Hi there,
Would anyone who has achieved A&P and beyond be willing to provide guidance on my experiences on a 1-2-1 basis, over WhatsApp or email?
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UK time based.
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Hi, Joe! Nice to have you here.

If you can share a little about your experiences here, or maybe start a meditation log, it would be easier for people to step up as, or recommend, teachers/dharma friends. Not everyone is well placed to provide advice, even if they have made it past the A&P. It does, in fact, sometimes happen that people who are going through a lot of changes and turmoil related to meditation end are guided by other people who themselves are not very stable. There are indeed a lot of good people to talk to, and people here can give pointers, so if you are able to share a bit about where you are in terms of meditation, I'm sure you will get some useful advice. 

Hi Martin, thanks for the response. 

Sure, let me share some of my experience here, in the hope that it provides some context.

Been meditating for about 6 months.
I have reached a stage in my practice where meditation happens every day, it's an essential part of my life, I don't schedule it, it just happens when i find a moment or two in my day. Usually multiple times per day for up to an hour at a time. I usually meditate lying down, although I am adding some sitting time.

I spend a lot of my spare time reading books on meditation, watching podcasts and documentaries. I have signed up to a vipassana, in the coming months. 

I am able to catch thoughts and emotions as if they were sensate data, much of the time. But I also have plently of times when I get caught up in an emotion for a few hours. Or days? - I currently have an overriding background feeling of negativity, quite down and generally frustrated and very irritable. I had a week or two here and there where I felt love towards people, things, animals and the world - this week I'm just angry at all of the above.

I would love to think that I've passed A&P and entered misery, disgust and the rest, but I still don't really understand what A&P feels like, so I find it hard to believe that I went through it.

I usually meditate on my breath / emotions / breathing sensations / torso. I try to pick one at a time but I also quite enjoy sessions where I let my focus follow whatever feels right to follow (usually breathing & emotions). I started to practice Kasina - frustrating at first but I think I'm blending it with my breathing meditation somehow and that's less fruitless, 20 minutes concentrating on my breath and then an image will appear for 5 seconds or so, then back to the breath, that kind of thing. 

I'm 50% through MCTB2, finding it all very difficult to follow for the most part, as it talks in depth about levels of meditation that I just haven't reached yet. 

Generally my meditation goes like this: first 5-10 minutes is spent fighting my concentration as it darts around. then I get relatively stable attention on the breath for about 30 minutes, with minimal interruptions. I usually start to feel pleasant 'pulsing' feelings in the periphery, which sort of feels like the moment you nod off to sleep, but I get maybe 5-10 of them and (usually) remain awake. When the pleasant pulse comes, it usually shocks me a little and I lose my focus, the pleasantness disappears, then i spend a couple more minutes trying to get it back. I can get that pleasant feeling within 20 minutes if I focus on my abdomen/breathing, whereas it takes me about 45 minutes if I focus on my nostrils. My practise breaks down at around 1hr10mins when I get pains in my hips and back (while sat down) or I fall asleep (while lying down)... After meditation I USED to feel cool, calm and collected (equinimity-esque). But the last couple of weeks I just feel frustrated and irritable. 

I'd like someone to talk to about this stuff, few questions when they arise. 

Welcome to DhO, Joe. This is a good place to start these kinds of conversations unless you want your Q&A to remain private. Do you really want one-on-one instruction?

Chris M
DhO Moderator

One to one conversation and instruction would be preferable, I would feel more comfortable having these kinds of inner conversations with someone I can trust, privately, than over a public forum with multiple inputs.

But if that's not the way this works, then let me know.

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It sounds like you are doing everything right and that nothing is going wrong (sometimes we can do everything right and things can still go wrong). 

I would be happy to answer questions by email (there is a direct message function on this site, which you can use to start conversations without publicly sharing your address). You could take a look at my logs and see whether they sound relatable. Most people on this forum who keep a log would also probably be open to some kind of one-to-one interaction. It can be nice to chat. Giving instructions, on the other hand, is a whole different thing. 

If you haven't got there In MCTB yet, you may want to jump ahead and read Daniel's chapter on working with teachers: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-i-the-fundamentals/11-on-teachers/

The short version is: often a good idea; go slow; be careful. 

If you ask for it, people on this forum will almost certainly be willing to give advice. For example, mine would be, "Keep going. It's too early to be thinking in terms of maps. There is very little chance that the stuff you are experiencing is mappable. It often takes a year or so to find out where your interests lie. When you have a good idea of your interests, you may want to look into some short retreats." But I could be wrong. I could be totally off base. And, if I am, someone else will probably mention it. That's one of the advantages of talking about these sorts of things in public. If another meditator has a different take on your situation, you will have two opinions to choose from (or three, or seven :-)). 

I would not recommend starting a teacher-student relationship so early in your practice, but if it feels like the best approach to you (and nobody knows you better than you do) then I would suggest one of two approaches. 

1) Join a sangha that is led by a teacher (but watch out for cults, psychopaths, and con artists, which probably make up at least 30% of what is out there)
2) Find a teacher who works with people by video for a fee or on a donation basis (same caution as above)

If you want to know more about how to find either of these options, I'd be happy to say more, by email, or here. I've done quite a lot of both options. 

"I signed up to a vipassana ..." retreat? If I were to compare your practice with my own, back when I started, it seems totally fine. Actually, if I'm being totally honest, it looks much better than mine did. A retreat is a great idea, assuming your teacher is good, or even just not bad. Most of the work is going to be on you anyway.

Your concerns on whether you feel love or anger are a bit tangential to the practice itself. Love is OK, anger is OK, the practice is about both, but neither in particular. I hear it is normal for beginning meditators to feel calmer and more collected, and then as they dig more deeply into their own shit meditation no longer feels like that. But digging into your own shit and processing it, digesting it, that seems to be a non-negotiable part of the practice, and as you go over that process it is very very normal that your own visceral/psychological crap comes to the surface, and irritation is often a result of this process. But I can also say, as things cleared up and my baseline well being went up, becoming calmer or more agitated as a result of meditation stopped being much of a concern.

On retreat, you can see your concentration reach new levels (usually it is very noticeable around day 4 or 5), and with that kind of concentration, vipassana is much more effective. If, before you get on retreat, you understand fairly well what vipassana is and how to do it, you can then aim for stream entry, which is likely to happen once you develop the jhanas/progress-of-insight all the way to equanimity, and then just hang out there, letting it deepen and ripen.

Thank you @martinv, your meditation log has given me some much needed perspective. Thank you for taking the time to respond so kindly and in such detail. I really appreciate it. I will take your advice to slow down a bit and enjoy the ride. I am fairly new and always looking for efficiencies (shortcuts). I will likely reach out, though - or perhaps continue the conversation here, or both. 

Thank you @brunoloff, your response has provided motivation to reach new heights of concentration. I am currently in a 'training' period, preparing for the vipassanna (retreat), as I have no idea how my hips and back (and mind) will cope with 8-10 hours of sitting meditation per day for 10 days... I imagine it as a sort of torture of the body, but I hope I am wrong. 

I really feel a whole lot better today and I'm starting to understand why I was feeling so awful... I also see that this is tangental to the practice itself - and a lesson in impermanence as my emotions swing to and fro on a daily basis. Likewise, my forgiveness and 'psychological crap' comes and goes, which can be really disappointing after being so sure I was 'over it' just a few weeks ago.

I have some incredible pains in my mid-spine, neck, trapezoid and jaw, for the last few weeks. I always have had pains along my spine but this is in a new position, higher up. It feels as though I've slipped a disc in my mid-back and my left arm hurts to sit in any position (trapezoid pain). This all lines up so neatly with Daniel's descriptions of pains in the book. I hope these are indeed a side affect of the practice and not something physical, but I shall wait and see.

The reason for my post really is threefold - 

• I am struggling with the ups and downs, frustrated at how I can't control my emotions after recent periods (hours to days) of real tranquility post meditations (that I no longer seem to get).
• My physical pains are bothering me greatly.
• I have carved some time (months) out, away from work, so that I can make significant progress - I just want to know how best to proceed, to make the most of the time. This contradicts 'slowing down and enjoying the ride', but I have this unique position where I can dedicate a lot of time for the next few months, if only I knew exactly where and how to dedicate that time. 

I'm always up for chat. It's rare to find someone who wants to talk about meditation :-) And do consider posting a log or just questions and comments here. This is actually an exceptionally high-quality sangha. 

As Bruno said, digging in and feeling uncomfortable are normal parts of exploring how the mind works. What we tend to notice is that, no matter how well life goes, there is quite a bit of suffering. That's what the Buddha talked about in his first talk. 

In his second talk he says, you cannot choose how to feel emotionally. You cannot say, I'm going to feel good and have that happen. And you can't tell your body how to be either. If you could, nobody would be tired or in pain.  

This is exactly the dilemma. And you are experiencing it in real, concrete terms. This is not textbook knowledge. This is fieldwork knowledge. This is the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. (Unfortunately, there may be a wee bit more to come before you get to the end :-) )

Fortunately, there is plenty enough suffering mixed into life that we don't need to add to it in order to learn about it. Be gentle with your body. Don't ignore pain. Mix in plenty of walking meditation. 

I am interested to hear how it goes and about the retreat!

 Thanks again, Martin. 

I wrote a really nice meditation log and some questions a few days ago and posted it. And it has since disappeared. What a shame. I shall try to re-post but this time more briefly...

30 minute meditation:
First 5 minutes, I realised that I had a LOT of tension in my face, around my eyes and forehead and behind my eyes. Decided to spend the full session relaxing that and waiting for an object to come into focus naturally, rather than picking one up front.

Noticed that urgent distractions often come up in the first few minutes, this time it was a fan which I felt needed to be switched off immediately, before I could rejoin my meditation. I managed to refrain from actioning this thought but noticed how urgent and compulsive that thought felt until it completely disappeared about 20 seconds later. Impermanence lesson to self.

Final 10 minutes, the 'pulses' came back. I was able to anticipate their arrival a second or two before the pulse came up. Sometime during an inhale or exhale, I could feel that I was about to experience a pulse. If i concentrated too hard, the pulse would be faint, if I relaxed the pulse would be much stronger. It feels kind of like a swelling energy/sensation rising from chest to top of the head within about 1 second. My neck would react by either dropping forward or back. Feels a little like that moment your head drops before you fall asleep, except I am fully awake and they happen every 20 seconds or so, for a few minutes.

It takes me about 10 minutes to fully relax my body and face, before the 'pulses' can begin. My eyes and behind my eyes is particularly tense and takes many rounds of relaxing before the tension fully drops. I often feel like I am unintentionally 'looking' through my eyes at the back of my eyelids and dropping this is really difficult (in and out of meditation).

Questions:
Should I be more strict with my meditation object, isolating a single sensation/object and exclude all else? Perhaps some or all of my sessions should JUST be on my nostrils, for example, excluding all else. e.g. if background breathing sensations, pulses or other feelings arise, ignore them and go back to the nostril... or allow my mind to gently wander within the bounds of my inner landscape at whatever arises? Perhaps some sessions can be more concentration based and some inner landscape based. Is there a correct mix or approach?

What are these pulses, are they important, what should I do with them, notice them, ignore them, lean into them, lean out of them and back to the breath?
 

 
That's a good first log entry! Nice!

Too bad about the one that got erased. I usually copy my posts to the clipboard before pressing the Publish button, so that I can paste it in, if the post gets eaten and I need to try again. 

You can start a log by going to Categories -> Practice Logs -> New Thread.

How strict you are with your attention depends on what you are trying to do. For relaxation and unification (concentration) we usually try to keep bringing the mind back to an object, such as the nose, whenever we notice that it is off the object. For insight (noting) practice, we notice whatever is happening, regardless of where it happens, but we bring it back to the object whenever we realise that we are lost in thought, daydreaming, sleepy, etc. MCTB has some concrete guidance for noting practice. The Mind Illuminated is one place where you can find detailed instructions on concentration. 

Some people suggest that meditators start with 80% concentration and 20% insight. Some people go 100% insight from the beginning. I think it's a good idea to have an overall plan and then a mini plan for each sit. If you map it out in advance (Monday: concentration, Tuesday: noting, or 20 minutes of concentration and 10 minutes of noting, or whatever) and you log it, you will be able to see what is effective, and you will probably find that it changes over time.