As some background, ive come from doing Kriya yoga for about 4 years, now ive got arthritis in my hip yoga is getting tricky. Ive been reading MCTB for the last year or so after being introduced to it via the Baptist Head website. Ive been doing concentration practices for the last few weeks, focusing on the breath.


21/01/2013. 4:30-5:30 AM; I don’t think I had any sleep last night, but I must have as I dreamed about something…too vague now to recall. Anyway got on the chair and slogged it out for an hour did get into the closer stage* a few times but really didn’t have the energy to sustain it. I can fork thoughts when counting breaths so I need to focus more I think or maybe mix it up a bit.

*this is a stage ive noticed where my focus changes and becomes, closer.. make sense?

4:00-5:00AM Sat on the bench to count breaths and concentrate for an hour, mind was jabbering away like mad got a little better when i realized i was too hot under the blanket.

So many thoughts, i was even aware of thoughts about what i would put in my diary. I got lost in watching the sensations that lag behind the breath again and only once managed to get into any kind of stable state. Its like throwing a ball at a wall and expecting it to stick. On the upside the hour seemed to pass quickly i didn’t fidget much or look at the timer.

4:07-5:24AM Sitting on the Bench for the first 40 mins then onto the chair. Started staying with the breath and counting the breaths. After about 10 mins i my focus changed and i entered into that "closer" stage. It was particularly pleasurable which seemed to shut the chatter up in my head quite a lot.

I stayed with it for what felt like 30 mins at which time my knees became very uncomfortable so i moved to the chair. I was surprised to find that the feeling remained after moving to the chair, and for a while i became acutely aware of the heat of the breath on my upper lip area and noticed at the end of the breath that area tingled as the cold air replaced the warm. This lasted for a while but i lost it and no matter how hard i tried could not re create that. But the feeling remained, until i peaked at the clock the timer had stopped i must have bumped the phone when i moved to the chair.

5-6:10 AM sat on the bench.
Practice was harder than yesterday, sat there got mind chatter down, watched the breath, counting the breath. Had short, unsustainable concentration stages then back to mind chatter. This went on over and over for the whole sit, knees started to get really sore so was changing to the chair when i noticed i only had 2 mins to go. Maybe the pain in the knees failures last push. Think ill just meditate on the chair tomorrow, give my knees a chance to catch up.

5-6:10 AM

Another tricky one, well it is what it is i suppose. Sat on the chair, which i found unsatisfactory, i adjusted my position a few times but then thought that i was just shuffling about so stuck with it. The bench really is a lot more stable. Anyway counted the breaths watched the sensations but my mind seemed agitated. Had a few fleeting glimpses of that closer stage feeling but they were very short lived.

Maybe, and i know this is bad, i was anticipating the pleasantness of the fixed mind state i had a few days ago or maybe the spicy food i had last night was agitating me.

I was sort of aware that i was missing a step (or two), i was trying to follow the breath with a agitated mind, I was getting frustrated with this but i hadn’t even checked into my body to let that settle down first! duh.

Who knows, on the positive side i didn’t give up and stuck at it for an hour and ten and i think i learned something about the hierarchical structure of the requirements for good concentration.

26/1/2013 8AM-9AM
Slept in so meditated a little later than usual, 4AM is much better as its quieter but never mind. Spent the first part of the sit letting my body settle down then moved the focus to my breath. Lots of distracting thoughts today but did manage to lock onto the breath (& counting the breath) for about 15 mins. The last 15 mins were hard as i just wanted to get up, but didnt.

6-7AM Meditation on the bench

Counting to 10 with the breath (got up to 16 once!) and staying with it, dropped into the closer phase a number of times. I'm thinking that having a few days off may have been a good idea simply because it has lowered my expectations for my sit and pressuring myself might have been hindering my progress.

When i say pressuring myself what i mean is that i was focusing on the getting back into that stage...focusing on the step in
front of the next one, rather than just the next one.

When I wasn’t in that closer stage my mind was wandering quite a bit during this session and i did look at the clock with 15 mins to spare.

I'm not comfortable claiming that this "closer phase" is access concentration but im starting to think that it might be mainly due to the solidness of it, my mind feels like its on rails and the sensations im focusing on seem a lot more detailed, i guess it will be apparent once i can reliably repeat it.

5-6AM on the bench
Decided to make haste slowly, so began with a few gentle stretches and knee warm ups before sitting. Then took maybe 10 mins or so settling the body down, then finally let my focus go to the breath.

My focus was not very tight and in fact it varied between focusing on the sensations inside the nostrils and the subtle energetic sensations that lag behind the breath. Counted breaths up to 10 with either focus. After some time I gradually went in and out of that closer stage, then it locked in for about 20 mins to maybe ½ hour. At 55 mins I got the distinct impression that my sit was over, my knees were hurting a bit so moved my legs out from under the bench for the last 5.

31/02/2013 5-6AM
Sat on the chair for an hour. Counted the breath, similar to yesterdays sit I drifted in and out of some kind of concentration state, im wondering if my practice is becoming wishy-washy, perhaps im being too hard on myself. My theory was that in a Goenka retreat you do concentration for the first 3 days, and you do 11 hours a day so after maybe a month or so of daily concentration practice (1hour a shot) I should be close to ready to move on. So ill keep on with the plan and plod, on and re asses in a few more weeks.

Or you can do vipassana, and thus build your concentration while also gaining insight.

I, like you, initially started out by doing nothing but anapanasati meditation in the attempt to build concentration. I thought, well, I'll build up my concentration muscle, and then switch to vipassana. But all I did was frustrate myself, since it is harder to see any results, except one time when I entered what I think was the 2nd vipassana jhana, which was really impressive, but I was unable to reproduce it again. Doing vipassana, you will build concentration along the way, as part and parcel of applying the technique successfully.

I guess an analogy would be someone interested in learning martial arts. You could, on the one hand, lift weights every day, building up your muscles so that you become really strong, and the start training in the martial arts, but it takes forever, and is kinda boring to just sit there pumping iron, etc., or you could begin training in the martial arts now, and build up your physical strength alongside learning the martial arts techniques, by applying the techniques.

Also, if you are going to be noting, it can take a little time getting used to/get comfortable with. So start practicing noting now, because it could take a few months to really slide into. If you build up great concentration, but your noting technique sucks, then what will become of all your concentration efforts? Concentration can best be built up by 1) applying the technique of noting, 2) meditating a couple times a day [spacing them out], and 3) noting off the cushion. This last point is crucial: Once you learn noting, you can utilize it throughout the day [driving, bathing, taking a dump, etc.], which itself will build and help maintain concentration.

Yeah, and also, once you pass the A+P, sitting becomes much more interesting, and one feels more compelled to do it. When I was just doing samatha stuff, it was pretty dull, and, besides feeling restful, I never really felt like I was getting anything out of it.

So that's my 2 cents, so to speak. I'd just hate to see you get frustrated and quit. I've got an abandoned concentration practice thread on the DhO, but once I started vipassana there was no looking back.

The best to you in your practice...

Oh, by the way, here is what Daniel Ingram wrote on a thread in which I asked about developing concentration BEFORE starting vipassana...

"I personally had really bad samatha skills until I had stream entry, but I learned to note early on and could do it well on retreat once I had some practice with it.

"That said, I crossed the A&P (which is second vipassana jhana territory) in daily life without any formal meditation training at all a good number of time before I learned much at all about meditation, so what does that tell you?

"Be very careful about what you call first jhana. If you adopt some very hard, high, samatha-heavy standard, you will likely shoot yourself in the foot trying to get that, when long before you ever attained that, you could have rocked out some serious insight.

"Remember, Mind and Body is first jhana territory (the vipassana aspect), and plenty of people can get to that quite easily. When I say you must attain the first jhana to do vipassana, that is what I am talking about.

"I know a number of other people who have good jhanic skills and never went on retreats at all.

Daniel"

PS - Also, this thread may be useful and/or interesting http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/3642138

If you decide to stick with samatha practice, these notes may be useful. The following are ten stages which you can use to gauge how your concentration practice went.

Enjoy!

Kamalasila's Stages of Progress in Samadhi Meditative Training
(aka Upasaka Culadasa's Ten Levels of Mastery)

1) Establish a practice.

2) Interrupted continuity of attention to the meditation object.
[Long periods of mind wandering compared with relatively short periods of attention to meditation object. When sustained attention lasts minutes verses wandering lasting seconds, when focus on object is noticeably longer than time it has been forgotten, then Stage 3].

3) Extended continuity of attention to the meditation object.
[This stage has been mastered when attention to meditation object is rarely if ever lost, either to mind wandering or sleeping.]

4) Uninterrupted continuity of attention to the meditation object.
[This stage has been mastered when thoughts and emotions [severe distraction] that arise and pass away no longer have the ability to displace the meditation object as primary focus of attention. Vigorousness of intention to observe every detail of meditative object overcomes severe dullness – thus the Meditator can clearly discern whether each breath is longer or shorter than those which preceded it. When severe distraction is overcome it tends to slip into severe dullness. Primary challenge is finding balance between distraction and dullness.]

5) Sustaining full-minded awareness.
[Freedom from severe dullness. Also, the ability to keep subtle distractions from turning into severe distractions. When meditator, having succeeded in overcoming severe distractions, is able to sustain a high level of awareness without slipping into severe dullness for remainder of session, then mastery of fifth level has been achieved. Primary challenge is keeping dullness from diminishing vividness and intensity of meditative object.]

6) Subduing subtle distraction.
[There is a virtual but not total absence of subtle distractions. Awareness of sounds, bodily sensations, and internal mental states is only intermittently present. Exclusive focus can be said to have been attained.]

7) Single-pointed attention to the meditation object and pacifying the mind.
[Effort is no longer required to sustain attention and mindful awareness. Attention can be readily shifted from one object to another without disturbing the quality of concentration and awareness. This is called mental pliancy – the mind has been tamed. There are often bizarre and strongly distracting sensations and bodily movements at this stage. There can be intermittent periods of joy and contentment as well.]

8) The compliant mind and pacifying the senses.
[Mental pliancy is accompanied by meditative joy, a pleasurable feeling in the body, and contentment. The goal of this stage is the complete pacification of the six senses such that the intrusion of external stimuli is even further diminished, and the unusual sensory phenomenon that are peculiar to this stage cease to be of a disturbing nature. Also, breath becomes very subtle. The ears perceive only inner sound, eyes perceive only inner light, body becomes suffused with comfort and pleasure and is free of discomfort, and mental state is joyful. Can sit for hours without discomfort, dullness, or distraction. This is called physical pliancy.]

9) Physical pliancy and meditative joy.
[This stage is characterized by mental and physical pliancy, physical pleasure, a joyful state of mind, and great happiness. The goal of this stage is to become so familiar with the condition of mental and physical pliancy, and with the joyfulness and pleasure and altered perceptions that are its concomitants, that the initial excitement subside and is replaced by tranquility and equanimity. When the meditator can consistently invoke mental and physical pliancy, and when these pliancies are accompanied by profound and imperturbable tranquility and equanimity, the ninth stage has been mastered. ]

10) Stability of attention and awareness persisting beyond the sitting practice.
[With this quality of concentration, mindful awareness, joy, tranquility, and equanimity, the mind is at the threshold of, and has immediate access to, the jhanas and productive insight practice.]

Notes on Stages:

Severe (aka gross or course) Distraction (aka excitation): Involuntary thoughts occupy the center of attention, while the meditative object is displaced to the periphery.

Subtle Distraction: The meditative object remains at the center of attention, but involuntary thoughts emerge at the periphery of attention.

Severe (aka gross or course) Dullness (aka laxity): The meditative object has little vividness.

Subtle Dullness: The meditative object appears vividly, but the attention is slightly slack.

By using “noting” [aka introspective awareness], we can develop a mechanism that informs us when the mind has wandered and redirects full attention to the meditation object (Stage 2).

Uses a kind of “premptive” noting to keep the mind focused on the meditative object as opposed to using it only after the mind has already wandered (Stage 3).

Vigilance in the moment, and attention to the quality of awareness overcomes every sort of dullness and distraction, thus creating conditions for exclusive, single-pointed attention to meditative object (Stages 4-6).

Continued guard against distraction and dullness conditions the mind to sustain concentration and awareness effortlessly (Stage 7).

Mental and physical pliancy, contentment [sukha] and joy [piti] are the conditioned result of effortlessly sustained single-pointed concentration (Stage 8).

Simply abiding in the state of meditative joy creates familiarity necessary for profound tranquility and equanimity to arise (Stage 9).

The occasional, periodic, or even frequent occurrence of a meditative experience corresponding to any of the stages, including advanced stages, is common. The point of practice, however, should be mastery, such that a particular stage can be arrived at easily and consistently. It is not unusual for a beginner to experience stage 4 or even 7, but it is not repeatable, so is therefore without significance except that it makes the meditator aware of what they are capable of.

The rate of advancement through subsequent stages tends to accelerate. Though it may seem to take a long time to completely overcome mind wandering and enter stage 4, because so much of the training appropriate to that stage has already been taking place, the meditator will be able to move much more quickly from stage 4 to stage 5 then they could from stage 3 to stage 4, and that same acceleration continues in the later stages.

What we do in practice more than anything else is simply create specific conditions, and then the practice will unfold on its own in a highly predictable way as a result of those conditions.

There really are people who have advanced through all ten stages in less than a year, using the methods described here, and others who have done so in three years or less – based on a regular daily sitting practice of 1 to 2 hours per day plus some ancillary practices suggested here, and supplemented by shorter or longer meditation retreats, but without extended retreats lasting for months or years. So please be assured that it is possible for at least some householders to succeed within a few months of years of regular, diligent daily mediation with occasional longer periods of practice.

Four Milestone Achievements

Uninterrupted continuity of attention to the mediation object. Meditator no longer a novice.


Sustained single-pointed attention to the meditation object, with exclusive focus. Meditator has achieved mastery of skilled concentration.


Effortless stability to the attention, also known as mental pliancy, the compliant mind. Meditator has developed first stage of Adept.


Stability of attention and mindful awareness are fully developed, accompanied by meditative joy, tranquility, and equanimity, qualities which persist between meditation sessions. Meditator has developed concentration of Adept.

Hi Alan

Thanks heaps for your pointers! Ill read over them a few times and let them sink in.

cheers
Simon

5:10-6AM.
Sit on the bench. Ok so im a bit tired, my birthday was a day or so ago and ive been having a few late nights so its no surprise that im low on energy and lets face it a little grumpy about having to be up early. But this is the time that I have set aside so this is what I have to work with.

Bench was stinging the knees a bit more than usual, the recent chat with my acupuncturist about my arthritis has also made me more worried about my body than normal. I am tall and this bench is probably not optimal for my height –ill do some googling later on about bench heights.

Enough of the excuses onto the practice. By paying attention to the various bits of my body that were complaining and listening to them I managed to get into a decent enough state to follow the breath. Really noticing the sensations for a while then I realized that the background noise had dropped away and I was into the closer stage (possibly access concentration). I stayed there for a while then popped out of it, then back in again for a shorter period then lost it again. Got off the bench with 10 mins to go but the pain in my knees made me sort of slump on the floor till the pins and needles went away.

Ah Ha! I did take my direction to follow concentration practices from page 32 of MCTB "until you can get into access concentration, you ain't got squat" which if i understand Daniel's post at the end of the above thread isn’t necessarily the best tactic for progress.

I've never done noting, but from what ive read about it, it seems to be like riding a bike, that is balanced on top of another bike (concentration). Ill give it a go during my next sit. Thanks again Alan pointers like this are very helpful.

Feb 4 7-8AM
Heavy rain, banging windows and ridiculous humidity all robbed me of sleep, causing me to laze out till the absolute last minute to get up. Knee and hip both causing pain so i meditated on the chair for one hour. Let body get settled, focused on the breath and attempted to note my way through the barrage of thoughts. Never tried noting before so laboured under a cloud of uncertainty. Found that the distractions were much shorter lived with the noting, although the distracting thoughts were particularly novel i was catching them before they could take me on a trip. Experimented with a bunch of words to note with, eg hearing, thinking, feeling etc, used the word space (as in space bar) to break the stream of thoughts which worked quite well. After a while entered a period of sustained calm, until about 50 mins into the sit where it all fell apart and i struggled to stay on the chair.

6AM-7AM (Tuesday the 5th)

Not really sure what happened this morning, the time went very quickly i did try doing some noting but struggled with it. Followed the breath, watched the sensations, noted when i could but somehow noting seems very hard - maybe it is!
After the meditation i felt really calm and happy, a feeling which has stayed with me until lunch time at least.

Feb 6th 08:30-9:30
Today is Waitangi day so its a public holiday here in New Zealand, so i meditated a little later than usual, on the chair (earplugs in as there are kids and lawnmowers about today). Got my body relaxed as i could (chair is not as good as the bench but i cant do the bench just yet) focused on the breath. Still not sure if i should go ahead with the noting or just remain with the breath so sort of did both, started with the breath. Had one terribly long break where i solved a programming problem that i couldn’t solve yesterday. Mind waffled on as the day stood on the other side of my meditation room door and listed all the things i could do on my day off. Began to note about half way through the hour. I think i get it, acknowledging the sensations or thoughts seems to finalise them but still unsure about what im supposed to be doing with it. I’ve booked myself into a day long retreat on the 17th so hopefully ill pick up a few pointers there.

7/2/2013 6-7AM
Decided to give a kneeling chair a go, it was perfect, my body was held much more steadily than in a conventional chair and i had no pain in the hip or knees for the whole hour. It kept my spine straight so there was also no neck pain at the back end of the hour either.

After reading the very useful hints on Alan Smithee's blog i decided to do the following:-

1. Get the body settled, steady and comfortable -kneeling chair was a winner
2. Count breaths -waited till i got to 50 without too many thoughts
3. Stared body scanning, ive done a lot of this with Kriya yoga so it was no surprise when my Sahasara chakra burst into life. The scanning left me in a blissfully relaxed state. Wallowed in this state for a bit then started noting.
4. I can see that noting, as ive been warned will take some time to get the hang of. As it turns out my thoughts were mostly about hearing noises and inner whinging (suffering)

this is looking better.

4-5:15 On the Kneeling Chair
Followed the same pattern as yesterday as it seems to be a winner, but im trying to push the time out to a more decent length, my maximum time limit on a workday is 3 hours so ive got lots of room for improvement.

After achieving a good level of concentration i started body scanning. After about 5 mins of this i found myself in the "meat suit" stage. Ive had this before during my yoga meditations. The body feels thick, it feels like im wearing a meat suit, the sensation is not unpleasant (its my meat) and the mind seems to be satisfied by the sensation so i sat there for what seemed like 40 mins feeling the meat-ness of it.

It occurred to me that i was supposed to note so tried that, but i just caused too much mind stuff and lost the meat suit feeling. Checked the time and i had 10 mins left - this is interesting as i normally look at the clock about 10 mins before the end of the session but this session was an extra 15 mins long.

10/2/2013 8-9:30
Set the timer for 1.5 hours. Got onto the kneeling chair with a blanket and earplugs and counted the breaths. Did so till i was present without having daydream trips for 50 breaths. then focused hard on the sensations in the nose followed this until the sensations felt closer so i could be sure i had good focus before moving onto body scanning. Once again Sahasara chakra burst into life when i concentrated on the crown. Investigated this sensation it felt like something was balancing on my head (one day maybe ).

Then scanned the rest of my body very slowly as i was aware that i had oodles of time. At the completion of the body scan my body felt heavy and relaxed i was in a deep relaxation state, very pleasant. I hung around there for a while until it occurred to me that noting might be a good idea. Tried a little noting for as long as i could before dodging a wave of frustration that i could feel being set up in my brain by dropping back to just being there. Looked at the clock (just to make sure it was still going) at 1hour and 17 mins into the meditation. Spent the last few mins trying to note. Left the meditation room in a very good mood.

11/2/2013 5-6:30 - kneeling chair

Damned persistent nasal blockage preventing me from exhaling through my right nostril causing me significant frustration. Tried all sorts of variants eg half nose/mouth breathing, in through nose out through mouth, just not used to it so i couldn't get my concentration going as well as i would have liked. Managed to get into a slightly meditative state - stillness. Also lots of problems with horrible tunes looping in my head. One good thing did happen i "noted" one of the horrible tunes away - "hearing hearing hearing..." pulled me back to the present.

But overall today i feel a bit sniffy, asthmatic and tired, oh well, stayed with it for 1.5 hours just to show it who's boss.

11/2/2013 Sneaky 30 min sit.

Nose was a bit better so got on the kneeling chair, i ate an hour ago but i think it was too soon. Anyway didnt get much in the way of progress -its a bit noisy round here but made the most of it. Have been noting using a constant stream of notes to keep me from hopping on the distraction bus, like this - noise noise noise noise noise noise noise.. gone. Seemed to work a bit. You know i think i feel a little bit refreshed by it.

12/02/2013 5:00-6:30
Nose not as bad as yesterday morning but bad enough to force me to breathe through the mouth, managed to get into closer state a few times but was not as solid as i would have liked. Could not maintain concentration long enough to start body scanning, but did noting when noise (car horns at 5am!) was distracting. Got out of chair for last 20 mins and lay on massage table.

14/02/2013
I had a "day off" yesterday (wedding anniversary..) , today however i got back on the chair and did an hours practice. Noticed small chips of stillness here and there although the sit wasnt great, lots of street noise that i tried to note away.

So i can add small chips of stillness to my list of "states"

15/02/2013
1 hour and 15 mins on the chair, still a bit blocked up which is holding me back a little, just stayed with it and did what i could.

8-9:15
LBRP to begin, realised that my alter is not in the east.
More satisfying than the last few days but i think by meditating with a cold for the last few days ive lost the good habit of a quiet mind. Either that or im in the Apophis stage of this practice and my free ride is up!

Not to worry, I have booked into a one day 9am-5pm Vippassina for beginners course -TOMORROW, that might give me the boost i need to get over the hump.

9AM-5PM

Never having been to any formal Buddhist meditation training i had no idea what to expect. The venue was spacious as the class was small 8 people i think, and Jill Shepherd, who took the class is obviously a dedicated and good teacher, easy to understand with a good instructional style. She explained that this was a Theravada Insight Vippasana class - IMC style. After a short round of checking in we got down to business.

We began sitting and checking in with our bodies, feeling and acknowledging the feelings and then onto the breath, we were asked to focus on the breath where it was strongest.

The sits were shorter than ive been used to, 30 mins at a time with alternate walking meditations (ive not done that before) but this had its benefits, over the 8 hours though i think we got pretty deep although i didn't experience any absorption states i was flying low and slow over the sensory input. Each 30 mins seemed to go very quickly. I noticed a lot of ego stuff going on, when i started taking notice of my notes.

Was really impressed when i talked to Jill about craving novelty during the sit when she said "good, sit with that" ive never considered using the negative stuff as the focus. Anyway i think ive learned a thing or two, this was a beginners class and id be very keen to try a more advanced one.

19/02/2013

So a little under the weather, still have a blocked nose plus a dear friend had a birthday party last night and a had 3 or 4 drinks so didnt feel like i was in tip top condition this morning and didnt get up till 6. I set the timer for 45 mins and sat there feeling the aches and pains in my body and then onto my jagged sorry breath. Was pleased to hear the timer go off.

20 Feb 6:15-7 (45mins)

Still have this nose thing, i cant breathe through my hooter! (well i can breathe in, ill spare you the details) Mouth breathing is much harder, nevertheless i sat for 45 mins with a wandering mind trying to not get frustrated. Which didn’t work so well as i looked at the clock at 43mins.. Strangely i felt better for it. As a preliminary i invoked spirit (breath).

6-7AM
Still have a blocked nose.. Focused on the body, noticed the sensations then moved onto noticing the breath in the mouth. tried to keep focus but my concentration was very weak. Took quite a few mins before it even occurred to me to attempt noting, I’m still getting the hang of it, see below notes in brackets, thoughts in speech marks.

Inhale -i notice the cooling drying sensation of the breath entering through the mouth-
Exhale ONE mouth gets damp and warm
Inhale -notice the sensations as uncountable numbers of sensory bumps
Exhale TWO notice the sensory bumps are now warm and moist
Inhale -"hope my ipod will work in the van" (PLANNING PLANNING PLANNING) catch the last few sensations of the breath
Exhale ONE -"back to one again, miserable one" (JUDGING JUDGING JUDGING)
Inhale -mouth gets dry and i notice the sensation (FRUSTRATION FRUSTRATION)
Exhale -"did that count as a thought?" (THINKING THINKING)
Inhale -"im doing this wrong" (JUDGING JUDGING JUDGING)
Exhale- ONE...

Like this for about 30 mins, towards the end of the session i became aware that the substrate of reality is silence and stillness. I tuned into that for a while till the timer went off.

25/01/2013 6:15 – 7:15 AM
Over the weekend I helped a friend move house, I drove a truck and trailer from Auckland to Wellington and back, it’s quite a haul, especially as we had no radio. The scenery however was spectacular. Anyway that’s why I couldn’t get on the chair for the last two days. Today I managed to sit for an hour, but spent most of the time checking on my body there are lots of new aches and pains to feel. Toward the end of the sit I got round to the breath, one nostril works ok so I tuned in on the sensations there. Got to the point where I could feel condensation occurring just outside the nostril

26/02/2013
1 hour on the kneeling chair. Managed to get into the closer stage a few times but was very short lived. At this time in the morning my nose is very hard to breathe through, maybe I should do a 30 min again tonight.

26/02/2013 8-9pm
LBRP then 1/2 hour sit, about the same as last time. that is to say i did the usual and got the usual result

27/02/2013 6-7
LBRP then 1 hour sit, the LBRP, if you were wondering is a ritual invented by the golden dawn, and designed to balance one's energies. It works for me.
the sit was calm but i cant help but think ive gone off track. I tend to begin my meditation by settling the body then focusing on the breath, once i can count 50 breaths in a row i go on to looking at bits of my body but..unlike before im not getting into any of the states i was prior to me getting this cold and nasal block. this is unsettling but is not stopping my from sitting so why has this happened.

1. I'm simply not getting the focus i was before because i cant tune into the feelings in the nose.
2. Prior to now i was meditating in a mental state that was more tense, this state has subsided which is a good thing but the down side is that my focus is wider and im not used to working with a wider focus.
3. I'm just getting worse
4. I should stop lusting for results
5. My day long retreat had some kind of effect on me, perhaps by introducing a less hardcore practice ive gone off track.

05/3/2012 6-7am
Been too busy with secret magick business to meditate. Im also very tired, nevertheless i managed a 45 min sit this morning, it felt amazing to get back in the chair - really good. Im still stuffy in the morning and my head was like 4 tv's playing cartoons for the first 10 mins or so, then i managed to remember to count the breath. Next thing i know the insight timer was chiming on the phone.

07/03/2012

Back on the chair for a half decent 45 min sit. Ive had this cold thing for about a month now, its starting to go i think. Anyway the 45 mins went quickly and the sit felt reasonably solid.

11/03/2013 6AM-6:45
This was supposed to be a 1 hour session but i lost it. Body feels very happy on the kneeling chair now and quickly settles down. However the mind is noisy and i even trying to focus on the breath i cant make it to 10 breaths before i start thinking something.

A few times i started thinking i was getting it before getting flooded with thoughts again. Frustration. I'm thinking i might try a second 1/2 hour session later in the day to see if that helps.

13 and 14 March

45 Min sits, ok im trudging through this.

18/03/2013
45 mins, went in a flash, not that it means anything at all but i enjoyed the sit.

25/3/2012 5-6am
A few short moments of stillness among lots of mind gibbering minutes. Got of the chair at 57 mins, (not good).

31/03/2013

4 hours in 4x1 hour sits, did ritual Liber Reguli at each hour.

1st hour was the best, time seemed to move quickly.