Castelijns's concentration practice

Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 9/3/11 2:25 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 9/3/11 2:25 PM

Castelijns's concentration practice

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
Hi all,

i've been meditating for a while now. I do concentration practice and try to get into Jhana's. My practice is anapanasati. I generally try to focus on the whole body and my mind, trying to make these melt together. Am I correct to think that's the thai forest approach?

When I sit, there will appear various experiences, some of them rare some of them common. The most common is an experience of space, around me or in me, another is an experience of bodily stillness. A less common experience is that in which I feel as if I'm one color. When I experience that, the term serenity comes to mind.

Because space is a quality found in 2nd and 3rd jhana, and serenity is a quality found in the 4th, my take is I'm progressing through Jhana's, but in a weak fashion. Why weak? As far as joyful feelings is concerned, these are mostly weak or absent. I don't experience any joy of being secluded from sense desires, or any other joy for that matter.

For a few weeks I was sitting on average 2 hours a day, and my experience was as in the paragraph above. It didn't seem worthwhile to sit for such long periods, so I cut down on the meditation time and tried getting into the technique of focussing on a pleasant sensation to get joyful feelings, because it seemed that what was missing, was joyful feelings or energy (to be clear: slot and thorpor only arises occassionaly, and is a different matter.)

Getting piti or sukha by way of focussing on a pleasant sensations didn't work. Ofcourse I might not have tried long enough, well enough and or hard enough, I really didn't like the effort that was involved, and initially I often became very angry while sitting an applying this technique. Later I got a handle on that anger thing, but wasn't getting results, so I abandoned it.

After that I read through Ian Ands sticky thread about the cultivation of jhana's. I had read this before and saw there was much stuff in there that I still hadn't absorbed. Even now as I write this, I realise I have to go back and read it again, a couple of times. Anyways, after reading that, the important of a still mind was brought to the forefront of my mind and thus in the sits following that reading I proceeded to still my mind. Initially this paid of and I felt good about it, though I can't actually recall going through any special deep experiences because of this new approach.

Since then, I had some Big Issues, and my practice slacked a bit, though I did continue to sit for around 30-40 minutes each second day. Apart from focussing on stilling the mind (which I'm not that succesful at), I also include a focus on relaxing the body: I have noticed that through my eyes I can evoke a relaxation reflex in my body. So when I'm sitting, I keep evoking that reflex.

Anyways, please feel free to respond.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 10/1/11 6:06 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 10/1/11 5:25 PM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

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i'm thinking of going on a retreat for maybe 10 days, and if that goes well, I want to go for a couple of months, or however long is necessary. Nothing is holding me back other than the uncertainty of bodily effects of a long term retreat (what will happen to my knees? my back? what if it's too hot? etc.) I happen to be doing body work: rolfing and yoga and making my sits last longer (up to 75 minutes now). I'm also started to experiment with vipassana.

Nearing the end of such a long sit (the 75 minute one) I will start to want to get up and stop, though when contemplating what exactly is troubling me it seems nothing other than an urge, rather than discomfort or pain (which is present a well, but isn't all that bad).

I've also decided to stop sleeping whenever I feel like it and instead just meditate when I feel sleepy (and when it's not 'bedtime' yet).. This seems a good idea as on retreat, I will probably face sleepiness too.

In general the after-effects of my practice aren't experienced as having a more sharper, mallable mind or being less forgetful. It just seems that I'm more able to talk clearly to people and when I'm by myself I more often feel well than I used to.

What is also obvious that sila is something I need to work on, especially when I'm at home. When I'm out and about doing things at my job for instance, I'm not particularly fazed by feelings and sensations of ill health. I have lotsof of those when I'm at home, though they've come to appear to me as fluff; I've found that I'm still very able to do the dishes, clean the bathroom, pay my bills, study some book etc and feel good about these things. Actually that kindof stuff, just living a clean, 'moral' life, is basically what I'm after with all this practice.

I've also noticed that occasionally I can spot habitual mental/emotional patterns, such as worrying and see them as silly/comical. Eg, I was driving home from a friends house and I felt like I didn't want to go my home and felt bad about going back. I realised I was making myself feel miserable and then the feeling went away, without leaving any twangs. I think that's because my meditation has helped up the quality of my baseline feeling and now that is enabling me to jump from feeling bad to feeling pleasant.

Generally what I'm doing is just feeling well when I sit. I try to cultivate the sensations that my body is very 'spacious' and then remain there for as long as possible, which isn't that hard. Having that feeling takes care of any neurotic thoughts, I will however often find myself daydreaming, but after those dreams finish I will still feel as good as I felt before.


*edit: I just skimmed through josh r's practice thread, and he seems to be doing a similar thing. Although his is posted in the actual freedom section. In it was a link to a page with this picture. I find this explains very well why feeling bad is so comical.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 10/5/11 3:40 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 10/5/11 3:40 PM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
Yesterday I sat for an hour and half. I set the timer to ring at one hour and 15 minutes, but when it rang couldn't hear it because the timer wasn't close enough to the room I was sitting in.I kept pracising until I couldn't control the urge to get up.

Those final minutes, maybe 15 minutes, maybe more, maybe less, of the sit had a vipassana like character. First I noticed an increase in concentration (whatever that is) , then one by one, in a slow frequency, maybe 1 per second, I started noticing from start to finish, mental sounds, mental images, bodily movements, bodily sensations, breathing, etc. The thing happened by itself. I didn't think beforehand: ok let's do some vipassana now.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 10/29/11 3:22 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 10/14/11 6:25 AM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
I kept meditating each day, sometimes two sits a day. Most of the sits were 75 minutes, some shorter.

Most of the time I manage quite well: only on a few occasions have I got up before the timer rang, at other times my concentration popped into higher gear at around the 74'th minute.

Since the alarm is very loud and keeps repeating forever unless I press a button, I will end the sit, and unfortunately not benefit from the higher state of concentration I just reached. So I'm going to use a different timer, and sit longer. Or I'm going break up my sit, extend it to two hours, with a minibreak in between.

Thus, in regards to maintaining practice I'm doing well. The quality of my practice, the deepness of my experience isn't that great. I let love creep into my life and it's on my mind almost all the time. It's actually been a bother for months now.

I hope to get more vipassana style experiences where my concentration becomes more discrete. So far I've only gotten one experience of that, one which I described in an earlier post in this thread. I could ofcourse start noting right from the beginning, but that doesn't feel right to me (feels like I'm not doing it properly). I think that's because there is no strong reference point such as a strong focus on the breath. Thus rather than forcing it, momentary concentration, I want to let it happen by itself.

I'm halfway through "Mindfulness in Plain English" and I've adjusted my technique from being aware of the entire body and breath to focusing awareness on the air passing through my nostrils. I think this will make it easier for me to get a strong reference point.

Off the cushion I don't find my breath to bring any peace or calm. It generally feels very dry. Even when I go to bed after a good sit, my breath will be more of a distraction from sleep than an aid. I've also struggled with this in my sits: my breath will feel dry and shallow, unless I tweak it and make it happen more discretely; the breath then becomes synchronized to my heartbeat. Though during a sit breathing patterns vary and my breath may become more continuous and 'wet' as I progress.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 10/20/11 4:06 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 10/20/11 4:06 PM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
Since the previous I have upped the length of my sits to 90 minutes. The love issue mentioned in the previous post has mostly resolved itself. I did skip one day of meditation because of the issue.

In my previous post I wrote:

I've adjusted my technique from being aware of the entire body and breath to focusing awareness on the air passing through my nostrils


I've found that when I apply that technique I still remain aware of my entire body, and I'm fine with that. I was hoping it would help me get a vipassane like experience, but that never happened.

Today I did two sits. One 90 minute sit at midday and one 75 minute sit in the evening. In the 75 minute sit I got into a state where for quite a while I was on the verge of breaking out in laughter. Breathing in the state was more effortless and the energy in my body was condensed. homogeneous and solid. Perhaps my bodily experience was transitioning from it's regular experience of form to a different shape that was more energy-like (although still very much still located on the cushion.)

Just prior to that state happening I was experiencing quite a bit of space, and I tried to see my thoughts in that space. The experience of that effort reminded me a bit of the effort involved in doing n-back tasks.

At other times there was bodily stillness, which is always nice but never lasts as long as I want it to. I also experienced opening of space at the front of my body, and while that happened I was hoping the same thing would happen to the back of my body, but that didn't happen.

On the flipside, there often was a desire to want to end the meditation. So I think I will look into that in my upcoming sits.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 10/29/11 3:18 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 10/29/11 3:13 PM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

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21-10-2011

1 90 minutes: Sat and enjoyed the sitting. There was pain, but the pain felt good and seemed to aid my concentration.
2 60 minutes: Similar experience that I described in my previous post (becoming more energy like), but this time more intense,
and shorter. It very much was like enjoying a rollercoaster ride. There was a warping of space and consciousness and a sense of a 'black hole' nearing. I was enjoying it with a big grin on my face.
3 27 minutes: Tried to sit for another hour, but failed.

22-10-2011

65 minutes: Tried to sit for 90 minutes by gave up around the 65th minute. I struggled with the urge to get off the
cushion. I tried seeing it as an opportunity to see what lay beyond this barrier, but unfortunately the impulse
to stand up got too strong and I found myself leaping to my feet before the timer rang.

23-10-2011

90 minutes:I sat trying to saturate the body with my breath and directing my attention to the various nooks and crannies of
my body (as adviced by thanissaro bikkhu ). While being succesful initially, the energy I built up that way dropped off when I hit a wiff of fatigue. After that I started struggling; my energy level dropped and I started wondering how much time was left
until the end of the sit. Countering this restlessness I tried my best to deepen my meditation and keep my attention as wide as possible and to try and remove 'myself' from the scene and let the sit happen by itself. It occurred to me that the experience I was after could best be described as one of looking at things (sounds, body, breath etc.) from the corner of my eyes (figuratively speaking), rather than looking at them directly. Doing this actually meant including the lateral corners of my eyes into my awareness (something I've been doing for a couple of months now). While doing that, I included awareness of the sides of my body, which was pleasant and solid, but not solid enough to prevent me from keeping regressing and desiring the sit to end. Then finally at the 75th minute the whole thing came together. I would say that at that point I was at access concentration.

24-10-2011 75 minutes: Sat trying out various postures.

25-10-2011 90 minutes: changed position two times. I can see myself sitting longer than 90 minutes when doing this. There wasn't much struggle. My focus was the body, stillness and including awareness of mental movements.

26-10-2011 90 minutes

27-10-2011

25 minutes
70 minutes
90 minutes

In all sits after 23-10 I kept changing my position. For around 2/3 of the time I will sit on the floor rather than on a cushion. I'm also using a different position for my hands (namaste pose), which seems to stop my back's tendency to lean back.

Sitting on the floor feels very different than the burmese position on a cushion (which I used before). It seems when sitting on the floor that my spine is pushed into an upright position, this promotes a stillness or purity that I can easily incline my attention towards. The disadvantage, or perhaps advantage, is that I get to deal with the urge to get up from the cushion sooner (because of pain/trembling in my feet,legs and/or hands). I try to keep redirecting my mind to the pleasure aspect. Oftentimes I will find pleasure (thrill/power/energy?) in pain and rarely if ever do I find that the reason I got up from a sit was because it became physically unbearable (it seems more of a conditioned response to pain, a belief that I won't be able to concentrate anymore, or to feel that I've suffered enough etc.).

28-10-2011

90 minutes
75 minutes

29-10-2011 40 minutes (night, couldn't sleep) sat in burmese on the floor. Decided I wanted to max out the pleasure thing and saw this wasn't going to work in this position and changed it by placing one leg over the other. In the previous sit I reminded myself of the analogy of the radio by thanissaro bikkhu. Like I used that analogy then, to tune into pleasurable aspects, I also did in this sit. It worked. Everytime I was thinking of ending my sit, I realised that that was just because my mind had wandered of to a place labeled: uncomfortable place of struggling. It seemed the only thing I needed to do was stop being there, and start being with the pleasurable sensations, just by retu(r)ning my mind to the pleasure of the experience of the entire body. At one point I was confident I wouldn't wander off anymore. Then again the grin on my face appeared, and when this happens, all kinds of things may to happen. The previous time this happened I experienced an expanding and shrinking of consciousness and space. This time my body moved into a more upright position and the sense of the body as it was located in space became warped/angled in a very solid way. Pain started building up in my legs and I found myself in that place labeled "you've done enough, it's not worth continueing, too much pain". Then I got up.

Today, during the course of the day, the various mindstates, emotions I passed through were seen as fundamentally the same thing as the state of mind of wanting to end the sit. I could also see subtler things such as suppresion of emotion and struggling or not wanting to feel etc. I'm also trying to see the relationship between these states: I will entertain seemingly harmless notions of love and compassion, then feel jealousy, then feel depression, then resort to suppression and struggle and become fatigued. Not sure whether I got the chain of events right, but it's just an example of how I'm thinking about these things.

I'm reading through meditations 1, forty dhamma talks by thanissaro bikkhu and I find it's really good and making an impact in my practice.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 11/4/11 3:23 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 11/4/11 3:04 PM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
29-10-2011 90 minutes

30-10-2011 90 minutes, busy tuning my mind, balancing the various things that need balancing in order to have attention drop
on the breath continuously. It felt like work. Effort was expended, but not in a way that caused tension. When
the sit was over. my mind felt tuned (those were the words that came to mind when I ended the sit). These days,
most of the time, I feel the same way getting into a sit and coming out of it, but this time there was a marked difference.

30 minutes, prior to sitting I actually felt an urge to sit. After sitting I was looking forward to sitting again

The whole time after the sit my mind felt tuned. Eventhough I experienced quite a bit of nervousness and fear, the feeling remained. I had expected the effect to wear off quickly, but as time progressed and circumstances I found myself in changed (from work to being with friends), effects started to become more pleasurable. The experience of my body was calm, pleasurable, which expressed in itself in everything: talking, listening, sitting, driving etc. Things became less sticky, noticing stuff such as jealousy, but also thoughts happening while in conversation or listening. A lot of the time I was thinking: wow this stuff really works! Still, there was an underlying feeling of fear and tension.

31-10-2011 60 minutes, the first 45 minutes sat on the floor with one leg over the other. My highscore regarding this posture is 50 minutes now. I didn't see the need to break my record just yet, and switched to sitting on the cushion. Lotsof bad karma building yesterday evening, and I expected a big fallout today. Today didn't turn out that bad, but the overall experience was that of being flung here and there, rather than being in the eye of the storm as I was yesterday.

01-11-2011 48 minutes, at around 5 o'clock in the morning (very early for me). can't remember if it was this sit or the previous one: I kept getting to a state where my breathing became very shallow and where I could start focussing on the breath-energy, but then felt the need to breathe deeply again, disrupting the whole process.

90+ minutes, felt tired before sitting, but during the sit most of it was gone. Rarely felt any need to incline away from tiredness (as it wasn't there). First started out sitting on the floor, trying to sit for 50 minutes. I sat around 49 minutes. I managed to release tension and pain in my leg, without distrupting my awareness of breath and body. After that sat on the cushion for 40+ minutes (I didn't hear the timer go off, which rang at the 90th minute) and the state I was in while sitting on the floor continued. I used it to 'look around'. As there was no tension, I didn't focus on that. I can't remember exactly what I was looking at. What I do remember my mind was generating a lot of sound fragments (people talking).

Tarin's advice to Gerry T came at the right time for me:

keep the focus of attention balanced at the optimal measure between 'breath' and 'body', so that neither precludes the other. determine the optimal measure by experience, micro-feedback trial and error. incline away from sluggish-ness, incline away from agitation.


and

once the balance is struck, and is stable, take some time to 'look around' - examine the conditions of your moment-to-moment experience.


The state I was in was calm, perhaps a bit bland. This quote seems to apply:

Thanissaro Bikkhu
Or, you start telling yourself, "This is really stupid, just sitting here still, still, calm, calm. This isn't intelligent at all.


When I'm doing stuff and try to generate 'breath-energy', I will often start to feel very good. Sometimes I will laugh at the simplicity of being happy! It reminds me of this quote:

Luke R Hope
I feel almost like I am cheating at life to be able to generate these feelings just with my mind.


Though i can feel very good at times. I can still feel very bad (emotionally). Depending on where I am and what my options are, I will seek out distractions (eating,reading, dho) or some other stuff, but am still figuring out what is the best thing to do. The easiest thing to do, when the emotions are bad, is to remain still and see how I react.

02-11-2011 75 minutes I started in my one leg over the other position and at the 35th minute switched to the cushion. Then at the 75 th minute I stopped, eventhough I intended to sit 90 minutes. I didn't feel tired during the sit (I very much did feel tired prior to the sit), but nearing the end I was lacking the energy and perhaps even the inclination to steer myself away from thinking. I think this was because I was tired.

03-11-2011 90 minutes, this time I sat one leg over the other for 55 minutes and broke my record. My left leg was tense from the beginning and early on started develop numbness. The pain increased and I had thoughts of ending the sit. Then a balance was struck between the pain and the pleasant feelings and I sat with that until the timer rang signalling the 55th minute. I then sat on the cushion, which was calm, but I came complacement and there should have been more effort to be on the breath continuously.

I hope to keep up my practice. I'm the middle of transitioning to a new job. Apart from being a stressful affair, I will probably have less spare time for a while. I think it's real important to keep practicing and keep progressing in order to gain some kind of stable plateau (clearly not there yet).
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 11/17/11 1:30 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 11/17/11 1:19 PM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
It's been around two weeks since I posted here. I guess I'm rambling on a bit, but it seems better to post something, than not to post at all:


04-11-2011 - friday

?? minutes, Half lotus on the floor. feelings of falling and other sensations of space started occurring, then my body moved into a more upright position. As a consequence of that the pain in my left leg became much worse and I stopped sitting at the 35th minute. I can't actually remember what I did after that (I did continue to sit for awhile.).

05-11-2011 - saturday

89 minutes, intended 90 but it seemed I had already been sitting for over 90 minutes. Tried out this: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/inmind.html#method2.

06-11-2011 - sunday

90 minutes, started out sit with doing metta meditation, then proceeded to execute the 7 steps as outlined by ajaan lee's method 2. I sat one leg over the other for 55 minutes. I got some balance between body and breath and was able to 'look around' without loosing touch with that balance.

07-11-2011 - monday

90 minutes - Again sat for 55 minutes in half lotus on the floor.

08-11-2011 - tuesday

42 minutes, intended to sit 60, but stopped when the phone rang.
59 minutes, intended to sit 90, but stopped when I decided it was enough (it was around 2:00 at night, and I was tired).

09-11-2011 - wednesday

Woke up and was able to indentify with the observer for awhile. I haven't mentioned this before, but I have been working with cultivating on observer as well.

60 minutes, sat in half-lotus for the first part. I didn't sat in half-lotus for very long. When the pain become too much I changed position. The second part I sat on the cushion. Hung around in a state in which things were balanced.

60 minutes, sat in half lotus. Earlier today I was wondering about the why of meditation. Then I read TJ Broccoli's post in which she talks about breaking through conditioning by looking at things from a higher perspective through equanimity and objectivity. That made sense. After that I went through dhamma talks by thanissaro bhikkhu to see what he had to say about the matter.

In this sit I again experienced pain in my leg up to a point where I thought of changing position. I knew from past experience if I would sit through it, things would get better. I managed to relax my leg (by thinking space in the area). I found that I had to keep focussing part of my awareness on my leg in order for it to keep from tensing up. Eventually the sense of space became a pleasant factor in my sit (where before it was the whole body and the breath, now there was also space). The space didn't seem to appear after a shift. Neither did it appear because I had tried to cultivate it.

09-11-2011 - thursday

45 minutes, sat in half-lotus on the floor. This was in the morning.
60 minutes, sat in half-lotus on the floor, evening. Lets see.. What did I come across?

Again, pain in my legs. At one point I:
- was mostly relaxing my legs
- was experiencing space around me (while pain was increasing in intensity, somehow, perhaps, being aware of space around me seemed to tense up my legs)
- was smiling at the pain, experiencing pleasure, while the pain-intensity kept inreasing
- felt a balance between the pain and pleasurable sensations
- contemplated the fact that the pain doesn't remain after the sit
- tried sensing whether the pain was really that bad. Not sure whether it was, but the pain certainly tempted the lazy part of myself that wants to get up and sleep/zone out/etc.
- felt the urge to get up, and almost convinced myself that that was the most reasonable thing to do. Then figured things can be said for sticking with what you set out to do (improves self-esteem)
- contemplated the notion of maintaining an 'even keel'. With that I mean, preempt any emotional response to aversion and pain (thus mainting an even temper/mindstate/etc.)
- started out with a lot of aversion, felt my body posture was off, felt my breathing was off etc. Figured it all came down to my mental reaction to unpleasant sensations. As long as I could keep my mental reaction such that it enabled me to continue to sit, then that alone would be beneficial, regardless of all the unpleasantness.
- ended the sit, and reminded myself to keep feeling the way I was feeling during the meditation.


11-11-2011 - friday

30 minutes, morning

54 minutes, evening. Towards the end of the sit I started experiencing an increased intensity of sensations of space. The more I focused on the breathing, the more intense this experience of space became. Then my spine moved into a more upright, energetic posture. As expected this increased the intensity of pain in my legs (which wasn't that particularly annoying up to that point). As I sit here now, the sensations of space remain, and there still is a bit of a warped sense of space, which is nice. I don't know why I ended the sit prematurely (I intended to sit 60 minutes). I assume it is because a) the state I was in wasn't balanced b) feeling that I had achieved enough.

30 minutes, after writing the above, I proceeded to sit another 30 minutes in a more comfortable position.

12-11-2011 - saturday

30 minutes, morning

13-11-2011 - sunday

60 minutes, morning
60 minutes, midday, going into a state of contentment. And apart from feeling content, I sensed a balance between the breath and the body, and felt the breath energy throughout my whole body without any need for me to direct it. I wasn't in that state the whole time. maybe only a few minutes. As I understand it, this is what I need to be after, and what I need to be feeling off the cushion.

14-11-2011 - monday

45 minutes, morning. this time the experience that stood out most was the experience of breathing being like the
fulfilling experience of eating. I caught on to the breath energy rising from my legs to my torso on the in breath and on the out breath I tried to stay in touch with that energy. This was maintained for quite a while, until my attention shifted towards the tension in my legs. I tried my best to tune into the breath energy again, but somehow it didn't work. When I was with the breath energy, I was carefully tuning it with my breath: on the inbreath I would breathe in at various speeds (the same goes for the outbreath).

?? minutes, evening. Can't really remember what happened. Probably stuff i'm describing at tuesday's morning sit.

15-11-2011 - tuesday

59 minutes, half lotus on some raised plateau (not as high as cushion), intended to sit 60. Frustrating sit. There was anger, which is rarely present. I'm pretty sure this was because I wanted more than I was getting. When I decided that I was going to sit as long as it would take to get that experience I had yesterday (experience of fullness), things started to come together. At the end of the sit, in a supple fashion, leaned forward from the hips, resulting in what seemed a better, more forward alignment of my lumbar spine. Eventhough this caused pain, it seemed this was the way the body was designed to sit (felt very firm, including a sense of suppleness in hips). I think the increased pain in my legs was caused by some issues I have there (active triggerpoints?, tensions etc) that might resolve through sitting (combined with my daily intu-flow routine, and yoga practice).

10 minutes, full lotus, using instructions from a yoga book, which are helping me sitlonger in a less painful manner.
10 minutes, full lotus, changed leg position

30 minutes, half lotus on floor, working on microscopic orbit, alternating with working on breath energy. My intent was to sit for 60 minutes, but my pain was distracting me too much (I had already sat 20 minutes just prior to these 30 minutes).

25 minutes, burmese on cushion, worked on breath energy. Then when I focused on the Bai Hui point (crown of the head), things came together nicely: balance: breath body observer. Anytime I try to go for the observer, the top of my head is involved (I've read the reports of sensations at the back of the head in regards to the observer/witness, but sofar that's not been my experience). Before this sit I intuitively tuned into the observer (with varying degrees of success) and would find the top of my head involved. This time, without any intent of identifying with the observer, simply putting attention on the top of my head introduced the observer. After finishing this sit, I remained with the observer, in a more dynamic fashion than I would normally. Normally being, that my body would feel too rigid (eg driving car, and looking straight ahead all the time, unless I would need to check my mirror etc.).

15 minutes, full lotus on floor
8 minutes, full lotus on floor, intended 15 but stopped early because of the pain
30 minutes, half lotus on floor, intended 40 but stopped early. I did get to the point where I overcame the worst urge to get up.


16-11-2011 wednesday

60 minutes, half lotus on the floor and burmese on the cushion. I quickly got to experience a feeling of fullness regarding body and breath. I tried throwing in the observer by feeling out the back of the head. All that I kept throwing kept being thrown back at me: Attention would often automatically shift to the front of my head (eyes). I don't like having my attention at the eyes. I'm not sure why. It just seems to fuck up the balance. Anytime I'm 'balanced', I have to be careful for attention not to shift to my eyes, because if that happens, I'll be all eyeball and less body and breath. Though when sitting burmese, I let the attention rest on my eyes, and felt the front part of the body open up/relax. Regarding the breath energy. I'm still working on it. This time towards the end of the sit, there was more space, emptiness, void in my body, then there was energy. I didn't really get to what I was aiming at: a certain level of breath energy throughout my whole body, without the sense of it needing to be maintained, like in my second sit on sunday. That experience on sunday, is one I can remember quite well, as well as the one I had on monday, which seems easier to make happen. For a large part of this day I have been driving car and while doing so, I could easily tap into the experience of fullness/ of being satisfied with the sensations of my body, breath, etc. Mixed with that there's misery, love, compassion: dramatic stuff, all very enticing to think about, feel about etc. Whenever I catch myself become taken by drama, I stop it. This doesn't seem to result in repression: I tune into the calmness, the fullness of the current moment. I think at that moment, when I'm being relatively calm, I have to raise the bar, because when I don't, the cycle of drama->stopping it->being calm->drama->stopping it etc. keeps continueing. I need to have some contemplation going about what I want to feel (calm or drama?).

17-11-2011 thursday

60 minutes, half lotus on the floor and burmese on the cushion. Fullness, observer etc (but not all the time!)
--

So basically, I think when I'm off the cushion I need to work on making the balance between observer, body, breath my modus operandi. Neither on or off the cushion can I tune into some full-blown breath energy thing, but I can tune into feeling satisfied/full, using the breath, body, observer.

--

To get back at some things I've said:

Countering this restlessness I tried my best to deepen my meditation and keep my attention as wide as possible and to try and remove 'myself' from the scene and let the sit happen by itself. It occurred to me that the experience I was after could best be described as one of looking at things (sounds, body, breath etc.) from the corner of my eyes (figuratively speaking), rather than looking at them directly. Doing this actually meant including the lateral corners of my eyes into my awareness (something I've been doing for a couple of months now).


I seemed to have stopped doing the above explicitly. I think when I started 'tuning' into the breath and body, I started abandoning the above.

I hope to get more vipassana style experiences where my concentration becomes more discrete. So far I've only gotten one experience of that, one which I described in an earlier post in this thread. I could ofcourse start noting right from the beginning, but that doesn't feel right to me (feels like I'm not doing it properly).


Not after that anymore.

Oftentimes I will find pleasure (thrill/power/energy?) in pain.


Now I would say, that it happens, but that it is a rare event.

Everytime I was thinking of ending my sit, I realised that that was just because my mind had wandered of to a place labeled: uncomfortable place of struggling. It seemed the only thing I needed to do was stop being there, and start being with the pleasurable sensations, just by retu(r)ning my mind to the pleasure of the experience of the entire body. At one point I was confident I wouldn't wander off anymore.


The last couple of times I found myself struggling I wasn't able to pull off the above. I peeked at the clock, in order to subdue the urge to leap up to my feet.

Things became less sticky, noticing stuff such as jealousy, but also thoughts happening while in conversation or listening. A lot of the time I was thinking: wow this stuff really works! Still, there was an underlying feeling of fear and tension.


I haven't experienced the above since. I'm just going to work on the calm that I can tap into now, and hopefully I'll get more of the above experience.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 1/21/12 6:18 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/21/12 5:28 PM

17/11 - 26/11

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
Thursday 17-11-2011

60 minutes evening.

Started out with Jnana mudra. I notice this mudra caused a constriction in the area of my pectorals. When I changed the mudra, to just laying my hands palm down on my thighs, the constriction was gone and the sit felt better: less noise. Clearly the mind is drawn to pleasurable sensations.

Friday 18-11-2011

30 minutes morning, quite a bit of fatigue or bad energy.

It appeared that in this sit, this bad energy was located in its own space. I can't remember how the sit went (I'm writing this in the evening), but I do remember that detail.

59 minutes evening,

masturbated before sitting. I think because of that there was lotsof vibrations/tingling (both descriptions don't fit the bill). Another effect was that there was no sense of fatigue to be found. I worked my way towards the state in which the breathenergy became self-sustaining. I got to a level I didn't reach in the last few sits. I didn't manage to stay there for long.

After I lost that state, I started to work with my eyes, using them to widen my experience (of the body/energy). It wasn't so much that I chose to use the eyes, it seemed more of a proces that was going on anyway. A proces that I could only choose to let happen or choose to work against. I think I've actively worked against that eye-energy it in previous sits, as the eyes are a 'dangerous' place in regard to evoking fatigue, as well as sucking up attention and by that messing up relatively balanced and solid states.

Then, when I got the widened experience, I would start doing other stuff, regarding breathing. Eg letting go of any sense of self in regards to breathing, then see where that sense of self goes and what the effect of that is. It all seemed very repeatable. Towards the end of the sit I drifted off into daydreams, thinking nice things. When I tried to turn my mind back on the meditation, part of me just wanted to keep on daydreaming. I didn't reach any decent levels of concentration after that and I got up around 30 seconds before the timer would have rang.

I dug up something by Trent I found applicable to the above:

Yes, it will work for meditating, too. Specifically in the context of programming, approach the mind like a system that needs debugging. Using concentration, stabilize the system so that it presents itself with minimal variability, and then tweak one of the variables. The mind will "parse" itself into a new iteration immediately after the variable switches, and, because the system was stabilized prior, you'll have a reasonable idea of what effect that change had on the system as a whole. For example: if you broaden your awareness, does this lead to a relative increase in agitation or does it lead to a relative increase in equanimity? Perform a quick analysis of the systemic change (this often does not even require thought), and then either revert to the previous variable or switch it to something new.

This is, in essence, testing cause and effect so as to understand it precisely. As your understanding of the specifics of causality improves, you can bring that knowledge to bare on achieving your goals. In fact, understanding causality and achieving your aims should go hand in hand, because as soon as you understand what leads to what, the simple steps to (re)program the system to function more optimally happen with a sense of obviousness.

"Oh...of course! This system works better if it's not virtually deadlocking every time a pretty girl walks by." Ha!



saturday 19-11-2011


60 minutes evening, again lotsof juice right at the start.

I felt my approach to the sit was a bit too careful. I was afraid to put into much effort and become tired. Either that, or I was too lazy (but most likely, the two, laziness and fear, are connected). I basically did the same thing I did in my previous sit, but didn't really dedicate myself to tune into the selfness of the breath. I did abide in the experience of fullness as this is and keeps being, easy to tune into. So, to summarize, the elements I'm working with:

Breath energy, moving it up from my feet to my chest on the inbreath and down again on the outbreath. most of the times requires effort. Can be done/happen effortlessly.

Pleasant breathing, while not working with the breath energy

Breathing without me doing the breathing (observer), usually I'll be experiencing breath energy and be in a wide focus. When I do this, I'm on a slippery slope, and I'll regress to a less concentrated state. Related to the head, and related to a diminishing of attention at the eyes.

Widening of attention, is related to fullness. It seems to relax muscles. Related to the eyes.

Fullness, a feeling of the whole body that is 'eating' the breath: resulting in An emotional fullness. Activating 'wide mode' gets me there. Strongly related to the flanks of my torso at the height of my belly.

Mental silence, not working with this.

Other elements:

fatigue, hmm.. best thing to do, is to incline away from it or stop and sleep
fear of fatigue, I'm thinking I sometimes fear fatigue. Perhaps even interpret certain sense-data as fatigue. It might cause me to put in less effort. Not sure.
nauseau, I can locate this in the body and well, I think I've figured out how to deal with it (don't worry about it, it's there, only in part of the body, and it's not really doing much other than being there).
thinking about other things (daydreaming). Hmm.. just a good idea to occasionally let the mind wander and refresh itself. It also shows how the conditioning of my mind persists during the meditation. The things I think about during the sit are also the things I think about when not sitting. It shows how mindfulness during the day would effect meditation.
wanting to get up, this usually means I'm nearing the end of the sit, so, just stay put and get back to enjoying the sit.
pain, not really present when doing meditation on a chair, but when present, all kinds of ways to deal with it. Persist through the pain for a while, and some balance will be struck eventually.

(ps there was quite a bit of nausea during the sit. this could be because I'm working with energy, but this could also be because I've been eating a lot of sugary subtances lately).



sunday 20-11-2011

52 minutes.

Quickly I became somewhat tired (I probably was tired before). Occasionally I wondered whether I was really tired or whether it was something else (not feeling well in some or other way). I'm pretty sure I was just tired and as always after such a sit, I went straight to bed after the sit. The sit itself didn't go terribly well. I did manage to resist the urge to get up for a while.

After I got out of bed (after doing the above meditation), I worked at the computer; stitching maps together I copied from google maps. I became irritated at the many misstakes I made. However when I stopped working at the computer and started doing chores such as washing the dishes, my attention was strong. There wasn't the sense that I normally have, namely that of trying to apply attention, and somehow being out of sync with what's happening: Eg placing a cup in the cupboard and placing on the wrong shelve etc. Doing the dishes came very natural and effortlessly. Included was an attention to detail. It occurred to me that all that I was doing, I was doing in order to be happy. All the attention to detail was functional in respect to making life easy and being happy, clean, pure, etc.


monday 21-11-2011

was thinking about the manner in which I was being attentive yesterday. It occurred to me that I wasn't paying attention to breath in any particular fashion. So what, one might wonder. Today I spend a great deal cultivating awareness of the breath while working. This work includes sorting mail as well as walking outside and actually delivering mail. When inside, doing sorting, I've not been succesful at staying with the breath. I found that the reason for this might be that when i try to be attentive to the breath, I also try to influence the breathing pattern. What I should do, is accept that the breath is a bit off (shallow, erratic, etc.).

The best time to be attentive to the breath is when I'm working outside, and then only when I'm walking, not when I'm busy taking a letter from the bundle I'm carrying, checking the address, and then insterting it into the mailslot. It seems though I can be with the breath as long as I don't try to influence it.

Now when actually being attentive, as in just being with what you are doing, and doing it well, the experience is that I've moved toward the sense of things happening on their own. Now, when trying to be attentive (thus not really being attentive, but trying to get there), I will also try to influence my behaviour (like I tried to influence my breath). It seems this trying (by way of influencing, changing), fucks up the attention. It fucks it up in a manner, that results in making misstakes, taking a left turn , when I should make a right, wanting to do two things at the same time, etc.

--

60 minutes

No urge to get up from sit. I think my mind is adjusting to the fact that 60 minutes is not a short sit, or at least is adjusting to the fact that it is not to be seen as, a short sit. Let's go over the elements I mentioned the 19th:


Breath energy, moving it up from my feet to my chest on the inbreath and down again on the outbreath. most of the times requires effort.

Pleasant breathing, not really working with this. there doesn't seem to be any necessity. I can skip this and just work with breath energy directly.

Breathing without me doing the breathing (observer), usually I'll be experiencing breath energy and be in a wide focus. When I do this, I'm on a slippery slope, and I'll regress to a less concentrated state. Related to the head, and related to a diminishing of attention at the eyes.

the above is what I wrote the last time. This time, I didn't work with the observer a lot. What happened was that I first started observing an image of my body, and that image slowly dissolved into physical sensations.

Widening of attention, it was less there than I would have expected it to be. Somehow I didn't go there alot. Either it wasn't working well, or I was being too careful.

Fullness, did get there a few times, should note next time how long I can stay with it, what it changes into etc.

fatigue, didn't bother me this time.
fear of fatigue, still not sure whether this is causing me to hold back. I do feel I could have gotten more out of this sit.
nauseau, quite a bit of nausea present

thinking about other things (daydreaming). This happened. I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but I think I was making at a good effort at one point, and then let it slip by daydreaming. Luckily it wasn't that hard to get to a full feeling again. The important point here is to not let myself get down if I fall back into thinking. It's not as hard to get back up again, as I might think.

wanting to get up, not really a problem this time.

pain, not really present when doing meditation on a chair, but when present, all kinds of ways to deal with it. Persist through the pain for a while, and some balance will be struck eventually.

tuesday 22-11-2011

28 minutes, evening, intended to sit 30. Tired. got up at 5:00, home at 20:00

wednesday 23-11-2

none?

thursday 24-11-2011

23 minutes, evening, intended to sit 30.

friday 25-11-2011

saturday 26-11-2011

60 minutes

30 minutes
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 1/21/12 6:13 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 1/21/12 6:13 PM

27/11/11 to 21/1/12

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
Almost two months have gone by. Lotsof issues popped up and those took precedence over and interfered with meditation practice. Thus I haven't meditated as often and as long as before, and mindfulness during the day was not that strong.

It does seem that the ground I covered thus far has not been totally lost. Some important 'conditionings' have stuck.

I expect to log my sits again, and start posting again next week.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 3/7/12 2:01 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/7/12 2:01 PM

RE: 27/11/11 to 21/1/12

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
Bart:

Almost two months have gone by. Lotsof issues popped up and those took precedence over and interfered with meditation practice. Thus I haven't meditated as often and as long as before, and mindfulness during the day was not that strong.

It does seem that the ground I covered thus far has not been totally lost. Some important 'conditionings' have stuck.

I expect to log my sits again, and start posting again next week.


I had hoped to start doing some serious meditationing, but things didn't work out that way. Recently I moved, and I have no tv and no Internet and plan on keeping it that way. Sofar, it's doing my practice good. It's allowed me to not to waste valuable energy and meditate an hour a day, one half in the morning, the other half in the evening.

As far as the ground that was covered. Indeed it was not totally lost, but still stuff was lost: I can't get the sensation or impression that I'm eating the breath (breathing being fullfulling like eating is). I recently listened to thanissaro bhikkhu audio talk in which he described that sensation. I'm sure serious practice will get stuff rolling again though.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 3/18/12 4:58 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/18/12 4:58 PM

RE: 27/11/11 to 21/1/12

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
I continued practicing an hour a day on average. Purely samatha, no insight, 30 minute sits. I often find myself sitting after the timer rings, just to relish/taste the experience. That might be just a few minutes though.

I find it often helps to throw in a bit of appreciation of whatever experience I'm having (appreciating the fact that it often is relatively calm), on as well as off the cushion. I suppose this appreciation is needed to get in touch with the good stuff that I'm experiencing, rather than identify with the part of me that's rejecting my experience (the bad parts of it). It seems it thus just boils down to tuning into pleasantness.

What also often helps is that when the experience is that of imbalance (while meditating), I remind myself that a better state can appear at any moment. This seems to take care of any negativity/ takes away the edge of such an experience.

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but often there's a shift to a more balanced state, during or just after I'm distracted by random thoughts. These distractions seem to cause a release or relaxation from whatever I was doing (eg trying to direct the breath energy).

For my upcoming sits.. thinking about trying to make my sits more dynamic. With that I mean, giving the body whatever it needs (I read that in Josh's thread), rather than trying to fit it into a mold (eg trying to direct the bodily energy in a particular way, a particular way that felt great at some time in some other sit). Perhaps find some hybrid way, by making static approaches more dynamic.
Bart Castelijns, modified 12 Years ago at 3/21/12 3:28 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 3/21/12 3:21 PM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
today I sat with the intention to just sit and do nothing else than that. Practically that meant I wasn't going to try to induce pleasurable sensations. However the breath energy and other pleasant feelings and sensations appeared regardless.

The following model occurred to me: When sitting, satisfying craving/dealing with pain can happen in the following ways:

1 get up
2 get into a thinking state
3 get into an emotional state
4 get into a sleepy state
5 increase the pleasurable feelings/sensations


What I wonder now is if meditating is perhaps more about denying access to 1 2 3 and 4, than it is about pushing oneself to 5. If 1 2 3 and 4 are closed, the 'stream of craving' will automatically flow to 5.
Bart Castelijns, modified 11 Years ago at 5/10/12 5:25 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 5/10/12 5:25 PM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

Posts: 57 Join Date: 8/12/10 Recent Posts
I'm stopping this practice. Maybe i will return to it later. Generally it's brought me endurance in cognitive tasks. eg I can read longer periods of time. It also helped to improve my baseline mood, it became a lot easier to just feel well. It has also given me the ability to look inwards. Before, whenever I tried to look inwards (eg wonder how I feel or feel out an issue) or try to be attentive, I would become tired.

I'm stopping because I was told I'm doing the practice the wrong way and that I should seek a teacher. As I might need that persons guidance in the future I will stop it for the time being, and only do noting practice (without a teacher..).
Jake T Smith, modified 11 Years ago at 6/26/12 7:41 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 6/26/12 7:41 AM

RE: Castelijns's concentration practice

Posts: 19 Join Date: 5/15/12 Recent Posts
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