Upon suggeting on another forum, I will try to share some practice logs here. Please feel free to comment however you want; I appreciate all comments made in good faith. My motivations for doing this are:
- Creating a record for personal/public use (however limited in that use)
- Possibly learning how to better organize the phenomena that I experience regularly in meditation (I am in the weird stuff phases but thankfully do not deal with anything destabalizing)
- Helping me to organize these things in my own head
- Perhaps providing help to others now or in the future (after all, I did not get prior warning that stuff like this would become the rule, not the exception)

I am most familiar (though not an expert) with Samatha/Shamatha Jhana models, but I will try not to invoke them too much for various reasons. 

Here is a shortlist of the phenoma I experience on a typical sit (usually about 30 minutes during my coffee break, maybe 30-60 minutes on weekends):
- Various kinds of pleasant bodily sensations (whole body, mouth area, top of the skull, forehead, different places along my spinal column)
- Lots of brief but intense clonic (rapid contract/relax) movements and shaking around torso during sitting (basically every sit)
- Short and very intense pulses of electrical energy (at least that is an analogy of the feeling) that seem to either start inward and explode outward, or start low then shoot off upwards
- A lot of eye stuff lately. REM type movements, eyelid opening and closing, gaze shooting down warn and crossed, upward and crossed, rolling into the back of the head
- Grimacing or having a ludicrously large grin (neither expressions are normal for me) on the face but not triggered by memory content or anything going on, they just appear depending on the phase of the meditation
- Abrupt changes in postural muscles which can last seconds to minutes
- Falling asleep to the point of slouching over and briefly snoring but being fully awake for that (not common, maybe this happens once a week)
- Having the general sense of body diffuse to various points (a few days ago it actually fully diffused for a few minutes, which is new)
- The percieved size of awareness or attention changing, typically starting narrow and spotlight-ish then growing, perhaps back and forth a few times from each extreme 

In terms of what practice I do, lately it's almost always 10 minutes of walking meditation, meditation object is typically mouth/throat area while verbal and visual imagination is directed toward positive regard and visualizing friends/family/teachers/coworkers, or sometimes a single person the whole time. Then, 20 minutes of sitting where an intention is dropped to focus on pleasant sensations and relax distractions/tension/train of thought, but pretty much let awareness go where it wants.

Anyways, here's today's log as best I remember it:
- Set intention to send positive regard for 10 minutes, then relax into positive sensations and let go of tension
- Small smile appeared on the face a few seconds after positive regard began
- Mind wanted to stick with one person instead of many, and visualize them lightly on a slow interval, but focus more on the positive sensation in the mouth area than usual
- Distactions popped up from time to time, nothing too long
- Awareness went to mid-belly area for a minute or two and the posture changed
- Awareness travelled up a bit to the upper-mid chest, intensified, then the eyes opened very wide with a broad attention that now included the visual field more
10 minute timer went off, sat for 20 more minutes
- Mind was very active, did not seem to settle on a clear object, but intention was dropped to at least relax tensions and distractions
- Eyes rolled either up or down and stayed there for a bit, with pressurized but not altogether unpleasant sensation in forehead, gaining in percieved pressure
- Mind is not totally sure what to do with the pressure
- Intentions were dropped to try to relax these sort of tense/pressurized feelings in forehead and some kind of REM that started happening
- Pressure diffuses and pleasant, soft feeling around top of the skull and rapping around it
- After being localized around the top of the skull, awareness grows to span from the feet to the head (though everything in between is not necessarily in focus or high res)
- Very very very energetic tightness is felt in the behind the mid spine, sort of between the lower portion of the shoulder blades (mind remarked it felt like a blockage but this was not a sure thing)
- Awareness localized around the tightness, causing awareness to go down to a smaller diamiter
- Body decided to stretch that part of the spine by curling the head in and bending over in the thorassic spine
- After about a minute in that stretch, sat up
- Things really relaxed physically, which means I know get to enjoy full body relaxation punctuated by lots of clonic movements in the spine, eyelids shooting open
- That was basically the last 5ish minutes of the sit. 
- Feeling post sit was pretty effortless, light and nice, but working on an intellectually difficult work problem made that fade away shortly.

In general, not sure what to do about the eyelid stuff, pressure behind the forehead, and especially the clonic spine movements. My perception is that doing nothing does not cause them to go away. Relaxing them might be helping, but there is concern that focusing too hard on relaxing them causes tension.

Wow, that's an encyclopedia of early meditation practice effects. Do you have a reason to adopt a meditation practice? What's your endgame? Why is organizing all of these mind-things important to you? Finally, what have you learned so far about how your mind operates?

Thanks.

Hey Chris,

Thanks for checking in.

"Do you have a reason to adopt a meditation practice?"

I was not super clear about that, so apologies for that. I have been meditating on and off for over a decad though I've never been on a retreat. Initial reason was just because my mind was very uncomfortable and emotions very messed up; wanted to do something about that. About 5 years in, once I started doing Metta, I had some profoundly good changes and a bit of weird stuff started. That gave me confidence in profound changes coming as a result of practice. 

"What's your endgame?"
I guess on a spiritual level, to see how far it can go. I have had a few day/week long stretches in the past year or so where I believe the mind was automatically letting go of dukkha. Whatever the case may be, I did not experience much psychological suffering during those periods, so that was nice. Very much came with a feeling of "Oh okay, this is the thing they were talking about." The experience doesn't fit models of steam entry I have heard though so I remain agnostic about classifying that state. So more stuff like that is a goal (though I am wary of my goal oriented mind and the problems that has given me). Also, seeing what insights I have into the nature of mind has made me better at some parts of philosophy and reasoning. I am inclined to think about everything too much since a young age, so there is some pleasure in better in that.

On a practical level, I love teaching and helping people so I would like to get the technical competency to help others. But past teaching experiences tells me that I should be careful about doing that too early (i.e. I need a lot of reference experiences and struggles in order to be a good teacher). 

"Why is organizing all of these mind-things important to you?"
I think the root of this is just compulsion/nature. My mind has always wanted to organize everything to a point that it is weird to many people (don't give a shit), which is something I still work with as an obstacle in practice from time to time. On a practical level though, some times I have been given tips about things that did actually help a lot. 

As of writing this, I struggle with the balance of effort and letting go lately. My mind seems to be more active and chattery (though not necessarily distracted) than what is implied by some (but not all) teachers/practioners/teachings. I was struck by Daniel Ingram talking about being very deep into states of absorption during Fire Kasina (iirc) while some aspect of his mind was chattering/thinking about work stuff. With that being said, I am better understanding the difference between the mind being active vs distracted, and dropping intentions for awareness/attention versus trying to control it too hard.

"Finally, what have you learned so far about how your mind operates?"
I will try to keep this brief as I have a tendency not to.
- Content of thought has been seen as impersonal on a intellectual level since about 19 (I am 31 as of writing this), since before meditating (i.e. had some insight into that early on). As of my mid twenties, that distance became more experiential, leading to a reduction in suffering as it has the half-life, strength, and frequency of getting caught in craving was reduced. However, the mind does still become totally consumed by the craving or train of thought from time to time.
- Awareness/attention was known as impersonal last year (boy did that come with some weird shit and clonic spine stuff when it came, sure glad no one was around), which was a profound shift in my meditation. Used to try to really tighty control it and get frustrated when it went whereever it wanted to. Now it is known as an impersonal phenomena which responds to the intention stream sometimes, but kind of does its own thing.
- Emotional context strongly influences the content of thought, and the content of thought, when directed with the intention stream can be used to change the emotional context.
- The body is suuuuuper important. I was Mr. "Chakras are bullshit" until awareness started localizing to them and weird shit started happening (energy pouring out of the top of my head, muscle contractions, etc.). I have a mild trauma history so the relationship between physical tension, past trauma, and mental suffering has become extremely apparent in the past two years.
- Some parts of the mind get it pretty good that it is all impersonal, and I recently had an experience of observer/observed fade away (no feeling of separation between the visual space and something behind it like normal). I would say these sorts of feelings are present after particularly deep sits/walks, and they typically happen a few hours later when I am just chilling. 
- Some insights into dependent origination also came recently in a state similar to above. Noticed a cycle of sense input -> mental impression -> attachment to/contraction around mental impression -> letting go/relaxing attachment, and feeling like that cycle was quite impersonal and not something to be happy about.

I feel like I am leaving some stuff out but that is all that comes to mind for now.

Regards,
Ryan

Feb 7th
10 minutes walking
- Set intention to send positive regard for 10 minutes, then relax and focus on pleasant sensations for the 20 minutes after
- Mind and awareness had another idea, watched the smile and sensations around mouth area for 5 minutes
- After 5 minutes, smile grew to big grin, continued to watch that area
- Just before alarm, grin diminished and felt pretty still
20 minutes sitting
- Eye stuff started quickly (short, twitchy stuff) and lasted for twoish minutes
- Eyelids wanted to open for like 5 minutes and awareness watched visual wave, starting from periphery then slowly concentrate in the center of visual field (probably something that is superimposed on the eye sense as opposed to the eye sensory input itself having waves)
- Last 10 minutes was a lot of clonic jerking originating for thorassic spine, generally out of nowhere but sometimes accompanied by awareness localizing to that area
- No clear meditation object presented so intentions were dropped to just relax and not look for anything
- Post sit feeling is nice and relaxed

Lots of clonic movements in the spine, very little of the forehead pressure. General impression that the constant clonic jerking might be an obstacle for the body relaxing further. They were really intense and frequent in the last 10 minutes.

Trying this again, somehow didn't post properly yesterday.

Feb 8th
10 minutes walking meditation:
- Set intention for positive regard toward family, friends, teachers
- Mind wanted to cycle through people visually and wish them well
- Smile on face immediately and lasted about 5 minutes
- Smile grew larger after about 5 minutes

20 minutes laying down:
- I was tired from the night before so decided to lay down instead of sit
- First 10 minutes was pretty much light sleep (no clear awareness)
- Last 10 minutes mind was aware, very peaceful and relax sensation in the body
- Notably, no clonic movements or weird eye stuff. My guess is that I was too tired or skipped over that phase due to getting into light sleep before hand.

Feb 9th

10 minutes walking:
- Mind was very restless at the start and throughout the whold meditation
- Listened to Ajahn Amaro discuss insight practice during the walk
- Light smile for first few minutes, grew to larger smile

20 minutes sitting:
- Mind still felt restless
- Opted to focus a lot more on relaxation instead of dropping intentions to follow meditation object
- Awareness/attention wanted to use body sensations a lot during this period for whatever reason
- Started with nice sensations in mouth area
- Went to eye/forehead area, and eventually a phenomena I call the "sensory wig" came up. It feels like wearing wig that fits around the top of my head, and has a very distinct sort of physical/touch kind of quality (as if it is wrapped around my head), but quite pleasant
- Feeling faded around the top of the head, then became more broad to envelope face and back of the head, though the feeling was more mild
- Awareness went quite broad after that, sort of encompassing the percieved body area, though body itself felt diffused
- Clonic stuff started with the spine but was less frequent and intense than usual
- Intention to drop every kind of effort and tension towards the end of the meditation.
- Awareness stayed broad, sorrowful grimace appeared on face for a few seconds (without any memory or thought content AFAIK)
- That was let go of quickly
- Alarm went off

Key reflection is that I did not "want" to meditate today and the mind had a lot of momentum which was focused on everything else I could be doing (in terms of craving based thought content). Mindfulness did not feel strong, yet intentions to relax and not try harder despite mindfulness seeming weak yielded more peace and eventually the usual weird stuff I get during "peaceful" sits.

Another reflection I had over the past couple days. A few weeks ago after a particularly deep meditation session (at least for my), the mind noticed a cycle of dependent origination (at least that is what I think it was). Nothing -> sense input -> contraction around new train of thought about sense input -> release contraction and return to nothing. A visual metaphor (I think) of that process being something gross (as in disgusting) tunnel contracting around the concious space then evaporating came into the imagination. Wondering if that is nibbida as it left a strong, though not solidified sense that the whole cycle of is impersonal, keeps happening, but doesn't need to. Reminded of Ajahn Jayasaro's remark about David Bowie's song called "Always crashing in the same car."

Feb 10th

Wanted to do a longer sit today as it has been a while, and the circumstances were suitable.

10 minutes walking
- Visualized and internally verbalized positive regard towards family, friends, teachers, etc.
- Sensations around whole face area were pleasant and prominent throughout the 10 minute walk

50 minutes sitting
- Main intention set was to pick up nice feeling sensations in the body if they came up but otherwise relax/tranquilize as the primary directive
- The whole sit was pretty cyclical in nature, with cycles following this sort of pattern
1. Smile or light pressure in forehead
2. Above sensation taken up as meditation object by awareness
3. Pretty energetic and intense feelings ariving in the body with smile growing larger
4. Hard drop of energy, smile, and body's general uprightness
5. Awareness would become perhaps weak, a little bit like just prior to falling asleep, and mind would start wandering, though not necessarily for long
6. All aspects of feeling become very very neutral, nothing really pleasant at all
7. Perhaps driven by an intention (not sure), move back to step 1
- Had to deal with some tightness around upper thorassic and cervial spine for the first half hour. At some point, probably 30 minutes in, head and neck softly collapsed, stretching those tight areas for a minute or two
- After that, body re-adjusted posture and that area was no longer painful for the rest of the sit
- Hard to keep time at this point, but one more cycle occurred. 
- Multiple times during that last cycle, the intention arose to stop meditating early, but luckily that intention was let go of
- Everything started to feel very peaceful yet also bright and energetic just before my alarm went off (which surprised me as I thought I had at least another 20 minutes left)
- There was quite a lot of eyelids opening, eyes moving downards, or rolling back for a few minutes at a time. I deliberately sat in front of a wall and tried neither to force my eyelids shut nor encourage them to stay open. Still having to play with that balance.

Notable lack of clonic spinal movements which was nice.

I'm digging all this detail. Rooting for you. 

"I'm digging all this detail. Rooting for you. "

Thanks John! I have pissed off people in other forums for being detailed so this is a nice change. 

Best of luck with your practice. 

Feb 11th

Went into the session distracted and with tight awareness. Meeting heavy, verbal/analyitical day at work, with some programming problems as well.

Walk 10 minutes:
- Set intention to send positive regard to family, friends, teachers, etc., then to just let go and relax during sitting and let cycles happen 
- Forehead and smiling muscles either had a physical or energetic tension to them at first; probably energetic since the tension gradually went away

Sit 35ish minutes:
- Intended to sit for 45 initially.
- Less clonic spine stuff and eye stuff than usual
- Cycle occurred again where:
1. Awareness would more or less localize to a particular area or sensation: Smile, forehead, top of the head, somewhere along the spine, most of the whole body
2. Smile or pleasant sensation would come up
3. Pleasant sensation fizzles out into something more relaxed
4. Energy and body posture drop abruptly into neutral or slackness
5. Awareness becomes dull and general thoughts/imagination become more prominent
6. Repeat from 1
- Probably about 4 or 5 of these cycles.

Intention to check alarm and make sure I set it properly as I had a work meeting in a few minutes overwhelmed intentions to meditate. 

Feb 12th

Busy work day and substandard sleep. 

10 minutes walking:
- Set intention to send positive regard to people during walking, then relax during sitting
- Mind was both a bit dull and rather restless throughout
- 5ish minutes of sending positive regard out
- A few minutes of focusing on face/mouth sensations, switched back to more directed sending positive regard to keep the visual and verbal subsystems a job

20 minutes sitting:
- Still pretty unsettled, with no apparent meditation object
- After about 5 minutes, sensations around the top and upper sides of the head became apparent. They were neutral to pleasant in feeling so awareness took them up as an object
- Kept up with that until the sit was over
- Ended with somewhat broader awareness of whole head area, with top of the head sensation still evident

Post sit, the sensation is still there and the mind is much less restless/distracted, but still at risk of falling back into that.

Feb 13th

More or less took a nap in between dealing with a priority 1 bug in a beta release; and the odd bits of metta I do throughout a normal day.

The only bugs I feed to my Betta (splendens) are Artemia

"The only bugs I feed to my Betta (splendens) are Artemia"

I'm jealous; that sounds nice.

Feb 14th
Walk 10 minutes:
- Set intention to cultivate positive regard during walking meditation, then sit for 45 minutes
- Mainly took mouth sensation up as the meditation object
- Mindfulness felt pretty dull throughout (feeling a bit off physiologically so that might be related)

Sit 45 minutes:
- Started with mouth sensation
- Two days ago, I read in MCTB's Shamatha Jhanas section about how the size of awareness can be used as a kind of abstract meditation object. Curiously, particular object comes through as one of the most concrete meditation objects for me; whereas body feelings associated with metta (positive regard) are extremely irregular for me; even the smile/mouth sensations.
- Awareness continued to grow to include head and upper torso
- Continued to grow to full body size and stayed with that for a while 
- Spent a few minutes pointing awareness in 6 directions then watched broad awareness
- Almost fell forward, pretty much in light sleep state
- Eventually went back to more explicit positive regard practice, which immediately brought up energy and some clonic spine movements (kind of seems like Piti is strongly correlated with spine stuff)
- Finished on a fairly pleasant and peaceful note

10 minutes laying down
- Wanted to lay down as sitting was pretty uncomfortable
- Whole body relaxed more which was nice

Feb 15th

Wrote this prior to meditation practice today.

I have been noticing a cycle quite a lot lately which has been tricky to navigate.

It seems to go something like this:
1. Energetic sensations around mouth, face, body, top of the head come up and are taken up by awareness (generally without prompting of the intention stream)
2. The sensations tend to calm down and change slightly, become softer or more diffuse
3. The sensations disappear completely and the perception is that the mind becomes more active with distractions in this neutral and dull feeling space (or perhaps the imagination becomes more prominent in awareness)
4. At this point, either by prompting by the intention stream or out of nowhere, start again from step 1.

This cycle is not linear though. Things might drop into any of those stages or oscilate between them. The most disorienting one is dropping into stage 3 early into the meditation, where there's no apparent object to attend to but the mind feels this combination of dullness and restlessness at the same time. In the other stages (1,2), what seems to work is attending the object with the least amount of prompting or percieved effort, while relaxing the mind and letting go of distractions as they are noticed.

In phase 3, any level of effort or prompting from the intention stream seems to sort of kick me out of there or creates tension that feels wrong. Further, it becomes difficult or impossible to even notice if the mind is distracted for extended periods; very much like the borderline sleep/dream/awake state that I might experience while falling asleep. 

I have a hunch that my nervous system's ability to generate Piti/Sukha (usually nice feeling energetic and sensory phenoma in the feeling space of the body) might outpace the mind's ability to calm the fuck down. At least something that sounds like descriptions of Piti comes up generally within a few seconds of beginning my positive regard practices, and within a few minutes of attending the breath. So perhaps taking up those things too quickly as an object is not helping.

I am going to experiment with breath meditation for a couple days during my sits. I will still do positive regard practice (Metta/Brahma Vihara/whatever) during my walking as I find that to be psychologically very good for me. But for the sitting, I will try to attend the breath until it isn't perceptible, then either try a "Do Nothing" approach or attend to other sort of jhana factors if that seems appropriate.

Curious to hear anyone's thoughts about all this; although clearly I have more than enough thoughts for myself.

Feb 16th

Missed yesterday.

30 Minutes sitting:
- Set intention to do breath meditation and take a break from Piti/Sukha body space type stuff
- Around 20 minutes in, I was bordering on nodding off
- That state passed and a lot of energy came up, including smile
- I noticed the breath become more subtle towards the end
- Notable lack of any clonic spinal movements, and only a bit of REM type eye stuff.

There seems to be a strong relationship between what I believe is Piti (if we're using Pali terms) and the spinal movements. Lack of Piti means not a whole lot happens. 

Next week will be interesting as my partner and I are hosting her best friend along with her friend's boyfriend. Since the weather isn't very amenable to walking practice outside, I'll either sit or lay down for my meditation until they're gone on Friday.

I would suggest fuck Pali terms and only stick to matter-of-fact plain language noting what actually is happening If you believe there is Joy then just note "believing" or "hoping" or "desiring" or "wishful thinking" and move on to the next matter of fact plain language noting of matter of fact arise-passing experience. It is always safest to return back to the body sensations and start from there ... body sensations will lead to interesting insights about mind states, mind images, thoughts, assumptions etc ... 

Hope this helps! Best wishes! 

"I would suggest fuck Pali terms and only stick to matter-of-fact plain language noting what actually is happening  ...

Hope this helps!  Best wishes!"

Thanks for the input! I have never had a verbal noting component to my practice but I think there's something you are pointing to that still applies. There is a noticing component which looks for sensations in the body or distractions/tension, and the intention stream likes to respond to that in whatever ways it was primed to do. Sometimes I prime the intention stream (or it primes itself) to just let go of everything, whereas sometimes it is primed to look for particular kinds of sensations and use them as meditation objects. That seems to be what my practice is like these days: A dance between intentions of doing nothing, intentions of attending a meditation object, and intentions to attend distractions/tension. 

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"Intention" is the same as an "itch". Both are objects/experience. And the 3 characteristics can be applied. See if you can see this next time you sit. 

Feb 18th

10 minute walk:
- Set intention to send positive regard to people and myself
- Into was dropped not to let the smile get super large or use that as a main meditation object
- Instead, intention was to have a light smile, light visualization of a spiritual friend, and not get lost in hindrances (kind of TWIM style minus the metta feeling)

20 minute sit:
- Intention to watch the breath where it was most prominent until the end of the sit or the breath become too subtle
- Intention to not repress but also not follow other stuff like forehead sensations, eye stuff, and so on
- That is what happened in principle. Did drop the breathing at the very end when it became very subtle, but next time I will just keep with it
- Very little shaking or eye stuff, and it was indeed correlated to taking up more energetic/pleasant phenomena as a meditation object

Post sit, very nice feeling of equanimity.

EDIT: Side note here. It seems like the approach of sticking with a concrete meditation object like the breath promoted more equanimity, but also kept awareness to a more fixed size (though it did eventually grow broader). 

RE: Papa Che Dusko
""Intention" is the same as an "itch". Both are objects/experience. And the 3 characteristics can be applied. See if you can see this next time you sit. "

There's definitely an impersonal quality to the intention stream these days. Intentions are noticed to not have an owner and to pop in out of nowhere. I would say it is still a more reified aspect of the mind than others though; such as the thought stream when conciousness hasn't contracted around it.

 
 Feb 19th

20 minute sit:
- Intentions to bring up some positive regard (enough that a light smile came up), then play with attention around other parts of the body if/when that came up
- Felt peaceful quite quickly
- Roughly 10 minutes in, very pleasant and diffused sensations around the head
- Attention moved to areas around the abdomen, solarplexus mainly 
- Each time attention moved back to the head and the sensations started to intensify, intention was dropped to soften, go back lower, not strain, be patient
- Around 20 minute mark, felt like laying down instead of sitting so I did that

20 minute laying down:
- Almost immediate pleasant sensation in head after laying down, again trying to gently pull attention lower down
- Eventually, a sort of energy center (I guess the term Chakra probably applies) just below the solar plexus became noticeable
- Tried to rest attention on that very softly
- Eventually, attention went up to head with more intensified smile and pleasant sensation around mouth
- Tried to coax it down to the throat and upper chest softly
- Bit of body emotion came up for a few seconds, sort of a grimace, back to normal after that

I have a lot of gratitude for the people helping me here already. There's a clearer sense of attention versus awareness, and that attention has a close relationship to the intensity of energetic phenomena that I experience. I had some sense of that, but hearing people discuss that relationship and trying to employ some instructions on playing with that relationship is helping. 

"I have a lot of gratitude for the people helping me here already."

 https://youtube.com/shorts/EHNjF7yXfc8?si=rbzmw1Z5-mGqh-Q6

Feb 20th

10 minute walk
- Set intention to share positive regard with people
- As opposed to intending to keep attention on the smile, kept attention more broad

40 minute laying down on the floor
- Goal was just to keep some level of well-being going and gently explore the body space with attention
- Pretty uneventful but it was restful. 
- No clonic spinal movements, very little eye stuff.
- Occasionally pleasant sensations arose in head area, gently tried to bring attention to other areas without getting too lost in craving or tension

I'm going to experiment with this for a little while, but in a few different ways. I will continue to do the 10 minutes of positive regard (i.e. metta) at the start, but not focus attention so hard on the smile. For sits/laying down, I think I will start using breath meditation in the abdomen (haven't done that in 10+ years) as suggested by Daniel. In general, I will try to keep the emphasis on gentle attention instead of a focused attention on any particular meditation object. This so far has been the key to not having the spinal movements, pressures, and eye stuff.

 Feb 23

Missed a few days with busy work/home life, so I wanted to do a bit longer sit today.

10 minute walk
- Instruction set was to send positive regard but keep attention softly in the lower abdomen 
- Not much to report

40ish minute sit
- Instruction set was to follow the breath in the lower abdmonen until the end of the sit or breathing became extremely subtle
- If it did become extremely subtle, explore the body space, particularly the abdomen, chest, upper chest/throat
- After roughly 20 minutes, signs of energetic stuff occurred in mouth, face, top of the head without prompting
- General approach was to just softly keep attention lower down and invite that energetic stuff downward (but no forcing)
- At about the 30 minute mark (I did open my eyes briefly to check), attention and awareness noticed a knot in the nervous system, a bit behind the body around the lowest portion of the thorassic spine (below the lowest point of my shoulder blades but above my lower back)
- After 30-60 seconds of attention sitting on that spot, a very intense muscular contraction complemented by intesifying energetic sensations
- Mental impression was that if attention sits of that too strongly/intensely, that could be bad, but keeping it soft and riding it out was worth a try
- Muscular contractions of most of the posterior chain were quite intense and briefly painful, but there was a general sense that the body was doing what it wanted to do at this point (in a good way)
- After that quited down, intention to re-establish attention on breathing around the chest/throat
- Body wanted to do VERY DEEP breathing, like so deep that at one point it sounded like I was doing some version of throat singing on the inhalation
- This triggered some sort of dry-heaving actions, teary eyes, and felt extremely cathartic in a good way
- After a few minutes of that, total reversal where breathing became extremely subtle and energetically everything settled down
- Decided to lay down at that point until my 50 minute timer went off

Laying down 10ish minutes
- Body and the energetic space around it felt very peaceful, and then the mind started to become very active again (energized really)
- Was a strougle to lay down there and not just end the meditation, but I remained laying down and feeling very good (both relaxed and energized at the same time) until the end

Post meditation: Again, the relationship of attention and energetic sensations is on clear display here. Softening attention softens the energetic sesnations. Removing/redirecting attention away can cause them to soften and cease. Placing attention more firmly on something can intensify it to the point which it becomes painful or too extreme. 

The deep breathing was quite interesting. If done breath work in the past, but this was the body just doing its own thing. 
 

Feb 24

Mind was very stirred up in aversion past couple nights. Though there has been some interpersonal conflict going on, it felt disproportianate. Wondering if it is related to the work I have been doing with the energetic knots.

10 minute walk
- Instruction set was to spread positive regard and hold attention softly in the solar plexus/upperchest/lower abdomen 
- Pretty normal 10 minute waking meditation except that the upper trapezius area felt very tense

30 minute sit
- Instruction set was to watch the breath below the head area until it became very soft or imperceptabe, then scan the body with attention softly at that point
- Around 10 minutes in, the breath more or less disappeared, so attention wandered to different parts of the body
- No energetic knots found per se, but tension in upper trapezius became very noticeable
- Any kind of energetic phenomena or fixation of attention was relaxed, generally bringing the attention back to breathing
- For one moment, visual imagination took over and eyes started REM, but that came and went quickly (I am sleep deprived so this doesn't strike me as odd)
- At a certain point, there was a very clear distinction between awareness and attention; at least I think so. Awareness was on the head energetic sensations, but attention stayed down in the breathing in the abdomen. Or maybe attention was oscillating between the two faster than I could percieve. Hard to say.

5ish minutes yoga
- Body was yelling (not literally) to do some stretches for the traps
- Did a bit of skin the cat (what a stupid and weird name for an exercise) on my pull up bar
- I really don't know much yoga but I did salamba sarvangasana (shoulder stand) for 25 slow breaths and that felt good

Still a bit of tension there. It reminds me of this meme:

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Feb 25th

Quick note. Last night I was doing positive regard meditation (Metta) while falling asleep. It wasn't a particularly mindful or deep thing. In the middle of the night, I had an extremely lucid and high resolution dream which included flying and a moment of inclining towards meditation while doing that. The level of lucidity and clarity was something I haven't experienced since I was into lucid dreaming around 17 years old (I'm 31 now). 

Not much to say except that it was nice to see how the mind can maintain a sort of momentum throughout the night with only a small amount of percieved effort prior to falling asleep. 

Feb 25

10 minute walk
- Instruction set was to spread positive regard and keep attention soft on the chest area

30 minute laying down
- Instruction set was to maintain a level of positive regard and softly hold awareness on the chest and throat area
- I have been dealing with some sleep deprivation so laying down was done with the acceptance that I would likely be dancing on the outer edge of light sleep
- That did happen

 Feb 26th

Today was a bit of a rollercoaster, but mostly in a good way.

10 minute walking meditation
- Instruction set was to spread positive regard to people and rest attention gently in abdomen area
- Within a few minutes, mind inclined towards strong empathy towards the suffering of a few people close to me
- Energetically, this set off some stuff in the throat and upper chest; a kind of tightness that seemed to be both physical and energetic
- Attention spent a bit of time lightly on that area, and there was a range of emotions going on the face (mixture of laughter, somber expression, bit of tears) 
- After that softened, attention went back to the abdomen area which had a lot of energetic sensations for the rest of the walk.
- Auditory subsystem started repeating "Softly, Softly, Softly" as a mantra to try to keep attention and those sensations balanced. There was a general sense that if attention focused too hard, the energetic sensations would increase too much and lead to painful muscle contractions
- There was a direct interplay between attention, the energetic sensations, and how much the abdominal muscles (more thinking transverse and wall type muscles instead of rectus abdominis, a.k.a. the beach muscles)

15 minute sit
- Went straight into sitting with that "softly" mantra still going
- attention stayed in that area for a while then moved around more
- Shortly after sitting, there was a heat like sensation in most parts of the body, breathing was very subtle, and awareness expanded to encompass most of the body
- Notable lack of heat in the solarplexus area, but it was present both on the abdomen and head, along with some other energetic sensations
- Attention went up and down the spine and noticed that sitting was pretty uncomfortable (which is fair, I sit all day at my work), so decided to switch to laying down

15 minute laying down
- Sensations got more subtle at this point and awareness broader. 
- The general sensate of the body become more diffuse and pleasant, with the sense of proportions changing
- Breathing switched to a sort of sleep like breathing pattern briefly, possibly indicating that I was getting a bit too close to falling asleep
- Intention dropped to do more of a "do nothing" approach at this point and relax attention instead of trying to keep it on anything particular, while awareness stayed broad
- I got a work text and had to wrap things up

Post sit was very equanimous and relaxed.

 

Feb 27th

Very sleep deprived, my partner was on call last night and got phoned repeatedly overnight. I decided to just do a 20 minute walk and any sitting or laying down would've just resulted in falling asleep.

20 minute walk
- Instruction set was to spread positive regard and hold attention gently in torso with a bit of leeway where
- For a minute or two, awareness was on the precipice of each sound as it was noticed
- About 10 minutes in, strong energetic sensation in abdomen came up along with the mantra "softly, softly" again to balance that out
- Around 15 minutes, attention rested high up in sternum area on mild sensations
- Around 18 minutes, bodily relaxation while walking acompanied by appreciation towards "self" for meditating even though I feel like hot garbage

Post walk, I still feel like hot garbage in terms of fatigue, but there's much less psychological suffering around that. 

On a side note, past two days, there has been a feeling of heat in sternum and thorassic spine area. Perhaps instruction from Daniel to hold attention lower done and gently invite the whatever/energetic stuff down is opening the whatever/chakra thingy in my chest. Need more time and practice to tell.

Feb 27th again

Did a 15 minute sit on a cushion.
- Started with intention to watch the breath in the abdomen but wasn't really bothered too much about what happened.
- Energetic sensations popped up in different parts of the body with attention resting on them briefly and gently.
- Was able to hold attention on the head sensations without causing any eye stuff, clonic spine movements, or pressure; just mild to pleasantness on the top of the head (the mantra of "softly, softly" did come up)

Reflecting on this sit and the past week of exploring attention (and the things people kindly explained to me), the nature of attention has become finer-grained: Attention can be imbalanced. Attention being too weak was an obvious thing, yet attention being too strong was not something mechanically understood or was able to identify in a practical way. For me, what seems to be the most practical sign of attention being strong (without applying good or bad to this), is when muscles start contracting near the area where attention sits. This might be useful in some settings, but it is not at all apparent that I need to be sitting there convulsing in order to have a good meditation session. In fact I would rather avoid that unless it is absolutely necessary.

I am looking forward with some (hopefully) skillful craving to keep exploring this over the next few weeks. 

Feb 28th

10 minute walk:
- Instruction set was to spread positive regard and rest awareness in the abdomen or chest area
- Attention was quite balanced in terms of keeping on the meditation object without causing too much energy

30 minute laying down:
- Instruction set was to pay attention to bodily energetic sensations
- After a few minutes, the hands became diffuse and sort of the most prominent aspect of awareness, so attention rested on them
- Awareness grew and most parts of the body were within it (though notably some dead spots in that field of experience)
- Gently moved attention around to suffuse the body with the sensation that originated mostly in the hands. That was reasonably successful. 
- By the end, the body felt diffuse, pleasant, and relaxed

March 1st

Another crap sleep again so expectations were set low.

20 minute walk:
- Instruction set to spread positive regard and gently rest awareness in the body 
- The heart area had subtle sensations from the start, so attention used that as the main body-space object
- Mindfulness was very dull, so tried a few mantra like things to keep it a bit busier
- Eventually mind got more energetic but still with weak mindfulness

10 minutes laying down:
- Basically gave up after 10 minutes. Intention was to either meditate or nap, but the mind was too energetic to nap yet unable to follow any meditation object for much longer than a minute or so, with lots of aimless visualizing/verbalizing going on in the background.

This was definitely an outlier. Being underslept is rarely a good thing, but there was a combination of that with quite a lot of thinking about topics that the mind is interested in.

March 3rd

Managed two sessions in a busy day.

20 minute walk:
- Instruction set was to spread positive regard but mostly rest attention on the heart area
- Not much else to report

30 minute laying down:
- Listened to a dhamma talk while more or less napping; too tired for more than that

Mar 4th

10 minute walk:
- Instruction set to spread positive regard to people and watch energetic sensations in the torso, whereever the are prominent
- Mostly in the sternum area today. Subtle warmth.

30 minute sit
- Instruction set to watch energetic sensations
- Watched the chest for something like 10 minutes
- Eventually pleasant sensations around the crown of the skull (not pressure, just nice sensation)
- I have been deliberately avoiding that area as an object for attention due to not knowing how to balancing attention (or what that even meant)
- This time, I tried to attend that area (and the sensations) gently without letting it get out of hand, and managed to do exactly that
- Eventually, the sensation got softer, and awareness grew to the size of the whole body
- Was so blissed out that I was starting to drool at the very end a bit (not had that happen before)

Post sit feeling is amazing. Like I just came back from the spa, with a pleasant band of sensation still wrapped around most of my head. Extremely relaxed and blissful. 

This is the kind of sit I have to be wary about chasing for next meditation session. I must remind myself that every sit is different, and a great deal of this sit felt only slightly positive (relative to neutral feeling). 

Mar 5th

Today was a much a nap as it was meditation. Instruction set was to watch the heart area and spread positive regard. Did that for about 20 minutes then mostly fell asleep for the rest.

Mar 7th

20 minute walk:
- Intstruction set was to relax tension in the body, spread positive regard, and rest awareness in the heart area
- Mind was very active and wandering with pretty weak mindfulness, but this was not felt as anything wrong, just nature
- Positive feeling mentally and physically came about part way through

15 minutes laying down:
- Still pretty very active mind at first
- Eventually, without even noticing it at first, mind calmed down, body had a pleasant sensation strongest in the feet (that's new), and the cycle began.
- The cycle went from mind wandering and not mindful while on the border of sleeping, to letting that thinking go and attending very pleasant bodily sensations, the slowly back to the first step.

Some aversion came up earlier today, and a somewhat interesting and important conversation is happening later today, so that is likely why the mind had was the way it was. Approaching that with patience and kindness went a long way.

Mar 9th

20 minute walk:
- Rest awareness in heart area, spread positive regard but mainly just focus on sensations in the heart area
- peaceful mind state with some small distractions

20 minutes laying down:
- Same as above
- Not much going on energetically, very subtle feeling which was fine
- Around 15 minute mark, awareness went broader and persistent pleasant feelings in body came up

No fireworks, just pleasant mood and body sensations.

Mar 10th

Thought it might be interesting to right down some general reflections on my practice this time around. Although this is partly just data logging, I will try to add a bit more colour and perspective from time to time.

General feelings: I feel as though the most important thing right now is to just keep consistent practice and not get too fixated on what happens during the formal practice. I took about two weeks to explore having a more balanced attention, and that was very useful in dealing with all of the spinal contractions/convulsions and other energetic phenomena. Although those phenomena didn't exactly block me out of getting deeper levels of concentration/relaxation, they did not seem very skillful. It has also become apparent that I can work with some of the energetic experiences and sensations in a softer way while still getting deep into relaxation and some level of equanimity.

I don't really feel like I have any big difficulties at the moment. There's a much more stable acceptance of the changing nature of what happens during both the formal and informal practice. Not needing to "get" anything from the formal practice and just being able to generate joy from doing it regardless of "how it is going" ironically tends to make things go better. Even formal practice which I would have called "bad" a year ago generally goes well by dropping expectations of concepts of how things "should go." It could be 20 minutes of mostly being lost in thought, but at a certain point of letting go and maintaining a bit of positive regard, the mind just drops that and all of the sudden things are good. 

My life has been draining and busy lately with lots of work concerns, navigating a long term relationship, making more time to connect with people, and keeping on top of personal standards like cardio, exercise, chores,  nutrition, and so on. There's this general sense that if I was to make a big problem out of how little time/energy I have for formal practice, that would be expecting a duck to be a chicken. So it's fine. The 20-50 minutes a day that I am able to do most days is the sufficient amount of practice I can manage right now. 

Log for today:
I've started doing more 20 minute walks. I've noticed that I tend to have more energy during the sits/laying down if I extend the walk by 10 minutes.

20 minute walk:
- Rest attention in the body, where it wants to go (except into distraction), spread positive regard
- An very relaxing and diffused sensation was felt along the back of the spine area and large portions of the back quite quickly; similar to the sensation of pleasure/relaxation from a massage but minus the physical stuff
- That eased off after 5-10 minutes and attention played around with the belly area which can be kind of a powerhouse
- Eventually all sensations were quite subtle

30 minute sit/lay down:
- Not much going on sensation wise, intention stream prompted mind to emphasize letting go of the direction of attention in general, doing sort of a Do Nohing style
- After about 20 minutes, the body's posture was somewhat collapsed, and a strong tension in the right shoulder/neck was noticed. 
- Decided to lay down for the remainder
- Awareness went quite broad and the sense of the body sort of came in and out of awareness; at times having a shape and at times being just a field without defined boundaries (though not necessarily infinite; may 2ish meters in diameter)

 No formal practice log today. 

Just wanted to note that it was an extremely disruptive day on multiple fronts. A project manager I liked working with got fired abruptly, and I had to work to get a word in edge-wise in order to communicate some context on release deadlines that the new temp PM doesn't have. All of that was on top of some difficult programming problems that were made much harder by Daylight Stupid time induced sleep deprivation. 

Amidst all that, I was able to keep it together pretty well. I did a 15 minute walking meditation when things were at their worst and at various times could hear one of my teachers saying "don't lose your center" throughout the day. Not literally; I mean just the memory content.

That alone made me better able to deal with things, release the tension/craving, and remember that none of this shit will matter in a few weeks, and in not much longer, it will cease to have any noticeable impact. 

​​​​​​​It's fine.


 

Mar 14th

25 minute sit
- A few minutes of resting attention in heart area
- Sensations in head become prominent, so attention went there and rested in them without trying to intensify them
- Decided to do sort of a more Do Nothing/Dropping the ball type meditation after a while
- As doing nothing continued, mind got more joyful and expansive

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 Mar 17th

20 minute walk:
- Instruction set was to do 5 minutes of deliberate and discursive positive regarding (phrases of well wishing with names and accompanying images of people), then rest attention in bodily sensations
- Mostly rested in heart area after roughly 5 minutes
- Noticed the body and mind are quite fatigued.

10 minute laying down:
- Instruction set was to scan the whole body slowly and look for any areas that feel energetic or blocked
- Kind of just a typical body scan. Body relaxed and mindfulness got quite dull.

Sleep deprivation has become a pretty chronic problem for me this year. Work has been more intellectually demanding than usual and my partner has been having lots of issues with sleep (or sometime she's on call all night). The only thing I can exert more control over is to just try to meditate and get into deep rest more frequently. 
 

Mar 20th

30 minutes napitation. Spent the first few minutes sending out positive regard, then rested attention in body sensations.

Now and again there's a reminder to self. Be patient, do the steps every day you can, and don't get lost in the changing circumstances. Plan, but don't seek permanence or security in plans.

Endless repetition and slow incremental changes over the course of tens of thousands of hours has brought one further than anyone could have expected. Find peace in that repetition. Don't get lost.

Mar 21st

20 minute walking meditation:
- Instruction set to begin by sending positive regard out, then move to body sensations after a few minutes
- Apart from a powerful but under control energetic build up which started in the lower abdmonen and worked it's way up to the solar plexus, sensations were very subtle today.
- Despite that, attention/awareness grew in size and the focus was on relaxing and opening

15 minute sit:
- Sort of intended to follow breath sensations with broad attention, but allowing some play here.
- Was a mixture of attending the breath (which became quite subtle too) and relaxing into other stuff

Post sit was pleasant; very relaxed. There's a sense that I am sleep deprived via sensations in the eyes and forehead which feel heavy. 

 Mar 22

20 minute walk; same instruction set as usual.
After spreading positive regard using images and internal verbalization, and sort of relaxing contraction of the concious space a bit, I started to yawn. This brought about a bit of a dry heaving type thing, but it didn't invole actually vomiting. It was sort of like the neck and face muscles involved in that pattern were turning on when attention rested on the sensation of yawning. After that, a strong energetic feeling in the abdomen came up. Attention went to that, and then energy gradually moved up the spine. It would sort of to that in levels as opposed to just slowly scanning from the abdomen up the spine/torso.

Anyways, normally it gets stuck at the solar plexus (this has a happened a couple times recently), but it worked its way to the upper mid/upper back and caused some postural muscles to contract for a few minutes. It was intense but I've gotten okay at riding out the energetic phenomena and adjusting attention's intensity to avoid the sensations and muscle contractions become painful. 

This is without a doubt the longest I have ever done meditation practice which largely involves resting awareness in what I will call the body-feeling space. At a slow pace (probably because I have not managed to practice more than 20-40 minutes a day this year), more and more of these things become apparent. Resting attention (not to be confused with awareness) on specific places in the body-feeling space can be like pushing buttons to activate different aspects of the nervous system. 

 Mar 23rd

Short walking meditation today with the usual instructions. 

- Attention almost immediately went to a strong and stable energetic sensation in the lower abdomen. 
- Attention rested on the sensation, and the sensation along with attention grew bigger in what felt like discrete stages.
- At first it was about  6"-1' in size. By the end of growing it subjectively felt like it was 3 or 4 feet (roughly a meter) and encompassed most of the torso with a stable and very palpable energetic senstation. 
- Attention tried to coax it down lower which sort of worked, but in doing so attention reverted to a smaller size, and so did the percieved feeling. There might be a lesson in that.

Meditation is funny. Some days it is a grind, most days it is just nice, and some days it is blast off time. It always changes.

 

 Mar 24th

Walking meditation 15 minutes:
Two patterns are emerging quite regularly with my walking practice these days:
One goes like this:
1. Positive regard starts being sent out
2. Attention notices an energetic sensation in the abdomen and takes that up as the main meditation object
3. That sensation changes (grows, shrinks, moves)
The other goes like this:
1. After a few minutes of resting in sensations, relaxing, and sort of expanding/releasing tension I will start to yawn
2. If attention focuses on the energetic sensations around yawning, it triggers sort of a cough/dry-heave which also seems to be accompanied by sort of a grimace and some level of tears (although not with any accompanying emotional changes, and the tears might just be due to the yawning).
3. This sounds bad but it actually sort of relaxes muscles in my jaw and neck quite nicely

We'll see how long that lasts but this has started becoming regular.