Day 1:
Did about 25 minutes today.
I experienced a range of sensations, most of them painful or unpleasant as well as some lighter, more pleasant, blissful sensations (most of these having to do with the breath).
I noted how my attention kept recoiling from sensations that were experienced as painful or even unpleasant. I spent some of the session exploring both these sensations and the recoil (aversion) of my attention to them. The majority of the unpleasant sensations seemed to be physical, localized in specific areas of space, although the reaction to these sensations was mental.
I noticed that if I narrowed my focus from the whole sensory field down to the sensations that make up the breath, I experienced calming, blissful feelings, and that the unpleasant sensations would start to recede (but not vanish) in response to this. I spent some time playing around with the relationship between the light, blissful feelings and the heavier, painful sensations. Toward the end of the session I began to feel somewhat overwhelmed and weighed down by the painful sensations.
In this session I also spent time noticing the distinction between what I normally think of as "my body" (having a definite shape and boundaries, etc), and what I actually experience. There isn't really a "body" in terms of direct experience; instead there are various "pockets" of sensation that seem to flicker on and off. If I am not paying close attention I seem to impose an image or shape of "my body" in between and around these sensations, but when I am more mindful of what is actually happening there is nothing really "in between" these sensations. I also noticed that I have a tendency to identify with sensations occurring around or near my head (especially the back of the head); when I noticed this happening I tried to drop the identification and just observe what, if anything, could be experienced in that area of space. This was difficult to do, but there were moments where I was able to drop identification almost completely and just rest in awareness of the specific flickerings. There were also times when thoughts or whole streams of thoughts would occur, and I noticed how I would sometimes lump the sensation of those thoughts together with the physical sensations toward the back of my head, and seem to identify with both of these together. When I noticed this happening I tried to note the sensation of thought and the physical sensations separately, and to also note the sort of grasping process that tried to identify with one or both patterns of sensation.
Overall this was a painful session but not a frustrating one. In future sessions I think I am going to try to focus more exclusively on the sensations that make up the breath, at least in the beginning, and than slowly branch out to the rest of the field of experience. I think I will also open and close sessions with some Metta Bhavana, which I did not do this time.
I should also mention I am going to my wisdom teeth extracted in the next few days, which may interfere with practice. If I lose too many days I will just start over with my 90 days of practice.
