OK, an update. Sorry, this will be a bit long.
Since my last post, I've continued in my practice. The characteristic feature has been much effort, and much difficulty staying with the noting. Despite my best intentions, frequent days without sitting. My experience of the world has been following a pattern. Periods where everything seems dull and flat, without joy, meaningless, are followed by periods of simple calm. There are also periods, usually lasting no more than a day or two, where I experience a kind of agitated anguish about the lack of meaning, about the difficulty with the work.
During this same period, I've had advances on the medical front. First, my Dr. added a pharmacist to his practice, and after consulting with her I was able to reduce my BP meds drastically. In addition, I found that the Mirapex I had been taking for many years (for restless legs) was actually making my restlessness worse. It did relieve symptoms at night, but I had to pay by experiencing tremendous fatigue and irritability at night, as well as restlessness during the day whenever I attempted to take a nap etc. My Sleep Dr. helped me wean off the Mirapex, and I found the underlying RLS was much less than it had been. Most nights I am not aware of it at all. So I have been able to reduce my daily meds from 6 drugs to 3, which is a huge accomplishment. During the periods mentioned above, of 'agitated anguish' the restless at night is more pronounced. (Don't know whether any of this is related, just including it for context).
Throughout this time, I had mainly forgotten about maps and stages, and was just wondering why I was so miserable. I know that if I was to see a shrink, it would be SSRIs immediately. I don't get pleasure from activities I previously enjoyed. Music means nothing to me, whereas it had been a major source of pleasure before. Blah blah blah, sounds like depression. Not suicidal at all, but frequent thoughts of death, such as myself being killed by wild animals, or dying in a car crash unable to contact my wife because I can't reach my mobile. And always, as I'm dying, thoughts of what a complete waste I had made of my life.
My practice had devolved into half-hearted attempts at noting, with frequent long periods in which the noting stopped, and I was spaced out. Then I would realize I was spaced out, and start up again. I would get up from the sit very dissatisfied. On the days when I sat, probably 4 times a week on average, I would sit for 45 minutes.
All along, I knew I wanted to do another retreat. I decided to sit with Shinzen Young at the end of May. This would be a 6 night retreat. In preparation, I decided to put more energy into formal practice, and switched to 3 sits per day. My goal was 1x 1 hour, and 2 x 1/2 hour sits. Morning, noon, and night respectively. I used Shinzen's methods as diligently as I could. This is what I did for the month leading up to the retreat, in the hope of making best use of the retreat time. I noticed during this time increased energy available for the practice. The prospect of sitting would be accompanied by joy and determination.
A few things happened at the retreat. First, on the first day I was sitting, and felt an unfamiliar energy rising up into the head. It was a kind of warm glow. It seemed to come when I had quietened down to a certain point. It only lasted a few seconds, before giving way to vibrations in the body. At first these were subtle rhythmic back and forth oscillations of the torso. I noticed that if I attempted to relax, the movements would become larger in amplitude, and lower in frequency, until I was rocking forwards and backwards almost violently. I was easily able to suppress them by a slight mental effort, and often it was difficult to tell whether I was causing them, or experiencing them.
Sometimes (seemed to depend on what was happening with the mind somehow) these movements would appear as random jerks & twitches, similar to the feeling when you're in a plane flying through minor turbulence. Everything seems to be shaking randomly. Shinzen, said these movements were Kriyas. Mostly, I experienced them as a distraction, because I had been attempting to focus on something else, usually sound. (I was not doing Mahasi style noting on this retreat).
On about the 4th day, during a sit I suddenly fell into a different kind of concentration. Effort was gone, there was a sudden intense but not unpleasant sense of pressure between the temples. My concentration was not single pointed, but it seemed that wherever I directed it, it was impervious to external stimuli. I found that during the day, this state began to arise more frequently. It seemed that I could enter it almost at will, once the mind was quiet enough. Was happy about this, and was thinking that at last I had made some progress.
At one point I had an intense headache behind one eye. I sat down at the beginning of a sitting period, and quickly went into this new concentration state. A kind of vision appeared to me of a peculiar shape that I was able to manipulate in 3d space. When looking at it from a certain direction, I could see a purple spot. I realized that the spot was a representation of the pain behind my eye. Or it _was_ the pain. Anyway, by focusing on it, I was able to make it expand, and as it expanded, it thinned out, until finally it was very large, and I was inside it, and the pain vanished. I had a strong sense that this was being shown to me, that this concentrated state was something that I could use, somewhat like a tool, and that it was now available to me.
That night, there was an all-night sit. During the night, I had another kind of vision. I closed my eyes, and suddenly my vision was filled with beautiful soft orange light. In one direction there was a pinpoint blue-green light, but if I turned my attention towards it, it would always maintain the same spatial relationship, so I could never look at it directly. I opened my eyes to see if someone had turned on a light in the room, but they had not. When I closed my eyes, the vision returned. I soon noticed that the orange light had structure, and it seemed that I was staring into infinite space. The blue-green light was like a distant star. I became aware of a numinous quality to the experience. There was no sense of physical energy, just a great deal of calm, stillness, and equanimity, and a growing sense of awe. This vision gradually faded over the course of a few minutes.
The remainder of the retreat was uneventful. I was no longer able to enter the very concentrated state. I was mainly aware of stillness and quiet, especially during the final sitting period at night. A lot of equanimity, and no difficulty with the practice, no hinderances were evident. But something was telling me the retreat was already over.
That was maybe 6 weeks ago. Since then, I seem to be back in similar experiences as before the retreat, and yesterday was one of those days of 'agitated anguish' that was particularly difficult. I'm left encouraged by the retreat, and find motivating myself to do the work is somewhat easier. I'm doing between 30 mins and 2 hours each day. A lot of sleep problems, and when I don't get good sleep, the work is difficult. I'm working with the sensations of fatigue and my aversion towards them.
Anyway, sorry for the long-winded report. I'm posting now because it just occurred to me that these experiences I'm having seem to have a cyclical nature. I usually notice this when I'm in the 'agitated anguish' phase. It seems familiar, and I remember "this is just like what happened last week", etc. Yesterday, for example, I had been feeling fine in the morning. I was wondering what to eat for lunch, and realized that although there were many unhealthy things easily available, I just had no desire for them, and actually wanted to go find something clean & healthy to eat. This made me happy, and I was smiling as I went to lunch. I came home, and a minor incident at work plunged me into the 'agitated anguish', a dark place that clouds my judgement, makes every experience unpleasant/miserable. I was finding sounds intolerable, and spent much of the afternoon wearing noise canceling headphones with no music playing, just so I can have some quiet.
