practices. I like counting my breaths up to 100 and down again as an example. Hit some jhanic rapture stuff doing this just the other day and that was quite satisfying as it indicates that I do still have some concentration power left in me, and something to work with.

That's it for introduction to the log. My next post will be about my next one or few meditation session(s). 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/8/20 2:43 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/8/20 2:43 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
This morning I feel the effect of having created a practice log. I feel like I want to log some interesting insight practice - now I just need to go do some!

About 50 minutes sit this morning:
I take base in noting rising and falling of the abdomen. In the beginning my mind was a bit noisy and it wasn't possible for me to note sensations in my body. But as I started scanning large body parts sequentially in between the breath-notings I could feel it losen up. "Head, arms, butt, hands, feet" and repeat.

At some point it feels like its starting to cause tension to note bodily sensations, because I can feel "my whole body" all at once while noting the rising and falling of the breath. If I can feel so many sensations at once, which to note? 

What I did then was just to keep noting the rising and falling of the abdomen and keep a more smooth attention on "the whole body". This is something I've done quite a bit and it feels like I can sort of "massage" my attention into these gray areas and feel my attention expand into them, making me more spacious. Sometimes it's impossible to penetrate a certain area, but some expansion of attention always happens up until a certain point.

My meditation ended with a feeling of sharper attention and spaciousness in the body.

Halfway in I did get caught mind wandering just briefly. It consered Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Anicca, I guess it was too cool of a thought to not get a little bit carried away. Hah.

I also had some unusually insisting itches - but then I just went like "an itch, ya? Anicca la vista, babe!"
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/8/20 5:25 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/8/20 5:25 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 2680 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
"I find it difficult to do Mahasi Sayadaw style noting technique simply because it's too boring."

emoticon in that case you either didn't do it as described or you are not yet suffering enough to really dig into your own mind stream so to see where all that suffering comes from emoticon 

Have you tried Noting Aloud?  (my favorite practice). If not try it out for an entire session and see how it feels emoticon you might be surprised! 

Best wishes! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/9/20 3:07 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/9/20 3:07 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
Thanks for the suggestion. I don't know if it has to be either that I'm not doing it right or not suffering enough. As I see it an hour a day just isn't really anything nearly as interesting as when doing 10. When I did do 10 hours a day on my retreat I was shooting through nanas and having interesting jhanic/rapturous experiences on the daily. Sure, some rapture here and there occurs now, but in any case it's still relatively boring.


Anyway, today I sat for the whole hour I had set my timer for and I plan to sit again before bed. 
I started out counting some breaths, but as that had been "too easy" lately I stopped and tried staying with the breath without counting for a while. When I felt my focus was stable and feeling slightly rapturous I switched to noting practice for the rest of the sit and tried to keep it simple and stick to just noting "rising, falling, sitting" plus whatever additional disturbances that would sweep over the screen as I went on.

I did feel some piti during which is a while ago and remember reading about it in Rob Burbeas book last night, something like just allowing whatever piti is there without trying to make it stronger. I usually do expect/desire piti to grow in strength and this suppresses it. But less today so that's something to work with.

I need to work on paying attention to my perceptual state in meditation as I would be able to log about this. I'll try and keep it in mind for my sit this evening and tomorrow morning.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/9/20 3:27 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/9/20 3:27 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 2680 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
"Started meditating in 2015" 

Would you mind telling us more about why you started meditating? And also what do you expect to get from it? What is your main motivation? 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/9/20 3:44 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/9/20 3:44 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
Sure emoticon Perhaps I'll get to that tomorrow. Right now I'm super tired and need to sleep.

I'll just throw in a short log about a short session I just did.


My practice just now was 30 minutes on the movement on the abdomen. Within minutes I get to a point where it feels like strong rapture is gonna sweep me away. But excitement and maybe a weak panic comes in and seems to prevent the rapture to continue growing in strength. I was feeling the rapture as a lightness in the body, a feeling of being a bit dreamy/distant, and then there was a pressure from behind my forehead. The meditation ended with me feeling very drowsy, dreamy and not very concentrated.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/10/20 3:16 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/10/20 3:16 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
Morning meditation done, 60 minutes. And guess what? I can describe something phenomenological about it!

In the beginning I was just wavering around. Had a very dreamy night and my mind was fuzzy. I finally decided to just count my breaths to 100 and that created the stability I needed to note.

I noted "rising and falling" of the abdomen as is the usual standard. Then I incorporated noting feeling just head, hands, feet in between the notings of the breath. At first this is a very stocky experience and the notings were all clearly separated from one another.
However, after a while awareness sticks to the previously noted areas and I can feel head, hands, feet all at once while noting the breath.

I then used this new and more involving awareness as a new base and proceded to note any perceived changes in each of the felt areas, while continuing to note the rising and falling of the abdomen.

I started feeling slow vibrations in my head.. and maybe in my hands? Don't remember anymore..
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/10/20 3:35 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/10/20 3:35 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
Your question about why I started meditating had me thinking.
You know, this stuff is supposed to eradicate suffering, so that one is suffering would be a good motivation for getting into this stuff.

However, when I started in 2015 I was simply utterly fascinated about insight. I had discovered "on my own" that thoughts just showed up in my head from nowhere. I even created my own little meditation to study it before I ever knew anything about "real" meditation.
Before this I had been totally identified with thoughts, so seeing that they weren't me made me extremely curious to find out what "I was".

Hah, I remember the initial insight I had made me feel high. People were asking for months if I had been smoking. But nope, just high on insight lol.

I was always suffering, I see that clearer the more I learn. But suffering wasn't previously my motivation for meditation, likely because I didn't really know. It's different now, however. I feel like I for the first time understood dukkha on my last retreat. To some degree, I figure there's much more to learn ofc. I strarted seeing the utter dissatisfaction from everything disappearing in every moment. I believe this is what made the depression that came after the retreat so strong.

(Rant) I mean, whew! Jumping off a tall building was really tempting. But still, I'd rather figure this shit out properly and not risk reincarnation as a pathetic little worm, in which case figuring out anything would likely be even more difficult. As I see it, the odd myth/belief about reincarnation is the only argument for not just killing ourselves if life isn't enjoyable. I don't know why I believe this reincarnation stuff, but various monks/enlightened wise guys seems to talk about reincarnation as if it was on the news last night, leaving me very confused about where the hell it comes from. I mean.. "there's no you...but you reincarnate..get it?" No, I sure as hell don't.

I meditate to reach stream entry. I am close now, relatively speaking, and it would be such a waste not to get it, or at least get closer to it, while the chance is here and conditions for practice are so close to ideal (don't have a job, just free to do whatever I please with 90+% of my time). As I see it, enlightenment is the only thing which can stop this never ending dissatisfaction, so I desire it! And even though its a tough journey, I still want to push myself to keep going. Even in times when motivation is low. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/10/20 3:50 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/10/20 3:50 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
OK, one more little logging about todays sit! I wanna get more articulate and detailed about logging, so while I remember let me just add something to previous sit to get in the practice...

Initially, when I counted breaths, I was feeling weak rapture and piti coming over me. I remember reading in Polly "Esters" practice log that she noticed a different feeling of.. I think it was piti, when she moved her eyes around (still with closed eyes I think).
I did the same to see if I could feel a difference in my own sense of piti/rapture, and I could!

Looking slightly upwards and to the left the sense of piti and bodily rapture seemed to wanna grow. Then I looked to the right and the pull of the rapture seemed to go away. I then looked back and it came back on.

Also, when looking to this left side where the rapture seemed to live I could see some colors. Mostly beige and sometimes a little purple. Perhaps these slightly fixed backgrounds are what can attract a samadhi type / jhanic quality?
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/10/20 5:21 AM
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Thank you for answering my questions emoticon I always enjoy reading about how and what prompted people to pursue insight meditation. 

In my case it was suffering, that never ending struggle. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/11/20 3:56 AM
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I meditated last night before going to bed. Aimed for 30 minutes but couldn't do it due to an extreme case of fatigue. I had tried my gf's CBD drops for sleep and whew!.. hard not to sleep after having taken that. Good for her.

On a non-practice note, I have woken up two days in a row feeling a weak sense of depression and hopelessness. The same kind of feeling which taunted me for weeks after my recent 10 day retreat. The morning meditation session is hard to get to, but once I do I feel fine. Lucky for me I don't have to glare miserably into the space in front of me anymore. Yay lol.

This morning's 60 minute meditation was good in terms of concentration, curiosity and engagement with the practice. Best in a long time actually.
Started out counting 100 breaths and proceded to note.

Today I tried to keep track of what distracted me during meditation. The distractions consisted of: First, a dude I know named Karl. I wanted to tell him some hard truths. Then there was a Ted talk, some ideas for music production, a business idea, some workout exercise I wanna try later, and then a few ones I don't remember. Most of these came in the last 20-30 minutes of the 60 minute meditation I would say...

An interesting thing happened as a result of paying closer attention to what gets me distracted: I noticed how such distractions/thoughts can have a pull and element of identification. But a moment later they have vanished entirely and are hard to even remember what was about. This pointed to the fact that while distractions take place, my body and my meditation dissappeared. Therefore I saw both the impermanence of thoughts as distractions and my very "solid" body during undistracted meditation. I felt like seeing this had a way of losening up my awareness a bit.

I felt that all which separated me from vanishing out into nothingness/everythingness was a thin paper veil. I have felt this feeling it "it" being super close many many times now. I wonder if its just expectations based on false ideas about what's supposed to happen, or if indeed something is really close.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/11/20 4:00 AM
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Oh, on a last note...

I felt very equanimous during this mornings sit. I had some pains, some impateience and some other uncomfortable physical sensations show up. But once again I just pulled out my vipassanizer, looked the dukkha straight in the eye and went like anicca la vista, baby.

The dukkha dookhied in its pants and ran away.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/12/20 4:28 AM
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I meditated for 55 minutes last night. This is the most I've done in the evening for a long time. I think this is a result of an increase in motivation I've felt since I started this log and since I started reading Polly Esters log too. I even considered to go back and read Mahasi Sayadaws practice instructions again in case I missed something...

Today I didn't wake up feeling depressed, although a little hopeless. Again it goes away as soon as I get into the meditation. 

This morning I sat for 60 minutes. Let's see how much of it I can remember:
Started with counting 100 breaths. My attention wasn't on the rise and fall of my belly the whole time as a lot of distracting thoughts popped up. Some from my dreaming during the night. Interesting dream tho. There was a lovely dog which I played quite roughly with emoticon

I then took inspiration in what I'm currently reading in Polly's log. I'm sure I'm not doing exactly what she did then, but with inspiration I decided to focus more on my internal visuals. Last night I tried observing both the internal feels, sights and sounds. But I noticed, and recalled from earlier on, that especially the mental visuals are something which clearly change something for me when I start vipassanizing them. They are also something which I am bad at being mindful of. Whenever I get lost in thought, it's more visual than auditory or..what's that called - feelable? Tangible? Hmm..

It's like I can go for whole sessions noting feelings/touches that happen in my body without anything super interesting happening, nothing which feels like new progression. But getting into observing the internal visuals (mostly dream like images) it's like I'm finally observing something which was in the background all along and which has a sense of self attached to it; a sense of self which obviously is investigated closer in this way.

What I do is I always maintain a base-level awareness of the breath and as much of the body as I can all at once. Then, by paying attention to what imagery comes up in my mind, I notice some interesting things: Sometimes it's like a glip occurs. I think it's the glip which happens when our attention shifts dimensions/senses, but because I am now paying attention to the senses between which my attention goes, I can finally start seeing the transition phase. Or rather, lack of it. It is like a glip and I can't make out if anything is in between or not.

Along with this glip happens a dissolving of a bit of this self-feeling. When I simultaneously hold awareness of the body it's as if I become thinner/lighter.. More dissolved?
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/12/20 4:36 AM
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Another thing!
Reading Polly's log makes me realize that there's a lot of things I'm not usually paying attention to. Now when I meditate I'm thinking at least a couple of times "What's actually going on right now?".

I noticed, to my surprise, that I was feeling something resemblant of anxious! I didn't know. The feeling felt so normal and just like a normal meditation, I didn't even notice that it was so strong. 

I read in Polly's log how she notices pain/nausea and other uncomfortable things - and then they turn into piti!

The same thing happened for me with my feeling of anxiety and a little later on, with nausea. The piti was very weak, but never the less it was strong enough to make one of those "involuntary" smiles on my face.

Shout out to Polly for logging everything in so much detail. It really is inspiring and serves to remind and teach as well! #Gratitute!
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/12/20 4:59 PM
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Just finished 35 ish minutes of meditaiton on the breath as a samatha type exercise. Just followed the rise and fall of my belly.

At some point the piti just hit and I started laughing. When I thought I was done after a good belly chuckle, then came another one.. and another one. I was laughing for 1-2 minutes lol.

After this I had little flares of intense piti too. A few of them were like little shots of bliss lasting only for perhaps 1/10th second or at least nowhere near a whole second. Weird.

Also some insight stuff happened.
I had a distracting thought come up. I don't remember what it was but it was "very important" lol. Like my mind really wanted me to keep entertaining it. But hell nah bætch. I saw the empty nature of the pull and the contents of the thought and right now I can't recall if that might have been what actually trickered the laughing. Maybe it was.

Anywho I remembered to also see the piti and the laughing as empty and this brought me into a very chill type of rapture.

Actually...ahh! I'm losing the memory. But I do remember thinking that I've never felt this kind of rapture before. Oh yes, there it is.
I had a visual sensation going on with every out breath, it seemed sort of as if I was being pulled into the darkness and when I did bright rings of light were kind of expanding as if I were moving into them and they were passing me.

With every breath out this happened but after a while I ended up in something I don't know if I can describe too much of. It was a bit more distant and vague and the rapture not as strong. My concentration also dropped off and everything was a bit dreamy I think, although with few visuals and noone I remember.

Ahh, this was nice. A good, interesting meditation as a little reward that I have been upping my intensity, intention and over all engagement with practice lately. 

See you in the morn, self
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/13/20 2:08 AM
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This morning's meditation was only about 35 minutes as I have some stuff coming up and I'd rather have time for a cup of coffee before going.
Anyway...

Was a little affected going into the night, by the stronger jhanic/rapturous experience from last night. Going to bed I was jittery, as was I in my meditation this morning, and my dreams were a bit more...rapturous? Hehe, no that's not the right way to say it. They were a little crazy but with a higher than usual level of awareness. In one dream I was at a job interview and got the job, in another dream my gf's cousin was a little demon child. But a really cute little demon child, so I didn't mind lol.

This meditation was full of thought distractions, but I had some interesting ways of seeing through their emtiness.
One example that I remember, was that I noted something like "thinking" or "mind chatter", don't remember exactly what it was. Then my talking mind turnt into some fat five year old kid who was doing the talking, rather than "me". I forgot what he said. Point is, the thought wasn't me and it took it a bit strangely that I spotted it.
Then there was the same kinda incident where I spotted the no me in a thought and then it started saying something like "yeah, but I have a danish passport" as if that would justify that it was me. Geez..

Several times during the sit I saw a purple dot which grew in brightness, intensity and size when I focused on it.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/13/20 4:01 AM
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I would be interested in reading more about Body Sensations emoticon do you notice/note any and how would you describe them. Im sure Jhana stuff is cool and feeling great but body sensations really are important in this insight work emoticon 

There are those of us who are dying to read about "itchy spots growing stronger and very sharp or else, and vibrations and numbness in limbs etc" emoticon Just for our sake include a few of those during the sit emoticonemoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/13/20 5:30 AM
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Alright papa! Thanks for the tips emoticon 
I realize that I've probably neglected body part details a bit. I think I've unintentionally gotten used to finding them boring although as I'm writing this I realize that I should of course pay attention to any and all sensations. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/13/20 10:30 AM
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I just did 30 minutes on the breath, but tried to keep some focus also on other bodily sensations.
Damn, it's difficult to articulate what's going on and how it changes, but here's what I remember:

- Hands are quickly feeling very puffy, almost like wearing a warm glove except that the glove is my hand. Later on it felt sorta prickly on the surface, almost resembling ants crawling over it but not quite. The pricks were warm and comfortable, not in many ways not like ants at all. I just don't know how else to describe this fine dotted sensation.

-  Face and skull except the back of the head all felt like there was a pressure from within.
This pressure losened up a bit into the meditation.
I'm sometimes not sure if what I feel in certain areas could be called "vibrations" or not. Perhaps I think it resembles more a feeling of static on a screen rather than vibrations. Or like very fine and warm rain landing on my skin. Does this count as vibrations?

- Perhaps halfway in my eyes started glipping, as if I was blinking. My eyes were closed so it was kinda like trying to blink with closed eyes. I couldn't control it. I would guess I blinked like this 100 times or so before it stopped, after a minute or two. Feeling this happening on its own made me giggle.

- I took quite a lot of rounds going from sensing the face, hands, feet while keeping awareness on the breath.
It happened 3 or more times that I kinda glitched, for just a tenth of a second or shorter, barely long enough to notice it.
First time it felt sort of as if my whole system went "rrrum!" and then took a second or so to come back to where I was.
Second time it felt and sounded a lot like plucking in a jack stick to a set of speakers that are already turnt up. "Krh" like sound, with the same effect of kinda glitching the whole system.
Third time I don't remember, but something similar happened a third time I thinks. 


Oh, quite interesting that I could actually write all of this hah. I'll try again later emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/13/20 5:00 PM
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Finished the night off with another 30 minute sit.
Feel like I have nothing to report, but let's see what I can dig out...

I was initially intending to just focus on the breath, practice some concentration. I felt like I couldn't follow the breath very well tho and therefore switched to noticing my distractions.

... and bodily sensations of course.
I was trying to get to the bottom of the question I asked earlier - is "vibrations" what I feel in my hands/head/feet when it feels like there's static noise (like TV static) in these areas? Is this what is meant by "vibrations"? I think so...

At first I noticed the pressure inside my head, similar to when I meditated earlier today.

After about ten minutes in I felt a bodily rapture. Very difficult to describe, but my body felt a little misplaced. Yeah, that's as close as I can get.
It felt nice and I giggled quite a bit.
A funny thought came up about a "novel" that's like 60 seconds long to read and had the weirdest plot. Too stupid to give any more attention.

I remember staying with a sharp pain in one of my hands and arms. I noticed the pain and the reaction of tension it caused in my head. I also noticed a sense of aversion, although I couldn't find out where this was located.

I heard very "real" sounding music, I like when this happens. It was 80's rock typa music. 

Hmm.. looking forward for another try tomorrow morning. Night DhOrks <3
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 2:08 AM
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Just a little 30 minute morning sit today as I have stuff to do, yo. Thinking that I like these 30-45 minute sits more than the 1-hour, so I'll try to get a few in during day time today.

I spent at least half of the time trying to settle in to the meditation. Today I had stronger distractions of an uncomfortable conversation I may have to have with someone soon. Anywho, after counting 100 breaths I had de-distracted myself enough to start scanning my body.

A very loose meditation it was. I wasn't noting the rise and fall of the belly, but just silently staying aware of its movements.

While keeping this awareness, in the body I was trying to clarify how much of it is actually a gray area for me.

I can most easily feel my hands, head, feet and the touch from underneath me. And I can scan other parts of the body while keeping awareness of these areas which has this effect of opening me up to become more spaceous.

The rest of the body takes varying degrees of effort for me to be able to sense. On the whole torso, I can most easily feel the touch of my clothes. My lower back has a pain which I've had for 2.5 years and I can feel that too. I've learned to abstract from this, but tuning into it I can see that it's made up of a pressure of sorts. It's pain, but it's not really uncomfortable.

Since Papa's comment I've been trying to focus more on bodily sensations. Which means that I could very clearly see the difference in todays sit when I went on to notice the mental images playing on my screen, which I did for perhaps the last 2-3 minutes. Sensing the body is like tough work, not really doing much of a noticeable difference to my state (I know that's not the point either), but tuning into the mental images I almost immediately start to vanish. I watch the images arise in super short bursts that appear pretty much as soon as they dissappear again. This really has a way of wiping a lot of the "me" feeling away instantly...

Like I wrote in parenthases, my state/feeling is of course not the point. However, I do have some inclination towards thinking that I need more work on mental imagery rather than bodily sensations, due to this immediate annata-licious response.

However...! A lot of my body is kinda gray, only sensed when I really sustain a held awareness of the area. Even some areas I cannot sense except on "good days". Is this a problem? And if so, what to do about it?

The other day I failed to log this, but during my more samatha type jhana ride, I felt my body a whole lot. It was as if every single part of my body became feel-able. Do I just need more concentration? 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 3:16 AM
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" I spent at least half of the time trying to settle in to the meditation. Today I had stronger distractions of an uncomfortable conversation I may have to have with someone soon. Anywho, after counting 100 breaths I had de-distracted myself enough to start scanning my body."

Some here might think wasting half of sitting time to settle in is a good thing emoticon I don't think so. If I start with freestyle noting aloud 1 sensation per second then the settling in is immediate and when I state that my meditation was 45 minutes then it really was 45 minutes of practicing in paying attention to matter of fact phenomena at least 1 sensation per second throughout the entire 45 minutes sit. 

But that's me emoticon 

However I don't think you need more concentration. You might need more matter of fact paying attention aka noticing/ better yet NOTIN at least 1 sensation per second. Or at least 1 sensatio every 2 seconds which is very doable. 

Best wishes and ma
y practice well! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 4:57 AM
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You're pointing towards something..
"Settling in" for me may be based on a misunderstanding of sorts.
Because what I mean by that is by no means that I am trying to get to a point where I can note something every second. I can always do that, I think... At least I could right away this morning when I was "settling in".

So what I mean by "settling in", is I'm waiting to sort of descent into what I happen to think of as a "meditative state". This means increased spaceousness and attention to smaller changes. In this kind of state the different bodily sensations that I'm aware of are so many that I just get tensed up by attempting to follow all of them individually by noting them.

Are you suggesting that it's a better start noting immediately? How about my 100 breath counting strategy? Seems to be a fairly simple and quick get-in-the-zone kinda move...

Thanks again, for your involvement in here emoticon
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 5:14 AM
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"Are you suggesting that it's a better start noting immediately? How about my 100 breath counting strategy? Seems to be a fairly simple and quick get-in-the-zone kinda move..."

I'm suggesting to try it out and see which one seems to waste least of your valuable sitting time. It that be the 100 breaths then that's what you go with. 

Im sharing my experience and found that noting aloud straight off the bat is what brings energy and concentration up very fast. Not all folks are the same and what works for me might not work for you. Test and see. Always good to have a few tools to try out. 

Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 9:17 AM
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Papa Che Dusko:

Alright, point taken. I'll get into experimenting with what's a good start emoticon
Martin, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 1:20 AM
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Emil Jensen:
 anicca la vista, baby.




Excellent!
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 5:39 AM
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Emil Jensen:

(Rant) I mean, whew! Jumping off a tall building was really tempting. But still, I'd rather figure this shit out properly and not risk reincarnation as a pathetic little worm, in which case figuring out anything would likely be even more difficult. As I see it, the odd myth/belief about reincarnation is the only argument for not just killing ourselves if life isn't enjoyable. I don't know why I believe this reincarnation stuff, but various monks/enlightened wise guys seems to talk about reincarnation as if it was on the news last night, leaving me very confused about where the hell it comes from. I mean.. "there's no you...but you reincarnate..get it?" No, I sure as hell don't.

Yeah reincarnation is at best a joke and at worst a cynical fundraising ploy. Check out dependent origination if you want to understand what "rebirth" really means. Bhikkhu Buddhadasa Practical Dependent Origination is good, p72-79:


To  explain  paṭiccasamuppāda  in  a  way  that  it  covers  three lifetimes  is  wrong.  It  is  not  according  to  the  principles  of  the  Pāli scriptures.  It  is  wrong  both  according  to  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of the scriptures.

According  to  the  letter  of  the  scriptures,  in  the  passage  quoted above  regarding  the  Buddha’s  discovery  of  paṭiccasamuppāda  just before  his  enlightenment,  the  Buddha  spoke  of  dependent origination  without  sticking  anything  in  or  adding  anything  in between,  as  you  have  read.  Dependent  origination  starts  with ignorance  and  goes  on  to  suffering  with  nothing  indiscriminately mixed  in.  To  add  anything  is  to  make  it  contrary  to  the  letter  of  the principle.

If  we  look  at  it  in  light  of  the  spirit  of  the  teaching,  we  will  easily see  that  the  teaching  under  consideration  is  wrong.  The  Buddha delivered  his  teaching  on  dependent  origination  in  order  to  destroy wrong views  and  in  order  to destroy  attachment  to the  ‘self,’  beings, and  persons.  So  it  is  that  there  is  a  continuous  series  of  eleven conditions  wherein  no  ‘self,’  no  ‘I’  can  be found.

Now  there  are  some  people  who  explain  it  anew  by  saying paṭiccasamuppāda covers three lifetimes  –  births  –  connected by the same  person.  A  person’s  defilements  in  a  past  birth  cause  karmic results  to  arise  in  this  birth  at  some  point.  There  are  karmic  results in  this  life  which  cause  new  defilements  in  this  birth  and  give rise  to karmic  results  in  a future  life.

When  paṭiccasamuppāda  is  taught  in  that  way,  it  becomes  a teaching  of  a  ‘self,’  soul,  being,  or  person  which  whirls  about  in  the maelstrom of existence, just as in the wrong view of Bhikkhu Sāti, the fisherman’s  son.  But  the  Buddha clearly  taught  about  the  absence  of ‘self’  by  means of paṭiccasamuppāda; to teach that paṭiccasamuppāda covers  three  lives  is  to  undo  the  Buddha’s  teaching  and  teach  that there is  a  ‘self.’
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 9:16 AM
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I guess I am still brainwashed to kinda believe in it. I really dislike it.

On the other hand, I can also make arguments for life being super precious and something to really make the best of while it's there. In that case, fear of being born into a hell realm.. or north korea or something like that.. then serves a useful purpose of keeping me off rooftops in times where I wanna go.

Hey thanks for the comment. Don't understand too much of the text you put down. I don't know Buddhadasa, but seems he basically says the something like "Buddha be said there no u, so thinkin' reincarnation happens be dumb".

It baffles me, like really gives me a good ol' mind-boggle head ache, to try to fathom why it is that enlightened dudes would talk about reincarnation. Like.. they wouldn't lie, would they? If so, what for? And if it is that they don't really know, why would they talk about something they merely believe in? To keep people off rooftops? Arghghhh emoticon

Haha, rant wasn't over I guess :p
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 10:38 AM
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"Like.. they wouldn't lie, would they? If so, what for? And if it is that they don't really know, why would they talk about something they merely believe in? To keep people off rooftops?"

Mind seems to be a very pliable phenomena and if you keep hearing dhamma talks about rebirth as Tibetans do then by the time you have "awakened" you will have conditioned it into such modes of seeing the world. Realms and Elves emoticon 

Maybe they talk about it because they too were conditioned to think in that mode or they simply might be afraid of death being the END emoticon 

In meditation "things" can pop out like visions of creatures. In Zen all is considered Makyo and students are not encouraged to engage with it. Even if they see the Buddha one is to kill the Buddha. In Tibetan Buddhism these visions are respect much more it seems but I wouldn't know much about it. This attitude will condition the mind especially if you pay homage to such beings every single day emoticon 

Who is right and who is wrong??? I don't know emoticon I go with what Buddha did when in doubt; touch the earth "the earth is my witness", meaning I can only know what is arising RIGHT NOW without adding extra hats onto the arisen experience. And experiences pass so fast hence no time to waste in self-validation (which again is but an experience to be seen/known). Who is right who is wrong? I don't know! But I can know what is happening right NOW! The way of Satipatthana emoticon 

Best wishes to you mate! 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 1:14 PM
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Emil Jensen:

It baffles me, like really gives me a good ol' mind-boggle head ache, to try to fathom why it is that enlightened dudes would talk about reincarnation. Like.. they wouldn't lie, would they? If so, what for? And if it is that they don't really know, why would they talk about something they merely believe in? To keep people off rooftops? Arghghhh emoticon

It's simple economics really. Buddhist monastics have a cashflow problem - they don’t produce anything that anyone really wants! People only think that they want to become enlightened until they find out that they won’t be around to enjoy it. Telling your customers they don’t really exist is hardly a sound marketing strategy is it? emoticon

Fortunately the Buddha’s teachings also contain the solution to their problem – people are primarily motivated by fear and greed. To monetize greed you need to sell a sexy version of personal enlightenment, which is what flashy gurus do. Theravada is obviously not selling the sexy version of enlightenment – they tax people’s fears instead. The biggest fear most people have is ceasing to exist after death. The obvious solution is to tell them they will be reincarnated according to their karma and sell them a karma upgrade for donations. Bingo – problem solved. emoticon

The Christian church is even more ingenious, they wrap both solutions in a single package – greed and fear, heaven and hell. This is why the Christian church is more profitable and has bigger buildings, fancier robes etc. emoticon
Sam Gentile, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 1:15 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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agnostic:
Emil Jensen:

It baffles me, like really gives me a good ol' mind-boggle head ache, to try to fathom why it is that enlightened dudes would talk about reincarnation. Like.. they wouldn't lie, would they? If so, what for? And if it is that they don't really know, why would they talk about something they merely believe in? To keep people off rooftops? Arghghhh emoticon

It's simple economics really. Buddhist monastics have a cashflow problem - they don’t produce anything that anyone really wants! People only think that they want to become enlightened until they find out that they won’t be around to enjoy it. Telling your customers they don’t really exist is hardly a sound marketing strategy is it? emoticon

Fortunately the Buddha’s teachings also contain the solution to their problem – people are primarily motivated by fear and greed. To monetize greed you need to sell a sexy version of personal enlightenment, which is what flashy gurus do. Theravada is obviously not selling the sexy version of enlightenment – they tax people’s fears instead. The biggest fear most people have is ceasing to exist after death. The obvious solution is to tell them they will be reincarnated according to their karma and sell them a karma upgrade in the form of donations. Bingo – problem solved. emoticon

The Christian church is even more ingenious, they wrap both solutions in a single package – greed and fear, heaven and hell. This is why the Christian church is more profitable and has bigger buildings, fancier robes etc. emoticon
I guess I don't have that cynical view that you and Papa Che have that its aout economics. Reincarnation is right in  the Pali scriptures, The thervada. There also have been scientiifc experiments proving it. Of course, I have been trained in the Tibetan sytem of the bardos where this is a whole eloborate system around transition of the mind from one body to another. I believe it.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 1:45 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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I dont think I have that cynical economics view Sam emoticon I was simply stating that if you keep hearing daily about certain doctrine while meditating and awakening there will be an inprint on the mind. Tibetans are known for their depth of meditative Experience and make a great deal out of it. Thats ok with me. I just prefer the simple Kenneth Folk take that Experience IS Experience no matter it be a perception of an annoying itch or a pleasant rainbow body emoticon 

If you ask me I would rather have people on this planet believeing in rebirth/reincarnation than in constant monetary growth. 

I personally dont know if there is anyhting after death. Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe yes-no. emoticon As far as I can see so far I can only be sure of what is happening right now and even that is unfolding very fats to know how exactly it unfolds. We can track for a bit and see that one is cause and the other effect which in turn becomes the cause for another effects etc etc etc ... 

Even writing all this stuff is unfodling on its own an originating from something that has long passed away. It seems to me that this phenomenal micro tracking becomes impossible for life off cushion and there is no other way but to sit back and enjoy the ride, bumpy or pleasant as it sure seems to be in flux emoticon This can feel overwhelming and rollercoaster like but just is the way it is emoticon 

Another thing that "seems" is that nothing is outside the law of Anicca in consciousness and if indeed there is some consciousness after death then we could be assured even that will be subject to Anicca. So what can we do about this? The only thing I can see to be of any benefit of reducing clinging hence creating Dukkha is to be mindful without laps (or as little as possible). This way all is seen as objects (not a subject), hence not-self, impermanent and unsatifactory. During pre-path there can be a false perception that there is a Knower-Watcher-Witness but I find post-path this to turn into just a knowing-watching-witnessing. What Im trying to say is that this POI stuff sure does something to this perception of Self. 

Ok, I just realised that I have written way too much emoticon Gotta relax and get some sleep. This is the last week at this tiering job of mine. From now on seeking jobs with less working days/hours, less money but more time and energy for my family and practice too emoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 2:17 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Get some sleep Papa D, and come back with more interesting comments and suggestions emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 2:16 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Sam Gentile: "There also have been scientiifc experiments proving it."

What do you mean with scientific experiments "proving" it? I'm curious, yet utterly sure that "proof" certainly must be an over statement.

As I said I tend to believe in reincarnation myself. I just know that I have zero foundation to support the belief.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/15/20 4:08 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Logging about last nights 30 minute meditation and this morning's 60 minute. 

(I thought about what Papa suggested earlier, about getting right into it. I think I value samatha practice as well, which means that counting 100 breaths or similar start to my meditation is something I wanna hold on to. I tried yesterday to just get into the noting right away, but it didn't feel right. It feels like it's nice to "settle in", but by practicing concentration and also relaxing a bit. Anywho, I'll probably continue to experiment a bit.)

Yesterday and today I've felt that I don't know how to meditate at all. Yesterday probably because I was tired, I don't even know what to say about it. I ended up driftin and almost falling asleep on the cushion.

Today I sat for 60 minutes, but was confused about what I was supposed to do :p Haha, even though noting is the simplest thing in the world and I've spent countless hours doing it. Silly. Anyway, it made my meditation real chaotic.

I started by counting 100 breaths and relaxing myself.

By the end of the 100 breaths I couldn't help but consider the inhability of "me" into the phenomena I observed. (I guess this pertains to the truth of dukkha, and I remember reading something in Mahasi Sayadaws' manual about how to observe dukkha.) Anywho, looking at this made me feel fear/anxiety. It didn't bother me one bit, but I examined it: Where the fear was located, how it felt, what it felt like in each area.

(I actually see this objective investigation of fear as one of my pre-enlightenment super powers, as I have done it prior to exams, presentations and other scary incidents. It makes fear not scary.)

Then I noted!
And very soon I tried to speed up the noting as much as I could muster. I normally note rising/falling on the breath, and in the body I note either "feel" or "touch". I also note "seeing" if an image pops up and "hearing" if sound comes up. But today I made it a little simpler by noting anything which wasn't breath by just "beep". This made me go to a noting pace of 2-4 notes per second, some seconds certainly more.

Someway in I got bored by this as it felt hectic and I didn't feel like it made me see anything better. For some reason I decided to switch to more of a Goenka style. I would still note the breath rising and falling, but not note the body scanning which I was now being a bit more meticulous about. In noting I don't really get into the gray areas and try to open them up, but I did here by resting my attention in each gray area for a little while before moving on.

I noticed that mental images is obstructing my sensing of the body. I use it to "search" for the body part by creating an image of it in my mind, and perhaps this works, idk. But it also takes away focus from the subtle bodily sensations. So I note "seeing" when this happens, and then most often the image goes away immediately and I can feel my body better.

Hands and head still feel prickly/lightly vibratory. Much of my body felt exceptionally solid today.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/15/20 11:58 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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emoticon no reason to do stuff that's not of interest to you. It's important to find the practice interesting and you seem to have your own way to do it. Keep it up. emoticon 

Im just keeping you company here in hope someone joins your journey who is more resonating with you. I'm sure such a person of benefit will appear rather sooner than later emoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/15/20 3:26 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/15/20 3:26 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Hey Papa D, I'm glad you're keeping me company here emoticon It gets lonely for me up in here.

Tonight's sit, 35 minutes:
I'm still in a weird place. Meditation does not feel like "proper" meditation. I also get weirdly tired and spacey and have trouble focusing. Just a few days ago I was having rapturous concentration meditations, now I can't even stay with noting for more than what seems like a couple of minutes at most. I then have to drag myself out of a syruppy mind fog. Does this smell like a dissolution nana or something? Nah, maybe I just need more vitamin D. Or milk..

I started trying to gain focus by counting breaths to 100 and then back again to 0. I did feel more focused but what still experiencing the mind fog I mention above.

I have a real hard time saying anything about the sensations I do note. I can fairly easily note that random sensations which enter my awareness occur, when I stay with the breath as a base, at a rate of 2-5 notes per second. But what I note seems hard to see properly, as if there's fog around it.

I have a strong resistance to keep noting, but managed to note the resistance as it showed up. Then it just sort of faded to the back ground and I kept noting while feeling a bit resistant towards it.

In the end I was just feeling like falling asleep.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/15/20 4:20 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Anything we experience can be investigated y paying attention to it, noticing it. But what is there to be noticed? Body sensations, feeling tone (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant) and mind states (worry, curiosity, desire, doubt, imagining, anticipation, dullness, fogginess, joy, bliss, happiness, sadness, self pity, lost, fear, misery, disgust, urge, ...) All these can be contacted. You don't go around searching for body sensations if there is Boredom emoticon What you want is contacting exacrltly that which has arisen; Boredom emoticon how does it feel? Unpleasant. What else is there in that boredom? In that dullness? In that resistance to noting? Is it pleasant? No! What then? The very thing to be noted is already there. It's dominating the awareness emoticon It might not be the thing we want but it Is right here, right now. Watch it do stuff. THAT is insight practice. No reason to contemplate the observed but just simply note what is in awareness, whatever shape or form that might be. Yes, boredom, dullness, resistance, uncertainty emoticon all these can be contacted and clearly comprehend emoticon Awakening at its best! emoticon 

Btw, speed noting takes so much of you attention that the mind can't get sidetracked into "thinking about practice" and instead just knowing the mind flow as is without the expectations (well this is also a mind state to be noted). 

If you want I can show you a video of me practicing freestyle noting aloud to give you an idea how that looks like. Unless you are more inclined towards Jhanas or Calm-abiding which is also a valid practice. 

It seems to me your practice is not yet on Fire emoticon you need to light it up emoticon I'm sure you will find what suits you best! 

Best wishes! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/16/20 3:33 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/16/20 3:33 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Hey man, thanks again for the comment. You're right! I should be investigating boredom haha.
I think what you're suggesting here is something like what helped me along in today's sit. I experienced again being completely dull/foggy, but forced myself to keep up with noting whatever took place. This energized me.

Also, I would like to hear/see what it's like when you note aloud. Show ahead video emoticon


Today's 60 minute sit:
Again I started with counting 100 breaths. And again today I felt like my mind was foggy. But today I pushed through it and felt that I came out on the other side somehow.

I have a tendency to tense up a bit when noting because I'm "looking for something" and kinda straining myself to do that. Whenever I notice this, I of course note it, and that usually helps the tension.
But today I stopped doing what tenses me up, and simply noted slower. Turned out to be not too much slower, still at 1-3 notings per second, but with less tension/stress which allowed me to see better and keep going more consistently.

Today the sensations I felt opened up a bit and felt less solid. Especially in my chest which normally feels as solid as.. idk, cheese?
Also in the areas that are usually light and vibratory, my hands and face, there was an expansion of sorts. The light vibrations covered a bigger area, so my arms, neck and shoulders were now also included. 

Something a bit new happened: I felt little, itchy points various places on my body. Lots of them. I must have noted dozens of very isolated, small pricks of itchyness. Sometimes they were there simultaneously in different areas, and sometimes they showed up in sequence. 

Twice during the sit I was seeing a purple disk/dot in front of me. It had a red background the second time.


A consideration:
I wrote yesterday too, about the effect of having a mental image of "me", or body parts as I meditate. Today I also investigated what happened if I try to be aware of the imagery, and note it, while noting the bodily sensations. It seems that this helps to, sort of, "separate" these two types of phenomena and help me see the bodily sensations more clearly. It also makes each type, the visual and the sensual, more obviously empty.

Emptiness struck me a bit today, like "wow", when I observed mental imagery. Like.. so damn empty! 
"Separating" the mental imagery and bodily sensations made this emptiness a bit clearer in the bodily sensations as well, but the visuals the most! Those are.. really empty! Hah
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/16/20 2:33 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Thats good stuff; sensing a body part and then noticing a mind image impression of it emoticon Nice one!

Prickly body stuff also great. All that talk about "emptiness" not that great, however noting this as "wishful thinking or pondering" would be more interesteing emoticon maybe there are those who think that being cool talk but not me emoticon its not that you should listen to me of course! 

All that stuff/insight about 3 characteristics will arise on its own. No reason to ponder during practice. All we need to do is pay attention to the matter of fact experience unfolding. If we do it 1-5 sensations a second for the duration of the sit we are on the right track. Noting body sensation, feeling tones associtated with those and mind states is the name of the game as far as I see it. (I might be very wrong of course).

Yes emoticon faster noting does energize the sit and if you go more into it (like do it daily for a few months) then it will also aid in right concentartion (the one that arises from a mind being gladdened by being in this very moment free from aflictions).

Here is a short vodeo showing how I do it with open eyes usually focused gently on a spot of sorts 2 meters in front of me and noting aloud. Curiosity about what is there in This moment ... by moment ... and saying it out loud for a more interesting engagement with arisings and passings. 
I do agree that its the most uncool looking and sounding of all practices on Earth emoticon but it targets what matters the most; THIS unfolding in all shape and form. That IS what awakening is anyway in my humble opinion so why not just do it aloud until it simply does/knows itself at some stage emoticon 

BTW, do not get hung up on the speed as in you need to note VERY fast. The noting speed will change on its own also and at times if resistance to practice arises one can SHOUT out aloud to get over that hindrance (which does pass away after a few minutes the most). Voice can go all from very loud, or very calm, to whispering and even silent. Go with what works I guess and what keeps you enagaged in the practice for the duration of minimum of 45 minutes. Best wishes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FeajWRJcXA
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/17/20 4:16 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/17/20 3:55 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Funny to see that noting out loud :p True, it's not the sexiest practice, hah. But good to see. The tempo and way you note is similar to how I note, internally. Except you have a lot of "seeing", as your eyes are open, I mostly have "feeling". It's the first time I've seen/heard anyone else do the practice.


Yesterday I had two sits of 20-30 minutes in the evening. I felt aggitated and didn't wanna log it. Now I don't remember what happened.

For the past three sits I have just gotten right down to noting business and feel I successfully have pushed through this slumber that I've been in.

Today's sit was 60 minutes. I noted right away: "Rising, falling, feeling, feeling, itch, rising, feeling, itch, falling, touch, feeling..."
My note rate was to the higher side for me, and it was easy to note 2-4 things in between the rise and fall of the breath, without losing awareness of the breath which usually has a tendency to happen if I note in between rise and fall.

I know that I have a tendency to "look for" sensations. I know this isn't necessary as it's actually impossible to not experience sensations. No "looking" is needed. But I usually do anyway, right?

However, today I noted "looking", as well as "tension" or "stress" which tends to follow the looking as it has some frantic/stressful element to it.
This tension/stress I noted as mere emotional qualities, and since I kept on noting bodily sensations I also noted some of the bodily parts to it.

I noted tension around the eyes and inside my head. In most cases noting it means that the tension goes away immediately. However, the tension inside my head, towards the forehead, felt very solid. I got the impression that it may always be there, although not sensed unless I really tune in. 

As a result of noting the "looking" and also one or two "trying", I started feeling very tranquil. It was as if it made the meditation easier for me, as noting these things has its way of making them going away. So with less effort I was able to be better aware of more things at once. It was a much more involving, spaceous meditation with a better overlook over what went on.

As I first started noting this, a bit of fear showed up as a sort of anxious feel throughout my body and a hear which felt like it had to work a little harder.

It was tempting to stop noting and just abide in this pleasant spaceousness, but I forced my way through to the end, just noting as per protocol. Therefore...this was definitely a "good" meditation emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/17/20 4:12 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/17/20 4:09 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Oh, a funny thing happened during my sit described above.

I've been watching this 24episode count-down-to-christmas show from way back in the day. One guy plays like 10 characters, and these two guys in the images were the voices in my head as I noted. My own voice normally says "feeling, rising, falling" etc. But for quite a while Steward Stardust or Arne Nougatgren voiced these notings. Very pleasant experience emoticon

 



And while I'm at noting funny things. I also had a very clear "seeing through my eyelids" yesterday. 

See you later, log
Martin, modified 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 2:26 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 2:26 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
Oh, a funny thing happened during my sit described above.

I've been watching this 24episode count-down-to-christmas show from way back in the day. One guy plays like 10 characters, and these two guys in the images were the voices in my head as I noted. My own voice normally says "feeling, rising, falling" etc. 

...

A
nd while I'm at noting funny things. I also had a very clear "seeing through my eyelids" yesterday. 

See you later, log

That thing with the voices happens to me too. It's relaxing when some other person takes over. Sometimes the sense of being someone will also switch to being that person. I also get the seeing through my eyelids thing quite a bit. I tend to put both of those things in the same basket that I would call something like "Arbitrariness of Mind." The mind can perceive directed internal verbal thought with Martin's voice or somebody else's voice, it can construct one sense of self or another, and it can represent internally generated models of the space around me as visual seeing, even when there is no light being input to the retina. It can do lots of things. The Arbitrariness of Mind basket is useful to be because it indicates that while, most of the time, the mind does similar predictable things, it is not inherently limited to those things. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:52 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:52 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Martin:
"Arbitrariness of mind" is almost a good new note :p
Like noting "emotion" it could shed the light on the core components of all kinds of experiences that we may not atm see how are consitutated from each of the senses.
It's almost as if noting stuff makes it more tangible..
Martin, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 10:39 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Good thought!
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/17/20 5:11 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"No "looking" is needed. But I usually do anyway, right?"

That act of looking for something is important. It's remembering/Sati. Hence very important part of noting. Then once you have contacted an object you Note it and sink more into it (SatiPa/Profound Mindfulness) if it lasts so to feel it's feeling tone and mind state, and so on. At times objects pass away as fast as they arise so there is no time to sink more into them. That too is cool and just noting that object is all we can do.

As long you are noting at least 1 matter of fact sensations per second you are doing it right. With stages and states changing so will the sensory clarity change. All is good emoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/18/20 3:08 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/18/20 3:08 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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That act of looking for something is important. It's remembering/Sati. Hence very important part of noting. Then once you have contacted an object you Note it and sink more into it

I think I may need some details on this emoticon
So what I meant by "looking" is perhaps more of "straining to find something to note", which is something I think is definitely not wanted in my meditation. So alright, "looking" is what we'll do!

But "sinking into it"? Can you make a concreet example?
We only have one second to sink into it, right? You know, before we have to have noted something else.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/18/20 5:22 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
That act of looking for something is important. It's remembering/Sati. Hence very important part of noting. Then once you have contacted an object you Note it and sink more into it

I think I may need some details on this emoticon
So what I meant by "looking" is perhaps more of "straining to find something to note", which is something I think is definitely not wanted in my meditation. So alright, "looking" is what we'll do!

But "sinking into it"? Can you make a concreet example?
We only have one second to sink into it, right? You know, before we have to have noted something else.

The "looking" seems to progress into a much "softer diffused non-contracted looking" down the path so to speak. Sure there can be strain when we are just getting into this but have faith and keep practicing as the general tendency is to get wider, softer, curious, welcoming, no matter what kind of sensation arises or passes away. 

The "sinking in" state/stage will also arise with consistent daily practice (twice a day minimum 45 minutes each sit). You will know when this stage arises. Practice, curiosity, acceptance. Include hindrances in this so you aren't wasting the precious sitting time on them. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/18/20 5:38 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Yeah, this makes sense to me, that it gets wider, softer, more curious, welcoming emoticon

Perhaps that's what's happening now, as I've done around that time daily for a little while now. Strongly intending to keep up at least two sits of 30-60 minutes daily going forward 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/19/20 3:11 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Sat for an hour last night and 45 minutes this morning.

Yesterday it was past midnight and I seem to have completely overcome this sleepy/foggy state. I even slept for only 7 hours, which for a while would have been way too little. I woke up early yesterday too, which backs up this a bit. Something has happened to my energy levels, and I'm very sure its connected to my meditation which has gone through a small revolution lately.

I'll try to write about my two last meditation sessions in one:

I've stuck to the instant noting as soon as I start, rather than trying to gain some focus by counting breaths. I am up to 1-3 notes per second right off the bat.
Into the meditation I get up to more like 3-5 notes per second. I notice more details to things. Interestingly, the breath can provide quite a lot of different notings in and of itself: the rise/fall + hearing it + feeling it in all sorts of other places + seeing the mental visual representation of these things. 

I also feel more details all around my skin and even inside my body: On the skin I feel a lot more prickly stuff and can easier discern different sensations happening close by. In a single breath I can note 5-10 things in my face alone, clearly different from one another. Inside my body I have started to feel the bodily sensations to intentions and emotions. Intentions are like little pressure sensations in my head with a tension of muscles involved in whatever the intention asks for muscles to use. Emotions are now felt as soft pressures inside my chest and throat.

The major change in my meditation lately is in combination with this increase in details. I have realized that I have had a preference for what to note and this has limited me to noting what actually happens. Also, I've had expectations about what could be noted in my gray areas. For instance, in my dark hole of a chest I have been expecting to be able to pick up on sensations similar in feel to the ones in my face/hands and places that are more easy for me to feel. But they're different! I can see that now. In the chest it's... I can't explain it. It's a subtler feeling for sure, but it has a way different texture to it.

In the last 20 minutes or so of the meditation I got to a point where I usually plateau. This is what I've been trying to write about for the last few logs, what I've been saying makes me get "bored" and space out. What happens is that I start feeling "all" of the body at once: My hands, feet, face, chest, bummm, thighs. Starting up, when I don't feel everything at once I get "satisfied" in noting each different part. Now getting to this point where all is included, the base level of awareness is no longer of individual parts, but of "everything". This means that I usually sit there and wait for something to note because I wasn't used to noting what I could already feel. I was used to noting something when I noticed it, but here I already am noticing it!

So what did I do about it? I just noted it regardless of the fact that it wasn't a "new" sensation to note. So I have fewer notes at this point, because I note the breath rising and falling, and then I simply note "feel" for that whole body feeling sensation. After this I try to pay attention to whatever new sensations are still popping up. This is the new domain I can get to, since these are much subtler and happening all over the body; the little prickly sensations, the internal emotional/intentional feels. There are a lot of these, so I switched to simply noting the rise and fall of the breath and simply "note" for anything else.

In these subtler notings was also mental images and mental talk. These vanish as soon as they're called out for being just that!


Today I got into the deepest level of tranquility I've experienced since my retreat. I had a quick thought "is this low equanimity?" (Don't worry, I just noted it)
I felt that I was breathing into my hands which had a very soothing feel to it. And it was happening while I could feel my "entire" body which also had a calming/buzzing feel to it.

In this place I noticed some tension in my head and I think also somewhere in the body. It seemed as if this tension was holding me back from letting go. I got the sense that it was associated with a sense of self/agency. I just observed this tension for a while but it didn't go away completely. Then the 45 minute timer rang, so that's all you get for your 2 DhOllar$.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/19/20 4:16 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Wow emoticon  2 DhO Dollars well spent! emoticon This last log is music at its finest emoticon 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 12/19/20 5:21 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Hi Emil! Thank you for sharing this log, and your practice. I apologize for barging into the party late, but you can hear this place rocking from way down the street. I'm surprised the cops haven't showed up yet. When they do, I brought enough beer to keep them happy.

I can relate to this "plateau" at the deeper level. You're rightfully wary of latching onto characterizing it too definitively, but Niels has been in EQ since they invented meditation, on his practice log, and I'd suggest checking him out, as he has some interesting ways of approaching and characterizing some of what comes into play once you start suspecting that--- horrors--- equanimity might be considered. The great thing about equanimity is that most of what you do in it is letting go of a lot of stuff you always thought you had to do, and then being amazed that you haven't fucked everything up by not doing those things. 

It ain't broke, and I ain't here to fix it. Just wanted to say that this is a helluva party on a budget of 2 DhOllar$. Also, somebody spiked the punch bowl. But I think you knew that.

love, tim
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/20/20 2:44 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/19/20 11:19 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Welcome to the party, Tim!

Thanks for chiming in whenever you do. It definitely has a positive effect, to write things out for hundreds of people to see.
(There's a punch bowl? Ermm.. I don't know about that but I have a brew of ayahuasca going. Please be careful, but do enjoy the party).
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/20/20 5:29 AM
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Last night was very interesting! This is supposed to be more about phenomenology, so I won't bother going into details about all this weirdo stuff. I will, however, just log it as it definitely is related to practice:

- Meditated for an hour then meditated myself to sleep. Lots of interesting nimitta things going on before passing out. Swirly motions of purple and neon-green.
- Increase in (sexual) energy, and still strong
- Woke up at 5:40 and:
        Had my first ever veryconvincing auditory hallucination. I'm staying at my parents and I heard my mom come to my door and call my name. When I tried to answer, I had no voice. Turned out I wasn't awake-awake, but in sleep paralysis. I woke myself up fully and said "yes?". Then I realized it was just a hallucination.
- Started meditating myself back to sleep. It was too much of an effort at this point to note everything with words. Instead I was just pretty hyper attentive of changes going on.
- Entertaining visual stuff popped up again. This time lots of firework-type stuff going on. Sparks all over. Felt like there was spark in the whole damn bed room.
- Woke up and meditated again for about 50 minutes. Feel very calm and equanimous.
- EDIT: Just remembered: I had visions of super gnarly fear inducing things. One was a contorted and weirdly scary face of my mother (she looks very delightful irl). Another was of this worm-snake which looked exactly like my deepest night mare. It generated real fear which was hard to investigate phenomenologically. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/20/20 3:10 AM
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The meditation last night and this morning, about 50-55 minutes each:

I note right away at 1-3 notes per second.
I get to the same point where I used to plateau: I can feel my "whole" body at once and start noting just the rise/fall of the breath and "note" for everything else. This gives this higher resolution and allows me to feel subtler things than before I discovered this little hack.

But OK, enough about all this old boring stuff that I learned daaays ago.

This, I think, is an important thing:

I've been able to note more phenomenology over "stuff" happening. For instance, all that sexual energy earlier, started just noting it as "horny". Haha, but! Then I went into each part of my body, the head, the hands, the transmission, all over, and noted "feel" whereever there was something visibly happening. "Horny" turns out to be pressure type sensations inside various body parts and seeing this made it fade quite quickly.

"Mind chatter" also was broken up into bits: Instead of calling it that, I investigated it further and broke it down into "seeing, feeling, hearing".

"I" which I sometimes use to note for whenever something has a very "me" feel to it, was also broken down into simply seeing, hearing, feeling. Braking this one down really made reality seem paper thin.


On another note, I feel very equanimous. In meditation this makes me feel like spacing out a little easier. Like, I just wanna day dream, man! Can't I just do that and have fun from this very satisfied state??

About this equanimity: I tried braking that down too! The equanimity-induced piti seemed to also just be pressure-type sensations in my body. This made the nice-ness, or the piti, of the equanimity go away and left is just a calm, chill kinda equanimity. Not pleasurable, not not-pleasurable either. I don't miss the piti. I might say that I don't think it's a pity that it's gone... emoticon
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/20/20 8:43 AM
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killin it emoticon
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 12/20/20 11:50 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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emoticon 

Yeah. I think it owes something to the ayahuasca in the punch. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/21/20 2:36 AM
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Sat last night for 45 and this morning for 55 minutes:

I note right away everytime now, instead of starting with samatha practice/warmup. Today I did feel a pull towards some samatha practice. Maybe later.

I think practice is going good. If the definition is "noting something pertaining to reality 1-6 times per second", then I'm golden.
And in this case, not too much to say about how I practice. It's quite protocol-y I think.

Some notes on my psyche then:

A few days ago I was thinking in terms of equanimity. Now practice seems harder and I meet a lot of agitation. It's funny, cuz I don't think my practice actually is harder. I say this because I still can keep the noting pace and the level of detail of sensations has remained subtler than before my recent development. Today I even felt my heart in a way which I know has been inaccessible to my level of sensitivity before.

I try my best just to note these hindrances as accurately as I can. But a lot of the time I can't locate their bodily components. For instance, I know I may feel a little sad or torn up, so I note "emotion" if I can't actually break it up into what bodily sensations this emotion actually is made up of.

I seem to be at another barrier, created by all this resistance in the form of agitaion and other subtle negative emotions. They keep me from relaxing into this effortless and tranquil meditation which was here a few days ago. It seems there's a lot to be studied right outside the periphery of my current view.

I really have to give a little more effort than last week, and it seems to go at the barrier in the right way... Stay tuned!
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/22/20 2:52 AM
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Last night's meditation:
Almost 40 minutes on the cushion, then 30 minutes in the bed. Then I just fell asleep while meditating in bed for quite a while. All noting practice.

I paid attention for perhaps a few minutes to strong visions of this purple spot that expands and travels - seems to be in phase with the breath. The outbreath tends to make it bigger and sortof take off. With the inbreath a new purple spot is formed. Yesterday this had more detail, color and vibrancy than usual. The formation of the purple thing sometimes started with a sharper, almost head-light bright little spark and then morphed into what I described before. At one point a dark center was circled by this little spark with purple swirls around it.

I experimented with changing the color of the purple thing. I tried green and voila! 

General recap:
I have handicapped myself quite a bit from some back injury that I made a lot worse during yesterday's training. So lots of pain today to keep on tuning into while I'm figuring out how to live life without being physically active emoticon The good part is that it hurts quite bad so at least I'm entertained while I can't do anything.. and I have some easy notes lol. Maybe some good music will emerge. A new type of blues, perhaps.. purples?

I have an increased motivation for meditation, which feels very right/healthy. I had a strong feeling this morning that it's worth it even if it takes me 40 years to reach SE. I hope it will be more like 40 minutes in reality, but still.. I'll just keep on noting and see what the hell happens.

I get a lot of inspiration from Polly's log. I think I'm almost at the point in her 2nd log where she's about to reach SE, which excites me quite a bit. Remember on my retreat I thought that I was about to do it myself and my excitement was literally through the roof! I was about to run out the door and just knock on people's door just to hug them in celebration. Hahah! But nope! No SE for me lol. One day...one day, you DhOrks mark my words :p

60 minutes this morning

I noted as per usual, but a bit slower than what I've logged earlier. I think I could just do about 1-3 notes per second today.
In addition to the pain in my mid-back there's also a pain/stiffness that shows up in my upper back. This comes and goes depending on whether I'm meditating and has been for some weeks I think. I don't remember what Daniel wrote about this type of trap-pain in his book, but as I recall it's related to some nana..yes? No? Maybe I'll look it up but who cares. Just note, man!

Vibration type feelings seem not to be there! I rather feel light and slightly transparent.

I am still getting used to noting more accurately what is actually going on, rahter than having preferences to what ought to be going on. Some things are still going under my radar, just enough so that I notice that something's there, but also enough to not be noted accurately.

For instance, I tend to get caught in rationalizing thoughts a few times during my meditations. I discover this after some time between a few seconds and a minute I would guess.
Also, I take note of "trying" which is a certain feeling that I get when I can't bounce my attention around the body completely fluidly. I get this small strain of sorts and I've had it for so long, in so many sessions, without noting it. But noting it makes it release and drives my practice towards more ease/fludity/tranquility. It almost evades my note every time but I'm getting practice in calling it out.

I'm really happy that I have started noticing these more subtle inclinations towards wanting/clinging/trying/intending. It's a game changer for me. Another game changer is the note of "emotion" which is a bit of a vague note for an emotion, really. But noting it this way makes it seen and a lot of the time brings attention to the bodily components of the emotion. These are often in the throat and heart, which previously was a no-mans land for me. Feels really good to feel the heart!

Get showers of goose-bumbs which are very metta-y quite often. I like this love-stuff. Tastes good.
thumbnail
Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/22/20 12:48 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"I'm really happy that I have started noticing these more subtle inclinations towards wanting/clinging/trying/intending. It's a game changer for me. Another game changer is the note of "emotion" which is a bit of a vague note for an emotion, really. But noting it this way makes it seen and a lot of the time brings attention to the bodily components of the emotion. These are often in the throat and heart, which previously was a no-mans land for me. "

Nice man emoticon joy to read this! This is, I guess, what ancient Greeks meant by "Know Thyself" emoticon We learn to read ourselves like an open book (the experiential sensate reality-unfolding) by doing this practice of Noting/Noticing/paying Attention/Being profoundly mindful.

Best wishes! emoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/22/20 4:04 PM
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It is a joy indeed!

Hey man, thanks for the encouragement! Stay tuned for more emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/23/20 3:57 AM
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Had a few drinks last night which wasn't too good on my meditation session. I still had it, tho just for less than 30 minutes. I also meditated myself to sleep and for a bit when I woke up.
Now I just finished my 45 minute sit and I feel pretty much back on track.

I feel a bit more relaxed and spaceous today. Noting comes easy and even automatic at times.

I noted at various speeds, sometimes experimenting with slowing down to include more of the senses into my awareness. 
Especially "seeing" is difficult for me to keep awareness on. I played around with trying to keep awareness on the visuals of my actual eyes while noting, and experienced that it actually helped tune into keeping this awareness with mental images also.

Tuning into investigating visuals really seem to be impactful for my general experience. It seems as if that's the puzzle piece that's missing so to say.. That when I tune into the visuals then I can "see" everything: The feelings, the hearing, the seeing. Taste and smell are almost never really in the foreground, but also they don't really have the same impact for sense of self I think. 

When I do manage to include all the senses into my awareness the three Cs become very obvious. It's what's called formations, right? When they're all seen at once it's as if the idea of being any of it would never even pop up, would seem absurd.

Seeing that all there ever is, is feeling, seeing, hearing (+tasting/smelling) it's as if the world suddenly becomes very small. Or actually I think it feels like existence just becomes paper thin. "Emptiness" is such an accurate word for what's really in these sensations.

Including seeing into my awareness points out how much of "the world" is constructed as nothing but an imagined extrapolation of our other senses. Seeing generates a sense of living as part of an external world like none of the other senses to: The mind creates, in order to "explain" the context of our other senses, a scenery of our immediate surroundings, the house we sit in, the planet we live on, the galaxies, the big bang; scenary of any size which immediately gives the impression that we are little me's in a big wide world.

But when investigated these visuals, regardless of how vast of a world they imply that we are different from, they are just so tiny, so thin, so empty when looked at directly!

/Rant over lol

At one point I spaced out for a bit, perhaps a minute or two. When I came back there was the purple nimitta to be seen, although it vanished after a few breaths where I followed it. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/24/20 4:40 AM
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Sat for around 40 minutes last night and meditated myself to sleep. I'm glad I started going to bed like this. It's such a bad time to be doing anything else than meditating or sleeping.

This morning I sat for an hour:
The sit started out with fast, easy and semi/fully automatic noting. It felt like I was being ping pong'd around my body just pew pew pew!

I experimented with a range of different things this session.
For one thing, I checked in with how I experience sensations: It was fun to watch them be in constant flux; appearing, doing some stuff, and
finally: Poof! Gone.

I also paid extra attention to visual sensations. As I feel things in my body there's a lot of the time an accompanying visual representation of that area of the body, or perhaps just of "me" being in the room/surroundings, meditating. The images are most of the time extremely faint, barely perceivable. They last for a really short amount of time but leaves an impression for longer which is hard to identify more precisely. 

Paying attention to the visuals like this I experienced this small blip again, which I have experienced here and there I dont know how many times now. It's fun to be able to observe and describe it a little better now: I think it happens as I transfer attention from one sense door to another. It feels like when I observe a visual sensation disappear, everything disappears for just idk.. a tenth of a second perhaps? It's a funny experience.
I think this description sounds a bit like what I've read about fruition moments, although I do not think it is this. The reason why is that after this kind of blip that I have, it's basically as if I drop into what I was doing before. There's no bliss, no relief, nothing which is too different from 1/10 of a second earlier. I am a bit inerested tho, in hearing others if this is a common occurance. I guess I can't make anything of it, but I do find it interesting.

After this I had this situation pop up and get resolved. A situation about an old friend who I kinda got away from on the wrong foot. In my session I strangely had a lot of clarity about our weird and broken relationship which made it seem as if it was no longer broken. I hope he gets to know that, cuz I think he thinks I hate him even though I never did.. 

Then a purple nimitta appeared. I felt that the right thing to do was to slow down on the noting and stick with the nimitta for a while, while while just noting at a bit slower pace. I wanted to do this in order to expand awareness to constantly include the visual sense door while continuing to meditate.

After this, the meditation slowed down by a lot, but with a spaceous awareness of the felt body and the seen visuals. I felt no need to note, but figured I should keep the meditation going, so I did. It felt very easy, very equanimous. I have this bad back injury which is very frustrating to me who's used to doing calisthenics, lifting weights, running, swimming, martial arts and now can't do any of it. But along with the pain a smile was on my face. In my equanimous state I thought the little pain was a cutie.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/25/20 1:47 PM
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Sat for 30 minutes last night and 60 minutes this morning.

Feel very tranquil/EQ, and feel like I don't have to note because I'm just very alert. I feel that sometimes the noting is in the way of being properly aware of all that stuff of which there's too much of to note anyway.

I found out that no noting at all is not good. This makes me space out and float off...
But noting just the "rising, falling, sitting" works well for keeping an integrated awareness of the body. Then, if I add "seeing" when I have visuals going (which is all the time) and "feeling" when I discover something new pop up somewhere on the body, then I have a very integrated, broad and spaceous awareness going on. Turns out there's plenty to note just sticking to this, so I still note probably every second or every second second anyway emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/25/20 1:48 PM
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Interesting nimittas were appearing somewhere in the sit. First the usual purple, dynamic disc. Then there was a bright one similar to the light of a hazy lamp in the dark. 

I had an interesting aha-moment related to dukkha.
For the last perhaps 10-15 minutes I was simply "doing nothing" which is a practice I like because it's tranquility inducing and also gives some interesting ways of seeing how we don't do all the stuff that goes on all the time.

Anywho, so here I was, decided not to do anything for as long as I sat. But then this feeling showed up, an urge, to get up and stop meditating. That would be doing something, so I just kept on sitting, ignoring this urge.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/25/20 1:49 PM
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But then I felt how shitty the unanswered urge actually feels.

I noticed how powerful the urge was and how uncomfortable it was to refuse it. I saw how little control I had over it and that I was just a victim of the suffering without any say in it.

I remembered that it happens a lot in daily life, that I decide to do something and then don't because an urge tells me not to (or the other way around). This happens so much because refusing our urges just feels really bad. Even if I have just told myself "ok, no more cookies today mister". Then later, if I see the cookie jar, I have no say in how things are gonna go down: It's either eat the damn cookie, or suffer in the flames of hell. A pretty good and easy deal, some would say (that cookie was delicious). But! I didn't ask for life or death ultimatums on a daily basis. Like.. honestly? I didn't even ask for existence to exist, but here I am, forced to eat cookies! Arhghgh!!!

Life's indeed a beach
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 2:22 AM
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Meditating lying down in bed last night. Set the timer for 45 minutes but must have fallen asleep at some point. Heh.

Going to bed I was focusing on my visuals screen behind my eyelids. I think I have a new understanding of awareness vs attention which allows me to have better samadhi type focus. I quickly was presented with the swirly purples with dark centers and some bright color kinda "controlling" the swirls which looked kinda like its tail. There even was a little vortex looking thing in there at some point, reminding me of kasina practice where you also see all kinds of stuff swirl and spin around...

For the first time in a while I was able to study tiny details in these visions. But my right eye was kinda opening up, making my practice a bit strained and unsustainable.

This morning I meditated for 50 minutes. I felt annoyed as hell, but also rather equanimous about it. I was able to observe a large part of being annoyed as sensations in the body which makes it feel like its just something I'm looking at, rather than being.

I also noticed identification with a general feeling of misery I have and proceeded to see some of its bodily components, especially in my head, I think. 

I also had many showers of goose bumbs. I don't know what to say about that other than it happened.

My throat felt a little congested - is that the right word? Idk, there was a feeling of tightness and some pressure. Felt like it might be a realease of sorts.

Lastly, I have a pretty strong resistance toward meditation practice, but forced myself to keep going quite well. I think that's the answer (sometimes): Never stop! At least not just because it feels better to just space out and be with the swirleys.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 3:39 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
But then I felt how shitty the unanswered urge actually feels.

I noticed how powerful the urge was and how uncomfortable it was to refuse it. I saw how little control I had over it and that I was just a victim of the suffering without any say in it.

I remembered that it happens a lot in daily life, that I decide to do something and then don't because an urge tells me not to (or the other way around). This happens so much because refusing our urges just feels really bad. Even if I have just told myself "ok, no more cookies today mister". Then later, if I see the cookie jar, I have no say in how things are gonna go down: It's either eat the damn cookie, or suffer in the flames of hell. A pretty good and easy deal, some would say (that cookie was delicious). But! I didn't ask for life or death ultimatums on a daily basis. Like.. honestly? I didn't even ask for existence to exist, but here I am, forced to eat cookies! Arhghgh!!!

Life's indeed a beach

I'm not ignoring your most recent post, but i think this one is close to the heart of something i find very interesting, and i think that it includes the ambivalence about sitting practice, and within sitting practice. You're doing hilarious Samsara Stand-up here, which I love, the old If This Shit Is Not Funny Once In a While I May Just Have to Die School of Existential Comedy. We really "didn't ask for life and death ultimatums on a daily basis," but for many of us who find our way to a meditation path, we're realizing that we've got them anyway, and trying to work that through. The cookies versus the flames of hell is funny, but true as fuck, of course. But who's to say that another Urge won't punish you for eating the cookie? This starts to get close to the heart of what I wanted to get at: if the Urges, themselves utterly mysterious at this point, have the power to enforce the flames of hell, at some point we end up caught between equally mysterious Urges that have more or less undecidably equal enforcement powers: a choice of hell or hell. In this sense, meditation at certain points may just seem like a ring side seat at our personalized version of WWF wrestling, with gigantic farcical Urges pounding each other into the mat and hitting each other with chairs. Nobody ever wins for very long; nothing is ever settled. Buddhisim 101 starts us with suffering, samsara dukkha, and the root of suffering, these Urges, in the first two Noble truths. And the early moves of the meditation life give us a glimpse of freedom from the Urges, little tastes of a life that is not a farcical collision of masked Urges. I tend to think the whole thing is driven at the deepest level by desperation, seeing through the shit urge by misery-making urge, often enough without a good sense of what "urge-less-ness" could possibly mean. and remember always the urges' propensity to enforce themselves with a bit of hellfire--- when they are frustrated, at first, but eventually, we see, also when they are indulged. Then we're really ready to work, between hell and hell. Sounds like you're in the neighborhood, lol. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 3:54 AM
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I found it very interesting too! Seems like this is a very relevant kind of insight, eh? Suffering everywhere.

It's true, the cookie actually means hell too! There is no winning this shit for very long at a time, indeed!

But ok.. What can this insight be used for? You know, just to summarize here.
We need to see that these urges (and all other cookies and hell fire) can't make us eternal baywatch models with eternal cookies and caviar in our mouths, that none of that ain't us anyway and that caviar actually doesn't taste that good. Or however else the three characteristics may manifest...

But what else is there to do with this insight - other than to stop the endless slamming of bodies into mats and pounding with chairs?
Is that what the insight leads to? A natural giving up of the slamming? Or is it not that simple?
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 5:20 AM
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But what else is there to do with this insight - other than to stop the endless slamming of bodies into mats and pounding with chairs?
Is that what the insight leads to? A natural giving up of the slamming? Or is it not that simple?

well, stopping the endless slamming of bodies into mats and pounding with chairs is pretty amazing in itself, so let's not skip past that too quickly, lol. Let's say for the sake of this conversation that in the dark night, in the dukkha nanas, we experience the dissolution of the worldview that held together the WWF spectacle as the only option. And of course that is way beyond the baywatch/caviar thing, it can go as deep as our vision of enlightenment itself, and every variation on the aspiring self: let's say that every state of the art worldview we have starts to look as ugly and stupid and pointless as the WWF. The fear in the dark night arises, i think, in large part from the completeness of that dissolution and the absence of an alternative. Our first response to the dissolution of a world of endless slamming of bodies into mats is terror that it will leave us unemployed, strangely enough. All we've ever known how to do is the wrestling moves. And now, yikes. This leaves us miserable at how long we kept working on our wrestling moves, maybe, what a fucking waste of time, or misery that all we know how to do is learn new wrestling moves, or misery that in a world where it is all wrestling, one way or the other, that we will be hapless nothings now. But we're too far gone, we're just sick of that fucking WWF tour life, and every attempt to come at it fresh just leads to disgust, revulsion, no fucking way. "A natural giving up of the slamming" is not natural at all, it is the fruit of a long miserable process of seeing how deep the slamming goes, in the world and, most crucially, in ourselves. It turns out that all the things we have believed we wanted and needed are implicated in the WWF life; to really let go of that seems to leave us with nothing. This is the intensity of the desire for liberation: better nothing than more slamming, when every something leads only to more slamming. When the nothing, the no slamming, somehow mysterious stops making us miserable, equanimity dawns. But equanimity is still, basically, better nothing than the slamming. EQ is the nothing that IS better than the slamming, lol. But as you know, there is no obvious thing to do, in EQ. The main thing it has going for it is that the emptiness of direction, the absence of desire, the tracklessness, the failure of specific motivation toward specific ends, is not unbearably painful, at first. And to the extent that we can accept the fundamental cluelessness of EQ, it deepens into all manner of interesting variations and developments. None of which point to anything but ever deeper EQ. EQ is playing chicken with nothingness. The question in it is exactly what you say: what does this insight into the emptiness of the slamming lead to?

Good fucking question, lol.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:15 AM
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TIM:
emoticonMan, you can write. I was lolling when I read the "EQ is playing chicken with nothingness". Dude..

And also, beautifully put, through and through. I love the wrestling analogy, it really is on point in a lot of ways. Especially for me atm since one of my big worldly concerns recently has been giving up MMA training - like, where are the new wrestling/strangling/killing moves gonna come from?! Despair..

I really look forward to gaining SE to see how I things may gain some new clarity.
I haven't read your logs yet, Tim - how far along the path are you?

Appreciate your inputs
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:45 AM
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40 minute sit last night and 60 minute sit this morning.

Last night I was getting super tired from meditating. I wanna believe its stage related as my meditation has this real dreamy, dissolutey quality to it. Anyway, I don't remember too many details of yesterdays sit, so let's just call it a sit and move on to the juice:

60 min sit this morning:
I have progressed to a deeper layer of inspection. Or well, a different one at least. I can maintain a pretty well integrated awareness of the seen, felt and heard while noting things from all these three sense doors with a feeling that I see each noted sensation clearly arise, do its thing, and then change/dissapear.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:46 AM
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From this level of look-out I am investigating two new things... maybe three?:

1) What happens when I don't have some specific sensation to note. In between notes, so to say. I don't have a good noting word for this yet, but I think I used "looking" a few times. It sort of fills out some of the gap which I discovered was there in between notes. The gap felt unconscious/unaware and bringing awareness into is defo a good thing.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:47 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:47 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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2) A dualistic split: I noted "me-ness" a few times today which shed light on the sensate compositions of my feeling of being "me". It happens very much in conjunction with the visual and heard sensations, with the felt sensations being more key to the actual "feeling" of "me":
E.g.: Auditory sensations give rise to visual representations of the sounds; Then feelings are coupled to those visual images; A feeling of "I am here in relation to the heard and the seen".
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:47 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:47 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Invenstiagting the mindscreen and the feeling of me, it really looked as if there was two: a screen of sensations and "me". Studying only the visual component it literally looks as if I'm looking at a screen. Mental visuals are then present, making up a background for "me" to be in and a feeling of pressure from inside my skull then represents the "me" actually resting there.
I sat for quite a while trying to poke holes in this pressure, with some success. Its a very stubborn, solid feeling sensation, but around the peripheries I could watch it move/buzz/vibrate. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:48 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 4:48 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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3) Perhaps related to 1) is that I can see a bit more continously. I think this is what allows me to see the dissatisfactoriness of more moments. And to be real, it was there whenever I looked for it.
I had a real genuine curiosity about what to do with this unsatisfactoriness seemingly pervading every moment. It definitely helped to not sort of buy into it, for instance by trying to make the discomfort go away. Instead one can just see the characteristics of it: Which was to show up uninvited, to do everything on its own including going away again, and to provide no comfort/satisfaction whatsoever.

Ugh.. screw sensations, man. I'm outta here!

Wait.. still here 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 5:36 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 5:35 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
3) Perhaps related to 1) is that I can see a bit more continously. I think this is what allows me to see the dissatisfactoriness of more moments. And to be real, it was there whenever I looked for it.
I had a real genuine curiosity about what to do with this unsatisfactoriness seemingly pervading every moment. It definitely helped to not sort of buy into it, for instance by trying to make the discomfort go away. Instead one can just see the characteristics of it: Which was to show up uninvited, to do everything on its own including going away again, and to provide no comfort/satisfaction whatsoever.

Ugh.. screw sensations, man. I'm outta here!

Wait.. still here 

This is the basic dukkha assoicated with trying to maintain these projections of awarenss and nothingness and subjectivity in relation to independently arising sensory phenomena. You're going pretty fast here so your mind may need some time to accept these things. emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:03 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:03 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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I was a bad meditator yesterday - a Baddha? Hehe..
Because I skipped the formal evening sit! I meditated as I went to bed tho, which was a good, high intensity session.


Just now I sat for an hour.
It felt difficult to get out of bed. You know, why do anything?!
But as my butt hit the cushion I was glued onto it for that hour.

In the beginning I had this feeling that "something big is going to happen". (I have that phrase from MCTB but I don't remember what it's related to). It made me feel uneasy: a bit excited and nervous.

I proceded to note and reached one of my higher paces today. I noted very consistently at 3-4 notes per second, would be my guess.

I had a very good sense of noting emotions, urges, subtle discomforts, aversions/attractions. Again today, it was very clear that the subtle discomfort is really there a lot of the time. Maybe all of the time?! I'll have to look into that.

At one point I noticed that I was subtly straining myself to note. I relaxed and discovered that "feel" was still there, without any effort. In the matter of a few seconds I had a small wave of bliss come over me. Then I started trying to not try, I think, and that seemed to make the bliss hold off.

In the end of the sit I was a bit tired and felt like I could use a break. I'm not sure.. if I really would go all-in for that SE, would I be better off just sitting continuously till I passed out, wake up and then do it again? Or is it good for over all progress to just stick to a slow and steady pace?
Regardless, I really feel like I should sit more, like I could possibly reach SE if I really gave it some more time on the cushion.

In the meantime, I have to keep reading DhO logs about reaching SE. I want to demystify the process and possibly gain inspiration too!
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:30 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:30 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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from Shargrol Of Course:

Learning to balance effort and relaxation is what provides the mental sanity and healing that we ultimately want out of practice.

 Most people do not try hard enough in meditation, which is why most books/teachers emphasize effort. But the few people that are actually putting in the hours and retreat time tend to be the ones that try too hard. As a result, they kind of shoot past equanimity … too much effort kept me looping (A&P <–> DN nanas) and didn't allow me to settle into EQ … The good news is that a much more gentle approach will not only lessen the "heat", but it will also lead to a stable EQ and eventually SE. And much more importantly, the VERY VERY good news is learning how to do that is what provides the mental sanity and healing that we ultimately want out of practice. SE really doesn't change the person that much. It is all the work leading up to SE, learning to balance effort and relaxation, that’s what really changes a person.

George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:51 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:49 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:

In the end of the sit I was a bit tired and felt like I could use a break. I'm not sure.. if I really would go all-in for that SE, would I be better off just sitting continuously till I passed out, wake up and then do it again? Or is it good for over all progress to just stick to a slow and steady pace?
Regardless, I really feel like I should sit more, like I could possibly reach SE if I really gave it some more time on the cushion.

You might be able to hack it using sheer effort but it could be quite destabilizing. Remember this is just the beginning - hell it's always only just the beginning. Like shargrol says, finding the right balance between effort and relaxation is really important ... all the way down the path. Only you can know your limits and part of figuring them out is pushing yourself A LITTLE BIT past them. But the harder you push the more weird and potentially destabilizing stuff will happen ...
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 4:13 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"would I be better off just sitting continuously till I passed out, wake up and then do it again? Or is it good for over all progress to just stick to a slow and steady pace?"

Who knows? emoticon Only you can try it out and see what you discover there in any case. 

I would lean towards daily 2 to 3 sits (45-60 minutes per sit). But if you feel the "thirst" towards long sits then by all means do it and see what you discover there. 

Fact is we all have that sense of a "dancer" inside who keeps dancing the dance in hope to get there and gain something etc ... This "dancer" is different from person to person (call it Karma if you like). As long this dancer is full of enthusiasm to get something other than This right Now the practice will go on and on until the "dancer" is totally exhausted and there is nothing other but This-ness unfolding, 1-5 sensation noted per second for the duration of the sit (sense of "dancer" also part of the noted This-moment). 

You might need to simply practice more just to come to the point of that sense of the "dancer" being sick and tired of its own dancing so it gives up on all that and gives space to simply abiding in the noting of 1-5 sensations per second for the duration of the entire sit. 

If you need less lost in scenarios then note aloud. If you need more concentration then open eyes and gently rest the seeing on a Kasina object in front of you while noting aloud. You need to relax more then check every so often if body is tensed and relax it and keep calm body noting 1-5 sensations/feelings/mind states a second. 

And treat SE as if it's sold out in the Dhamma Store! They might never be able to restock on it emoticon you fucked! emoticon all you have left is the noting 1-5 sensations per second for the duration of the sit day after day and trust that this is all there is to it. emoticon 

Best wishes Emil! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 4:25 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 4:25 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Che
Arghghghh!! SE sold out at the Dharma Store?!?!
You know, that's a good mindset, I have experimented with that already. I am already past the point of expecting too much from practice. Just gotta keep it going, that's the most important thing.

If I were never to get SE my reasons for practicing meditation would just be to have better focus, to have a more equanimous mind. Oh, and of course to pick up chicks. Dharma girls love a good meditator. Right? emoticon

I actually very much don't want to note aloud, hehe. Also I feel that noting internally is doing the trick just fine! I don't really get lost in scenarios, typically expect when I space out with no noting at all. Noting is key for energy and presence indeed!

About the intensity of sits, I'm considering adding a third sit to the morning/evening routine. Some time during mid day may work out for me, at least until I start my job in mid-january

Let's goooo! emoticon
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 7:48 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 7:47 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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If you like, I can show you how to experience nibbana right now.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 7:51 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 7:51 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Ok, I'm ready!
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 1:24 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 1:17 PM

Thread Split

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I'm splitting off the recent posts and the back and forth between me, agnostic and Olivier. This way we can focus on that discussion without ruining Emil's meditation log. The split-off posts can be found on this new thread:

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/21987486
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 10:30 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 10:29 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"I actually very much don't want to note aloud, hehe. Also I feel that noting internally is doing the trick just fine!"

emoticon that's fine mate. You do what you feel is doing it for you. I was suggesting aloud noting as a tool in case of much resistance as in Re-observation or even in early stages. But sure thing, even silent calm-abiding can also work here (Shamatha was my first ever practice for close to 3 years). 

I think you are doing just fine as is and the rest of us here are just creating noise emoticon Look at poor agnostic getting all stick now from Olivier and Chris emoticon (I better shut up now before they turn their attention to me) emoticonemoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:31 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:31 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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(Warning for those about to read this log: I feel in a super ranty/complainy/negative/shitty mood. This may rub off on your eyes, so go read some other log if you don't wanna cry)

Che:
Yeh man, doin pretty good!

This log thing has gotten things moving, yo!
A few weeks ago I was wondering how to angle myself for the most deadly fall out of the window. (I only live on 2nd floor, not that deadly especially if one tried doing a cool ninja roll on impact).

Now I'm meditating at least twice a day, making hit banger Dharma music (probably gonna take off to the charts soon), and other stuff's going well too. Yay (in a sarcastic voice, cuz I still kinda hate existence for existing).

In all sincerity: Thanks a lot to all you writing logs yourself and interacting with this log. Even tho it's online it's as if I'm not alone in the world any more.

Ok enough with the sobbing! I just did a cool ass mediation - y'all wanna hear about that or what?!

I did a 60 minute sit, started noting right away.
Noting pace not nearly as quick as my sit this morning. However, I felt very formation-y, and I think that's good.
I don't know what to say about these noted sensations. Should I be able to describe them other than that they arise and pass? I mean.. if there is something else to say, then one could say anything and I sure as fuuuuuck don't wanna open that box. I hate stories and if I were to tell one about my sensate experience this would be a long and really dumb log.

There was a mention worthy moment: I had just been in formation land where the seen, felt and heard seemed to come in through just one door. Then I spaced out a little bit and then ZICK. My body felt as if it did a little jump and dude. It did feel like I was gone for that little zick.

So now I'm like - am I having fruitions or what? I have tried this spacing out and then jumpstart like.. idk how many times. More times than I know. Is that what's going on? Didn't feel like I was tired and simply falling asleep. I sure was there up until the restart.

Haha, I have to laugh at my own stupidity. Fruitions were sold out, remember?! I know that a week from now I'm gonna look back with embaressment to have even considered that I had ever accomplished anything.

Anyway, I'll go read some MCTB and maybe get some sense knocked into my stupid brain.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:58 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:58 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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I know the feeling. You aren't alone. And it didn't affect me negatively to read it. I don't think putting up facades is healthy, and it sure isn't good for one's practice either, so feel free to rant. 

As for the unknowing events, diagnosing is so tricky, but what you are saying about your mood tells me that it probably wasn't it. It could still be a near miss. I had several near misses before hitting stream entry. There are some state shifts that manifest like that, such as dropping down into something formless for the fraction of a second. I find that those dips are more physically "jumpstarty" than actual fruitions, like adrenaline is involved. In fruitions, I haven't experienced any body jumping. At least that's how I have categorized it. Keep exploring, though. If it's the territory it sounds like it might be, it's good stuff. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 4:11 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 4:11 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Thanks for the comfort, Polly emoticon Your logs are greatly appreciated too!

the thought about fruitions actually popped up after reading your log. Your first description of it in your 2nd log is so.. uneventful? You know, it's not like you were storming out the door running around with a chapagne bottle hahaha. Imagine that :p 

It had me think that maybe I am experiencing fruitions but since I am very unimpressed by even the most spacey A&P-out of body-alien-vortex-alternate reality or bliss kinda stuff, then I just kinda shrugged at it. Does that make sense? I mean.. so what if I disappeared for a moment and felt clarity and whatnot?

aaanyway

I look forward to exploring more. It's true for me as well that these occurrences don't actually have that much of a physical feel to them. Today it did a little bit tho... I think. I might have misperceived it due to some subtle visual stuff going on but I'm not sure. 

but the restarts are different now than earlier on. I remember having a "dat.dat.dat.gone" experience several times. 

lately my gone moments are a lot less datdatdat  and more like just blipping out from a bit spaced out place. 

ill have to just explore and find out what's going on. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 5:47 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 5:21 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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I'm glad to hear that. emoticon

Haha, yeah, I see what you mean. It was a bit anti-climactic. That very uneventful thing did have some profound effects, though. It changed some stuff that was hardwired, such as the inbility to tolerate prolonged eye contact that I used to have becase of being autistic. Lots of social anxiety suddenly went away. Stuff like that. And jhanas happened by themselves, and there was like a huge buffet of highlights from my practice that would show up accumulated, and everything felt unsolid to the extent of feeling like I was sinking through the floor when walking sometimes. All this wasn't apparent from the first fruition, though, and in retrospect I have been wondering if some of the earlier unknowing event were fruitions after all. I'm thinking specifically of the time when three images of sacred geometry were flashing by in rapid succession. Maybe it's more like a bunch of fruitions do the job together rather than the first one alone, and maybe the effect comes after it has accumulated enough? I really don't know. I have noticed a pattern of having a bunch of unknowing events right before a few more clearly demarcated ones occur that seems to involve some tangible shift. I'm not sure how to interpret that. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 4:52 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 4:52 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Polly:
Its a bit new to me, to hear of fruitions not being the most super climatic thing on the planet. If I recall correctly, Daniel described his first moment as "waves and waves and waves of grattitude (and bliss?)". Something like that. I don't even remember when I had my first blip, fruition or not. But then again, I do remember crying tears of gratitude. 

The benefits coming after your first fruition - that's very good to hear emoticon
I myself have had my life transformed completely from this journey. In a good way.

I would say that along with all the more "normal" benefits, like reduced anxiety, ability to hold eye contact, ability to enter jhanas, isn't there really just one "true" measure of progress of insight? I mean the amount of suffering! You know, the taste of salt and freedom and all that.

I would say, fruitions or not, that my amount of suffering has reduced to being just 10% of what it used to be. Possibly to even less.
I have gained the super human powers of not having a problem with stuff to a very high degree. This freedom is really the biggest benefit to all of this.

I would find it weird that I have experiences such freedom, if I didn't also have a relatively high level of insight.

Regardless, the good part about this fruitions-or-not thing, is that if it turns out I am not having them, but still doing this good with regard to a progression in the reduction of suffering - well, then all the more to come once I do get them! (Which I bloody hell swear I will).


Che:
I'm with you on the "don't know" train. In fact, I do don't know stuff really well.

It's not that easy to say "no", though. Because in my experiences there is no sense of anything during the blips. All I remember is some stuff leading up to and then as if waking up from.. you know.. whatever that was.
Writing this makes it sound like I think I do know.. And I must say that right now I'm feeling like "OK, I have cessations. Wasn't what I expected from them. They're actually pretty boring and who cares anyway".

Over all I think this is healthy enough. Because if what I'm having is cessations, then I don't give (much of) a crap about them. I just want deeper insight which (fruitions or not) seems to deminish my level of suffering. All is well. I'll stick to practice.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 5:05 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 5:05 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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60 minute sit this morning:
I had the question of fruitions lingering in my mind. This generated feelings of excitement which I notes as "feel" various places in the body. That made the reactions go away.

I noted slowly in the beginning but rose to a very fast pace eventually. I wondered how many notes it would be if I was able to actually say "note" of all of them. I stopped noting and just gauged the sensations happening all over by feel. I don't know. More than 5-6 which I'm able to sort of follow with a quick mental "note".

A while in a purple nimitta appeared and I used that to focus on while I kept noting bodily, heard, and other visual sensations.
I noted a large number of visual representations of sounds and feelings in my body.
I also noted more sounds than normally which felt good. It felt as if I was included something which I had avoided for a while. I figured before that "sound is not as important as feel" but today I gave more importance to the heard. It felt broadening/including and helped me connect with the visual images arising from the heard as well, so it was just a win-win-win-win-win scenario.

Rapture showed up with perhaps 15 minutes left. It wanted to interfear with my noting by tempting me to just space out to it. I kept on noting though and the rapture actually grew stronger, not what I had expected. But I do remember the same thing from my retreat where I entered very altering raptures in that way. Let me remind me to not space out to jhanic pleasant states in the future, when noting at least.

I also noticed, to my pleasant surprise, that the rapture wasn't as pleasant as first perceived. It consisted of pressure type sensations across most of the body. Many of them actually had some pain in them. The ones that didn't felt neutral and empty/boring/unsatisfying.

This discovery was pleasant because I felt that I saw through an illusion which has something to do with my old perception of jhanic rapture being King. Well, not today, old conceptualizing mind!
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 6:04 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 6:04 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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The story you shared about the window jump; I wonder if you have considered going for therapy about that? I personally did much talking therapy because of PTSD and it can be of benefit on this spiritual journey which can be at times shaky ground. Usually out of the blue all sorts of shit starts pouring down emoticon Having a therapist to talk out shadow emotional stuff can help a lot. 

Btw, thank you for sharing with us Emil! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 6:40 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 6:40 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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I know I'm not seriously in danger. I think there's a long way still before actually taking a jump.
I want more to figure life out than to throw it away. Still, in those dark times its just tempting to consider escapes. Like drugs. I crave that quite a bit from time to times. But I don't take it either cuz I don't wanna fuck up stuff going forward emoticon

If I could afford a therapist, maybe emoticon I'm getting a job next month, so perhaps I'll consider it if the night turns dark again.

Thanks for tuning in - this is a small community man. Love it emoticon
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 8:54 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 8:54 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Well emoticon therapists in Denmark are cheap man emoticon I think I paid only 330dkk per session which is nothing. Of course you need your local doctor to appoint you to one to get such cheap price. 
But yes having some income sure helps! 

Wish you all best with that new job! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 3:18 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/29/20 3:18 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Meditated for 40 minutes earlier today. Started with kasina practice which I havent done in a while. Figured my sit during the day could be a concentration type exercise. Today it hurt my head too much tho (I'm a little sick), so I switched to following the breath.

I just finished a 60 minute note-sit.
This was a weird sit. A little bit into the sit it felt as if sensations were overwhelming. Like if you have a head ache, which I kinda do, and you sit in a crowded, overly bright and overly loud room. It was almost too much, tempting me to just focus on breathing in stead. But I kept noting.

At one point all the noise cleared up and there was a very serene bodily feel with a purple nimitta to be seen. The nimitta felt different than all those other times I've seen it lately. It's hard to describe the difference but it was very clearly felt. Perhaps I could say it felt like I had stuck my head underwater to see the nimitta. Just like the water would go around my head and submerge me, my field of vision felt submerged and the nimitta was a lot closer than normally.

The serene moment died out and I was back to a bit more normal noting. But my neck felt especially tense, I even moved my head around because I was curious to see if it was in fact locked in place.

I also felt pain in my legs and its been a long time since I was last bothered by this. I kept on noting and was curious as to observe the discomfort. I wanna go back and meditate some more before bed time. If I do it will be the most meditating I've done since my retreat.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 4:28 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 4:28 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Meditated myself to sleep last night.
These past sessions really have been dominated by lack of ability to see clearly. It's like everything is bussy and noisy.
Also, laying there in my bed I struggled to find a comfortable position. My neck hurt and pangs of pain popped up various places in my body. After a few tries to get comfortable I realized it wasn't gonna happen so I just tried to look for impermanence in the pains. This helped.


I woke up at 4:50 this morning, feeling quite awake. I  wasn't gonna get up that early so I just meditated. I didn't note but instead noticed all kinds of flow/movement of sensations in the body. The purple nimitta showed up and I enjoyed just following it do all kinds of movements with ease.

I just now finished an hour sit and the noise has not gone away yet. I feel that I don't know what to note because there's noise all the time. I try to just go through it meticulously as per normal protocol. But I did take a few "breaks" along the way just tuning into the over all flow of stuff. I finished the last ~10 minutes with just sitting, "doing nothing". It felt like I was doing nothing and I noticed some stuff "I" would normally do, like think about things, or try to move attention around in the body. 

The nimitta seems to show up in every session now. During this session I think it was purple at some point, but I more clearly remember that it was a sort of hazy beige color.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 7:01 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 7:01 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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An hour sit, just finished.

I experienced no sense of either noise or pain.
I had quite a few, perhaps 20, jerky muscle spams in my arms and legs.

Mentally I've felt sad/miserable for most of the early day. I've felt that there's no point in doing anything other than to become enlightened. I long for..not to struggle anymore. 

One moment was as if everything stood still, everything was so quiet and serene. 

During the sit I felt that I needed to change something up. As if I needed to look a bit differently because I felt stagnated.
So I investigated a bit more specifically the sense of observing the visual sensations. Whenever I notice a sense of observer there and I look into what's actually there in that moment, its always pressure in the head. I think it creates the illusion of something being there, doing the observing.

I cycled between noting "seeing", "feeling" (specifically in skull), "rise", "fall".

A few times I also meticulously went in on each sense door and checked for the three characteristics by asking questions to each: "Is this happening on its own?", "Is it changing?", "Would it be satisfying to try and live in these sensations?"

This seemed to narrow the gap between this perceived observer and the observed.

I was stuck with this idea, or rather this approach of looking into the sense of self, at my latest retreat. I really feel like it fucks with my experience. Also, aren't we supposed to investigate these subtler things? I.e. sense of self, urges, sense of space/time.

Does it happen automatically with noting in a style that always remains the same?

Or are we supposed to adapt our noting to the subtlety appearing as we proceed? This latter is what I'm doing and what I'm tempted to think is necessary.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 7:03 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 7:03 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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By the way, all that talk about fruitions vs no fruitions.. now I seem to have been in stages that seem completely beginner like.

For example, all that neck stiffness and pain - isn't that a cause and effect thing?

Feeling like everything is noisy, like having bees fly around ones head, isn't that a dissolution thing?

Feeling miserable and craving relief...

Where am I? Will I ever learn to use the maps for anything other than to have faith that there's something beyond my current stage/state?
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 7:54 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil

By the way, all that talk about fruitions vs no fruitions.. now I seem to have been in stages that seem completely beginner like.


For example, all that neck stiffness and pain - isn't that a cause and effect thing?

Feeling like everything is noisy, like having bees fly around ones head, isn't that a dissolution thing?

Feeling miserable and craving relief...

Where am I? Will I ever learn to use the maps for anything other than to have faith that there's something beyond my current stage/state?

The map answer is that after a good taste of EQ, you started hurrying and grasping, and fell back into the dukkha nanas. It's sort of a classic loop, really, and it is generous of you to be so open about it. Like a teaching module, lol. (Some of my friends and I used to joke with each other: "Oh, a learning experience! You poor bastard.") The good news is there's nothing like the dark night to teach us humility and patience and faith, and there's nothing like all our most intense doing collapsing around us in chaos to motivate us to begin to attune to the paradox of less effortful "doing." In the long run, acclimatizing to the cloud of unknowing, to doing your practice in good old blue-collar stick-to-the-technique non-heroic work, without hurry or fear, builds the foundation you need to get Really Fucking Lost at the crucial points. You are beautiful in your passion, lovable in your intensity, and authentic in your longing for liberation. A lot of the rest is surviving yourself. Slow down, just a bit; accept the kaleidoscope, just a bit. Keep your cool and your practice, but ease the pressure. It is counter-intuitive, it is learned behavior, to ease off when your efforts are causing cramps in your practice. We all believe in the work ethic. But you are working, just fine. 

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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 10:11 AM
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"The map answer is that after a good taste of EQ, you started hurrying and grasping, and fell back into the dukkha nanas. It's sort of a classic loop, really, and it is generous of you to be so open about it."

+1 on this and rest what Tim said! emoticon 

Have faith in Noting 1-5 sensations per second for the duration of your sit. Ponder afterwards if you need it. If insight happens during the noting sit so be it but no reason to spend time in self-validation. Sure thing note that self-validating also as "thinking" and move on through this vast samsaric ocean. Don't forget to relax the body and breathing but let the mind be fast as it certainly can take this. Trust that mind knows all which was noted beforehand anyway emoticon Don't fear loosing "control" just keep plain simple noting of your own matter of fact experience. It's all we have really emoticon 

Look at it like going to the gym for 45 minutes and lifting weights non stop. Then afterwards have a hot shower, make a tea, watch a movie, read a book, play music, wash dishes, go for walk, talk with friends ... etc ... no reason to drive yourself mad with Dhamma 24/7. When on cushion then weight lifting without lapse. Timer goes off after 45 minutes emoticon say well done and find a hobby emoticon until the next sit etc ... 

It is very important to let go of this stuff mentally and do other life things as well. 

Map is good to use as a general guideline rather than point to point exact replica. 

Best wishes and be gentle with yourself emoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 3:41 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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I think I needed to hear this, guys. To ease off a bit emoticon

I read what you wrote earlier, Tim, and resonated with it. I took the "day off" in a way haha since I was planning on meditating some more. Just chilled instead. I could definitely feel the pressure I had put on myself.

Just had another 60 minute sit and found that I could feel the effect of having let off some mental pressure a bit. I felt giggly and equanimous. This made practice easier and less stressed. That's probably a good thing.

It's difficult to know exactly what to do now. I am starting my job 15th of january and expect that I will be very busy. Would be cool to make as much of my, for now, unlimited free time as possible before then. If I can do it without putting stress/pressure on myself I would like to maintain at least 3 or 4 hours daily until then. Ideally more...

Agnostic, I think I'll have to read some Mahasi again. I've been meaning to and it's been a while since I read it. I also tend to not remember anything which is unrelateable/unintuitive for me, so I'm guessing I'd read it with new eyes now.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/31/20 3:23 AM
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60 minute sit this morning.

Still feel like taking a step back and remembered that tranquility is a factor of awakening that I could possibly learn to amp up a bit...

Instead of doing strict noting all the way through I let myself groove a bit here and there and experimented with what felt right. Whenever sloppiness turns up, I am pretty fast at getting back at the noting which seems to keep up the energy.

This session I especially focused on seeing impermanence in felt sensations. I noted something and stayed with it until I could perceive a change. This felt good. Normally quick noting doesn't allow for really studying each sensation more, one is just off to the next.

I also remembered reading Mahasi, who put emphasis on noting "rising" and "falling", as well as "sitting". To me he didn't seem eager to have note as many different things as fast as possible, which has been what I've been trying to do.
Today it felt like "sitting" had a tendency to generate that broad awareness which actually makes me notice many sensations other than feelings in the spine yielding the "sitting" feel. I.e. other bodily sensations as well as subtle visual sensations aiding this sense of space and me in relation to it.

I have to read Mahasi again to see if I get some new understanding. Perhaps next year hehe...

Today I again encountered the very solid feeling of "me" in my skull. I spent a little time trying to look for impermanence in it with some success. Whenever I work in this area, around my eyes, the seen and the skull, my sense of self does something. It tempts me to believe that there's important work to be done there. I don't know emoticon

It's new years. Don't go blowing off your fingers and toes, kids. And don't smoke cigars while you light explosives, lest you mix them up. Wouldn't wanna try and vipassanalize a face that's not there anymore, would we...?
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/2/21 5:01 AM
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New years day was a bit of a lay-low for me. Meditated for about 20 minutes last night before starting to fall asleep as I was tired from being up late on new years eve.

This morning I'm back in it. Sat for 60 minutes:

A small break might have done me good with regards to losing up a little bit. Rapture and tranquility are the factors of awakening which seem strengthened by this. I felt more piti than usual, and some bodily rapture in the form of feeling like I was going side ways inside my head lol.

The down side of this is that I do seem to space out a little more...

BUT! I discovered some new things! They may be more related to sila than pana, but I take whatever I can get:
I felt deep fear related to my self image of being in good shape and good looking haha. (I don't think I'm narcissistic, just strongly attached to being super hot LOL!). 

It was interesting to feel this fear so deeply, since normally I'm like "yeah, just take it all idgaf" whenever it comes to losing my identity and world view. I already lost the fuck out of it, why not give away the rest?

Another fear showed up as I had this odd, vague experience that there were more "me's". I once had this (probably A&P) experience where I spent what felt like hours in an alternate reality. In that reality I felt as if "the original me" was from there, and my present "me" was the odd, alien-reality version. So as the blue vortex/wormhole opened up and sucked me back into "this world" I remember feeling panick because I was taken away from my "true" place in that reality. Spooky stuff..

Anyway today I had a visual sensation going on, happening from behind the eyes of another "me" in this world. This made me feel a small hint of what I'm tempted to call "existential horror". Wow, that could be the title of a cool book...

Like, how scary wouldn't it be if our sense of self could jump between realities, leaving behind everything we identify with "here", only to pick up a new story, and new world view, a new identity, new memories, new everything, in just the snap of a finger. I mean, I'm up for it, send me away! I'm just saying it would feel a little sketchy the first few times.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/2/21 3:03 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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An evening 60 minute sit:

Would say was a good sit. I feel very curious and interested about my meditation today.
I seem to have found a more hamonious balance of the amount of noting: Not too much, which causes stress/tension; not too little which causes sloppiness.

I also seem to see some new stuff, like I did this morning. This evening I noticed impermanence in a new light. It felt deeper, as if better understood/seen. I saw emotions, urges, intentions and bodily sensations arise and seemed to know that because they arose, they would also vanish. I observed that too quite a few times.

Then I felt as if I understood something a bit deeper: That the feeling of attention of the observations also arose.. and therefore also would pass again. This felt as if it cut a bit deeper somehow...

I had a couple of these moments idk what to call them.. near misses maybe? Although I don't know near miss of what.. Or a quick step into some higher jhana? I really don't know. The moments kinda feel like little shocks and my body jumps a little bit. It happened two or three times today. The first time it was as if there was a sound like "RUNG".

Would say I feel quite equanimous. Wonder if I have worked myself back through the dukkha nanas...
Sam Gentile, modified 3 Years ago at 1/2/21 3:25 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Good stuff. I just had a sit where I am feeling pretty equanmous too.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/3/21 2:36 AM
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I had a couple of these moments idk what to call them.. near misses maybe? Although I don't know near miss of what.. 

Seriously, man, this kind of thinking will fuck you up. Forget the speculative unknown that you're missing, nearly or otherwise. Practice the technique, one hit at a time. You're not missing a goddamn thing. You're hitting exactly what you need to hit.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/3/21 3:05 AM
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YES! You're right, fuck mind boggling one stupid experience or the other.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/3/21 3:47 AM
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kiss kiss, lol
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/3/21 4:03 AM
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Emil Jensen:
YES! You're right, fuck mind boggling one stupid experience or the other.

+1 to what Tim of the Cross said above. That man knows "his Camels" emoticon 

Btw, it's not stupid experience. It is what it is and it's ALL we ever have; try and cherish each moment as it arises. Your guests are arriving at the 6 sense doors. They cjust bract they door and you say their name without pushing them away or giving them a big wet kiss. You just name them with a gentle smile. Acceptance and Clear Comprehanding of all guests contacting your 6 sense doors. There are 6 doors and they are bombarded by guests keen to enter your cool party because you have the best parties in the Dhamma Town. So don't blame the "stupid" guests for wanting to be in such a cool place emoticon emoticon 

1-5 sensations-feelings-Mind states noted per second. Relax the body so it doesn't go into tension. Relaxed body with a mind tensed like a guitar string; tune it too much and the string will snap. Tune it too little and it doesn't make music. Tune it just right in the key of E and off the unfolding of Dhamma music goes; one after the other, the Dhamma notes arise and pass away. 1-5 notes per second for the entire sit ithout laps in mindfulness. Self validating thoughts is a laps in mindfulness (is this near miss or isn't this near miss, is this close to cessation or not) when such are noted then they usually pass away very fast just to be replaced my an itch on your buttocks emoticon 

Practice well and name with acceptance each arising and passing Dhamma guest at your 6 sense doors! 

Best wishes Emil! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/3/21 8:44 AM
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Yes! Thank you again, for keeping on tuning in to this log. A lot is happening at the moment and your encouragement and advice is so helpful and energizing!

Enough with the sobbing hehe.It's Dhamma time emoticon

I meditated for over 3 hours yesterday. In the evening I was so jacked up on rapturous energy that I simply HAD to keep sitting to investigate.
I am very much getting over it, but yesterday I was like OMG OMG OMG WOW! I had formation moments where the sense of the observer really felt like it was really gone - just the seen/felt was there. What I saw kinda blew the air out of my lungs and it felt like I turned my insides out a bit.

It felt like I was being pushed closer to the edge of a cliff, dancing an inch away. I could feel that if I could really catch up to the generation of the thin veil of ignorance keeping me in the illusion of being "me", then I could just fall and fall and fall... I don't know. It felt like there was a lot of kindalini type energy just on the verge of exploding.

Today I'm still very excited. I meditated for 45 minutes this morning, some in the train, and just sat for another hour at home.

I don't really know what to write. I feel like I could probably sit here and write for an hour about what has been unravelling for me the past 24 hours but I don't think it will benefit anyone. 

Something short I could write could be this: I feel like I saw so clearly in my meditation yesterday only because of the work I've done so far. I feel that the practice of noting more and more really is the way to go. In my powerful meditation I saw how that's what's needed to generate those formation moments where the three characteristics simply are so clear that it makes you forget how it would be any other way.

Like, all that separates me from seeing through the thin veil is for my awareness to catch up to all the sensations entering my experiential field. The illusion lies in the sensations not seen clearly.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/3/21 8:47 AM
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Oh, and I've also incorporated some fire kasina usage. I used to do it quite a bit. Yesterday I noticed I can no longer clearly see the vibrations of the after image of the flame. I think I might have to train my time-resolution of perception in order to see that again. (??)

Also, it feels like the nimitta/afterglow from the kasina helps "glue" the visual together with the felt, creating a see/feel formation. It really feels like this makes it easier to see what's going on.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/3/21 1:10 PM
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Had another 60 minute sit. Was tried, probably because I ate a lot for dinner...

Did noting with a kasina. Not seeing the same magic today, but still think I'll experiment with doing that going ahead.

Because I was so tired I did pure kasina practice for the last ~25 minutes and this pumped my energy a bit.


Another thing I wanna write down is my discovery of the note "observing". It seems to shed light on feelings which tend to give this "me" feel when "I" "observe"/note sensations.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/4/21 4:03 AM
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Morning sit, 60 minutes:

My energy and enthusiasm is still high after what felt like my almost-kundalini explosion a few days ago. 
All of that crazy power is gone tho, and I'm back to noting with a more normal mind.

That's fine, and I think I've learned a few things:
1) That the technique really trains something that yields insight. My faith has been amped the fuck up.
2) About the noting pace, which confused me: Yes, high noting pace is good, as sensations come and go quickly. But it's not noting with a high pace at all costs we're after... No, each sensation should be seen clearly as well (duh). So the training in pace is about seeing sensations well, quicker and quicker.
3) Your guests are arriving at the 6 sense doors. They cjust bract they door and you say their name without pushing them away or giving them a big wet kiss. You just name them with a gentle smile. Acceptance and Clear Comprehanding of all guests contacting your 6 sense doors

- Che

This comment set something off in me. Exactly! They be guests and I am to greet them at the door. Today I even noted used the word "hello" for a period. It helped trigger me to really greet these guests in a more natural, relaxed way. Shout out to Papa Che Dusko!


In my meditation today, something cool happened. I felt tension around my heart and had these therapeutic thoughts about it:
"why would a young, healthy guy have this tension around his heart?"
"It's probably because I used to hate myself so much"

I understood that I didn't actually hate myself. I was just frustrated with the fact that I wasn't as happy as I would want myself to be. Waves of compassion flooded me and I even cried a tear.

My chest felt in a way that made me think of Polly's discriptions of something in her log 2: Champagne bubbles. It was popping all over my chest in a way that felt like it was covered in champagne. It felt very good. I have no doubt that this was a good release. I wonder if there's more in there..and how much more
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/4/21 4:29 AM
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1) That the technique really trains something that yields insight. My faith has been amped the fuck up.
2) About the noting pace, which confused me: Yes, high noting pace is good, as sensations come and go quickly. But it's not noting with a high pace at all costs we're after... No, each sensation should be seen clearly as well (duh). So the training in pace is about seeing sensations well, quicker and quicker.

"My faith has been amped the fuck up"!!!! Love you, Emil.

That you're getting clearer on the noting pace even as you ride through a high energy burst is remarkable. To find the balance between noting well and noting quick is the long run pace, you'll always have a state of the art balance on well/quick. High energy sharpens both well and quick, and it makes a positive feedback look, with their interplay, like hitting clean notes at the right tempo in music. 

You've got my own inspiration amped the fuck up with this log. Thanks.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 3:57 AM
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I'm glad my log does something good for you, Tim!

Sat 60 minutes and then probably around 30 last night. And 60 minutes just now this morning.

Yesterday I was warming up with fire kasina in both meditations. Somehow I feel like I should be doing some concentration practice. I'm not sure though, as I think I may be pretty damn equanimous and just looking for ways to just chill and not do noting practice. So I noted 100% in this mornings meditation cuz I don't wanna be a bitch to equanimity.

"Equanimity be my bitch" - Me, 2021

Interestingly during noting last night there was tons of noises, almost as if my mind was forcing me to pay attention to the heard in addition to the seen and felt. Very "real" sounding noises of music, people, stuff.. I would say sometimes 80-90% as "real" as "real".

This morning I felt a strong tendency to not note and just be with it. So I kept it at a minimum, but sometimes not noting at all. Like, why bother noting when the attention is so strong on both the abdomen and the bodily and visual sensations?

I'm still fan of the welcoming-sensations approach and in periods during my sit I note with "Hi" or "Welcome".  It help losen me up, gives me a bit of a different attitude. As if I'm not so much doing anything, just letting the "guests" come on their own.

In the very end of my sit today I noticed some sensations that had been hiding from me in plain view. I noticed that they had the "observer" quality to them, and they consisted of visual and head-feely sensations.

Noticing this had that known effect of making the veil between me and seeing clearly very thin. As if there is just a little smudge on the lens.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 4:06 AM
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Yesterday I was warming up with fire kasina in both meditations. Somehow I feel like I should be doing some concentration practice. I'm not sure though, as I think I may be pretty damn equanimous and just looking for ways to just chill and not do noting practice. So I noted 100% in this mornings meditation cuz I don't wanna be a bitch to equanimity.

"Equanimity be my bitch" - Me, 2021

Oh, man, that EQ bitch gonna own your skinny ass. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 4:10 AM
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Haha yah but at least I'm equanimous and can take a whooping 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 4:33 AM
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Yeah, good thing you can take it, 'cause she gonna open a big old can of fathomless whup-ass on you and make you love that whupping like a baby child. She gonna equanimify you somethin fierce.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 5:32 AM
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Just spent 45 minutes in a equani-whupin' sit.

I don't know much, but would definitely guess that this is what they call the "equanimilicious". OK, no one calls anything that. But it is equanimous and it is delicious.

I get these waves here and there of super delicious piti. I sit often with a smile on my face and a straight ass back. As if I was posing for a yoga magazine photo.

And hour or 45 minutes go by as fast as if I was actually posing for a yoga magazine photo.

I note as per usual, but there's this very natural tendency to just be with everything. It feels much more inclusive and allowing.
It also feels like, instead of going from sensation to sensation, I am going nowhere, but simply pointing them out as they arise.
This keeps on inviting the observation of what is doing the observation itself. This is almost a note in itself, in fact I sometimes note it as "observing", which sheds light on the fact that there is really only the seen and the felt and the heard. I wonder how many times I how to point that out and not fall back into living a life where it seems there is more to it than that.
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 8:17 AM
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At a certain point I remember realizing that noting starts to proceed by itself once I set the intention, kind of like deciding to count to 100. Mahasi says about equanimity 'The noting mind will become so clear and subtle that your awareness will seem to easily flow by itself.' 

I find that my interest in noting wanes when blissful/peaceful states start to arise. Then I would start getting attached to developing those states until daily life gets more tricky and a disparity opens up (blissed on the cushion and pissed in the kitchen). When things got yucky enough then I would go back to noting hindrances because I couldn't do anything else. So there was a kind of cycle there as well. Anyway, that's just my experience. Good luck with the new job!
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/6/21 1:19 AM
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Hey agnostic, didn't see your comment there.

I can recognize what you're talking about: blissed on the cushion, pissed in the kitchen. Haha, that's accurate and also it sounds funny.

Thanks for the good luck! emoticon


60 minute sit this morning:
I practiced concentration with the LED light as a kasina and counting breaths for a little over 40 of these minutes.
The remaining 20 I spent doing what I usually do with noting.

My concentration is not totally fire this morning. That's ok I guess. I've spent more time in samadhi jhanas these past few days than I have combined over the last year!

Another cool note: What I wrote yesterday about calling up a jhanic state. What I did in my meditation last night, I did in bed as well as I was going to sleep. I didn't cultivate it then and make it grow, but the rapture came on immediately after I called upon it. Now that is cool!

This morning I tried the same thing. It was as if the rapture wanted to come on but I couldn't grasp it with my attention. I'll remember to try when my attention is a bit stronger, perhaps later.

One thing I noticed (for the many'th time) this morning, was that a certain point in the kasina practice exists where concentration seems quite stable on the dot. Then it's as if there's a "test" of this concentration, as if the mind wants to make sure you really want it. It's as if there's a refocus, perhaps 3-5 times where the goes away unless you really have that relaxed, super fixed concentration well in place.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/7/21 4:21 AM
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Yesterday I meditated for another 40 minutes and later 60 minutes. 

Funny how I’ve been almost obsessing with narrow concentration these past couple of days. I feel I gained so much by doing those Kasina/breath practices. I experienced so much samatha jhana and some healing stuff also popped up. Nice. 

But yesterday I started feeling tense when trying to narrow focus. It was almost impossible, and it was impossible to do well for sure. I fought it for my 40 min meditation earlier in the evening and tried doing that later on in my 60 min sit.  But in the end I realized that I was ready to go back to letting that awareness unfold again. So I returned to noting everything in the universe. 

Wow, what a difference I can feel after having had a Samatha break! My mind jumps around as if it was a teenage guy after some cute, dark haired, petite... croissant? (Eww)

Also I feel that every object I encounter, it’s as if it becomes the new object of Samatha practice, just not by as long as if it was indeed the ‘fixed’ object of the meditation. I think what I’m pulled towards doing next is to take this spaciousness that emerges as my object of “samatha” attention. Because keeping noting at a certain point seems like it stops doing it’s thing. We’ll see. 

This morning:
I didn’t get up when my alarm went off this morning cuz I was simply too tired and figured the extra hour would pay back returns later on. I went on to meditate for what I would guess was 30-40 minutes before falling back to sleep. 

Something interesting happened...

For a couple of nights lately I’ve been having fear/panic attacks during sleep. Due to snakes and stuff..

It’s been years and years since I was last “swallowed up” by fear like this. Normally I become lucid in dreams where fear kick in because I have to be aware to let go. What then tends to happen is that I become a little bliss ball when all that energy is allowed. 

I lay there thinking “why now? Have I regressed?" I think not!  Idk, maybe I guess.

Instead of wallowing like a little equanimity bisch I thought I ought to make some re-discoveries of what’s really needed to turn the deepest of fears into bliss. 

I started inducing fear in myself by visualizing snakes and snake like worms penetrating my body and brain. I also imagined leaping into a sea of shit, pus and parasites. Ugh..! Some panic inducing stuff indeed. 

Then I observed the fear...no, horror!

Last thing I remember is some super odd experience with crazy amounts of rapture. Possibly lights flashing. I remember it was wild, but the details have escaped from my memory.. 

Anyway, I'll be looking forward to combining the strengths of samatha and vipassana today. Stay tuned, diary!
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/7/21 8:18 AM
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Emil Jensen:
I started inducing fear in myself by visualizing snakes and snake like worms penetrating my body and brain. I also imagined leaping into a sea of shit, pus and parasites. Ugh..! Some panic inducing stuff indeed. 

That's an awesome practice, going as deep into your fears as you can. emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/7/21 9:14 AM
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Hehe, I don't know if it's good or bad. It is what it is emoticon

It was fun tho and I hate being a slave to my fear. I want to study it so I can learn how to overcome it
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 4:02 AM
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Hardly meditated yesterday. Had my funky morning-meditation and only about half an hour in the evening. Also had some drinks with friends which doesn't really help with concentration/energy/motivation..

But this morning I had a 60 minute sit!
I'm at a point where I'm experimenting quite a bit. I'm basically bouncing between different techniques and ways of tuning into them to see what works right now. I belive the end result of this practice is ok, as long as I'm finding my way.

The essential thing which has changed was reading Kenneth Folks chicken stuff about concentration. I believe I do need more concentration indeed, so that's my goal right now.

The reason why I bounce around a bit is because I find that too much concentration practice of kasina or breath makes me tense. Then doing vipassana losens me up and makes me feel tranquil. That's why I tend to jump a bit back and forth as I feel.

What I'm bouncing between is:
- Noting, which I do when I feel too fuzzy or unable to concentrate
- Counting breaths when I want to cultivate some sustained attention power.
- Kasina when I wanna do that same thing, but when I find the breath boring and want some interesting visuals
- Focusing on the whole of my experience. I feel like I need more concentration to really take this as my object, but I feel like its possible - to have the total flow in sustained attention. Don't know if I should do this, tho, or if I'm right that it can be done. Let me know if you're an enlightened badass, reading this, and think I'm being dumb.

During kasina practie today I feel like I saw emptiness in a new way. Normally what I think of as emptiness is a fleeting/ephemeral/in-substantialness to sensations. Today what I saw had more of a empty-space kinda feel to it.

What I did was I followed the after-image of the LED light until it became microscopic. I kept on being surprised that I could keep on "zooming in" on this vanishing thing. In the end the after image was gone so I was just observing little static-noise kindof sensations. They may have been the "pixels" of my occipital lobe or something. At least I don't believe its really possible to "see" anything smaller than that. 

My concentration was pretty good, better than its been pretty much ever I think, and looking at these small visual statics I got this feeling that I could see that it came out of nothing.. or emptiness.

Zooming out after this, feeling my whole body, I felt as if my whole body was residing in emptiness. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 4:56 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"Let me know if you're an enlightened badass, reading this,"

Maybe you will get more replies if you don't call out in this fashion emoticon Many here don't pride themselves with being enlightened emoticon There is no body there to get or be enlightened emoticon You are enlightened or not only if such self-validating thinking arises emoticon 


I think you are doing great! You are totally rocking that meditator-self who is wanting this and that and trying out experiences deeper and deeper until one day all those loose their shine and rot away showing their true nature and then the meditator gives up and all just is as it is. So keep that dancer dancing the dance of Dhamma until it gives up emoticon This is a good thing! emoticon 

Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 5:56 AM
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Papa Che Dusko:
"Let me know if you're an enlightened badass, reading this,"

Maybe you will get more replies if you don't call out in this fashion emoticon Many here don't pride themselves with being enlightened emoticon There is no body there to get or be enlightened emoticon You are enlightened or not only if such self-validating thinking arises emoticon 


I think you are doing great! You are totally rocking that meditator-self who is wanting this and that and trying out experiences deeper and deeper until one day all those loose their shine and rot away showing their true nature and then the meditator gives up and all just is as it is. So keep that dancer dancing the dance of Dhamma until it gives up emoticon This is a good thing! emoticon 

Papaji, Emil is the first real trash-talking meditator, in quite this fashion, that I've met. He talks shit to EQ! This next generation, what are ya gonna do? They may all end up enlightened badasses, and on and on, until all sentient beings are enlightened badasses. I mean, have you heard that music of his?! 

[p.s. afterthoughts] In a way, DhO was set up by enlightened badasses, for aspiring enlightened badasses. The subtitle of MCTB is "An Unusually Hard-Core Dharma Book," and all those unusually hard-core dharma geeks were badass to the core. They wouldn't have wasted their time with a vague word like "enlightened," but a lot of them could tell you where they were on the theravadan four-path model or its variants, with GPS coordinates precise to within inches. The ethic and style was free-wheeling, no bullshit, and not without some macho swagger; you get a good taste of it reading the lightning-bolt sections in MCTB. 

Emil, Chris Marti wouldn't cop to being an enlightened badass if his life depended on it, but I'll bet he's met his share of them and if you can get him to tell some of their stories, it would be priceless. He's probably too discreet, but maybe the names could be changed or something.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 6:13 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Lyric title 'Enlightened Badass' emoticon emoticon emoticon Yes!!! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 6:28 AM
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Papa Che:
I'll be learning how to communicate to more and more knowledgable people, hopefully. Badass or not, if they're progressing in insight they're badasses to me emoticon

Thanks for the encouragement! I do feel that I'm in a pretty good place. My mood is good and energy and curiosity high. This is very sustainable and progress is seen after just one intense day emoticon

"Enlightened Badass" is an awesome lyric title! I'm thinking rock-hip-hop haha emoticon

Tim:
I've noticed that you've noticed, and you may have noticed that I've noticed that you're quite the no-bullshit kinda badass yourself.
lol.

About baddassity..badassness?.

It's seriously such a MUST for me. When I read MCTB I felt such relief. Finally!!! Someone who.. doesn't bullshit?!

I'm here to become a enlightened badass myself.
My Dhamma sword was forged in the fires of no bullshit

Oh and you've conviced me that I'll have to hit up Chris Marti at some point emoticon Perhaps I'll start stalking him emoticon
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 8:47 AM
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"Enlightened Badass" is an awesome lyric title! I'm thinking rock-hip-hop haha"

Hm emoticon I'm more leaning towards Funk-hip-hop emoticon funk is much funnier emoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 2:28 PM
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Hmm. I'm kinda with you, but even though I watched "how to funk in two minutes", I don't think I can do the funk. :p


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vBwRfQbXkg

Also, my inner heavy-demon wants it to be a heavy rock track too lol
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/9/21 2:22 AM
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I had another kinda crazy experience during the night. And again, I hardly remember what happened. But I do remember really bright and rapidly flashing lights.

My meditation yesterday was a little mhe..
I did 3 hours but still feel that I've been unable to keep up with the high pace I was in for some days prior. It's funny to see.. two days ago I hardly meditated, and apparently that was enough to throw me off a bit.

I'm still bouncing between samatha and vipassana practices within sits. I think what's going on is essentially building concentration to use when in deep vipassana.

When doing vipassana, more and more frequently I am confronted with a collapsing of the "observer and the observed". It's as if my visuals merge with my feelings and the truth of no self is screaming.

Usually this gets me very excited. I think I have this idea that if I just see this clearly enough, I'm bound to be thrown into wonderland forever. This may not be true...
So when it happened last night I was very happy to notice that I was more calm than usual. I certainly don't want my moments of clear-seeing being obstructed with "OMG OMG OMG OMG"! 

I just finished a 60 minute sit:
Started noting and got to the point where observer/observed becomes blurred. Hung out there for a little while before deciding to practice some concentration instead.

I'm having a hard time getting into rapturous states (which I equate with jhana - is that wrong, baddasses?), compared to just a few days ago. Perhaps its that little break I had? Perhaps it's my attitude? I don't know. Hopefully I'll have at least 2-4 more hours to find out today.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/9/21 11:38 PM
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(oops, my bad. you go, Emil.)
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/10/21 3:57 AM
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Fuck your oops, Tim emoticon

I did recall seeing something about fucking my own raptures yesterday - and I did fuck em! Please keep telling me to fuck whatever necessary going forward, it will be appreciated 

My meditation is a beatiful mess these days. I'm trying various techniques in order to strengthen concentration while I explore my sensate experience bit for bit with vipassana. I go back and forth between struggling with creating concentration and end up in a tranquil carelessness when going back to vipassana. I can't see why this should not be EQ as I just feel so at ease sitting. And itch shows up, I don't care. A pain, a feeling, whatever, I don't care. I just observe it with ease and it dissolves at let me stay at rest in my comfortable position where I feel I could sit for hours.

Ranty EDIT: I don't know anything about stages, man. I say I believe this could be EQ but I still have no idea about anything (read: anything at all, not just stages). To be honest, I don't know for sure that I even ever got a glimpse of "mind and body". Ok, maybe I feel pretty damn certain about that. But it's still not clear what a stage is to me. Is it something we get a flash of every now and then? Am I in a certain stage when I'm taking a dump or scrolling through instagram? How come I go back to what I think is EQ in almost every sit during a several weeks-long period when I never notice "disgust" for example. How can I go through without ever noticing it? How come its been a long time since I noticed what I think could be "dissolution"? Aren't I supposed to start with going through that every day? Ugh!
In conclusion to this rant, I think best not to think about it at all. Perhaps clarity will come after 23854970 more sits.

I did about 1.5 hours last evening and just finished a 1 hour sit this morning.

This morning I rediscovered the "do nothing" practice in a new light. I was so aware of sensations arising and passing that I completely dropped the noting, just keeping a light effort on being attentive to the broad range of sensations across the sense doors.

In this dropping I was allowed to also observe the mind distribiuting its attention to random sensations. I also observed identification processes arise here and there, for example when a little bit of "trying" to do something, like doing nothing, showed up. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/10/21 4:10 AM
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emoticon
Fuck your oops, Tim emoticon
 Thank God, lol. I was afraid I'd crossed the thin line from badass to asshole. My spiritual comedy, as you've noticed, tends toward the blue and the black. But I should have known by now that you would take it with anomalous dissynchronous category-busting equanimity. You're the guy who put the mosh pit and the screams and the amp-smashing into the Dharma Blues, after all.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/10/21 5:48 AM
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Haha, exactly!

Just had another sit, 1 hour. Very interesting...

As I sat down I immediately didn't feel the need to note anything. Sensations from across the sense doors just presented themselves with a high level of clarity and with little effort needed to take notice of it all.

I reread the section in MCTB the other day, about the kazoo player. It is a good analogy, and where I'm at right now really feels like I've finally put down the kazoo and started listening to the orchestra playing. I can also notice the kazoo player in there...

There was a very high level of equanimity in this sit. A few times I had to get over a few hurdles, a few painful moments where I felt lost/angst/like giving up. All I had to do with this was simply to notice it equanimously, and wupti doo! These feelings dissolved and then more equanimity.

Pretty much the whole session was with a mild rapture, at some points getting quite strong.

Again (again, again, a-fucking-gain) I felt like "this is it" and expected to be shot over into the other side and feeling strong excitement. I don't know where I get this from. Writing it I can see that it looks and sounds stupid. I suppose I just have some wrong knowledge about what the hell is going on, and what the hell might happen. Some stupid expectations.
 
Gladly, I can observe that my excited/overwhelmed reactions are getting less and less strong. Instead I just take notice of being excited and then it tends to fade off, allowing me to keep going forward with this investigating, rapturous, energetic, equanimous, tranquil, mindful, concentrated mind!

With regards to the raptures I'm also feeling more calm/cool and collected. Earlier I used to get so excited at even the fleeting sight of a rapture, that the rapture would get scared and run away. Today I could sit with my rapture and see that it's not that interesting, satisfying, or special. This allows me to keep my investigating mind, and ironically, makes the rapture stronger.

Towards the end of the sit, I started having pulsations across most of the body. It felt as if it matched the frequency of one of those dance-floor strobe lights (10Hz? Yes, just googled it, on point!) and the effect felt similar, as if my body was lit up and in the dark, on and off, on and off...

I am expecting to have at least one more sit before I have to go to a friend today.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/10/21 8:04 AM
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Another 1 hr sit!

I reread the section in MCTB about EQ. Oh damn, reading this is just like wow! That's what's going on right now. I could be wrong, I guess.

Regardless, what I need to do right now is to really let myself tune into these formations with a light awareness, observing how everything unfolds in depence with itself.

It was what I was already doing, especially with the "do nothing" practice. 

In addition, I would like to follow up on Daniel's suggestion about the "Exercise of the Spinning Swords". I prefer lightsabers tho, as he also suggests using instead of swords.

Observing the sense of being an observer is really interesting at this point because it's so clearly seen through. After pointing out the nonexistence of this "observer" then there's the "blinking out" and another formation arises with components that are not clearly seen, once again creating the sense of being an observer. Then the process repeats: Another formation arises, another sense of "me" arises and is seen through. Again and again.

Hopefully one of the three doors will soon appear. If that happens I'm running out the door with my arms over my head screaming "hallelujah". No kidding.
(As I write this I am noticing the excitement appear. As Daniel says: "Questioning, analysis, expectation, practicing, remembering, subtle fear, subtle desire, real longing for release, excitement about success, wondering, mapping, comparing, knowing: these are all just sensate qualities. Notice them." Ay ay, captain. I will!


Oh, and I cancelled my appointment with my friend later today in favor of doing some strong-ass-concentration meditation. Told him that I was feeling high and felt the need to stay by myself and meditate. He is very understanding and says that we can play chess another time lol.


In my sit just now I had a few rounds of kasina. Man, concentration is strong! It's like I can feel my whole body, hear sounds and have amazing focus on the aferimage too! Wow.!
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/10/21 10:11 AM
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Another 1 hr sit!

This time I mainly did kasina practice, and then some breath counting.
Just before my sit I reread a large part of the kasina chapter in MCTB. I'm glad I did!

Lately I've noticed that the after image tends to dissappear quickly, which has been frustrating. But Daniel writes about this, and when it happens one is supposed to give attention to "the murk" instead of the dot. There were also descriptions of how the murk starts to show and I was able to recognize that in this sit, allowing me to actually start observing it.

After the first after image had first gone black and then dissapeared I watched the subtle play of purple/beige patches move around. The colors were playing with taking over one another.

In the first sit I even had flashes of images replacing the murky colors. So vivid, but only for a very short moment.

The first flashes of images didn't ressemble anything "real". But later on there were images of a corridor, a map or sorts (or a board game?) and something I don't know how to describe.

After that the murk started playing more vividly, with brighter colors. I didn't have to look at the light to revitalize my after image for the last, idk maybe 20 minutes?. And if I spaced out for a moment it was easy to pick up where I left with the murk.

It was such a pleasure to finally relax into observing this so-called murk. After so many sits where I have clinched my eyes in tension/frustration at the loss of the after image dot, trying to retain it. That was probably good prelimenary practice, as Daniel also writes that it is helpful to do many of these cycles up until the dot dissapears, before finally starting to go into the murk. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 4:19 AM
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Wow, managed to sit about 4½ hours yesterday. No reason why I shouldn't do the same today..we'll see!

In the last sit last night I was tired and started to see the ultra sharp attention fading.
The same holds for this morning. I had to catch myself expecting that I could pick up where I left at yesterday's peak. I couldn't.

Instead I just said "screw that, I'm clearly affected by expectations" and proceeded to note in an old fashioned way. Good choice.

For the first time ever I noticed disgust. It could actually be related to the actual stage of disgust as short after noticing this disgust I was back in a mild equanimous state starting to see formations.

About this disgust. I think I had an emotion which normally would want me very involved. I think it was a happiness over some pleasure I felt. I was just like "ugh! Am I supposed to like having these emotions thrown at me? Hey, who asked me if I wanted to feel this way? Huh?!" Idk, there was something icky about the way I was to be carried away with it.

I'd like to read the reobservation chapter in MCTB today as I would like to know if there is anything to be aware of, something helpful, going towards that EQ. Because today as I found myself perceiving formations (in EQ?), it was as if they had a lot of gray background noise. I couldn't see everything with sharp clarity (obviously), in fact there was a lot missing which made it difficult for me to start really investigating me-ness of things.

I did notice frustration and other super subtle emotions going on while being in formation land.
When formations are seen, it really is as if thoughts stop for very long periods of time. This seem to make all the quieter stuff pop out that much more clearly. Again, in the words of Daniel:  "Questioning, analysis, expectation, practicing, remembering, subtle fear, subtle desire, real longing for release, excitement about success, wondering, mapping, comparing, knowing: these are all just sensate qualities. Notice them."


EDIT (a bunch of notes about re-ob): I'm reading through re-observation right now and find some interesting perhaps related to my practice..

- It's like a "brick wall". Hmm, interesting how I wrote yesterday, before EQ: "
 A few times I had to get over a few hurdles, a few painful moments where I felt lost/angst/like giving up".

- Daniel reccommends various strategies to get through this "brick wall". What seemed worked for me yesterday could probably be articulated a bit more, so that I can try it again? In continuation of the above quote from yesterday's log I wrote: 
 " All I had to do with this was simply to notice it equanimously, and wupti doo! These feelings dissolved and then more equanimity.". I think what I did mostly resembles the method of continued noting of the three Cs at the six sense doors. Straight forward!

- There's quite a bit about "rolling up the mat" and feeling completely emo, basically. I don't relate to this at all. I'm quite excited to be where I am in this beautiful mess.

- "Fear is frightening". Just a few days ago I logged about feeling fearful of fear, for the first time in years! Hmm..
I love how Daniel says this could be related to "losing it" and have a psychotic breakdown. Damn, I just wish I had more stuff to be afraid of, more stuff to lose it over, more demons visiting me in sleep paralysis, more confusion about which reality I am in. I wanna see dead people goddam it! - more to give me interesting experiences regardless of how scary. (Is wishing to be more psychotic a psychotic breakdown type of action?) lol

- I should remember to not push it because I feel "tight". I should think of this as a long term process. Instead of, like I wrote above, expect something, like going to SE in every sit!

- Daniel warns about quitting at the stage of re-ob. If we do it once (I think I did some years ago) then we wire ourselves to do it again. But let me tell you, me, I will see this through I motherfucking swear it! I really, really intend to stick to a minimum of one morning sit and one evening sit, even after I start my new job and become busy. And I intend to investigate at the sensate level. Damn, I want this to be a success.

Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 4:34 AM
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lol, emil, shit, what can I say? It would be like telling a tornado how to spin.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 4:37 AM
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"Pretty much the whole session was with a mild rapture, at some points getting quite strong."

You talk about Equanimity a lot. In some posts I gather you talk about Eq STATE and in some Eq STAGE (as in Nana). 

From your level of energy and enthusiasm here I don't get the sense that you are nowhere near the EQ Nana Stage emoticon which is not a disaster btw emoticon I might be wrong as I only have written words and I can't get into your mind. 

However this level of wanting to crash through those sense doors and get to SE and scream hallelujah might crash into a very unpleasant Dark Night stuff (and I'm not kidding). 

Ask yourself if there is any chance of you backing off a little from clinging to experiences and blowing them out of proportions and just Know them/note them/notice them/pay bare attention to each sensation as it arises and passes away, including the "thinking desire" to get someplace. 

These stages do unfold but in my experience they need time (months) of daily consistent matter of fact, no blowing out of proportions, practice to unfold. Patience, acceptance, continuity, matter of fact sensate experience being noted. 

If you think you might be falling into a manic state (which I know but Tim knows better yet) then maybe good idea to drop noting for now and only sit in Calm-abiding Shamatha. As in "breathing out, calming the whole body, breathing in calming the whole body". I'm not talking concentration and Jhana here. Just simple yet profound Calm-abiding with the in and out breathing and calming the whole body as the main subject. 

You will know what is right for you at this time. I'm just being a father to my kid and waiting for the second one to be born this year emoticon so I'm having these worrying dad states of mind. I can't help it emoticon I hope you do not crash. 

Remember that talking therapy can also help with these insight practices. 

Best wishes to you Emil! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 5:28 AM
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Thanks for the down to earth comment!

I wouldn't be surprised if I'm nowhere near what I thought. I'm just really eager to learn as much as I can haha. And mix that with a little bit of wishful thinking and voila! I'm basically the best meditator in the world just waiting to be enlightened.

Best arguments for EQ, as far as I know, would be the super equanimous state and very high level of concentration while observing formations, from which the sense of self can be pointed out bit for bit. It makes sense to me as I come from about 6 months of daily practice, then the 10 day retreat I had, then a month or so of wallowing in utter depression about existence dissapearing all the time, then these past couple of months intense practice leading to super-equanimity in yesterdays sit. I don't know how crazy that sounds to me. Maybe it is, I'm open to it! emoticon

I don't know why I obsess over it like this. I guess I just really think its time to learn something and progress. I've got my mind set to make as much progress as I can while I still have unlimited time to meditate. I have no excuses not to meditate a lot. In fact, it feels very good and has really been helpful all over. My relationship likes where I'm at right now, my well being is really high level. So I think I'll continue the tornadoing for a while yet. My job-project start has been postponed until corona restrictions allow for more than one person to use lab-equipment again...

Oh, and my personally is very all-or-nothing in general so that also helps blow this thing up I guess.

So how do I narrow in on where I actually am? I know it's not too important for progress, practice is. But for best results and most learning about it all, I don't see the harm in trying to map it out (if I can avoid obsessing ofc). Could I perhaps get more into details about how I perceive sensations?

About the manic state... Hmm. I do get these flares of excitement that are out of control. Perhaps, as you suggest, calm abiding meditation will be a good thing. Let me see about it emoticon

And about the talking therapy - this is kinda like my therapy atm. It does something good for sure. Especially with you guys' comments/interactions. Thank you so much, again! For you fatherly concerns also emoticon
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 6:48 AM
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"Oh, and my personally is very all-or-nothing in general so that also helps blow this thing up I guess."

Well emoticon what can tell you my brother from a different mother emoticon I'm the same. Please don't tell me you are born as Capricorn-Aquarius Cusp emoticon 



"avoid obsessing ofc). Could I perhaps get more into details about how I perceive sensations?"

Yes. I think this more relevant than thinking about mapping it. That change in that Itch perception can tell you a lot more. But also stuff connected with , say, hearing something, then the mind interpretation of what that heard thug might be, and then some sort of feeling to e around it and so on. This is dependent origination unfolding right now. 
And all this stuff is happening before we know it emoticon Before "I" can claim it as I, me or mine. 

We can intellectually understand this but there is something else happening in this mind-brain-body when this is seen moment after moment, experience after experience and we then see that also some more progressive stuff unfolds on its own, we call the Nanas (but also can be seen in Jhanas).

Even if the Tornado is happening there can be calm-abiding as the base. We need to remember to calm down and see this tornado ripping stuff apart. I use the Tsunami as description but it's very much the same emoticon 
Its ok that you are not being afraid of it and this helps in Accepting it all do its thing but with a calm base, a humble base, and matter of fact noticing on the sensate level. It does help to keep returning to the body sensations so not to get lost in mind loops about this practice. This IS a hint emoticon 

Yes with 6 months practice one can get to EQ Nana for sure but there have been people practicing for decades and have not even passed A&P so time line is a slippery thing and very from person to person. 

I think you are doing great. The only thing that pops out to me as slight worry is the overly eager attitude and that can't be found in the EQ Nana really. Maybe some do. Eq state can be found anywhere through the Nanas. Or not. EQ Nana as a stage is different but also has EQ state as part of it. 
My teacher Kenneth Folk told me to forget about the formations in EQ Nana as I too was obsessing with it. It's not important according to him. You just know/cognize/note what is there to be noted/or noticed. The space, the perceptions, boredom, equal ness of all arisings, flatness of them terrain, status-quo ness, all okeyness, slight restlessness even, wonder who is experiencing this, etc ... 
In my experience staying with the sensate experience without going into some wishful thinking helps. My attitude was that This Monent will never be anything other than what it Is at any given monent during my whole sit (but also off cushion as I've said good bye to me ever having chance to attain to anything, my dancer gave up anything but knowing each moment for what it was = matter of fact note it). 

Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 7:05 AM
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Hehe, I am a cappy although nut a cuspy one! Was born on the 5th.

"That change in that Itch perception can tell you a lot more"

OK! Let's see if we can get a little more grounded with sticking to the raw perceptions from here onwards! I'll try.

"Yes with 6 months practice one can get to EQ Nana".
This also comes after a break. I come from doing 5 goenka retreats and 2 hr sits daily for 3 years straight. Then I had a 2 year break from formal meditation, but somehow I was still practicing "integrating" what I had learned every day. Would be very interesting if I hadn't even broken the AP event yet. Then what the hell happened?! :p Would be cool if I hadn't even learned of mind and body yet hahah! Damn, what a crazy ride I have waiting then.

"I think you are doing great. The only thing that pops out to me as slight worry is the overly eager attitude and that can't be found in the EQ Nana really."

Great! I have been wondering why this eagerness shows up. I have thus far considered it a manifestation of whatever beliefs I have about what's happening. I have seen it as a process, to wear down this kind of emotional reaction by observing it as non-reactively as I can. It has accordingly reduced immensely compared to when it started showing up. On my recent retreat I had excitement flares that were so powerful that my heart would sit in my throat for hours...literally! Now it's more like "ah, excitement. Fuck you, I see you". And then it wears off pretty quickly.
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 7:29 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 7:20 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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I would just stick with noting since it's got you to where you are. Noting was the way in and noting is the way out!

Wondering where you're at, wondering how much to push, strategizing, wishful thinking, obsessing, desire for progress, eagerness, desire for more drama, feeling of time pressure, thoughts about personality ... these are all good things to note. You do not need to think or worry about them - if noted diligently enough they will disappear by themselves!


emoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 10:14 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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You're right agnostic emoticon The basic beat is great as is, with the occasional freestyle :p


Papa! Thank you and good for you to invite me over! I'm excited (do I have a problem with that hah) and I'll be right over!
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 8:38 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"Hehe, I am a cappy although nut a cuspy one! Was born on the 5th"

Ah emoticon happy birthday is in order! I'm on the 19th! 

Btw, the lyrics for the Dharma Badass are done!!! Come join us emoticon 
Sam Gentile, modified 3 Years ago at 1/11/21 12:52 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"Fuck your oops, Tim emoticon

I did recall seeing something about fucking my own raptures yesterday - and I did fuck em! Please keep telling me to fuck whatever necessary going forward, it will be appreciated 
----
You're going crazy  Emil!!
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 2:56 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Sam Gentile:
"Fuck your oops, Tim emoticon

I did recall seeing something about fucking my own raptures yesterday - and I did fuck em! Please keep telling me to fuck whatever necessary going forward, it will be appreciated 
----
You're going crazy  Emil!!

lol, Sam, it's true, Emil is going crazy, but what he's referring to here was a post that I was afraid he would take wrong, after feedback, and deleted. It was something along the lines of "Fuck your fucking ruptures!" You know how I can be. But then I thought I might have been too much of an asshole even for me, so i deleted the first post and put in the oops. But he had seen the original fuckety-fuck. So again, to be clear, yes, Emil IS going crazy, or simply letting his inherent craziness rip, but he did fuck his fucking raptures at my instigation, technically speaking.

p.s. Just to keep Emil's craziness in context, he just wrote a very very beautiful, astoundingly mellow path song. He's crazy like a silken piano riff.

https://soundcloud.com/sstillrreal/we-grow-old
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 4:11 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 4:11 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Thanks for the clarification, Tim emoticon

I did lol many a time afterwards, over your corrected post above. "You go"? Haha, what kind of person would first be pissed and then ok after you correcting it to that? You the one who's crazy emoticon

And thanks for your compliments on the song!

About practice...

I did spend all day yesterday writing a song and therefore only meditated once in the morning and once in the evening.
As is clear now, I have been going crazy, and taking a music break has worked much like getting a foot rub and a warm bath after a very long walk.

Meditating in the evening I already felt that I had losened up a bit. Going to bed I was meditating too, as always now, and I got to this point that I think I may need some therapeutic talking about...

Many times on my recent retreat and some times here and there afterwards, it feels like duality is collapsing on me. It happens in a formation moment where it feels like my senses of seeing, feeling and hearing is all there is (how odd, huh?). This eradicates the sense of self to varying degrees. Mostly its like my sense of self feels 50%, or so, gone. A few times its felt more like 95-100%. 

A few times I've also thought "this is it!" and just kinda clinched my teeth expecting to go flying over some figurative egde. It really feels like I've been close to falling and the analogy of walking around the edge of a cliff in the dark, not entirely sure exactly where it is, feels very accurate.

So why I think I need therapeutic talking about this..? Because I want to know if I can tackle this differently going forward, or maybe get some help/tips to get over this fixation. It could be that I've just got a lot of wrong ideas about what it is and that realizing it can shed some light on how to proceed in a better way.

I've been placing a lot of importance on it, always aware that I shouldn't.

At first I figured that maybe this was how it felt before entering one of the three doors? This caused me to feel super excited and have my heart racing. I just take note of the excitement, but still, it throws me off a bit.

As pointed out by Che, excitement doesn't really sound like EQ, which would rule out the possibility of any doors being close by.

Anyone familiar with this feeling? "Collapsing of "me" into just the seen/heard/felt + heart racing/excitement".??

Any wise mans words on how to tackle a mental fixation like this?

Anyone who can shoot my experience to the ground? Is this by chance typical of first having a glimpse of "mind and body"? 

Anyone who can say what it actually feels like entering a door for the first time?

----------------------------------

This morning I sat for 60 minutes. Strict noting is not an option. It feels like playing a dumb kazoo in the middle of an orchestral performance. (Really good analogy, Daniel!)
Instead I just notice sensations. I can relax and let the attention arise where sensations do and I can watch the way it morphs around all by itself.
With a little bit of effort I can keep awareness in the places I've already visited with my attention and end up with a feeling that my whole body is covered in a thin sheet of silk, making airy/flowy movements here and there. This is all the while I have awareness of whatever light show goes on behind my eyelids and whatever sounds my girlfriend was making in the kitchen this morning.

I promised yesterday I would try to get into describing sensations more accurately, but I had a hard time getting into that. I don't know what to say about them. A sensation arise.. and ermm.. then its there.. And ermm.. at some point it stops being there. I don't really know how to get into this.

I tried focusing on sensations of pain, from sitting, and when I did they kinda stopped being pain, just turning into airy/breezy vague sensations. The silk sheet I was (feeling like I was) covered in made these movements around my skin, as if a light breeze wavered it around.

Itches showed up here and there. When they did, I felt their counterparts to equal degree: The tension in the head, the urge to move arm/hand to scratch, the discomfort of not doing so, located as a pressure in the chest/throat. All these feelings feeling fluffy, substanceless. I could just sit there and wait for them to dissolve as it was clear they would.

Wow, what a wall of text. 
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 5:33 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 5:25 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Hi Emil,

Can you tell us what happens over the course of an hour if you do this... :

When you sit down, once attention is stable (might be immediatly), pick the perception of a sound as object of meditation. Try to discern between the sensory/phenomenal "matter", ie the pure sound sensation, and the different other types of mental sensations (mental visual images, proprioceptions, space sensations/location, the memory traces which give the sound its permanence through time). You might move back and forth between them, as in the "moving from finger to finger" warm up exercice in mctb. Do that until you can clearly discern between the actual sound sensation and the rest.

Once that's clear, take the sound sensation itself as object ; observe how it changes down to its tiniest details, follow the scintillating, pointillistic details of this sound with a lot of energy and as much precision as possible. Does it actually have a temporal extension or is that just your mind filling in ? Granularize, energize, densify while refining your attention. Maintain calm, there is always awareness in the background resting around that flaming investigation. Be clear about the moment/point of arising and moment/point of departing of sensations. If you can discern a moment of arising, doesn't that moment itself have an ending ? 

Once you can joyfully dissect that into extremely fine-grained microdetails, (think charlie parker fast kazoo) there might be a point when you can start doing that with any object that comes to attention. If it feels right, start going freestyle with this kind of fine-grid attention : you can start changing focalisations and going broader and broader, saturate the field with this attention scalpel,  aiming for speed, precision, inclusiveness. All sense doors, all mental and physical phenomena however complex and strange can and should be playfully included.

If this becomes hard to do at some point, don't get unsettled, but fluidly accept the different kinds of objects which present themselves and energy you find yourself in ; skilfully find a way to maintain a cutting-edge pace and scope of observation, always trying to maintain and expand th noting/noticing, while surrendering and accepting what you are experiencing completely, diving in wholeheartedly, letting elusiveness be elusive while looking wherever it is possible with whatever part of awareness where something can be noticed.

If things become harder to find, notice more subtle elements (space sensations, confusion sensations, etc) ; if the experience becomes very clear and broad and easy, gentleness and inclusiveness are the way to go, let go of the laser beam and operate more from now lit up awareness, but maintain that intensely curious ever expanding attention energy, trying to include subtler aspects of experience in your broad awareness, such as "observer sensations, quietness sensations, reduced sense of body, fear sensations, thoughts about how to maintain a reflexive awareness, mental image of my head, sound of my voice thought, looking for the spot where the voice comes from".

If it seems that things are at maximum panoramicity, look for those things that seem to be not included a'd somehow outside the field of observation, ie, maybe , "thoughts about progress, excitement, mental visual images of "my eyes" observing my feet, mental visual images of the room i'm in, which seems like it is", etc. It can be interesting sometimes to go against the urge to relinquish the activeness of the investigation.

Further details :

The idea is to have both precision and reflexivity in a double movement that becomes more and more meta while being grounded in clarity about the details.

It might be useful at some points to reintroduce verbal mental labels to keep the momentum - or to become more quiet and very subtly notice in a broad way. You be the judge, the idea is to always balance energetic enthusiastic investigation, and deep bodily and emotional calm/steadiness. So if it becomes too hectic, ground out, if it becomes excessively dull, burn that with clarity, if it becomes too rigid, fluidify, if it becomes too scattered and noisy, let calm presence pervade, if it becomes overly tight, open out...

... That's it. Let us know in as much detail as possible what kind of ride this kind of playful and intense and highly reflective way of practice takes you on, what phases you can discern if any, how the transitions between phases happen, whether they are more or less pleasant, etc. emoticon

Cheers 
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 7:14 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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In the olden days (pre-2010) we would call the deep and detailed investigation "penetrating an object."

emoticon
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 7:41 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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 good ol' phallic thrust i reckon emoticon

I wanted to expound on what that entails precisely, though. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 8:49 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Alright, this is what I have to report after sitting for an hour:

I immediately can distinguish the heard from the seen and the felt, allowing me to focus on the sound. I don't usually meditate on sound and tend to "forget" placing my attention there. So interesting this was...

I heard many more details to the sound that normally. And during the sit some sounds that were periodic, I could hear more and more details to them. For instance, someone walking up/down the stairs on the other side of my wall in my apartment. In the beginning each step was just one sound, but became more and more. There was the impact sound of the step, and the the reverb in the stairs and also in the hall. Sometimes there were also other sounds coming from the stair structure lying "on top" of these sounds.

Not all the time, but a lot of the time, a more or less vague image represents each sound. I notice both that and the sound. In fact I feel like I have to notice these images in order for them not to interfere with the heard, in order for them to appear "separate".

Then there's the "after sound".. can I call it that? The sound is replicated in a mental form and played back, I would say with a delay of .5-1 second.
It feels like my mind is straining itself, trying to catch up to simply hearing the original/direct sound and it feels like it pretty much does it, but not in a relaxed way.

I think this "after sound" is responsible for creating this sense of time there are to the sounds. The sound sensations themselves are seen to arise and pass. So is any sensation which is seen ofc.

My attention did widen out. After a while I felt the need to include other sense doors. I think the practice of hearing finer details aided the other sense doors as well.I could see fine movements/shifts in the seen behind my eye lids and feel subtler sensations on my body, as if soft rain was hitting my body. Also some sensations showed up with distinct qualities of vibrating..quite fast - 10-15 Hz I would guess.


Towards the end I got tired and felt a large restistance towards sitting. I kept on noting unaffectedly and simply investigated in the same manner, even tho it was quite painful. 

Let me know if you have any more tips on penetration ^_^

And thank you for your suggestion!
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 9:32 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:

I heard many more details to the sound that normally. And during the sit some sounds that were periodic, I could hear more and more details to them. For instance, someone walking up/down the stairs on the other side of my wall in my apartment. In the beginning each step was just one sound, but became more and more. There was the impact sound of the step, and the the reverb in the stairs and also in the hall. Sometimes there were also other sounds coming from the stair structure lying "on top" of these sounds.

Not all the time, but a lot of the time, a more or less vague image represents each sound. I notice both that and the sound. In fact I feel like I have to notice these images in order for them not to interfere with the heard, in order for them to appear "separate".

Olivier ; Nice, yes, per-ception puts these things together into one gestalt. Vipassana tries do dissolve this construction to go down to subtler levels of mind.

Then there's the "after sound".. can I call it that? The sound is replicated in a mental form and played back, I would say with a delay of .5-1 second.
It feels like my mind is straining itself, trying to catch up to simply hearing the original/direct sound and it feels like it pretty much does it, but not in a relaxed way.

I think this "after sound" is responsible for creating this sense of time there are to the sounds. The sound sensations themselves are seen to arise and pass. So is any sensation which is seen ofc.

O : Good observations. That level of discernment is what you're going for.

My attention did widen out. After a while I felt the need to include other sense doors. I think the practice of hearing finer details aided the other sense doors as well.I could see fine movements/shifts in the seen behind my eye lids and feel subtler sensations on my body, as if soft rain was hitting my body. Also some sensations showed up with distinct qualities of vibrating..quite fast - 10-15 Hz I would guess.

O : Paying attention to the Hz's can be an interezting exercise if you can get down to that level, although there's no need to obsess over it. It can help develop a better sense of the territory.

Towards the end I got tired and felt a large restistance towards sitting. I kept on noting unaffectedly and simply investigated in the same manner, even tho it was quite painful. 

O: that could just be the long sit. Do you know how to do micro adjustments to your posture in order to dit more easily ? I'd advise doing a guided meditation with Ajah' Brahm for that, he always spends 5-10 min fine tuning posture , and that can really make a difference.

Let me know if you have any more tips on penetration ^_^

O : I would say, play with this using different sense spheres and sense objects. Sound comes naturally to me, but i used to do it methodically with touch, mental space, etc. Develop the level of discernment where you can see the different components that for the various perceptions so that this becomes easy to do. This will then be possible to do on more and more objects, with increasing levels of finesse, complexity, subtelty, with less and less efforts. 

It's at this level that the sense of self  is constructed and it's made up of very subtle, evanescent, diffuse, not clearly defined phenomena like itches and sounds, so you want to develop your densitivity to be able to discern those.

You can also train the nimbleness of your mind by working on the rate at which you shift focalisation points... As in the finger exercise.

This is indeed tiring stuff and high energy practice, so watch out not to overstrain yourself.

Edit : balance out with resting shamatha sessions, i would almost say make it fifty fifty, and bathe in loving kindness o'ce in a while, even i you don't feel like it ; that can really bring nourishment and refuel for the fast noting.

! emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 3:52 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 3:52 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Olivier, thanks for the sparring.

"Paying attention to the Hz's can be an interezting exercise"
I have a question about vibrations - is every single sensation supposed to be able to break down into vibrations?

"balance out with resting shamatha sessions, i would almost say make it fifty fifty, and bathe in loving kindness o'ce in a while, even i you don't feel like it ; that can really bring nourishment and refuel for the fast noting."
I vibe with this! Have been trying to have more samatha in my practice, perhaps its time to also bring in that loving kindness emoticon




Sam,
I mean that it really feels like the observer/observed become one, which is just the seen/heard/felt. It feels like the "me" is gone.
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 6:33 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Well i don't mean to come off as too directive, hope i didn't. I get very enthusiastic about people's practice, especially when i feel like it's going in the right direction :p

The hz thing : no, it's gonna be hard to see visual sensations or smells change 18 times per second for most perceptions honestly. Although that might be fun to try, lol emoticon It's more natural with sounds and touch (thoughts too) just because of how they appear... 

Well this is making me want to observe smells and taste more ! I've never meditated on that actually ! Thx.
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 6:35 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Hmm upo' reflection ... I feel like taste and smell are perhaps already naturally non dual for most people ...
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 3:38 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"Well i don't mean to come off as too directive"
I'm in a very experimentative phase, so its very much welcomed emoticon

I only sat for about 20 minutes last night as I was tired. Still, kept up with 2+ hours of meditation yesterday...
This morning's sit:
I felt strong resistance to meditation so I started noting sensations. My energy spiked quite a lot from this and for the first time in many days I did, pretty much, a whole session with just noting (aside from a few day dream scenarios and playful sidetracks). 

I was able to pay attention to a few new things, I'm sure it was due to the helpful suggestion from Olivier and the observations I made with sound sensations yesterday:
- I saw clearer than before how sensations kinda stick onto the mind even after they've vanished. Yesterday I termed it the "after sound" when the sensations observed was hearing and the mind was playing back the sounds with a delay. Today I observed the same thing for seeing and feeling. It felt super annoying actually, again, kinda like the stupid kazoo player ruining the orchestral performance.
- Also, I saw clearer than before the "blinking out" in between mental images. I had this visual representation of opening a door. At first this action felt smooth, wholesome and continuous. But I noticed that only two distinct mental images were present, one of the door closed, one of the door open - not a whole array of images representing this otherwise "smooth" and moving movement. I repeated the action of mentally opening my door several times and kept seeing clearer and clearer how these two images were "glued" together with blinking out and feelings of opening the door and made it seem that a continuous movement was in between the blinking out.
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 8:04 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:

I was able to pay attention to a few new things, I'm sure it was due to the helpful suggestion from Olivier and the observations I made with sound sensations yesterday:
- I saw clearer than before how sensations kinda stick onto the mind even after they've vanished. Yesterday I termed it the "after sound" when the sensations observed was hearing and the mind was playing back the sounds with a delay. Today I observed the same thing for seeing and feeling. It felt super annoying actually, again, kinda like the stupid kazoo player ruining the orchestral performance.
- Also, I saw clearer than before the "blinking out" in between mental images. I had this visual representation of opening a door. At first this action felt smooth, wholesome and continuous. But I noticed that only two distinct mental images were present, one of the door closed, one of the door open - not a whole array of images representing this otherwise "smooth" and moving movement. I repeated the action of mentally opening my door several times and kept seeing clearer and clearer how these two images were "glued" together with blinking out and feelings of opening the door and made it seem that a continuous movement was in between the blinking out.
Very nice. The after-sound is a good term emoticon These are actually memory at work ! Some (Husserl) call these proto-memories "retentions"... 

Can you see how this is related to how the sense of time is fabricated ?

I've found that deely relaxing body and mind while observing the way things are put together like this, the natural way that manifestation manifests, can be helpful, can actually make things shine more, become clearer : breathe deeply, let it appear by itself...

What is the tension about anyways ?

It's very good to look directly into thoughts' identity like you've been doing, very revealing.

Where do thoughts come from ? From what kind of substance do they arise ? Space ? Head ? 

Once they crystalize, where do they stay, in what location, in what shape ? What "stays", if anything ?

Where do they go ?

From where and by what are they observed ? 

What is in between two distinct images being "glued together" and what glues them together ?

What is the context or background within which this observation is happening ? Your room ? Your head ? Space ?

Where are your room, your head, space ?

etc...

All these questions basically boil down to being curious about the workings of perception emoticon
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 9:55 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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... being curious about the workings of perception...

The key to the kingdom.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 4:01 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Olivier, thanks for the sparring.

"Paying attention to the Hz's can be an interezting exercise"
I have a question about vibrations - is every single sensation supposed to be able to break down into vibrations?

The "vibrations"/Hzs terminology seems to come into play naturally at various points in your meditative development; you just get fine and precise and subtle enough in what you're noting that you start seeing things that way. I know spatial is working at this level right now--- i'm putting in the link to his most recent log, and the vibrations terminology is in the most recent posts, starting on 12/21/20. Spatial also has a world class sense of humor and proportion that I think you'd find refreshing and inspiring in all his logs. He is a badass, in your terms, lol. In the best sense.

spatial's practice log, part 4 - Discussion - www.dharmaoverground.org
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 5:54 AM
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Tim, I don't understand Spatial's un-/synchronized vibrational thoery. And I couldn't really become wise about whether you do...? :p
What kind of vibrations are we talking about here? Felt ones? Heard ones? Of what? Everything?

Just had another sit. I am still feeling the struggle, but think I identified something important!
Instead of noting and investigating, I think I just need to re-up on some of that concentration. I noticed that I felt like I still had sufficient concentration. But upon inspection, I didn't. I lost track of some breaths when trying to count them. 

So I just went like "OK!, I need to boost concentration" and then I really focused on staying with the breath, trying not to get this pervading space-feeling (which has been dominating my curiosity) to interfere too much.
I feel like it was a successful practice. I entered some jhana stuff...well, judging by the increased sense of focus and bodily rapture. I still have no idea what jhana is what. Maybe I've never experienced jhanas, just rapture and various kinds of focus?

What is a jhana? Damn..I'm back to square one emoticon
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 6:16 AM
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Tim, I don't understand Spatial's un-/synchronized vibrational thoery. And I couldn't really become wise about whether you do...? :p
What kind of vibrations are we talking about here? Felt ones? Heard ones? Of what? Everything?

well, i don't understand it either, lol, obviously. And I was busting my ass trying. I think he does, though, is why I offered the link. It was worth a shot, but you've got better fish to fry right now, just let it go and do what you do. In a couple of days, this 6-lane autobahn with no speed limit is going to funnel down to a two lane road through town when you start your job, and that will be plenty of gear-changing on its own for you.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 8:53 AM
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Tim, "well, i don't understand it either, lol, obviously"
Hehe, well I did try to understand as well. Read pretty much the entire log but didn't really feel it catching on. I think you're right about frying other fish and that's what I'll do. Luckily I'm still a jobless bum for a while yet. I had my project postponed until my university's corona restrictions allow two people being in one room together once again :p

Olivier,
"Can you see how this is related to how the sense of time is fabricated ?"
Actually, this is not completely clear, but I think I am getting a hint of it. Will look closer...


"What is the tension about anyways ?"
Ouh, good question. I'll have to keep this question in mind next time I have a look at tension.


"Where do thoughts come from ? From what kind of substance do they arise ? Space ? Head ?"
"Where do they go ?"

They come out of nothing and turn into nothing from all I can see.


"What is in between two distinct images being "glued together" and what glues them together ?"
I started suspecting that there isn't really anything in between, but didn't see that 100% clearly. Just an image, then nothing, then another image.
They are "glued together" by feelings which seem like they are "being responsible" for the transition happening between the two images.
Like, I feel that I move the door, then I see a new image of the door which has been moved and it just seems as if movement happened although all I ever really saw was static, fading images.

"From where and by what are they observed ? "
This is the question which makes "duality collapse". If asked at the right time the sense of an observer starts dissolving and locality doesn't make sense.
Typically tho, mental images are observed in the head by "me", who's a solid entity inside my head emoticon

Let's see where my curiosity will take me emoticon Stay tuned!
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 11:37 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Just sat for an hour.

In the beginning I was investigating "the glue between mental images". I was following mental images of stuff moving. I saw how the mind could easily make up the sense of stuff moving without actually seeing stuff moving.. it's a trick!

When I started seeing this clearly I was like Dhood...DHOOD! Wow!

So why is there the sense of moving anyway? Well, I don't get it completely, but I was somewhat able to follow the transition from image to image: Mental imagery fades in between, with only the fading memory left of it as the transition occurs. The transition itself consists of bodily feel sort of carrying out the motion. When the feeling is complete, i.e. corresponding to opening a door, the mental image of the opened door is suddenly there and voila! The trick has been carried out!

I got tired of this practice fast, as indeed it requires quite a lot of energy.
I proceded to a waaaay more boring practice, counting breaths. I was curious to see how high I could go before my attention started to waver. I made it to 237 breaths (or at least I think) before I was unsure of the count.

I think I started to get bored, cuz wow, that is boring! But it served to calm my mind from the previous exercise and left me more tranquil and focused.

I then spent the last 20 or so minutes with the LED kasina. I am so glad I can finally observe "the murk". I did that for a little while after the first round, but the murk was weak and I lost my attention to it. Relit my kasina, watched the dot dissappear and then watched the murk a little bit again. 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/14/21 2:01 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Luckily I'm still a jobless bum for a while yet.
Jobless bum is perfect, it appears. This gives you some time to deepen your practice so much that you become completely unemployable.

Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/14/21 2:23 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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LOL!
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/15/21 12:34 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Meditation was a bit crazy yesterday. I had some kasina practice earlier in the day, which wasn't all that crazy, but my sit in the evening was..fire..almost literally.

I started with concentration type practice, breaths and kasina, but finished with vipassana.

Kasina was interesting, as my focus was really strong. I started seeing live creatures.. oh, and a city from above. Cool...

But the Vipassana was the party with all the hot chicks:

I was really attacking the sense of "me", going at it hard.

At some point I felt like I had a new understanding of why Mahasi's instructions are like they are, why he wants the practitioner to note all things he does (but doesn't really emphasize noting all sensations). E.g., noting walking, turning, sitting, bending, stretching, thinking, feeling, etc.. i.e. all doable actions. Doable, by "me".

I noticed how the sense of observer is in these doable actions to a much larger degree, than for example, random sounds and sights we may choose to tune into.

Every note from then on became a note from the perspective of the sense of "me". And thus, every note pushed at that illusion. With every note the implicit question had already been asked: "Who's watching this?"

As I've encountered so many times before, the "me-ness" is very much located in my head, in which sensations also tend to feel the most solid. The way I noted put a lot of pressure on there, mostly around my forehead and towards the center of my head.

The pressure built and built proportionally to how much the sense of "me" was going away. At one point the pressure was so large that I got worried that whichever part of my brain was being used, wasn't used to that amount of blood flow. It felt strained, as if borderline short circuiting.
It also very felt hot (hence the almost-literally fire), and I had to stop investigating "me" so directly. I modulated the amount of pressure/heat in my head by letting a bit of the investigation go towards "less-me" sensations.

I really wonder if this is the way to go.. I mean, what can happen from this? Will the pressure (which is still there a bit) make me notice and soften up this hard, solid head of mine?


This morning I just sat for an hour.
I did about half/half kasina and vipassana.

Kasina practice was refreshing because although I couldn't get the murk to unfold today, I did observe the nimitta spin around the edges and in its tiny center. It vibrates like crazy, seemingly so fast that I'm barely able to see it. But I do see it, it buzzes like crazy.

I also noticed that when the nimitta became a black hole, then I was hit with waves of cold. I restarted the practice a few times and regained my heat. The last time (3rd) the wave of cold stayed with me throughout the rest of the session, which was vipassana.

My noting was similar to what i described above, but with less direct investigation of the "me" as the observer of all the sensations, and with less head pressure/fire. But still, some.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/15/21 12:46 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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I feel like writing down some fleeting, scattered thoughts about this "me" investigation, so here's that:

I remember feeling a wave of the most intense longing for relief I've ever experienced before. It felt kinda like the love-sickness I could experience as a teenager, haha. But exclusively in the chest!

I remember how I noted the longing and saw how the pain it had with it was associated only with my sense of self. This really put "me" on the spot!

I went "metta" several times: First, I noticed the strong longing, and that I wasn't it. Then I noticed the noticing and that I wasn't it either. Fianlly, I noticed the noticing of the noticing and that I wasn't it either. This kind of thing happened over and over again, helping to really build that head pressure.

In this process feelings were followed by mental images after mental images. These tend to represent "me" and normally creates the story of me which is convincing enough for anyone who don't look directly.

But as these images are seen clearly, then it seems there's a limit to how many more new mental images can start to explain away that "this was also just a reference to the observer".

Instead of creating more new images, eventually the explanation of why "me" makes sense, becomes about being located in the head. "Oh, so that's where I am".

But this is where the "me" becomes cornered. There are no more shades inside the mental images, nor the feelings in the head, where the illusion can hide. I'm wondering if my body/mind puts all of this pressure in the head to conceil the fact that inside the solidness, there's nothing but the feeling of seeming solid?!?!

Arrghgrgh! Enough thinking for a life time now! emoticon 
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/15/21 4:45 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Nice, Emil emoticon

I also remember a period with head pressure, it would appear at the base of skull/neck and seemed like the brain stem or something. It came when I put a lot of intensity in my looking and i usually took it as a sign to relax a bit.

Question : do the pains still dissolve when you observe them directly ? What about the head pressure ?

About the noting being about the things you "do" : well it depends, when in between sitting sessions yes you note actions, but during a sitting it's noting stuff that's not really actions of any kind. Also after the 4th nana you are then instructed to note everything !

But noting does exacerbate the sense of "observer"... Can you see the tension that trying to pinpoint things actually creates ? I think so... And that's actually something major emoticon...
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/16/21 3:31 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/16/21 3:31 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Tim, I'll have to check that thread out. Should have time later emoticon

Olivier
, I know what you mean I think emoticon But lately I actually feel like alot more things that happen are related to "doing", even during a sit. I know that if I hear a sound and note it with "hearing", then I'm not in the sound and I'm not doing anything, per se. However, I am starting to see that the "me" is observing things like this, therefore I have become aware that "I am doing the hearing" - which of course is an illusion, but simply an illusion that I have a lot of focus on atm. And also, therefore the head pressure is so strong atm, and almost any note strengthens it.

Agnostic
, if what Tim says is true, then it's quite impressive!


--------------------------

Didn't sit too much yesterday but had several pauses throughout the day of just ~5-10 minutes where I practiced kasina. I also sat for 30 minutes before going to sleep.

This morning I've sat for about 1:40 hours.

Practice atm is going through a unique phase. I really don't like doing vipassana, have a strong resistance towards it. Yesterday when actually doing vipassana i felt like all the sensations where overwhelming and it felt bad that I couldn't keep track of it all.

The head pressure is still there. It seems its sort of been "unlocked", showing up in even normal-interactions type hours of the day.
Its softening though, not as solid anymore. Around the scalp its starting to move a little bit. I think I've also started to see this sensation as more of just a sensation, rather than, idk.. "a shield protecting me in there"?. Hah.

Have upped my intensity on the kasina a bit, and I see progress. Not only am I able to follow it better, with more consistent concentration, but I have also discovered a new way of doing it even more relaxed - thus boosting concentration and tranquility.

What I found out was with regard to eye-tension when focusing on the nimitta. I have noticed that I often do tense my eyes, so today I focused on trying to find a way around it. I shifted my focus entirely on the seen, rather than on the seen with the eyes, if that makes any sense. This is indeed at the cost of clear sight of the nimitta (at least temporarily) and why I have continued to see partly with my eyes. But once I started to get the hang of focusing on the much more changing, much more direct perception of the seen, then I was able to delve deeper into this with a much more stable focus. And a focus which I could allow to a greater degree because it was relaxed and I wasn't trying to make the nimitta be clearly seen at all. Whatever was seen, was the object of attention.

A beautifil thing happened, resulting in some interesting sensations..
I always use the LED light on my phone to establish the after image. But as I were to renew the image (which I did perhaps 5 times) then I saw the sun peaking through a sliver in the window, exactly hitting my eyes. So I used the sun instead of my phone. The focus I experienced when looking at the sun-derived nimitta was much deeper, much more relaxed. I had visions of myself standing in the forest with my kepyboard, performing a beautiful track. I could hear the track and even recorded the melody on my phone just by humming it (as I want to use it later :p). I thought about a recent song I made and the lyrics was how I felt. Tranquility was deep, appreciation and gratitude was strong. A sense of surrender there as well, a surrender to the awful long path, allowing it to never end if that may be so. I felt the regular-everyday-normal chills I tend to get in love-filled moments. But today the goosebumbs all across my body rose to the top of my head where they made sparks between my hairs. It felt like an energetic release, to use a good new-agey term. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/17/21 3:36 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Yesterday I sat for about 3 hours again.
I had, still, a strong resistance towards vipassana. I don't have this resistance towards concentration practices, and other kinds of curious investigation. I find that when I do about 50/50 vipassana and concentration it actually feels alright. Which is fine, I think, as Imma need that con-con.

I also did what I think should be called "calm abiding" meditation yesterday. Just sitting, enjoying breathing, being aware. I felt blissful and laughed a lot.

Yesterday was kind of like a therapeutic day. There was the beautiful energy release in the morning, described in my last log, and then this laughing sit.
I feel like my practice has been very hard. And I'm good at that, just powering through like "fuck how I feel. Feelings are totally irrelevant. Now, we've wasted enough time talking about this, let's go".
So I suppose it was just needed to sit and losen up a bit emoticon

Today I just had my morning sit. I did almost all of the sit with standard type vipassana/noting.
I think its worth taking note of the fact that I feel very slow with the noting. I feel that there's a bunch more things going on than what I can catch up to. And this is even though my noting today was some of the fastest its been. 

Even though this feels slow and as if I've regressed, I think it's more likely that I've just learned to see more details and just not learned how to keep up with the noting yet.

I see subtler mental images and discovered a new aspect to the sense of "being in space": This was actually quite simple and obvious, but in addition to a mental image of the thing (feeling/sound/thought), there's also a very faint image of "looking towards it". This positions "me" (my skull/eyes) in relation to the thing. So for instance, if I hear a sound in another room, I get a fleeting glimpse of me "looking in that direction". And there you have it! The illusion is complete: The sound of the thing was there, the mental image of it and "me" looking for it. 

I don't know if this is related to practice or something else, but my head feels a little foggy. It could, I'm thinking, be related to the head pressure. It has dropped a lot, and I don't feel it now unless I once again tune into "who is observing this" during practice.

I did, however, feel a burn seemingly from my brain yesterday. It was so strong that I felt like I had to be careful not strengthening it. 

Who knows? Maybe I did slightly burn my brain...
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/17/21 6:11 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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(Nice. Good observations.

The slower noting and resistance might be phase related ; have you learned to recognize the different nanas on the way ?

Or you might just not vibe with noting and be more of a fast noticing guy, or even open awareness guy. There is nothing superior about verbally labeling things, if you can do direct sensate observatiin (and you can indeed) that is actually subtler...

Resistance is interesting to investigate as it can contain a lot of information wrapped up in it. Although of course developing a reservoir of well being through concentration like you're doing is important.

Cheers emoticon)
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/17/21 6:18 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Thanks, Olivier.

I don't know anything about nanas basically emoticon Everytime I think I have nailed one single thing down, it doesn't make sense in the context of the next or the previous.

So I really don't know about this resistance. I intent to get to investigate it better in the next sit emoticon

Cheers!
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/18/21 4:52 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Seem to have found a good groove between calm-abiding, vipassana and kasina practice. I basically am doing whichever I feel like. Perhaps this is not the optimal, but it keeps me going so in that way it actually could be for the best right now emoticon I also make sure I'm not neglecting vipassana, as I consider this the base of my practice.

The resistance to vipassana is gone and curiosity wants me to investigate more specifically each sense door. I want more details.
Today I had a sit where I did investigate each sense door separately and found some new clarity in the finer end of things.

With seeing I saw clearer than before how mental images give me a sense of being in space (or the room, in the apartment, on the street, etc). I am seeing clearly that I don't see any observer of these. But I am not seeing clearly enough yet to see that it's because there isn't any.

With feeling, I went into some finer details around my body. I can feel that my concentration has benefited from the kasina practice as I am able to stay in a quiet area for longer and wait for those finer sensations to show themselves. I feel like I can pinpoint a smaller area on my skin and investigate it. I could even break up what seemed like a fine itchy point into two sides, left and right :p

Yesterday I had a funny sensation. I was doing calm abiding and just enjoying the serene play of the sensations around all sense doors. I had flares of warmth in my face, just for about a second each. But it felt really hot, as warm as if a hair blow dryer was blowing in my face. But very soft and quiet of course.

Oh, another interesting thing: During kasina practice I have gotten two of these slightly spasmic/seizurish moments where I've seen what looks like the display of a synthesizer of sorts. It feels really weird...



Edit add: Oh, and I woke up at 4 something this morning, couldn't sleep because sensations were to overwhelming and it made me tense. I meditated and saw lots of flashing lights. In fact, it felt as if all the sense doors were flashing.. This morning I feel much more calm, as if my system got vented emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/18/21 7:41 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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New sit, new insight :p

I remember reading in MCTB that no sensations can observe other sensations. This seemed to me an important insight at the time, but not one I was able to really feel or observe.

Today tho..

I was considering how each sensation was known, and thought it seemed as if it knew itself. That was also the case with the next sensation, and the next, and the next.
I saw that in each sensation's knowing of itself, there was no knowledge of any of the other sensations. Yet, all the sensations were known - what holds them together?

I didn't get further with this, and it seemed to stop in a way that suggested that "I know the sensations" - obviously not a conclusion coherrent with 101 dhamma knowledge...

I'll have to investigate this further...
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/19/21 3:50 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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This blog has worked wonders. In the beginning I was using it to get myself going and stay accountable to whoever may go in here and read it - which turned out to be a lot of people. Cool!

Now that I'm back in the zone - no, actually I'm more than back, I'm a hurricane! - I feel like doing less writing, more just sticking to the grind. It's really a complex process, this insight stuff, and it really seems like shutting up and just doing the technique is just about everything I need right now.

Alright, a little writing:
In my sits lately I've been feeling overwhelmed with sensations. Its caused me to tense up a little bit, but if I note the tension and try to locate all of its felt parts around the body, I seem to get gliding pretty soon after, gaining more clarity and stability of mind.
Its a bit more turbulent all over now. The highs of meditation are quite high, full of serenity and clarity. Outside of the sits I tense up easier and become frustrated and restless easier. 
During the serenity of sitting I also space out a little easier than I'm used to.

I feel fried. The burns in my head may have literally fried me up a little bit. I feel slightly foggy in my brain and not so quick witted and sharp. I'm usually so sharp that I can slice bread with my intellect. But these days I can barely manage to stir my oatmeal by looking at it. Oh well..

I also have more nightmares. Recently I've dreamt of snakes, bears and rats all serving to create dreams of constant looking out and the occasional panic attack from encountering one of these fuckers up close. This morning when I opened my eyes I even saw a rat sitting around my shoulder. Took me a few seconds to realize that it was indeed just the dream carrying over into non-dream reality.

The solution to this fried/scared and scattered state? Even more frying!! ? No?
Ok, maybe the solution could be to do more calm-abiding. It seems healing when I do. Oh, and making music of course emoticon
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/19/21 5:08 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"and it really seems like shutting up and just doing the technique is just about everything I need right now."

It does come down to it eventually emoticon Nicely put! A good reminder for everyone really as we all get lost in the sticky content of becoming some mighty meditator with fancy experiences or/and a very wise person that has awakened emoticon emoticon 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/19/21 8:32 AM
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Emil Jensen:
I was considering how each sensation was known, and thought it seemed as if it knew itself. That was also the case with the next sensation, and the next, and the next.
I saw that in each sensation's knowing of itself, there was no knowledge of any of the other sensations. Yet, all the sensations were known - what holds them together?

You can ask yourself 'what makes me think there is something holding them together?' I think this is the same point we discussed upthread about the mind using the concept of "awareness" (field of knowledge?) as a kind of defense mechanism. Maybe a good time to read the Bahiya Sutta if you haven't already.

Insight can definitely fry the mind a little and it's good to vary the energy between intensity and grounding so you get a good feel for where where your bleeding edge is, but it sounds like you are doing that already. emoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 3:26 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Agnostic, good point!
Although I very willfully abandon ideas about "how things are supposed to work", I obviously just had a problem with this emoticon

I haven't spotted anything holding together sensations that are aware of themselves. They are not aware of others, yet very dependent on others! But ugh! This sense of "me" being aware of it all is just.. so apparently obvious.
But as Bahiya hears from the Lord from Savatthi: In the seen will be merely what is seen...and so forth emoticon

-------------------------------------------------------

I started my morning out with a 1 hr vipassana sit and then ½hr kasina sit. Concentration coming along still, very interesting to observe emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 1:25 AM
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Hello diary,

this is the new, slimmer version of Emil's practice log.

I've been sitting.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 1:36 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Ok, to elaborate just a little bit...

I've actually kept up the intensity of my sits and even upped the time a bit. This seems to pay off as stuff continues to be seen in new light. We'll see in 900 years what the result will be...

Kasina practice is taking off these past couple of days. It seems I've unlocked a next level using a mantra. Saying it slowly and using the voice to keep me in tune with the nimitta seems to do something important.

In vipassana I revisited an old technique..sort of. I note the rise and fall of the abdomen and make sure awareness doesn't waver too much from this. While I do this, I kind of scan the body in a few fixed spots, up and down. I don't know if this is legal or not.. I mean, I note sensations so who can argue?

I've not done this for a while, just noting randomly popping up sensations. But this more systematic body-scan approach yielded some very high level focus today. In a super strong bodily rapture, awareness of my whole body became effortless and the meditation started doing it self in phase with the breath.

I know not to be a rapture mongering maniac, but about the rapture...
At first it was of the kind that seems I'm lying sideways inside my head, and my body is sitting all by itself as if there was a broom up my arse holding my spine straight.
Then came on the feeling of being "flipped" inside myself, as if my left hand was my right and vice versa.
Then came the feeling that my skin was four fingers thick. Oh wow I could feel my whole body so easily when this rapture was on.
At last the rapture kind of faded but there was a few subtle feelings in there which I don't remember the order of:
Actually I only remember feeling super small. Like 3 inches tall or so...

In the end I just felt relaxed and started to kind of space out.

For all those dhamma-pros in here, can the above be the description of a familiar progress? I officially don't know anythig about anything, but I would guess that the shift in kinds of rapture could be correlated with nanas? No? 


Anyway I already wrote a whole lot of text when I didn't really mean to. I guess I'm feeling lonely. Sometimes I feel you're the only one that gets me, diary.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 3:59 AM
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All you describe is very normal stuff happening in meditation. Perception changes, gets distorted, huge, then tiny, sense of space is changing, that over there can become this over here, what was vertical becomes horizontal or angled etc ... 

All ok. It helps to slap all experience in the Zen fashion emoticon "its ALL Makyo" emoticon That change in body size and skin thickness is same as the itch on the nose! It's all Makyo!!! 
 
- Emil gets smacked 2 times by the Kyosaku!!! SLAP, SLAP !!!! 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 4:03 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Yeah man, I be slappin a thick layer of that makyonaise on 'til I be drippin!

I guess I was just tryin to make conversation with my log emoticon

Is a makyo fetish also makyo?
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 4:16 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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" I guess I was just tryin to make conversation with my log"

Oh sorry emoticon I thought you wanted feedback! emoticon my mad. 

- Papa retreats into his dark cave ... 
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 4:37 AM
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Papa Che Dusko:
" I guess I was just tryin to make conversation with my log"

Oh sorry emoticon I thought you wanted feedback! emoticon my mad. 

- Papa retreats into his dark cave ... 
He does want feedback, even from someone in a mad frenzy of nicotine withdrawal! Yes, he's that desperate! He even listens to me sometimes, he's THAT desperate! He's earnest! He's all in! He's walking the fucking path into the vast wilderness of the mind! He's lonely! His log/diary is the only one who gets him! His log never hits him with a fucking stick! What am I getting at?! You go, Emil!!!
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 6:51 AM
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I do want feedback! emoticon Althoug this time I must admit I was just writing because of wanting to write. (this time too)

And yes, I am a little lonely actually. And desperate. The interactions I have in here make up at least 50+ % of the interactions I have with people in general other than my hot piece of ass girlfriend.

I have considered starting doing something really, really, really crazy and utterly, tremendously stupid in order to overcome my loneliness - Like starting to watch football! Then I could just walk up to almost anyone and be like "hey BUDDY, did you watch the game last night?" and then go on and on about how the ball went from one side to another on a piece of grass and who touched it and..stuff. That would be great. I could even go to bars once they reopen and never be lonely again. Just buy a pint for my new mates ever now and then and we'd be golden until the day we fall of the bar stool from a heart attack.

But no, that would just be too damn sweet, wouldn't it?!

I just so happen to think that the only cool thing I can do is play music and meditate in which case I only know you guys and this log to talk to. As sad as it sounds.. you guys are my best friends <3

I just had an idea.. instead of keeping a super strict, up-tight practice log I could just have something like a hangout space in here. For crazy dhamma-nuts only. We'd serve drinks, of course! Oh and we would have fun corrupting all the normal people who came stumbling by accident into our (trap) hangout place.

I guess what I'm sayin is that I may be ready to make a visit over at the Bar of Last Resort - do you guys want me to bring something on the way?
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 8:07 AM
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bring chips, lol.
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 8:24 AM
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(Hey Emil, pretty funny bar heart attack story emoticon

JUst to answer the bit about different kinds of raptures - i don't recognize the sequence you wrote from my Exp, but that could just be that everyone has specific ways in which the ñanas/vipassana jhanas present themselves, and the idea is to get to learn which markers along the way can help you develop some awareness of the different territories. It could be that what you described is your version of vipassana jhanas 1 2 3 and 4 experienced in a very bodily way, or maybe not at all and these are all just grades of piti or something else. I personally do think that it's of value to develop that awareness, though, so here's a few resources ranked from easier/least detailed to more complicated/more detailed... 

..to learn more about the ñanas, you can check out this table if you haven't already : summary of the insight stages and kinda scary hardcore insight stages table by ingram

...from Kenneth Folk : The Idiot's guide to dharma diagnosis

...the vipassana jhanas by Ingram : vipassana jhanas

...from Mahasi Sayadaw : POI (would make a good band name, wouldn'it ?)

Cheers emoticon)
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 4:24 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 4:24 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Thanks, Olivier, that's very helpful!

Haha, Che, I'll make sure to let her know she's welcome. Getting her on the site will be difficult tho. "Meditation is bullshit" kinda situation with her lol.

See ya over there at some point emoticon
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 4:42 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 4:42 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
Thanks, Olivier, that's very helpful!

Haha, Che, I'll make sure to let her know she's welcome. Getting her on the site will be difficult tho. "Meditation is bullshit" kinda situation with her lol.

See ya over there at some point emoticon

lol, she's right, meditation IS bullshit. But it's the state of the art, for losers like us.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 3:43 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 3:43 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"meditation IS bullshit. But it's the state of the art, for losers like us."


What else can we really do to kill time until the judgement day arrives? Go fishing? Play golf? 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 10:49 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 10:49 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"the Bar of Last Resort - do you guys want me to bring something on the way?"

"my hot piece of ass girlfriend."

emoticon Yeps! She is more than welcome! emoticon emoticon emoticon


... ehm, You come as well if you want emoticon 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 8:07 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 7:54 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
I haven't spotted anything holding together sensations that are aware of themselves. They are not aware of others, yet very dependent on others! But ugh! This sense of "me" being aware of it all is just.. so apparently obvious.

Right, you could almost say this sense of "me" is just another sensation, dependent on others (and the "ugh" as well, and the sensation of apparent obviousness). Are you sure "me" is aware of it all, or could it just be aware of itself like all the other sensations? By the way, there's no need to get rid of "me", it's enough to notice that it comes and goes just like everything else. emoticon
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/15/21 3:43 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/15/21 3:42 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:

I really wonder if this is the way to go.. I mean, what can happen from this? Will the pressure (which is still there a bit) make me notice and soften up this hard, solid head of mine?

Yeah head pressure comes and goes. Nothing to worry about (I even got 2 brain scans lol). It can be a bit alarming at first, but eventually you get used to it. Grounding is fine if you need. Just the energy body rebalancing. All good stuff. emoticon
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/15/21 4:14 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/15/21 4:14 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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agnostic:
Emil Jensen:

I really wonder if this is the way to go.. I mean, what can happen from this? Will the pressure (which is still there a bit) make me notice and soften up this hard, solid head of mine?

Yeah head pressure comes and goes. Nothing to worry about (I even got 2 brain scans lol). It can be a bit alarming at first, but eventually you get used to it. Grounding is fine if you need. Just the energy body rebalancing. All good stuff. emoticon
JW actually has a thread going right now on head pressure and the void--- Looking for Advice - Dealing with Voidness and Head Pressure - Discussion - www.dharmaoverground.org 

agnostic is too modest to say it, but both his brain scans came back clear: absolutely clear of anything in there whatsoever. The doctors said they'd never seen anything like it.
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/15/21 6:58 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/15/21 6:58 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Tim Farrington:
agnostic is too modest to say it, but both his brain scans came back clear: absolutely clear of anything in there whatsoever. The doctors said they'd never seen anything like it.

+2

spilt my coffee emoticon
Sam Gentile, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 12:32 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 12:32 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Sam,
I mean that it really feels like the observer/observed become one, which is just the seen/heard/felt. It feels like the "me" is gone.

Did you have what others call a "No-Self" experience?
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 3:01 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 3:01 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Yes, that would probably be a better description of it. Ouh, or what the psychonaut stoners might call "oh ho ho ho..gnarly dude, it was like totally ego death, maynnn...høhøhø"
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/14/21 1:38 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/14/21 1:38 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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An hour sit this morning emoticon

Experimental phase is quiteing down a bit. I no longer to 30 different things in one sit. In fact, I'm back to the noting basics - and I'm noting some new things in the light of recent specific exercises and concentration practices.

For example, today I noted "space" whenever visual and felt sensations gave rise to the feeling that there was something around me.
I also noted "after sound" when the sounds I heard was actually replays of sounds I had heard moments before.

I separated my sit into three parts today: 3x10 breath counts, 3 rounds of kasina and then noting for the rest of the time.

Towards the end I started leaning towards the question "who/what's observing this". I took a few minutes without noting and just focused on this. When I returned to noting my sense of self immediately faded to, I would say, 10-20%.

Sensations were noted pretty rapidly today, 3-5 sensations per second, very consistently.

Pain showed up a few times and I decided to look closer. Was gonna ask "who's oberserving this?" but never got that far. Pretty much as soon as I focus on the pain, it goes away and turns into hollow, spaceous light vibratory feelings.

Flares of strong resistance towards sitting show up, but the same happens to these when I simply observe.
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 10:22 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 10:22 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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 good ol' phallic thrust i reckon emoticon

Um, okay.
Olivier S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 10:30 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Yes it is.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 10:57 AM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Boys will always be boys emoticon 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 7:33 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 7:33 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Hey, let me try that right now. I'll get back to you emoticon
Sam Gentile, modified 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 12:41 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/12/21 12:41 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"Many times on my recent retreat and some times here and there afterwards, it feels like duality is collapsing on me. It happens in a formation moment where it feels like my senses of seeing, feeling and hearing is all there is (how odd, huh?). This eradicates the sense of self to varying degrees. Mostly its like my sense of self feels 50%, or so, gone. A few times its felt more like 95-100%. "

What do you mean by "duality collapsing on me?"
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 7:07 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 7:07 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil, Chris Marti wouldn't cop to being an enlightened badass if his life depended on it, but I'll bet he's met his share of them and if you can get him to tell some of their stories, it would be priceless. He's probably too discreet, but maybe the names could be changed or something.

We've done this already!


Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 7:49 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/8/21 7:32 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Chris Marti:
Emil, Chris Marti wouldn't cop to being an enlightened badass if his life depended on it, but I'll bet he's met his share of them and if you can get him to tell some of their stories, it would be priceless. He's probably too discreet, but maybe the names could be changed or something.

We've done this already!


we barely scratched the surface, and you know it!


[edit p.s.] Emil, what Chris is referring to, I think, is this thread --- Where in the World are Chris Marti's Practice Logs? - Discussion - www.dharmaoverground.org --- in which there are in fact some great stories and historical grit and lore from the good old badass days of the Dharmic Wild West. 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 8:20 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 8:20 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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From the other post: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/22028208
we have Kenneth Folk's post about "chicken herding":

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/Jhana+and+%C3%91ana

I resonate strongly with this. I have been naturally leaning towards samadhi type meditation lately, and I think I am in EQ..

Just now finished an hour sit, using 10-breath count and phone-LED light kasina.
Within the first 3x10 breaths I was smiling all over my face and feeling blissful.
Every time my concentration faded a little bit, I would focus on the afterimage of the LED light until it was gone and then start counting 3x10 breaths again, until I got it right. Then I would light up the LED once again and start over.

Combining the two, looking at the after image as well as counting breaths was actually what initially made me enter the bliss.

I plan on doing this at least for one more hour today. I turn 28 today, perhaps I should go for 28 hours in one day, just as a challenge...
Sam Gentile, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 11:25 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 11:25 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"I'm glad my log does something good for you, Tim!"

I've been reading and loving your practice log too. It seems like you are practicing like your hair is on fire! Great Job!
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 3:07 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 3:07 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Yes, thanks! emoticon

Another logging: I was practically on fire earlier today. After my last meditation I went for a long walk, practicing counting my breaths. I then had a 1 hr sitting when I came home, alternating between LED kasina and counting breaths.

I went pretty far, I think, compared to usual. Interesting to perhaps recognize some of the jhana-descriptions..
I find it difficult to make out what is a good descriptor of my state when I sat, since so much is happening. I saw lots of exotic colors. Normally purple/red dominates, but in this sit there were bright yellow, neon green, turqoise-green, gray and super-very red. Haha, a trippy rainbow.

I also saw the after image move, rotating in all sorts of directions with the added effect of being in 3D sometimes.

When it moves it tends to have a jagged surface. Perhaps its ressembling being covered in spikes...

I also recognized that sometimes my attention went wider and became donut-shaped. I remember reading about that in Daniels book. I think its related to the dukkha nanas/jhanas. And it was also very cool to finally experience this happening. It really is something you'd wanna recognize so you're not left fighting for a centered attention.

After donut shape it seemed to be more evenly distributed.

After this my eyes flickered wildly and obstructed my seeing. It was a little intense..

Then I had another go and never really went this "deep" after that.


Did have something new happen after that tho: A funky kind of bodily rapture. It feels like my hands are stretched out to the sides and in opposite sides than where they are really positioned.


I've went into jhana mode quite a lot more than I'm used to lately. I'm gaining a bit of familiarity with being in them. Sometimes its possible to "attach" my attention to something seen, something felt, very widely or very narrowly. It doesn't really matter what it is, but that continued attention is really the key. Oh, and one has to let go and get carried away a bit. One cannot just force it in place.

I'll get another sit in before bedtime, I'll log about that tomorrow most likely.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 4:26 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/5/21 4:24 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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What a Dhamn day..

Just had another sit, 60 minutes. Wasn't gonna log before tomorrow, but it was a pretty damn cool sit so I have to do it now :p

Was doing LED kasina and counting breaths. The whole time it was difficult for me to really get in the zone. I had too much dinner (apple pie for desser too!) and was breathing a bit heavily and had trouble finding a really comfortable position.

I think I kinda forcefully ended up in a beginner jhana although I'm still completely n0ob when it comes to knowing what's going on.

I then remember Kenneth Folks post, the one linked a couple of posts up. He mentioned that he could call upon any jhana at will and just go there.

I tried to remember what my jhanic experience was like earlier and thought of when my attention became donut shaped.

A very bodily rapturous feeling immediately appeared and I remembered it. I then used my will to bring the rapture to strength, and it did. Cool.
It wasn't that bodily feel I had earlier. But also, earlier I had the after image to look at, and in this sit the after image had already went away, so my feeling of the body became the object instead.


The rapture feels good, like it usually does, and this one felt as if all of my skin is 20 cm thick. That's the best descriptor I've come up with so far. Have felt this rapture lord knows how many times. 

It's funny tho, the rapture is easy to forget. Its as if I can remember being there, but when the feeling cathes on its somehow impossible to have imagined it or remembered it quite like that.

I wonder when the time comes when I'll be able to say "this is that jhana and this is that". I am starting to see some distinct tendencies but Dhamn.. 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 8:43 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 8:42 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:

I was stuck with this idea, or rather this approach of looking into the sense of self, at my latest retreat. I really feel like it fucks with my experience. Also, aren't we supposed to investigate these subtler things? I.e. sense of self, urges, sense of space/time.

Does it happen automatically with noting in a style that always remains the same?

Or are we supposed to adapt our noting to the subtlety appearing as we proceed? This latter is what I'm doing and what I'm tempted to think is necessary.


Doubts about practice, method, techniques etc. are all good things to be noted! They will disappear by themselves if noted diligently enough emoticon 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 8:53 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/30/20 8:50 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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By the way, if you haven't already read it then you may find Mahasi Sayadaw's Progress Of Insight helpful, which is essentially included as Chapter 5 (Practical Instructions) in his Manual of Insight (I would ignore the rest of the book for now). It's only 30 pages long and takes you step by step through the entire noting cycle. Daniel Ingram calls it his 'favorite dharma book of all time with no close competitors'.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 5:33 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 5:33 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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"It did feel like I was gone for that little zick."

I don't know anything mate emoticon As far as Buddhist shit goes apparently there are the right Nimittas and the wrong ones depending on who is talking about them. Same for Jhana stuff and of course Nibbana/Cessation is no different. I thought (naively) that only Mahasi style Cessation is what Nibbana is, is what SE is, but according to Thanissaro Bhikkhu in his style SE Cessation/Nibbana there still is awareness in it which is not there in the Mahasi style POI cessation which i "know" about in my (not) experience. So before jumping to conclusions I would say "don't know" emoticon If this to be judged by Mahasi it would be a no as there was a sense of time in it. In Mahasi Cessation there is no way of telling anything about "it" ; no sense of time, no consciousness, no rememberance of any kind, black out utter and only way to know about it is when consciousness reboots. That's when one has the "what was that?!" moment emoticon 

However I think Linda onto something by saying that you are in a good spot in your practice so just keep at it. And of course SE is still out of stock in the Dhamms Shop so stick to what you already have emoticon the practice emoticon 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 5:32 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 5:31 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
2) A dualistic split: I noted "me-ness" a few times today which shed light on the sensate compositions of my feeling of being "me". It happens very much in conjunction with the visual and heard sensations, with the felt sensations being more key to the actual "feeling" of "me":
E.g.: Auditory sensations give rise to visual representations of the sounds; Then feelings are coupled to those visual images; A feeling of "I am here in relation to the heard and the seen".

The sense of me-ness or I-ness or subjectivity or having a centerpoint in relation to the heard and seen ... this is also a fabrication which comes and goes, a kind of optional extra if you like.

All good stuff emoticon
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 5:29 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 5:29 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
From this level of look-out I am investigating two new things... maybe three?:

1) What happens when I don't have some specific sensation to note. In between notes, so to say. I don't have a good noting word for this yet, but I think I used "looking" a few times. It sort of fills out some of the gap which I discovered was there in between notes. The gap felt unconscious/unaware and bringing awareness into is defo a good thing.

In the gaps you are seeing nothingness, which can be scary. The mind retreats back into awareness as a kind of defense mechanism. Moving forward - is it really nothing, or can you see that it requires some energy to maintain and perceive?
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 5:29 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/27/20 5:05 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:

 I can maintain a pretty well integrated awareness of the seen, felt and heard while noting things from all these three sense doors with a feeling that I see each noted sensation clearly arise, do its thing, and then change/dissapear.

If sensations are just arising and doing their thing then do you really need to layer an integrated sense of awareness on top of that? Can you see how that is just a fabrication which comes and goes like everything else?
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:07 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:07 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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agnostic:
Emil Jensen:

 I can maintain a pretty well integrated awareness of the seen, felt and heard while noting things from all these three sense doors with a feeling that I see each noted sensation clearly arise, do its thing, and then change/dissapear.

If sensations are just arising and doing their thing then do you really need to layer an integrated sense of awareness on top of that? Can you see how that is just a fabrication which comes and goes like everything else?
I'm glad you wrote this, as my answer is "yes?". I do need an integrated sense of awareness, don't I? I mean, isn't that what gives rise to formations? I'll be happy to know if I misunderstood something emoticon

Of course I can see that the integrated awareness comes and goes but I figured that it was in those moments that the nature of our experience would become easier to see accurately.
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 4:02 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 3:58 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
agnostic:
Emil Jensen:

 I can maintain a pretty well integrated awareness of the seen, felt and heard while noting things from all these three sense doors with a feeling that I see each noted sensation clearly arise, do its thing, and then change/dissapear.

If sensations are just arising and doing their thing then do you really need to layer an integrated sense of awareness on top of that? Can you see how that is just a fabrication which comes and goes like everything else?
I'm glad you wrote this, as my answer is "yes?". I do need an integrated sense of awareness, don't I? I mean, isn't that what gives rise to formations? I'll be happy to know if I misunderstood something emoticon

Of course I can see that the integrated awareness comes and goes but I figured that it was in those moments that the nature of our experience would become easier to see accurately.

All I can say is that from my perspective, eventually I realized that the integrated sense of awareness is a defense strategy of the mind which obscures the true clarity of independently arising formations. However you recognize you need it for now, which is good. There's nothing wrong with sticking this question on the back burner.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 4:18 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/28/20 4:17 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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All I can say is that from my perspective, eventually I realized that the integrated sense of awareness is a defense strategy of the mind which obscures the true clarity of independently arising formations. However you recognize you need it for now, which is good. There&#039;s nothing wrong with sticking this question on the back burner.]


Thanks for the input. I feel that you're very right, look forward to checking it out.
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 8:01 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 7:57 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
I found it very interesting too! Seems like this is a very relevant kind of insight, eh? Suffering everywhere.

It's true, the cookie actually means hell too! There is no winning this shit for very long at a time, indeed!

But ok.. What can this insight be used for? You know, just to summarize here.
We need to see that these urges (and all other cookies and hell fire) can't make us eternal baywatch models with eternal cookies and caviar in our mouths, that none of that ain't us anyway and that caviar actually doesn't taste that good. Or however else the three characteristics may manifest...

But what else is there to do with this insight - other than to stop the endless slamming of bodies into mats and pounding with chairs?
Is that what the insight leads to? A natural giving up of the slamming? Or is it not that simple?

You're on the right track. There's nothing else to do with this insight. Giving up is exactly what it leads to. It really is that simple. The urge is where it is at. What is this urge? The urge to do something other than what you are doing *right now* ... How is that even possible?
Martin, modified 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 3:03 PM
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RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
...but here I am, forced to eat cookies! Arhghgh!!!


Indeed. And to imagine, each time, that I am now, and always was, and always will be, the boss of the near-endless repetitions of cookie-related decisions and behavior. What a thankless job to be thrust into!
Martin, modified 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 2:42 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/26/20 2:42 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Emil Jensen:
Another game changer is the note of "emotion" which is a bit of a vague note for an emotion, really. But noting it this way makes it seen and a lot of the time brings attention to the bodily components of the emotion. These are often in the throat and heart, which previously was a no-mans land for me. Feels really good to feel the heart!

Get showers of goose-bumbs which are very metta-y quite often. I like this love-stuff. Tastes good.


Sounds great. I started using the generic "emotion" tag recently and also found it to be excellent. There is a way in which it is amply precise.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/17/20 3:31 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/17/20 3:31 PM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Tonights sit, just short of an hour.

I started noting right away and noticed resistance to doing this. A few seconds later I had noted just fine despite my body trying to keep me from it, and the resistance went away.

I experimented a bit with my noting style and came across an angle I found helpful for noting more subtle sensations and which brought me into a bodily rapture which felt like I was lying down on the side inside my head...

What I did: After a while of noting as usual I had built up a continous awareness of much of the body and the breath. I changed my notes from "feeling, touch, itch, rising" etc, to just "note" for everything I perceived as a change, be it felt in the body, seen as a mental image or anything else.

Before this I had run into what I might normally call "boring" during practice and started to feel the drag of this boredom, calling for me to just space out and enter the haze. I think this happens because the background starts to feel like not much is happening. Of course there is stuff happening, but perhaps my mind gets so used to a certain type of sensations that they start to blur into a boring background??

OK, so stuff is of course always happening, but it seemed I needed to get on another level to see something else. I needed to go from a level where big and chunky sensations are found, like itches, irritation, or the movement of the abdomen, to a level where tiny little changes in the seemingly solid background actually took place. These changes are much more fine. They can be fine and prickly, or like a fluid morphing of an area.

Oh, I also at some point had vibrations in my throat. Or, I think it was in the throat.. And now I don't remember when anymore, I just recall that it happened. And felt a little like... like music in my throat maybe? With a very fast beat tho. 

Something else happened that I barely recall. I feel like I remember commenting on what happened as being sort of pulled into darknes.. Oh well, let's see if I recall later on. Do you remember, Diary? Sometimes I feel that you're the only one who gets me.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 12/18/20 3:22 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/18/20 3:22 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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60 minute sit this morning:

I tried to take off with the approach I used yesterday; I had a small, no tiny, epiphany of sorts about how to get into seeing more subtle details and this only partly worked for me today. Hence it was a very "boring" meditation, meaning that it was difficult for me to stay alert and energized.

I kept on noting regardless, only spacing out once about..hmm, was it a fantasy of sexual nature? I think it was.

My noting stayed at a more gross level, compared to last night. But I think something important has still happened for me, with regards to my mini-epiphany... Mixed in with the gross sensations are more subtler sensations than I usually note. These are sensations in areas of my body which are normally completely dark. Now I get mixed in light feelings resembling touch anywhere on my torso, which normally is the darkest.

I wanna write a bit more about my "tiny epiphany", cuz I'm trying to understand what I'm doing right and reflect..
The way I described it was that I had an easier time noting subtle things because I stopped noting with big and articulate words, such as feeling/touch/itch etc, and just went "beep" for anything. This tied up some mental space which was used for straining myself a bit, and allowed me to relax into a more focused awareness.

I think the key here is "relax", which I've been bad at lately. I think it's important to not waste energy straining, tensing, stressing and the like. This simply makes our mind rigid and insensitive. So what I've been doing is a lot of straining myself in order to note faster, more nuanced, more clearly. I realized that I can just relax and pay attention to what happens in a relaxed state, rather than in a state of struggle. To my surprise, "trying" less actually freed up some mental room and allowed for a more of all those things that I wanted. 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 5:44 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 12/14/20 5:44 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

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Enjoying your log and your sense of humor by the way emoticon
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/30/21 10:13 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/30/21 10:13 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
 Ok, I have no idea how this new post-tree structure works. But I miss being on this site, sharing my beautiful story with all these dhamma badasses, you! So... what happens if I just try and post this... we'll see if it ends up in the bottom or in the middle of these hundreds of posts.

OK! I've been unactive here fore a week, but fear not fellow Dharmeys! I've been practicing as hard as I did before, a steady 2-4 hours daily.

But the tornado has finally started to wind down a little bit. I've become a bit more equanimous about not reaching new, fascinating and rapturous territory in each and every sit. So I sit with a little more contentment, a little more accepting that this is gonna be a long, and at times hard, ride. And I'm a little more accepting of the fact that I may never gain enlightenment at all. Even though I still think that that's a disgusting and scary thought. And finally, there are also the pangs of pain from longing for this enlightnement to happen, for the dukkha to go away.

But as I said, everything is calmer now. As this calming started to happen I thought that my meditation seemed a little boring. It may be, but I think its only so because of some development of equanimity. Its as if I'm just not at the edge of my seat any more, excited about every damn little thing that happens. Which really just makes me able to settle more and allows me to see other things, subtle things going on in my body or mind or way sensations tend to behave. I enjoy having small aha-moments pretty often.

What else to say? Hope everyone in here's doing great emoticon
 
Sam Gentile, modified 3 Years ago at 1/30/21 11:12 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/30/21 11:12 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 1310 Join Date: 5/4/20 Recent Posts
 Ok, I have no idea how this new post-tree structure works. But I miss being on this site, sharing my beautiful story with all these dhamma badasses, you! So... what happens if I just try and post this... we'll see if it ends up in the bottom or in the middle of these hundreds of posts.

it ends up in the bottom but I have to scroll through many pages to find it unless i'm missing something. You may want to cconsider starting a new log contiuning this one

But the tornado has finally started to wind down a little bit. I've become a bit more equanimous about not reaching new, fascinating and rapturous territory in each and every sit. So I sit with a little more contentment, a little more accepting that this is gonna be a long, and at times hard, ride. And I'm a little more accepting of the fact that I may never gain enlightenment at all. Even though I still think that that's a disgusting and scary thought. And finally, there are also the pangs of pain from longing for this enlightnement to happen, for the dukkha to go away.

After a big dustup, I sm kind  of in the same place, more equanimous, realizing its going to be along, long ride and applying Patience.

​​​​​​​Good to hear from you
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/31/21 3:15 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/31/21 3:14 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
Emil! Good to see your dharmic badass back in play! I am sort of taking the approach of always replying to the bottom post on a thread, to make sure it doesn't get lost in the stream somewhere. Also, be aware on long threads of the "More Posts" box at what may appear to be the bottom--- as Sam pointed out, we may all want to start keeping shorter threads, lol, lest everyone think we died tragically "three months ago."

Quieter practice. There's a sine curve to this stuff, and sine curves inside the sine curve(s), it's fractal at every depth of focus. Some wild shit goes down where it looks most quiet, and some of the sound and fury amounts to a fart in the wilderness, so always best to keep your eye on the vanishing dot and your ass on the mat, which you do. Meanwhile, you've got that old-school forest yogi madman passion, which will always keep things way too fucking interesting, lol. One of your best features.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/31/21 7:23 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/31/21 7:23 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
Yes, the badass is back in play for sure. Good to hear from you, T! And Sam! emoticon

Yesterday I sat for almost 7 hours! All of them were super quiet and very seemingly "uneventful". But good steady practice I think...

Oh, about new logs - how does one even start a new log? I've been searching the site for a "new posts" button, but can't seem to find any. Any tips, anyone? 

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Siavash ', modified 3 Years ago at 1/31/21 8:31 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/31/21 8:31 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 1679 Join Date: 5/5/19 Recent Posts
 Go to this link. There is a "New Thread" button in the right side of the page in front of "Practice Logs" label. (If you are seeing on mobile, it might be different.)

Practice Logs
 
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 2/1/21 4:23 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 2/1/21 4:23 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
Oh my goodness, <strong>thank you!</strong><br /><br />Not too intuitive. If one has to write a new post, one has to go into categories and then pick one.. Wow haha<br /> 
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 2/1/21 9:14 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 2/1/21 9:11 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
But the tornado has finally started to wind down a little bit. I've become a bit more equanimous about not reaching new, fascinating and rapturous territory in each and every sit. So I sit with a little more contentment, a little more accepting that this is gonna be a long, and at times hard, ride. And I'm a little more accepting of the fact that I may never gain enlightenment at all. Even though I still think that that's a disgusting and scary thought. And finally, there are also the pangs of pain from longing for this enlightnement to happen, for the dukkha to go away.

​​​​​​​Good stuff!

MN 44 Culavedella Sutta

“The underlying tendency to greed should be given up when it comes to pleasant feeling. The underlying tendency to repulsion should be given up when it comes to painful feeling. The underlying tendency to ignorance should be given up when it comes to neutral feeling.”

“Should these underlying tendencies be given up regarding all instances of these feelings?”

“No, not in all instances. Take a mendicant who, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, enters and remains in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected. With this they give up greed, and the underlying tendency to greed does not lie within that. And take a mendicant who reflects: ‘Oh, when will I enter and remain in the same dimension that the noble ones enter and remain in today?’ Nursing such a longing for the supreme liberations gives rise to sadness due to longing. With this they give up repulsion, and the underlying tendency to repulsion does not lie within that. Take a mendicant who, giving up pleasure and pain, and ending former happiness and sadness, enters and remains in the fourth absorption, without pleasure or pain, with pure equanimity and mindfulness. With this they give up ignorance, and the underlying tendency to ignorance does not lie within that.”
Sam Gentile, modified 3 Years ago at 2/1/21 11:26 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 2/1/21 11:26 AM

RE: Emil's Practice Log

Posts: 1310 Join Date: 5/4/20 Recent Posts
Hard to find your latest post. Log getting long. You may want to consider starting a new log.

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