Hit the 'more messages' threshold, starting a new log. Old log is here: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/22873023.

1.5 hour sit today starting at 10:30am. Focused on seeing suffering and trying find what is 'bad' in it. Gradually felt as though I got a better sense of how suffering is made. Had some tension and shaking, some release. Pretty high clarity throughout the sit, a bit of mind wandering. Eventually got a sense that some tipping point had been reached and that presence was very low effort and and getting caught up in content was less default.

I locked your old thread just now, Logan. Hope that's ok.

Chris
​​​​​​​DhO Moderator

Makes sense - thanks for the heads up!

1.5 hour sit today starting at 10:30am. Some metta to start, then first and second jhana. First jhana came quickly, pretty intense, but also slippery. Second jhana got very stable, and then I just sat in awareness, letting the little feedback-loop of attention burn in the chest like a little ember, gently fanned by each breath.

Looked for self in sensation. Gradual sense of everything being the same thing developed, like even the way that thoughts are held in the mind is also a thought, the way sensations are framed is a thought, and all of these things are just samey mental objects. As this sense stabilized, started trying to see what suffering is. Didn't get a conclusive sense about it exactly - just looked at it. Eventually this sort of all-pervading discontent with the way things are became apparent in awareness as a kind of mental object that habitually manufactures suffering. First reaction to it was to get mad, then quickly also saw that this same reflex has a lot of hope for how things could be in it, and had some self compassion. Then just sat and tried to clarify how this fits into awareness and what it has to do with suffering.

1.5 hour sit today starting at 11:00am. Just sat without trying to change things. Pretty sleep and daydreamy.

1 hour sit today starting at 11:00am. Sat in open awareness, and kept attention on what it felt like to exist in each moment, while also periodically checking the factors of awakening. Realized I was pretty zoned out generally speaking, might need to up the concentration and mindfulness.

1 hour sit today at 11:30am. Tried to see the sensations of the moment as fully as possible, noticing any memories of previous moments, thoughts, feelings etcetera all as things happening in the present moment. Generally fairly high energy and clarity, but some mind wandering. Occaisonally tried to relax sensations of judgeing or analyzing.

1 hour sit today at 9:00am. Sat in open awareness for a while. Had some daydreamyness, then noticed that I was zoning out and things clarified somewhat. Then just looked at suffering for a while, trying to see why it is bad, where the badness is. This led to chasing around in the mind looking for who the suffering was happening to for a while. Eventually, got an interesting sense of feeling the space between things, or the sense of space, like how sensations are localized relative to eachother, as just more sensations. Got curious about this and investigated it for a while. This seems to have something to do with how a sense of a separate self is constructed. It seems like the feeling of 'separateness' is just that - a feeling.

"Realized I was pretty zoned out generally speaking, might need to up the concentration and mindfulness."

Maybe good timing for Tonglen a la Shargrol  

great subject this one is, the thinking "I need to up the concentration and mindfulness" and also the "not perfect zoned-out ness". 

Best wishes Logan!  

1 hour sit today, starting at 3:30pm. Looked at the space between things. Had some under-water dreamyness for a bit, then things got a bit more intense. Had some waves of muscle-tension and rushing feelings. Kept looking at how every experience of a sense of space existing as a place for things to happen in is essentially a combination of thought/feeling. As I noticed some suffering occurring, this made it more obvious that it wasn't happening to anyone as that kind of sepparation was a thought also - rather it was just happening. I had the thought while this was occuring that it felt like something was close to being seen or collapsing or something, but that's just a thought.

Thanks! I will keep that in mind! Currently I don't know that it's a topic with a ton off suffering around it currently -- once I notice it it's not a 'problem' haha. Just been noting that the mind tends to go very far away occaisonally these days, and it's only later that I notice that I was just sitting there with pretty low mental activity. I will keep it in my back pocket and try it out though!

Woke up in the middle of the night last night and couldn't fall back to sleep, so ended up listening to a dharma talk. It mentioned something about how the taste of reality is a fruit that starts out bitter and then gets sweeter as its eaten, and that really clicked for whatever reason. Got a sense that the suffering and contraction and tension I've been experiencing are things that are just part of the texture of reality, and that I can just let that be rather than trying to escape it. 1 hour sit today, starting at 11:00am. Really feels like something flipped over. Was able to just see much of what I'd thought of as suffering as more like just 'isness'. As thoughts arose, looked at how they fit into this isness. As pangs of suffering appeared, just looked at how they are part of the texture of living.

Was listening to a Ram Dass talk last night. In one part he discussed loving other beings in an unconditional way, not attempting to own them, etcetera, and it really resonated with me. The whole notion that the other being is in a sense a way for love to arise in our experience, and so we cling to it as a source of love, wasn't something I'd thought about before. It reminded me, funnily enough, about a section from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, where the author recounts speaking to a man who has fallen out of love with his wife - the spark is gone. The author tells him, 'then love her.' Love has always felt that way intuitively to me as something we do or something we are, rather than something we get from someone somehow.

How this all connects with my present experience is that I've been struggling a bit with the notion of 'things being perfectly fine the way they are'. Part of my experience is always yelling 'No! There is suffering here and it is unbearable! It shouldn't be like this!'. I've been getting more and more glimpses of a sort of time-less now where everything is fine, periods of equanimity in meditation where everything is fine, etcetera, but then I end up back in normal life where experience tends to be full of resistance in a very tangible, physical, painful way in the body. As much as I try to accept it, there definitely is a tendancy to just want it to go away.

It never occurred to me that I could just love the present moment. I guess I think of loving someone as loving them, not in spite of their flaws, but rather because of their flaws in some sense -- they are perfect just the way they are. That's what love is, at least to me. And the people I love ultimately exist in awareness, and so does the love for them. Why not allow this love to permeate awareness? It feels like I can finally see some of what Eckhart Tolle is saying when he discusses just sitting in a park bench in absolute bliss experiencing the now, or what the non-duality folks are pointing at with how prescence can become the dominant way of being, or the various discussions of feeling 'one with the universe'. I feel like I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to see 'isness', but I haven't been sure how to stabilize it or even what to do with it really, and one answer might be simply to love it.

Sat for 1 hour today, and just focused on that sense of loving the universe. Put some various self inquiry questions in there to help focus things, but really I think just consciously loving whatever arose in experience was the main thing. Cried a bit. Strong sense of opening.

1 hour sit today in open awareness. Lovingly accepted all that arose. Had some mind wandering, but generally clarity and and energy and equanimity were high. A bit of daydreamyness for the last couple minutes.

half hour sit today looking at self thoughts. There is a sense of seeing a 'relational self', sort of the self that gets built in order for there to be something to suffer, something to exist in the world, something to experience feelings like 'spaciousness'. But that self is just part of each of these thoughts - it doesn't seem to exist independantly. Thinking back on experience so far, it seems the most obvious thing that wasn't 'I' was the narrating thoughts, then it was revealed that emotions were also not 'I', and yet somehow 'I' still suffered by being around these things, perhaps via these relating thoughts that sort of bind together different pieces of experience and make an 'I' that they are happening to. Had some body tension and muscle spasms.

Maybe we only "insist" (read believe) that there is some suffering, some self in disguise that hangs there through time. 

We sure see on cushion when vipassanazing that all objects observed are DO and they are but a fraction that arise-pass very fast so all is but a flicker and yet at times there is this "something" that seems to creep in time dragging along all those sceletons from our closet making things smell bad  

I have no solution or a tip and just wanted to drop by and say hi and keep up the good work  

​​​​​​​Best wishes! 

1 hour sit today, self inquiry with 'Who Am I'. Started off very daydreamy and far off, and things gradually clarified and concentrated, and energy got pretty high. Some muscle tension and spasming. I am starting to notice in everyday life that my thoughts are often not true, like for example in the morning the thought/feeling arises 'I'm too tired to get up -- I need to lie here for a little while and maybe scroll the internet a bit', but then I can just get up and everything is fine. It doesn't have the feeling of overriding the tiredness with willpower, which would take mental energy, but rather just realizing that the thoughts aren't true, which takes seemingly no energy. Reminds me of the thing with the snake and the rope. Doesn't work for everything though -- some resistance maybe needs to be more seen or something.

Thanks, I appreciate the visit - there's a lot of wanting and urgency around practicing these days, it's nice not to feel totally on my own with it.

That "something" is heavy these days - you sure you don't have a solution? I could use it haha!

I definitely get the feeling that suffering stems from belief - I just can't figure out how to not believe it it!

Hope you are well!

Went for a 40 minute run. I'm just getting back into regular exercise, so it was reasonably difficult and painful. During the whole process, whenever I'd notice the mind would start making problems (this stitch in my side is too much to bear, I should take a break, how much is left, etc.) I would just try to notice it and be present. Part way through, I tried to notice the problem and then ask 'what would it be like to experience this instant with an open heart?'. This made for a nice run and good feelings of presence and well-being. The inherent discomfort in running made the 'making problems' mind activity much more obvious - it was a good teacher.

1 hour sit today starting at 2:30pm. Pretty daydreamy, a few moments of high-resolution imagery. Kinda spaced out.

1 hour sit today starting at 10:30am. Self inquiry with 'who am I'. Periodically also tried to relax and open the heart. This got very daydreamy for 15 minutes or so. Kind of spaced out, but with a tiny process still asking 'who am I'. Then had a 'bolt-of-lightning' arrival of an isness that was somehow more spatial than I've previously experienced. I'm not reall sure if it was a cessation, as I was pretty out of it prior. After that, presence stayed high for the rest of the sit. After a bit, I felt I was zeroing in on what I was asking 'who am I about' as 'who wants' -- like who wants suffering to stop, who wants to think about something, etcetera. It seems like the only thing I can find is that the wanting sort of arises on its own in connection with sensations, but wanting seems to imply a self, as preference seems to need there to be an 'something' that prefers, but this something can't be found anywhere! In spite of this, there is a lot of wanting. But who wants!?

The other meaning of wanting is lacking ... so you could also ask what is missing?!

1 hour sit. At first kept asking 'what is wanting' or 'what is lacking' about the suffering in awareness, and didn't really get anywhere with this, other that it just highlighted that the suffering just kind of happens. Went back to asking 'Who am I'. Had a couple more strong and spacious 'isness' events, that I think were preceded by cessations. Tried to really probe at this space when it would show up and see what it was. Had some funny breathing and vague suffocating feelings a few times, tried to just ask them 'Who am I' - i.e. see if they are part of me, are they self, etcetera. Awareness generally quite strong throughout, some periods of pretty high equanimity.

1 hour sit today at 11:00am. Asked 'Who Am I' for a bit, got pretty spaced out. Then switched to just trying see the senses in awareness as clearly as possible, then tried to see suffering was, and tried to see how it related to the senses and what the 'mental tone' was when looking at suffering vs looking at sensation.

1 hour sit today at 11:00am. Spent some time immersing myself in the senses, got the sense that when suffering triggered from the senses starts happening, the actual sensations under the suffering are kind of ignored, funnily enough. Fair bit of body discomfort today. Also did some self inquiry with 'Who am I?' and 'What is now?'.

Hi mate sorry for late reply. I've got a new job, working the docks, heavy lifting, and lousy pay, mingling amongst the bottom dwellers of our society. Mostly tired but this work did open me eyes towards reactive patterns. 8 hours of heavy lifting and not much break does create all sorts of unfolding to be clearly observed (simply just seen). Its a theatre show my friend

​​​​​​​Thanks to the practice we do , we get to the point of seeing stuff unfolding in "real life" and we see it as Not Me, as Impermanent and as Dukkha (if clinging to it). Now, at home, amongst my family I find the unfolding to be more "solid" and gives more of that "solid" sense of self, or at least , "Im in it" kind of, "more invested" into annoyance or other stuff. Work in progress I guess. Yes, if you insist on a practice, I can warmly suggest using Shargrol's Tonglen! It doesn't seem much I know but boy does it do things once you give it time (use it daily as soon you find stuff being too much or lacking or ... ) I did copy-paste it to you once in here if I remember correctly! I have it in one of my journals.

Best wishes!

1 hour sit today starting at 11:00am. Sat in open awareness, just looking at the contents of awareness. Had some daydreamyness, then moved into higher intensity, had some fear/suffocating feelings. However, these feelings were more apparently 'not me' than I have experienced before - they didn't derail the open awareness, and I just saw them as things arising. Likewise for some tensions and spasms. Had moments where everything seemed to have the same character to it, suffering, visual sensation, body sensation, etcetera. It was all the same 'awareness stuff'.

Glad to hear the work is conducive to presence! Mine is a bit the opposite these days - lost in my own fabricated world doing remote work on the computer. Lots of time in the same place. Trying to get out more.

I've tried out the Tonglen a few times, and don't feel like I've totally cracked the code on it yet. There's part of my mind in the background that goes 'but you're not really taking on this suffering from others', and it kind of derails things.

If it does not resonate with you at this time put a cork in it and test it another time.  

" It was all the same 'awareness stuff'. "

Hmm, ... maybe you could consider the 'Look how its ..." practice instead. What you report here seems like the "You" knows all this awareness shoit so well Time to reflect onto this knower of all this awareness stuff  

Look how it thinks it knows all this awareness, look how its bored with all this stuff, look how it thinks its in EQ Nana, look how its anticipating attainment, look how its having fear and spasms ... etc ... i usually do this aloud but silent is as good. 

Just an idea which of course might not suit you. You claim your practice!
Enough of me  
​​​​​​​Best wishes!

1 hour sit today. Watched a video about strong determination sitting recently, decided to try that. Resolved to not move at all throughout the sit. Sitting in a chair, so not so painful to start out with. Tried to keep attention in the senses. When the mind would freak out a bit, I'd mentally note 'Look how it's freaking out', or 'Look how it thinks it can't keep going'. Eventually had some pretty terrible itches, and some weird pains. There was one moment when all of the suffering in the body clarified and became somehow luminous and joyous for a moment, but that faded quickly and it only really happened once. Had some zoning out, but that was lessened quite a bit by maintaining posture.

I've been playing around with this, and I like it! Thanks! It seems to keep things a bit more metacognitive, as well as making it less likely that I become what ever suffering is kicking around.

1 hour sit today at 10:30am. Awareness in the senses, but tried to also notice any thoughts with the 'Look how its ...' thing. Pretty daydreamy.

30 minute sit today, occaisonally asking 'What would it be like to experience this moment with an open heart'? Just kept asking that around whatever arose, some suffering, some tension, some mind wandering, etcetera. Awareness was quite bright.

30 minute sit today loving everything that arose in awareness. Mostly peaceful sit, with a few moments of intensity, and generally high clarity.

Finished a 3.5 day non-dual zoom retreat earlier today. Each day had a guided meditation, a talk, a Q&A session, and a poetry reading session. Much of the rest of the time was made up of 40 minute solo meditation sessions with 10 minute breaks in between, and a 3 hour break in the middle of the day. During that break, I would generally prepare food for the day and go on a long walk in nature, trying to be very mindful throughout, and generally experience everything with an open heart, trying to suffuse awareness with love.

On the first day I zoned out quite a lot, but had a couple meditations with higher energy and muscle spasms. I generally either rested in awareness or did self-inquiry, according to what felt right. I also had one meditation with a very distinctive sense of awareness warping, like parts of me were getting bigger/smaller.

On the second day, there was less zoning out and more energy, as well as some fear. I used more self-inquiry this day, in particular trying to get at the sense of who is resisting emotions/sensations, with questions like 'Who suffers?', 'Who is opposed to this?', and 'Who wants?'. This all felt like it wasn't getting anywhere throughout the day, but kept at it. While listening during poetry reading, I found myself very emotional and ended up silently crying through a fair bit of it.

On the third day, more of a sense of what I was getting at: specifically trying to de-identify from emotions, so that they can just occur without me pushing them away or chasing after them. During the talk, the notion that there's no reason that all experience needs to feel good came up, and that kind of clicked with me. I realized that, for example, I love backpacking in the mountains. My legs burn and the pack chafes and I sleep on the ground, but these things make the experience more, not less, despite at face value being considered 'uncomfortable'. I most of this day examining uncomfortable emotions and sensations, trying to split apart the sensations that make them up from the resistance to those sensations. I also noticed that much of my behaviour is driven by a sort of background 'wanting', like a void that I'm trying to fill. In the past, this 'void' feeling has had me overeat, binge-watch TV, etcetera. I was outside on one of my nature walks when I realized that I could just look at this void feeling as sort of my own personal void that I get to carry with me, and that it doesn't actually need anything, it just is.

This morning, we went through a guided meditation on 'formlessness' which clicked with me in a way it never has before. I was able to intimately experience the way things are all sort of empty and all perfect. I sat with this feeling without taking breaks for the rest of the morning. I noticed at one point that the 'suffusing awareness with love' thing was happening automatically.

It will be interesting to see how much of this remains as distance builds from the intensity here. Currently, I feel as though what I consider to be 'resting in awareness' has gotten 'more' somehow - not bigger, if anything, more intimate and close, with less of a sense of space involved and more of an intermingling. I'm not totally sure I'd say that I've de-identified from emotions, but I've made progress for sure.

30 minute sit today, drinking coffee and resting in formless awareness. Worked to let down my guard and let in everything.

Sounds like a good cup of coffee me friend  

​​​​​​​Best wishes! 

30 minute sit today, looking for the distinction between uncomfortable sensations and the rejection of that experience. Good clarity and energy. Starting to notice that uncomfortable emotions seem to have a 'weight' more like uncomfortable sensations now, like a sensation of mild anxiety bothers me about as much as a mild stomach-ache.

Thanks! It's been a bit of a funny couple days - yesterday, I was operating on very little sleep, because I was kept awake by a strong nervous energy, as well as a very pointed tingling/pressure directly between the eyes and about 3/4 inch up, right where it seems like 'third-eye' stuff is reported to happen. That's something I'd thought of as basically woo stuff, but it's interesting to see that it might come from some real body phenomena that can happen somewhere along the path. All of that's gradually subsiding and I was able to get to sleep quicker last night.

How's the new job?

New job is getting older and me body stiffer as the Xmas packages are getting more numerous and much heavier with each passing day. 
Just now took a painkiller as the stiff muscles of neck and shoulders are creating some kind of dull but strong headache. 

Im getting too old for this shit!  

Back after a break from meditation since Christmas. Noticed a bit more anxiety than usual cropping up recently, so figured best get back to it! Have done a few 30 min sits in the last couple weeks that were a bunch of zoning out. Went back to basics today with something pretty TWIM flavoured - just focused on noting any impulse triggering thought occuring in the mind other that just feeling sensations and then relaxing and accepting that impulse as part of the panorama of sensations. Still some mind wandering, but wasn't at all startled when the timer went off, which seems in general to be a good sign.

30 minute sit today. Was listening to a Dhammarato discussion around fatigue yesterday, in which he recommended more active involvement during the meditation making use of the breath, i.e. breathing deeply and trying to be aware of the effect of the breath on the sensations around fatigue (or at least that's how I understood it). Decided to try to incorporate that into my practice as a way to mitigate dullness and stay alert.

Made up a technique that goes as follows:

Breathing in deeply, let a feeling of love for the universe suffuse through awareness with the in-breath. In particular, there is a sensation of opening in the center of the chest. This is with broad awareness generally, but letting attention find any tension sensations of 'holding on to something' and especially suffusing that part of awareness.

Then breathing out, letting awareness dance across any tension sensations associated with thoughts or emotions and gently relaxing them, kind of in a TWIM style.

This produced a consistently bright and panoramic awareness with some bliss. I've noticed that extended deep breathing can produce some blissey sensations, so that might be part of what's going on. Definitely some mind-wandering in there, but I've noticed that when I change techniques there's usually some of that, as though because the ruts in the path are not very worn yet, it's easy for the mind to jump out and go somewhere else, so not a big deal.

I think the motivation for this technique is that I've noticed that I'm basically a collection of habits, like tense up and worry when this kind of thought arises, or hunt for answers when this kind of thought arises, etc. It seems like at this point a productive thing to do, in terms of reducing overall suffering, might be to attempt to actively build different habitual responses. Certainly during meditation I have had periods where I can seemingly just not bother with the thoughts at all, but off of the cushion, some kind of habitual response seems inevitable (or is it?) so I might as well build 'good' habits. In general, I'd like to encourage habits of panoramically loving the present moment and relaxing, so I think I'll focus my meditation on that for a bit, and try to make that practice happen as much off of the cushion as I can as well.

30 minute sit today looking at sensations of self arising in awareness. Pretty bright mind generally, some wandering. Most practice lately has been off the cushion, but it feels as though it's stagnated lately, so feels like it might be time to sit more. Not totally sure what's the best thing to do these days. Whenever I bring my attention to it, it seems reasonably clear that sensations just arise and pass, and that's all there is. Still reasonably easy to find myself mindlessly being a self in everyday life though, with all the troubles that brings. I catch it quicker though!

30 minutes sit today trying to see the self arise with preferences, like seeing a bodily discomfort make a self, or seeing a preference to have wandering thoughts give rise to self. Good energy, some kind of rapturey stuff, generally bright mind. Started even seeing the preference to have the meditation go the 'right' way as distinct from awareness of it occuring.

30 minute sit. Went through jhanas 1-3 then stayed there, looking for traces of self throughout. A little dullness and dreamyness toward the end.

30 minute sit today. I've been feeling like I'm at a sort of cross-roads, like in meditation it's been a lot of doing stuff, and what I need is not-doing, but how does one do not-doing haha? I guess part of it has been noticing that a lot of life is sort of not-doing anyway. Yesterday I was washing the dishes, and I kept noticing I had absolutely no idea what specific action I would do next, like 'oh I guess I just flipped the pot sideways to check if it was clean on that side - I had no idea that was going to happen', or 'I guess I'm putting this in the dishwasher - that actually happened by itself and I didn't know it was going to happen'.

For my practice today, I sat noticing sensations and basically trying to embrace my reaction to them. Like would note some discomfort, and then would see how the physical sensations would result in a 'not-wanting' reaction, and would just open my heart to that and say 'Hey, it's working exactly how it's supposed to - it's all perfect!' Similar with mind wandering, etcetera.

Mind was very bright the whole time - quite alert.

This sounds like "noticing the not-doing in the doing and the doing in the not-doing"

It raises the question - what is the difference between doing and not-doing, other than the presence/absence of the thought 'I am doing X'?

Yeah that's interesting! Is that from a sutta or a map or something? I played around with that in meditation today, sort of trying to tune out all of the spatial-relationship subject-object thought texture and just tune into raw sensation, and there really seems to be no sense of 'doing' in the sensations. But also, when I tune into the sort of 'relationships between things' texture and try to just see it, it's sort of made of the same stuff as the raw sensation, and it's not apparent that there's doing anywhere other than in those 'I'm doing X' thoughts. Even under scrutiny those thoughts are revealed as not actually doing, like they have the same quality as the thoughts from doing the dishes, like I have no idea those thoughts are going to show up.

30 minutes today, good mind was quite bright and attention/focus seems to be improving.

30 minute sit today, in and out of dullness and brightness, looking for self and trying to have a light touch and let things happen. Some discomfort, tried to see where the raw sensations ended and the aversion began.

30 minute sit today. Had some discomfort, tried to find how self emerged from it. Gradually this shifted into a more explicit rapid noting of the no-self characteristic of the discomfort. Had very distinctive misery, disgust, and desire for deliverance nanas show up. Some weirdness that could have been reobservation. Interesting how little 'teeth' they seem to have now. Misery felt somewhat sweet, disgust purifying, and desire for deliverance oddly exhalting. They almost felt more like properties of space rather than things happening to me, though that might not quite be the right way of putting it.

30 minute sit. Some dukkha nana-ey stuff, some daydreamyness and minor visuals, some sleepiness.

This is a typical experience of the dukkha nanas in the latter stages of awakening.

Ah it's nice to hear I have the appearance of being on some kind of reasonable path -- I've had the sense that I've been kind of ambling along in the right direction lately, but a fair bit of it's a bit vague feeling!

30 minute sit, reading another log saw a prompt from SigmaTropic about buzziness and impermanence and it occurred to me I think I've tended more to dullness than not lately, so I decided to get some impermanence in there. I've been on a real no-self kick lately though, so I basically tried to see all sensations that have a sense of self associated with, noting them as rapidly as possible, probably 7 or 8 per second.

Something interesting I noticed while doing this is that I think I have a mental habit of trying to sort of 'relax away' the sense of self, that I probably picked up from the TWIM stuff. I think at that point in my path that might have been basically fine, in that it helped quiet the mind and let me get into equanimity. However, I've been reading a variety of stuff that basically posits the essential notion that we're all already enlightened or whatever, that there's nothing to get, etcetera. I'm hesitant to totally buy into this line of reasoning, but it's prompted me to be a little less forceful with things, allowing for the possibility that the whole thing is sort of just right in front of me if I could just get out of my own way a bit.

So today I tried instead to not do this (haha which since it is a habit became sort of a 'doing' which is funny, but hey) and just instead let those self sensations do whatever they want. It's clearer now that they're just sensations, and it seems silly to have tried to make them do anything, and further more, in a way it was those sensations sort of trying to make themselves go away and sometimes getting frustrated about it. Not messing about actually let them sit more clearly in awareness, and also kept awareness bright.

Interestingly, after doing this for a bit, the self sensations got a sudden tendancy to sort of really diminish, like kind go away underwater, and awareness got super slow and quiet, but not in a dull way - it was still noted pretty rapidly. This oscillated a little, sometimes with thoughts getting curious and trying to see the self senses clearer again, sometimes with things diminishing, then the bell rang.

"You are already enlightened" is true ... on the understanding that 'you' does not refer to any kind of persistent stable entity or identity

I like what you say about the silliness of sensations trying to make themselves go away 

30 minute sit today. Noticing the impermanence/no-self characteristic of sensations. Had a mind wander where I sort of noticed through the transition back to attention that the only difference was the return of a sort of 'I am meditating' thought. Distinctive dukkha nnanas sense today, got into equanimity for a few minutes before the bell range. Not much dullness to speak of. Another thing I noticed was that even awarness isn't 'I' - it's no more than whatever subtle cascade of sensations is arising.

I'd say trying to make things be a way in regular life is decreasing, including trying to be super mindful all of the time. Hard to say if this is just laziness or actually starting to let go of something haha.

Haha yeah in some ways the meditation feels oddly futile these days, maybe that's the wrong word, more like predetermined or something, like whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. It's all just kind of stuff happening, including any preferences show up about how it's going.

30 minute sit today. Looking mostly at impermanence. Pretty distinctive dukkha nanas, then some other waves of intensity, then very daydreamy, then maybe a cessation or near miss, a bit vague.

What did the near miss feel like and how did you experience it?

1 hour sit today. Focused on the impermanence of self-ey sensations, went through the dukkha nanas very distinctly. During misery, it occurred me my why they seem to have so little 'teeth' to me these days - they are 100% not me. They're just happening - i don't become them whatsoever. Like they still cause mild discomfort in the body and general thought disruption, but any discomfort experienced is just from that fallout, and the general sense is calm.

This lead me to be curious about where remaining suffering is even coming from. Why do I still feel like a sepparate self that has problems? Most gross thoughts are pretty clearly seen to be arising on their own and not a big deal and not a self. Emotional stuff also seems to generally not be a self. Yet there is still a sense that there is space and prioception, and than there is a self somewhere at the center of that, so I started looking at mostly the impermanence of the sense of there being a distinct source in 3D body space of sensations arising.

This seemed to bump me onto a different track of sorts, and I went through the dukkha nanas again in a way that felt a bit new and more intimate. Had one sort of moment of clarity where I felt like the 'sense of space' informational component of sensations came into sharp focus for a bit, but it didn't last too long. Honestly felt a bit dissoriented when the bell rang - haha I guess deconstructing the sense of space might do that.

I was very daydreamy, with a sense of flowing visual forms of people and shapes in the minds eye, and a kind of sense of tuning between radio channels in a sort of auditory sense. Still was noting, but I kind of shifted from impermanence to the (no)-self sensations arising as the frequency decreased and mind slowed down a little. Then I had a distinctive sort of 'space rotating away' sense, and had a very high clarity sense of presence accompanied by a sort of 'space-fizzing' kind of sense that everything was the kind of same, humming phenomena.

It felt kind of like no-self cessations I've had in the past, but the actual blip away and back was not perceptible, so who knows. I'm in some ways not super worried about it right now - I'd say it all felt very review-ey, which is just fine -- I've been building up momentum after taking some time off from meditation, kind of feeling out what I'm even doing with it currently.

Yeah things can get a little trippy when you start deconstructing the sense of having a body located in space

Here's a few questions and games I've played around with to probe the model:

- Where in space do thoughts occur?
- How do you know that you have a head?
- Imagine your thoughts occurring in someone else's head, in another object, or in a different room/place
- How do you know that you have a body?
- Imagine the sense of proprioception extending outside your body, imbuing objects with sensations!
- Imagine small objects as being very big (or vice versa)

45 minute sit today, looking at spatial sensations. Went through what felt like review dukkha nanas, then got into unknown territory, a bit twitchy. Then things got very clear for a bit, and had some weird sensations of space collapsing away for a bit several times. It reminded me of an experience of formlessness I had while on a zoom retreat in December, where everything kind of merged together. That sense of losing track of sepparation between things built in frequency and duration during the sit. I think the main aspect of the spatial sense I was noticing could maybe best be described as emptyness- like basically this subtle thing is sort of another sensation -- space isn't 'special'. Some mind wandering here and there, and noticed how the sensation of mind wandering sometimes comes with a sense of spatial distance, like I've wandered away somewhere else physically in space. Toward the end of the sit things got murky and slow and sleepy.

1 hour sit today, looking at spatial sensations. Some random waves of intensity, then some bright clarity, then slow murk that had a bit of an unconcious feel to it. Kind of dreamy and disconnected. Kept trying to note spatial sensations. Eventually got back into some brightness and intensity, kind of disorienting. Eventually settled into a space with a very bright clear tone of feeling like I was about to be ill, and just looked at that I what it was that was going to be ill, and how those related spatially.

1 hour sit today. Looking at the sense of space. Not quite noting, more probing around in awareness. Distinct sense of going through the dukkha nanas today. Disgust had the same weird quiet pure tone to it, other nanas seemed more familiar but more intimate. Interesting to start seeing the sense of spaciousness as just a sense, almost claustrophobic, though that's just a sense too haha. Generally quite bright awareness, not much dullness or mind wandering, though definitely some. One thing I did for quite a bit of the sit is to try to catch the sense of space arising from a sensation as distinct from the mental image of that sensation in space, like if I feel a tingle on my arm, there's a sense of where that tingle is as a piece of information, which then gets turned into a sort of visualization of that point on the body. Trying to see the difference between those two.

1 hour sit today. Radiated metta, and looked at any spatial sensations that arose. Went through the dukkha nanas. Misery, Disgust, and Desire for Deliverance all had a sense of being a very pure 'feeling tone' today. Radiating metta gave a strong sense of a center, which was useful to investigate. Sort of ended up being an  almost automatic no-self investigation, kind of got the disassociating effect of repeating the same word over and over until it detaches from its meaning. Had several moments where it seemed clear that the entire sense of a self at a center was just sensations. Oscillating in and out of daydreamy and very quiet and clear at the end. Generally bright with only one distinct period of dullness.

1 hour sit today, radiating metta and looking at spatial sensations. Distinct dukkha nanas, desire for deliverance in particular very intense. Mind a bit wandery, pretty daydreamy. Generally lots of waves of intensity. Had a period later on of crystal clear quiet neutrality, probably lasted a minute or so. Interesting moment where I had a very itchy nose for a bit, and tried to see what the difference was between the sense of a nose slightly out there being itchy, and the sort of central tension feeling of being a self, seems difficult to differentiate.

1 hour sit today. Pretty vague, lots of mind wandering and daydreamyness. Went through dukkha nanas. Had a sense of letting go of being attached to being an independant entity and a sort of willingness to be a conduit for grace, though these were also just some mind wandering thoughts.

1 hour sit today looking at spatial sensations. Was drinking my coffee for the first bit, interesting to try to see where the flavour actually arises  - it's not really in the tongue, more in the whole head. This is kind of a trip because the physical contact sensations are happening in the mouth, which gives the flavour a kind of unearthly disembodied feel when I pay attention to it.

Distinct dukkha nanas today. Then got into some really deep down territory where almost everything kind of went away for a while. Looking at spatial sensations as they slowly arose, got a weird sense of being in a space with almost nothing in it, as there'd just be one bubble of 'space'-ness and then nothing.

Eventually got into some very quiet and neutral mind, made it easier to try to focus on the spatial sensations of being an 'I', sort of saw how where I would consider myself to reside has something to do with the eyes, which are just producing sensations, and something to do with some tension in the throat/face area, and something to do with the feeling of the muscles around the skull, but actually not really in the brain area.

I think there was some dullness today, I was a bit suprised when the bell rang. Might need to crank up the impermanence investigation again.

1 hour 15 minute sit today. Investigating the impermanence of the spatial aspect of sensations. Really focused on trying to see the difference between the initial nudge of a sense of a sensation being somewhere in particular and the thoughts about where the sensation existed in the body (or in the environment for sounds). Very strong and distinct dukkha nanas. Fear in particular welled up like a tide, seeming to get more and more all encompassing. Still interestingly not a big deal, just a thing happening.

After that, oscillated in and out of increasing quiet clarity and increasing daydreamyness for a while, then ended up in a stable quiet. Here, it became apparent that I was synthesizing a whole 'space of awareness' in which space sensations could even exist. Like this construct needs to exist to distinguish pixels in the visual field as spatially related to eachother, the sensation in the body as spatially related to eachother, etcetera. As I looked at the impermanence of this, it became increasingly strobey, like all of space was arising and passing with a period of about 1/2 - 1/3 second intervals. At some point it had the sense that it just a failed to arise at all for a moment, then had a big charge of energy and a sense of a space without space somehow. I don't really know how to describe it.

After this settled down, this seemed pretty clearly to have been a cessation on a new path, so tried to replicate it (historically this has been pretty easy for me, so a good test). Was a bit less clear, but seemed to get other impermanence cessations. Then tried for a no-self cessation, looking at how the space in which the self feels to exist is really just all not self at all, rather a fabrication. After not long, reality felt like it did the rotating around into nothing thing, I had another substantial energy rush. Then tried for suffering door, which took a bit longer, as I haven't been investigating suffering much recently. Eventually got the falling into nothing feeling and a really huge energy rush.

This all has a weird combination of feeling new and also familiar, so not sure exactly what to make of it. I expect it will clarify with future sits. Sitting here writing this up, when I look around the room, the 3D-ness of it feels somehow less real. I wouldn't say it's gone, it just seems made up a bit.

Feels like a weakening of the arupa fetter.

1 hour sit today. Distinct dukkha nanas, then very oscillating between clear and daydreamy and maybe a bit dull, with distinct behind-the-eyelids visuals. Looking at the impermanence of spatial sensations, but with a broader focus, trying to see the whole field of spatial sense simultaneously.

1 hour sit. Looking at impermanence of sensations of space. Distinct dukkha nanas, particularly reobservation. Noticed how 'heady' it is in particular, really wrapped up in self-ness. Then some daydreamyness and waves of intensity. Some dullness today, some gross distraction. Haha couple days ago I thought I knew something about where I was, but now I'm not sure.

1 hour sit. Kind of all over the place to start, tried looking at impermanence of spatial sensations but was very distracted. Eventually noticed that another way in was to just see that I don't need to make these spatial sensations in the first place, that they kind of take work to maintain, and just relax into it. Radiated some metta as well. Eventually got relaxed and noticed that a kind of 'way of seeing' that I associated with the state that occurs just after cessations is more available now, kind of being able to relax into seeing everything as all the same thing, including any thoughts that say 'oh it's all one thing'. This lead to very strong sense of no-self, with a sense of thoughts being detached from the center somehow, really the sense of there being a center at all weakening significantly. Sat investigating this no-self aspect of everything till the bell rang. Overall a fair bit of distraction but very little dullness.

30 minute sit today. Looking at no-self aspects of spatial sensations, especially the sensation of having a center. Short sleep last night, but suprisingly not too tired. Also had a vivid dream where I had a strong rotating-through-space blippy cessation-like thing. Some dullness today, a bit of distraction.

30 minute sit today. Looking at the impermanence of the entire field of spatial awareness. Noticed that this awareness extends outside the body in a suprisingly tangible sense, which makes sense -- like when someone is in my 'personal space', I feel them, even though that feeling is just a generated feeling based on normal sensory input. No dullness today, quite a bit of mind wandering.

30 minute sit today, looking at sensations constructing a sepparate self. Kind of an interesting exercise these days. I remember during what I think of as my 'stream-entry times' about a year ago, that I had a sense that I tuned into that the world actually existed - I was able to pierce through the veil of thoughts and just see it.

Now, I feel like I'm seeing that the 'real' thing I tuned into is also kind of a dream, just a subtler one.

That being said, I'm also feeling like I don't really know what I'm doing. Reflecting back, the suffering I generally experience has been significantly reduced, but I also feel as though there's significant work to do. In generaly, it's easy to 'see' these days - there's no prolonged suffering really, as that generally triggers me to notice that I'm being a self and making problems, but definitely I still spend most of my time mindlessly being a self, occaisonally with either heightened suffering or periods of low stimulation provoking a recognition that I'm making it all up.

I'm starting to have some doubts about whether I'm looking at the right thing, that I may have 'skipped a step' or something like that - that there's something it might have been expedient to see clearly that I haven't bothered to look it. Haha it would be nice if it were all laid out somewhere: 'Do this next'. I wonder if that's impractical just because the minds are variable enough that different approaches are necessary.

This sounds like the "what am I missing" stage ...

The coarse dukkha of the dream of selfhood has mostly given way to the subtle dukkha of seeking "liberation". Jhanas come and go, cessations come and go, but still the dream of experience continues. It's natural for the mind to wonder ... what am I missing? Maybe there is some new experience or insight which would settle the matter ...

What remains to be seen at this point is quite subtle and surprising. It has something to do with recognizing that the mind's craving for experience is ... well, simply the mind's craving for experience. If that craving fell away then experience would be seen simply for what it is. Neither better nor worse, before nor after - just mind experiencing mind as it always has been, perfectly fine but for the assumption that experience could
somehow be something other than what it already is in the moment. I hope that's "helpful", or at least gives you food for thought ...

It's hard to know what to say at this point, because like you say every mind is different. But if you keep investigating, I'm sure the matter will become clear…

When I read this I thought, "This sounds just like my version of 2nd path." There was a lot of fog about how to practice and what to practice, and my view of practice changed to be fractal as opposed to linear, adding to the confusion.

​​​​​​​I don't know your practice, Logan, so ignore this comment if it's way off base.

I can so relate to the confusion about what to look at. I very often look back at my stream entry days too, with nostalgia. It felt so easy back then, or at least, that's how I remember it in retrospect. When I go back to my logs from that period I can see that there were many challanging phases then too, but I probably didn't expect it to be any other way, so perhaps it was less frustrating. After stream entry, when the review had settled down and the next path had begun, it felt like I had to invent the wheel all over again, but a different wheel, and it was difficult to imagine any other kind of wheel as the wheel I already had, had filled its purpose so well. And after second path, there was that same kind of confusion. For me it helps to see that others go through similar phases, that it's all normal and that it doesn't mean that I have imagined it all. Right now I feel like I'm getting back in tune with the process, which is awesome, but I might be super-confused again tomorrow. It's all so transient (especially when it gets into fractals, like Chris mentioned). Hang in there! This too shall pass. In the meantime, maybe just do some practice that makes you feel good or that keeps you alert?

Thanks -- that's helpful! Looking back, I've had many interesting experiences in the last year, but I wouldn't say that I've had any permanent shifts that were as profound or discrete feeling as the stream-entry one. I've definitely had cessations, but the territory around the cessations all felt pretty familiar and could have been review, sort of the gear-shifting thing of switching down to a familiar path I recall reading (probably in MCT.

What was your broad-strokes practice during your 2nd path? Happy also to be linked to a log if that's the easiest way to explain it.

My practice log is on Awakenetwork. It's in six parts:  https://www.awakenetwork.org/magazine/10-on-the-cushion/15-chris-journal-part-1

I feel like a see bits of this periodically, like I notice that the machinery is just looking for the next thing, but its pull is very strong and then I forget again. I get that sense about a number of things though, like the spatial sense of a self surrounded by things that aren't self, or little glimpses of really simple thoughts that make divisions between things. Sometimes I find myself searching for the next thing to read and feel like I should just be sitting, sometimes I sit and feel like there's so many ways I could direct my attention that I'm overwhelmed by it. In some ways I almost feel like I could just switch into concentration for a little while - the mind feels a little bit difficult to deal with.

Haha on the reading topic, is there a resource you like to get a sense of the stages?

Edit: This is directed to George by the way - the way it's showing up on the board doesn't really seem to indicate that in my browser! Also, thanks George!

Great - thanks Chris!

Haha totally. Other than thinking the A&P was awakening for a while (a notion I was very quickly disabused of by the dukkha nanas), first path was very obvious and linear. Now I sort of feel like I've gotten enough awareness to see all kinds of subtler stuff, but my mind wants it to be simple and linear still, and there's a bit of a tension there. Practice that feels good actually sounds like a pretty good idea from where I'm at. In some ways, I think I've neglected to really strengthen my concentration since stream entry, in part because the samatha jhanas feel so easy to access now it seems like I shouldn't need to. In general meditation though, the mind wandering has definitely gotten worse. Thanks Linda!

1 hour sit today. From the replies here, and reading back through Chris' journal, decided to focus on the jhanas, with an emphasis on not 'doing them', rather just seeing what happened. In the past, I learned to ladder through them fairly rapidly by sort of taking the energy from the previous one and moving it to where it would turn into the next one. Instead, I just sat. I've had a strong tingling sensation in the middle of my forhead for about 7 months now, and just turning my attention there and relaxing was enough to start off first jhana. Normally, I try to amplify the first jhana feelings as quickly as I can and get out of there, because the shaking/muscle tension that it causes is pretty intense and uncomfortable. Today, I just let it be, and it actually semi-stabilized into a much more maneagable giddy bliss sensation in the top of the head. Eventually, after maybe 15 minutes, it naturally transitioned into second jhana.

Basically the jhanas did themselves, up to fourth. They weren't super hard -- there was a fair bit of mind activity. There was also a strong vipassana vibe to them somehow, with some of the intensity waves I associate with that. I got the sense throughout that rather than just not going into the jhanas, I have been almost actively suppressing the jhanic nature over the last while -- it felt more like finally letting go of something and letting it relax than actively making something happen. Feel sort of calm and sparkly now.

Logan, I think you'll find that samatha jhana is the cutting edge of your practice. You appear to be in that realm on the path now.

1 hour sit today, going through samatha jhanas. Immediate access to first jhana. Something interesting I noted was that it's possible for experience to be more one-pointed than I previously realized - the scope of my attention when I previously worked jhanas very much included the spatial information about the sensation experienced as well as the raw sensations themselves. Instead, I can tune out of that channel and narrow scope so that sensations aren't happening in a space. This was really interesting when spreading around the piti in first jhana, as I realized that, though I used to sort of spread it spatiall throughout my body, startinging at the top of the head and working downward, that's not actually necessary. This time I actually spread it it to the sensations in the feet first after sort of tuning out the fact that they are 'far away' in body space.

This was the theme as the jhanas progressed naturally. They again have vipassana stuff going on, though I didn't try to really investigate that, just noted it was happening and kept with the concentration. Each jhana would transition to the next with a little sensation of 'ok, it's time to move' arising, and then the next jhana would start to happen. This progressed up 7th jhana. The formless jhanas seem to make a lot more sense now that I'm tuned into the sense of space existing. In particular, 5th jhana used to take a lot of mental gymnastics for me to make it happen, kind of focusing on a sense of expanding, or growing my awareness out in steps from my head, to the room, to the house, to the block, to the city, etcetera. Instead, was just able to kind of tune into the sense of space being and it progressed pretty naturally. Infinite consciousness also had an interesting new feel to it, really clearly demonstrating that the boundaries of my body only exist as sensations in a conscious awareness of space. 7th jhana also had an interesting feeling to it, like sensation was still there, but it was sort of a lower-dimensional object in a higher-dimensional space, like a kind of space-filling curve that is actually basically empty but looks solid at first glance.

The jhanas are feeling very fruitful right now - really appreciate the nudges in that direction. Thanks!

In first path, getting into the jhanas really turbocharged my practice into the A&P (after which of course everything fell apart and stopped working haha). It's nice to go back to them with fresh eyes, so to speak.

Maybe try some of the Chan masters to see if they click:

- Huangbo (‘It IS that which you see before you--begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error … Your true nature is something never lost to you even in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of Enlightenment’)

- Foyan (‘It is not that it is there when you think of it but not so when you don’t’)

- Bodhidharma (‘To search for enlightenment or nirvana beyond this mind is impossible’)

1 hour sit today. Started in first jhana, stayed there for more than half an hour. Interesting to see how my exerience of it has changed. I used to think of it as exhilarating, but ultimately an ordeal to get through in order to get to second jhana. Like a cold shower or something. It's really become more controlled though, and I think the inherent instability of it is actually quite useful for developing concentration, as the feedback is very immediate if concentration wavers.

Second jhana was also very informative. I'm starting to wonder how anyone would expect to get very hard, one-pointed jhanas without some amount of vipassana - like how would they even be able to decide how 'hard' it was? I suppose in my early meditation I would just try to get 'closer' to sensations without really knowing what that meant, and that was reasonably effective, but it's clear now that rather than getting closer I am instead sort of tuning out sepparations, like whether the sensation is nice or not, or where the sensation is in the body.

Thanks George, I'll have a look!

Logan, for the sake of clarity, can you describe what you mean by "vipassana?" I think this might help me better understand what you're saying.

I'm might be playing a bit loose with terminology here, but I guess I mean in the sense of discerning what is arising in the mind at any moment, attempting to clarify exactly what's happening in there. I'm not exactly refering to doing this in terms of the three characteristics, but I think maybe ultimately that's what I'm doing anyway. The most recent definition I read was from The Science of Enlightenment, which I grabbed a copy of after reading through the first few parts of your journal and seeing it referenced, where he refers to Vipassana as the 'clarifying side of meditation'.

I guess also I'm totally willing to be wrong about the off-hand assertion from my last post haha. I think my feeling this morning was that I feel as though now I can discern specific sensations from eachother to a higher degree, so that when I am focusing in on the sensation of the jhana, I exclude more things that aren't 'it', making it more one-pointed, simply because I can now discern with finer granularity what's 'it' and what's not 'it.

By another argument however, I guess you could say that thing like the location of the sensation in the body are part of 'it', but honestly I'll have to brush up on the definition of the jhanas to recall exactly what one-pointed means, so I might just be making stuff up here.

Logan, I'd call what you described in your last post "observation"  

1 hour sit today. About 50/50 first/second jhana. Started off curious about the interplay between concentration and clarity, in particular what the sensations of 'knowing' that I'm concentrated are. Working off of previous investigation around one-pointedness, it seems like these 'knowing' thoughts are making the experience less one-pointed, as they are definitely an extra thing that isn't the sensation itself.

This lead to awareness of a general 'knower' part of self or process or something, that seems to be constantly taking experience and trying to 'flatten it out' into stuff that doesn't need to be investigated anymore. As I became more aware of this process, it was amazing to see how dramatic it is - like on the one hand, there's experience, which is saturated with rich sensation, like bursting with flavour, and then on the other hand there's knowing that, which is this flattened, dull, tasteless thing. It also became apparent that this process has something to do with how mind-wandering happens, because it kind of takes experience and says - 'there - solved - what's next?'. This feels in particular like an insight into impermanence. Without the 'knowing' there' just whatever's happening - it's sort of bubbly and frothy and and unpredictable, with each instant just being its own thing, and then totally gone in the next instant.

Haha certainly that was the spirit of it!

1 hour sit today. Went through first four jhanas, attempting to focus in on pure sensation without the presence of the 'knower'. This is kind of a paradox, because if I know I'm doing it, then I'm not doing it haha. Seems to be getting somewhere in spite of this. Noticing sometimes that another take on this is being aware that the 'knower' is just another set of sensations that can be directly experienced. Sit was a bit daydreamy in a feedback-ey kind of way, like pointing a video-camera at its own screen. Occaisionally some spinning sensations, and a bit murkey. Fourth jhana in particular was very murkey.

1 hour sit today. Also did a half hour sit last night because I was feeling pretty high aversion. First jhana today still had some of that aversion in it, some discomfort with the intensity. Was interesting to see that if I experienced the feelings 'without knowing them', much of the discomfort went away. Eventually transitioned into second jhana, where I noticed that there was a significant amount of 'worry-type' tension in the chest and throat area. Tried just feeling the sensations without knowing them, and it was interesting to see how 'close' I could get to them and how little problem there actually is there. It occurred to me to try to let them 'be the self' for a bit. As I've gotten more a sense of what the 'knowing' process does, and learned to see the spatial component of sensations, it feels a bit like the self is running out of places to be, and it feels a bit more fluid. I recalled from Angelo DiLullo's book on emotion and repression that ideall we just feel emotions completely in the moment, and I figured I'd see if it was possible to just strip down to experiencing the stuff held on to in the body to the body as simply as possible, to trying to essentially offer for it to take over the self for a bit.

This lead to pretty weird energetic release stuff, strange shaking and contortions, and while I wouldn't say the body tensions were totally dissolved, they definitely seem significantly satisfied. After playing around with this for a bit, I turned my attention back to second jhana factors, and tried just letting the feedback center of the jhana 'be the self'. This was a little slippery but tended toward very high absorption, which was interesting.

1 hours sit today, jhanas 1 & 2. In general focused on being in the jhana with broad awareness of sensations and without a sense of 'knowing'. Interesting to discover that what I think of as 'access concentration' is partly and uninterrupted sense of knowing that I am meditating. After quite a bit of mind wandering and the attention being drawn to various body sensations, 1st jhana super abruptly transitioned to 2nd jhana. Still some mind wandering there, but also started to really see the texture of sensory awareness, some really bubbly awareness, some more rain-drop-ey awareness. Also noticed that the 'knower' process was attempting to categorize and flatten these raw sensations into aspects of awereness.

It's interesting to reflect on this 'knower' process - it is definitely doing something useful for survival in the world, and it's not that I want it to go away - rather, I think the main thing is that it has so much authority to define experience moment-to-moment, turning the richness of experience into an idea in a why that turns off the particular experience. In some ways, it seems desirable to just be able to maintain that experience of the rich sense world while *also* knowing.

Your mind is perceiving both of these views all the time. But it places a veil over pre-conceptual perceptions by making the conceptual view a habit and seemingly critical to keeping "you" safe and secure. Seeing through the veil is why we meditate.

1.5 hour sit today. Quite a lot of mind wandering as I got going, took a while to fire up first jhana. When it got going, it was very intense however, and quickly enveloped experience. Then got into second jhana, which went pretty fast today. Noticed that the 'knower' sensations are kind of the opposite of curiosity, and than there seems to be some overlap with self-inquiry - like the self-inquiry questions sort of naturally quiet the knower, shifting the mental posture to one of curiousity and investigation. Used this to good effect, just pointedly asking 'what is this' periodically about the jhana sensations to get closer to them. This lead to a minute or two of very intense 'going into' feeling around the second jhana sensations, like I was travelling into the core of my being, which then lead to a sort of 'bottom dropping out' transition into third jhana, with a bit of a drowning vibe to it.

This clarified into a sense of fear, probably fear nana, but a very distinctly different version of it than the review fear that I've grown used to it. It's kind of like it's trying to tell me something more subtle. Like first path fear nana was 'Here is what it feels like to be afraid' - which was very useful at the time, because I wasn't particularly well connected to the emotion of fear, and it was good to just see it in broad strokes many times. Today's version of fear seemed to be saying something more like 'This is what it feels like to avoid being the first person in a meeting room so you don't have to talk to a stranger one on one', or 'This is what it's like to be worried that your financial situation might be in trouble'. It was at both a subtler sense of fear, as well as seemingly more involved in the specific habitual aversion feelings around the fear and how they work.

This eventually transitioned into misery, which again was more subtle and exploratory. It kind of had the vibe of 'This is the sadness of having a friend move away who you weren't super close to but probably could have been' or 'This is the sadness of for a friend who is having a bit of a hard time right now', or 'This is the sadness for people who are in a distant war-torn country'. It sort of showed how the mind might tend to bounce off of these emotions and avoid thinking about some of those things.

I think disgust, mostly shame-focused stuf showed up for a bit right at the end, but then the bell rang. I think the thing that tied them all together was that they were all more complete feeling in some way, more 'heady' rather than just a pure sensation of an emotion in the body, while also being more subtle. They also took a lot longer than the review versions of them I'm familiar with.

That makes sense! I've been having the sense that some of what I've been doing with meditation is essentially changing habits while learning to perceive in new ways - it's sort of like learning to play a song on the piano, where for ages I'm just hopeless at certain parts, and then it suddenly gels and I can just play something new.

Yes, that's the skill-learning part. There is also the eliminating-dropping part, where many of our old habits of thinking and feeling are done away with. I found that practice started as the first part and ended as the second part.

Feeling high aversion today, so decided to do another sit. 2 hours. Started off and got pretty intense first jhana relatively quickly, lots of muscle-spasmy intentensity. Transition to second jhana was interesting - it almost felt like it got 'stuck' half way for a little while, and I sorted of had aspects of both going on. Finally second jhana got stable, then had a similar falling down into third. Fear came pretty quickly and took a while to process through. Misery actually came and went real quick. Disgust sat for a while. There was a bit of gagging, though mostly it actually felt like a review of all of the ways of feeling ashamed/embarrassed/not-good-enough. Desire for deliverance was interesting, just super impatient and irritated feeling, like being fed up with being stuck in a long line, or exasperated with having to deal with some unexpected problem. Reobservation was sort of like repeatedly realizing 'I'm supposed to be in a meeting right now that started 1/2 an hour ago with someone important' or 'My bike just got stolen' - like disbelief and suprise about something bad, just over and over again.

Then things settled down, and transitioned slowly into fourth jhana. Had a wave of intensity after a while, then things got very daydreamy and visual, maybe a little dull, but also very real at times - like in one moment I had the though 'oh I guess I opened my eyes and I'm just looking at this very realistic doorknob'. Then another wave of intensity, and thing came back to a more normal feeling. Just sat here, looking at the fourth jhana sensations, noticing any 'knowing' that arose. Had some stuff that felt like it was aproaching cessations, especially some weird eye-lid fluttery slightly electric feeling sensations as the sort of rhythm of impermanence slowed down a little a couple times.

2.5 hour sit today. Warmed up first jhana while I drank my coffee. Once it got going, it got very intense and then quickly transitioned to second jhana. Second jhana had more visual qualities today, strong sense of moving into a visual center point. This then dropped out to third jhana, followed by fear showing up. It came in waves, and the third wave was interesting - like a paralyzing fear. I really felt locked in place. I had this quiet point after, where I had this thought - oh I'm on a beautiful journey. Then moved into misery, which was a kind of vast misery, like the sadness of ecological destruction, or the sadness of leaving a whole world behind. Disgust was again a bit difficult, had a sense of breathing through the need to throw up, though it felt less personal today. Desire for deliverance was stronger today, kind of a trapped animal feeling, gotta get out of here, coupled with a sort of frustration about how the world is. Reobservation was strobey and felt super ungrounded, like some part of me couldn't keep track of who I was or what I was doing.

Then things mellowed out into a kind of edgy part-ways to equanimity feeling, and shifted to fourth jhana naturally. Sat in that vague buzziness for a bit. Gradually went over several steps down into increasing equanimity through waves of intensity. There was some daydreamyness in there but not as much as yesterday. One of the things I noted in there was that I knowing isn't antithetical to experience, and I got less pushy about trying to make it go away. Over the course of this process, it felt like awareness really opened up - like my boundaries became permeable. This was really interesting and I just went with it and looked at it for what must have been a pretty long time. Someone opened and closed a door at some point while that was happening, and I noticed that I percieved that event as happening both internally and externally - like there was a visualization of a door opening, which was both a happening in the minds eye and also in the point in the larger field of awareness where I felt it was happening spatially, and there was a sound of the door opening, which had the same inside/outside quality. I noticed that without 'knowing', there isn't even an inside/outside distinction. Spent quite a bit of time trying to see if I could feel any actual sense of a boundary anywhere in experience. Through this process, it seemed like the tendency to contruct a boundary weakened.

At this point everything was feeling very quiet and neutral, and eventually I started getting into cessation-ey feeling territory. At first I tried to kind of make it happen in the familiar way of investigating one of the three characteristics until it collapsed in somehow, but that didn't really work - felt like I was just getting near misses. Eventually my mind kind of wandered a bit and then suddenly I realized I had just had probably a no-self cessation that just did itself. Strong wave of intense awareness aliveness followed. Decided that the meditation seems to be better at doing itself these days, so just sat and let things happen. Eventually things got strobey and had a distinct impermanence cessation. Again strong charge-up of awareness. A little while after that, I just started noticing a strong sense of the ambient suffering feeling. This one was interesting in particular because I had a strong sense of how much of my aversion/craving actually is percieved to be 'outside the body' like as in a percieved world that is pushing me in one way or another. The work I've done with emotions in particular has helped me realy see the stuff that shows up internally and made that much easier to deal with, but I think I had a bit of a blind spot with this whole area of awareness outside of the percieved body boundary. This also lead to a cessation, and then this feeling like I had expanded my awareness of suffering in particular. Bell rang not long after this.

Yeah, nice. The way I see it, all experience is in the mind and there are no real boundaries between anything in the mind (since you can more or less call up mental states arbitrarily). It sounds trite to say that all experience is in the mind, but really grokking that can be pretty eye-opening, like - oh shit, ALL OF THIS is in my mind, there is nothing I can experience that is not in my mind!

In particular, the *idea* or *feeling* of an inside/outside boundary is just another experience which arises from time to time in a mind which doesn't really have a split. This can sometimes lead to the idea that the experience of a boundary needs to be completely eliminated, like getting really good at cultivating your favorite nondual meditation state and then somehow carrying that around with you 24/7. But that's actually a subtle form of clinging – giving more credence to the idea of a real boundary than it warrants. A more efficient way to go about it is to recognize it for what it is (just another transient experience). Then you might realize that we are already in boundary-less states a lot more than we think, it’s just that we tend to gloss over them in favor of the sketchy narrative that there is a continuing hard & fast boundary in our experience.

The tricky part about seeing that everything is in the mind is that … there is nothing that is not in the mind, so there’s no “external vantage point from which you can get a good look at the whole thing” so to speak. Any idea/sense of a vantage point separate from experience is just another experience (it’s the same reductio). You are always already immersed in the experience you are trying to isolate. It’s the elephant in the room – it’s so big that you don’t notice it … until you do, and then it’s impossible to miss it.

1 hour sit today. Shorter sleep last night, meditation was a bit fuzzy. Took a bit to get focused enough for first jhana, then when it ramped up, it basically crashed through into second and then third all in a minute or so. Bit of a wild ride. Nanas were muted today - in part I think because I am tired, but I also noticed that much of their main feeling is experienced in the body, and my perception of my body today was less 'total' than normal, like previously the body has felt like the whole inner landscape, wherease now it just feels like the core of the inner landscape, with peripheral awareness expanding out into perceived space beyond it, much in the way I might previously have said the center of the chest heart area feels like the core, or how the space behind the eyes might feel like the core, and then outward from there into the edges of the physical body is the periphery. It's oddly out-of-body feeling but not - like the body is wrapped around in awareness bigger than it.

Some daydreamyness after this and then into 4th jhana. Quite daydreamy for quite a while, then got clearer, and was curious about this peripheral awareness stuff. When I explored it with awareness a bit, it naturally lead to 5th jhana. Sat in that until the bell rang.

Yeah it's really interesting how big the divide is between sort of conceptually buying into the notion that it's all mind stuff and then eventually perceiving it in that way. Like clearly all of this stuff was here already, I think I just habitually ignored and didn't have any practice at seeing it. Which I guess makes sense, because it's not like life demands that of me most of the time. I think you're right about the boundary being just an experience that arises from time to time - in fact it's starting to feel like that about most 'self-ey' stuff. Sometime when I return to more of a 'being' mode after very concentrated work, I notice that there was no self, no body, no anything while I was in that particular problem - there was pretty much exclusively the mental representation of the problem in the mind solving itself.

1 hour sit today. Was travelling visiting friends for the last week, so no meditation. Went through jhanas/nanas. Fairly intense feeling generally, but interestingly much less differentiation than normal - they all had a 'sameness' to them. Maybe some dullness. 4th jhana super daydreamy.

1.5 hour sit today. Some aversion to starting. Seemingly started at Misery -- as soon as first jhana got going, it sort of all dropped into place, through second, into third. Went through into equanimity and daydreamyness, then felt like I ended up somewhere unfamiliar after quite a while of that. Had a sense for a while that I was really 'seeing' aversion and how it works.