Okay, well here I am, starting another log.  Why am I starting a new log?  Well, a few reasons that I can think of.  

Let me start with a brief background of my practice history.  I started meditating right around the start of the pandemic, or a little bit before.  I found out about MCTB and DhO pretty quickly and got pretty *ahem* zealously involved in the DhO for a while during that time, and was meditating quite a bit - several hours a day for a period of a few years.

About a year ago, I went on a 10 day solo retreat, had a really profound experience of 'thisness', and felt like I really had gotten what I wanted out of meditation.  Stream Entry?  I have spent virtually no time in sitting meditation since that retreat.  And yet, I can recall the feeling of 'this' quite vividly, still.  I get frustrated (see below), but deep down things feel more okay than they ever have (even though the 'external' world very much seems less okay than it's ever been).

Lately though, I've felt a renewed desire to start meditating again.  My mind has been foggy, I find myself stumbling over words.  I get frustrated with my programming job, which often feels like I'm staring into the void for hours on end.  I get frustrated with the world, and I get run down and flustered by big city life. 
Can meditation help me feel less frustrated, my mind more clear, and quick?  

I also feel a desire to simply write and talk about meditation again.  I have 0 people in my life that I can really talk to about meditation.  Unfortunately I find it to be a somewhat taboo subject out on the streets.  Oh well.

And then, there's the old 'accountability'.  If I say in public "I'm gonna start meditating", well then by golly, I better do it, right??  
(We'll see how that goes ;) )


Ok - Where do I go from here?   
My first instinct tells me to keep it simple.

Only instructions to myself: 
Focus on the breath.
If a thought arises, or a feeling, or a sound, simply notice it, and return to the breath.
Look for any aspect of 'thisness' - see if I can concentrate on it and intensify it.


​​​​​​​

Notes:


-My thoughts have become stickier than i remember.  
First goal with meditation:
Clean up some of that stick/stank

@15 minute mark - "The Drop" - the mind relaxes outward into EQ.  This time it was pretty subtle and sort of happened in a series of small waves, each sort of increasing the relaxation.

Lots of tingling throughout the body for the whole sit.  Is tingling the same as Piti? 

Sitting here now after 25 minutes, and feeling pretty relaxed.  Going to go play some music now!

Hey !! Welcome back Glad you're here.

Thanks B.B.!

I was just searching through my notes and I found these that I took from 2022, during one of my calls with Dreamwalker, as I was writing down his instructions. 
I found his advice to be super helpful back then, and reading back now after a couple of years, still super clear and helpful.
I'm not sure if maybe there's somewhere else I should post this, for preservation.

We also talked a good amount about 3rd path 'mini' attainments and how to get them.  I'm going from memory, but, the training was very focused on the sense doors.  The mini-attainments essentially had to do with the unlocking of the various sense doors, and combinations of sense doors.  There are a few specific excersizes he recommended.  I believe there is a post where DW details this, in his Framework of Awakening - for some of the sense doors there were several mini-attainments, especially with the sight door.  His Framework of Awakening post goes into more detail.

Meditation notes:
Too tired to meditate yesterday. I recently switched medicines for my insomnia, which didn’t work out very well so I had to switch back to the quetiapine which works reasonably well.Feeling much better today.  
Insomnia can be a great teacher of impermanence and subjectivity- if you want a guaranteed way to go to DN territory, just don’t sleep for a couple of days. Everything sucks, etc. Then, watch as your universe transforms after you get a good night’s sleep. It’s like a magic trick, amazing! 

Today notes:I just cut an onion and my eyes were burning.
When sitting, it’s more pleasant when well rested. Attention is softer and more relaxed.
If you haven’t noticed, I love sleeping. One of the joys of life. And I absolutely love dreaming. Just thinking about dreaming gives hints of rapture and bliss.  J2/J3 flavor?
There was a subtle relaxing ‘drop’ into equanimity again this time at 15m- very faint. 
And then there is ‘giddiness’ which is different than the rapture/bliss. More of a childlike excitement (which I think is more classic J2). 'top of the swingset' as described by DW.I should try to sit throughout the day and try to build and maintain concentration... just a question of finding the time.

Last night I had my headphones on, listening to binaural beats (which is essentially just a drone).  Consciousness dropped out for some time, (not completely though, there was a tiny thread of awareness still left), and then when I came back online, 'rebooted', there were weird hallucinatory sounds that I would hear on top of the drone as I came back into awareness.  Perhaps J8, unfortunately no significant 'bliss wave' when I came back. 

I think exploring the boundary between J3/J4 and also Vipassana J3/Samatha J3 is important for me right now.  I tend to get stuck in DNs (vJ3) especially when sleep deprived.  I notice how the automaticity of J3 can be more pleasant in samatha, and how you can sort of ride that automaticity into a more expansive, pleasant J4.  Perhaps mastery of this transition can really help with my sleep cycles.

Best wishes JW! 

My eldest son (8 yo) wants to meditate for some reason I never asked him to do it but I did talk about my life and part of my life is also about meditation. So he asked me to buy him a Tibetan singing bowl and I did. Its almost 900g and sounds rather fine. He asked me how to meditate on sound so I told him to hit the bowl with a mallet and listen to its sound until it utterly fades away. Then hit it again and do the same ... for as long as he feels like. As a kid of course he does it for no more than 3 minutes at most But it is a good practice. He likes it. He even built an altar for a metal Buddha his mother bought in Thailand back in her youth. 
In the night time he asks me to tell him stories about the Buddha. So I tell him the story about Buddha's birth and also the story about how the Buddha left his father's castle and went to find the way to the end of suffering ... the 5 ascetics and then the jhana teachers and then ending up with noting the chain of events in his mind-experience and awakening as a result. 

Now he is bored with that story and asks for another different story about the Buddha but I don't know of any other story.

Not sure why I wrote this here  

I just remembered that Ive made a demo of this tibetan bowl for a friend of mine not that long ago! Here Ive uploaded it for you on YT.

https://youtube.com/shorts/og2qI2GksRs?si=mulXMVPDnN2pJ8wz

Hey Papa Che, good to hear from you my man!
8 years old now... Wow!  

That's cool that your son is interested in meditation, he must have seen you buzzing and caught some of your vibrations! 
Surely lots of meaningful times together ahead of you.  Maybe you can do a father-son retreat in Thailand someday! Or, maybe just a sit in the back yard. Hah!

The sound of the bell... where does it go?  When does it stop?

Oh no please no more long meditation for me! I don't mind a bit of sitting with him and melting into the sound of the singing bowl but certainly no interest at all for traveling long distances for me. Yes, the backyard is more my thing! Toilet meditation even better!

Sits have been pretty boring the last couple of days.  

Circling back to the J3/J4 boundary.  I do think this is an important transition to master, with so much to worry about, which can be overwhelming. I've gone down a couple of political doom spirals in recent days so have had plenty to work with sensations-wise.

There's a very J3 quality to the mind of, let's call it, 'doom-scrolling' or 'catastrophizing'.
Thoughts happen quickly, like rapid-fire, and there is an automaticity to them- they're hard to slow down or get rid of.  Interestingly, they are also hard to finish, and for matter, where they start is obsured as well - seeming like they're coming at you from all sides, all at once.  There's a sort of purgatorial quality to this lack of endpoint definition.  

What I guess would be called vipassana or noting is a method to distance yourself from these thoughts emotionally, so that your only reaction to them is to obseve and label them - not ignoring them or denying them.  This way the thoughts sort of lose their teeth and the mind can become more focused and calm, and the thoughts become just flickering sensations.  You're noting the blinking of these sensations, which really is both the rising and the falling of these sensations.- I usually notice more of the 'start' of the sensation than the end (I think).
As I continue to note, eventually the mind sort of naturally just relaxes, outwardly, into a more spacious place which is the start of J4.

The phrase 'rise above' comes to mind.  When people say this, it means essentially, don't be bothered, don't let it affect you, be undeterred and focused - but also implies there is a 'below' from which you must rise.  This kind of reminds me of the transition from J3-J4.  As you observe the rapid-fire thoughts of the DN, there is sort of a coolness and expansion that occurs, relief I guess, as you begin to move into equanimity.

It is often the subjects we find most sticky that indicate the limits in our practice of impermanence.

All our thoughts, emotions and reactions are impermanent and not self, whether political or otherwise. 

​​​​​​​Not that one shouldn't be invested politically but when investment becomes identification, there in lies the crux of the problem, identification leads to suffering.

This, I fear, is a tremendously difficult lesson to learn. Thankfully with practice we can learn it slowly over time, we can get used to it a little as more and more of the clinging gives way. This does eventually lead us to much greater peace of mind, through and throughout life, through and throughout this world of suffering.

​​​​​​​It does eventually recontextualize the world. We can learn to see the suffering in all beings, the neurosis and the strife that drives them. Once you really see that it's hard not to love them. Once you're open enough, relaxed enough, awake enough to love a broken world... 

It certainly does recontextualize things, I don't know how I would be able to process things without the training I've done so far.  One of the reasons, as I remember, I was first motivated to start meditating a few years ago, was due to fear of not being able to navigate, or keep my sanity, in a world that felt like it was turning upside down. I think that it's really helped in that regard.

"​​​​​​​Not that one shouldn't be invested politically but when investment becomes identification, there in lies the crux of the problem, identification leads to suffering"

That's exactly it, and this is most of what we refer to when we talk about 'politics', unfortunately. Maybe why good Buddhists make bad politicians

Through training and paying attention, you start to see things more as they are-
I see a world of ideologies and greedy manipulation, by the powers that be (and some quite obviously unwell very powerful individuals), of those ideological attachments. These attachments are reactionary in nature, so they grow stronger when the individual is afraid, angry, emotional. This is why fear tactics and divide/conquer are so effective, it evokes a primal fight or flight reflex that can be easily taken advantage of.  And as sad and distressing that is, it's how it has always been, and probably how it will always be. The technologies change, the tactics get better, or worse, more or less effective, but the game is the same.

But, things can and do get better, and all said and done, our lives are pretty great relatively and the future is never certain, nor is it permanent. I wouldn't rather live in any other timeline!

Re: compassion. To be honest, most days my focus is just myself and those immediately close to me, in being the best and most present that I can. That's usually enough of a challenge, but youre right, expanding the Metta circle is important. But it has to start with yourself. One of the most basic teachings but really important. It is your own enlightenment that is the most effective way to improve the environment around you.

Too busy to meditate much the last few days.  Although I keep getting strange experiences before sleep, every 2 or 3 nights seems like.  Last time, I saw a flash of stars that felt like they was being burned into my retinas for a second.  Then sometime later I came to, slowly realizing that something had happened, but wasn't sure what; strange surreal thoughts that I can't really now describe like I was coming to from out of a coma or something and gradually realizing where I was.  I don't know what this is.  It kind of reminds me of the descriptions of coming out of cessation but I didn't really get a bliss wave.  Maybe retracing of earlier paths?  Or just some sort of weird A&P?  Sort of feels like waking up from a dreamy sleep but there was no dream, only confused recollections of one that never existed, and feels different from being asleep.  Maybe it was just sleep, i dunno.  I'll have to keep taking notes if this keeps happening.

Anyway, back to the compassion conversation.  On a macro level, it's not that I don't feel any love for 'the general public', it's just more I guess what I would describe as mostly pity, mixed with a wishing love.  I want people to be happy and free from suffering.  It's like you're watching from afar someone  running full speed toward the edge of a cliff, and you're thinking 'oh no, don't do that, please don't do it', but they are so eager to jump off the cliff, and you're so far away that there's nothing you can really do to stop them.  As part of the recontextualization, you just see people suffering, and because you can see how selfish it is, it could easily turn you yourself towards feeling anger, which also would be selfish.  I am constantly having to make the choice and the effort to not also be selfish.  Hopefully that changes at some point.

Hah, I've definitely had periods of experiencing compassion in that way!

What would your idealized compassion be like?

Sometimes it is possible to see the suffering without the distance. Instead of saying, look what that person is doing, we might say, look what we are doing or, simply, look what is unfolding. 

​​​​​​​Also:
https://www.parallax.org/mindfulnessbell/article/poem-please-call-me-by-my-true-names/

Here's a possibility (maybe true, maybe not): it won't change until you give up. This reminds me of this excerpt from The End of Your World:

“A few months after that realization, I went to see my teacher. I would always see her on Sunday mornings. We’d sit and meditate, she’d give a talk, we’d meditate a little more, and then we would all have breakfast together. This time when I sat down in that room with all of the other students, this sense of superiority arose in me. It really surprised me. Over time, I started calling it 'Superiority Man.'

I was sitting there in meditation, and all of a sudden Superiority Man arose. I looked around, and there was this sense that the other people in the room knew nothing. They didn’t know anything about the truth; they didn’t know anything about reality. I, on the other hand, had had this great realization. I was immediately horrified because, fortunately for me, I knew it wasn’t true. The realization itself had shown me that superiority is a total dream, an egoic fantasy. But that didn’t keep Superiority Man from making an appearance.

My mind was creating this great sense of superiority out of the facts of awakening. At the same time, there was a deeper knowing that the feeling had no basis in truth. I tried everything to get rid of Superiority Man. At first I just tried reminding myself that it wasn’t true, going back to that place inside where the superiority had no reality. And yet every time I would show up for meditation, week after week, this sense of superiority would arise.

I tried everything. First, I tried hating it to death. Then I tried loving it to death—accepting it and allowing it to be, in hope that it would go away. I would look at where it was coming from, why it was arising. As the weeks went by, I tried every strategy I could come up with to eliminate it, and all the strategies failed. Every Sunday morning I would show up, sit down, and Superiority Man would arise.

Finally, one morning, I realized that there was actually nothing I could do about Superiority Man. It was like being completely defeated. I realized I had tried everything to get rid of it, and nothing was working. There was nothing I could do. 

It wasn’t a dismissal; it wasn’t like I was becoming blind to it. It was an authentic, sincere realization. It was a moment of utter defeat. I saw that it doesn’t matter how much I’ve realized, I can still be defeated. I can still have something arise within me that is not true, that I can’t actually get rid of, even after the awakening that happened.

I sat there and allowed myself to be defeated. I meditated for a while longer, then I got up with everyone else and we started to have breakfast. I noticed that when we all sat down to breakfast together, the sense of superiority lifted. It wasn’t because I suddenly understood something—there was no reason. I had realized that there was nothing I could do about it. Encountering the fact that I could not get rid of this arrogance, no matter what I tried, was one of the first experiences I had—and there would be many more—of the futility of personal will.

So if you find yourself feeling a sense of superiority after awakening, don’t try to push it away. Don’t try to push any negativity away. But don’t feed it, either.

Just see it for what it is. That’s the most important thing."

"Hopefully that changes at some point."

I bet it will! Fingers crossed!  

"What would your idealized compassion be like?"

Nice one!  

Well, thanks for the replies everyone.  

"Sometimes it is possible to see the suffering without the distance." 
Heh! You don't say....    Only sometimes though?

The way i see it, if it is something, can't not be suffering.

I maybe gave off a snooty sort of impression like I'm sitting pretty and unaffected while others down below are struggling.  But no, we're all in this big old mess together, for better or worse, one giant ball of massive shared trauma. 
Even though, yes, I certainly can be a snob at times especially when it comes to music...



"Here's a possibility (maybe true, maybe not): it won't change until you give up."

I'll read this again tomorrow when I have more time.  My working assumption is that it won't ever completely change, meaning even the most enlightened beings have to wake up every day and recognize their own selfishness or pride, and make a choice to not act based of off that selfishness or superiority. I don't think those mental patterns ever stop happening completely, but they do get easier to see through as the selfing mechanisms lose their grip though insight and experience.

"What would your idealized compassion be like?" 

Hmm that's an interesting one, I'll have to think about that one