Let's try this log thing again

Practice goal: MCTB stream entry

Abridged practice history:

• 3 years of meditation starting in 2010.
• First 1.5 years was all breath/concentration stuff ( pre-MCTB ).
• Started noting practice after reading MCTB in August 2011.
• Had A&P event in October 2012, got to what I believe was low EQ around Feb 2012.
• Immediately started to cling to EQ, got obsessed with maps/progress, ruined my practice.
• Burned myself out and stopped practicing for ~6 months (life responsibilities distracted me as well). I was still sitting, but only a few times a week as opposed to daily, and no noting, just really sitting and doing nothing.
• New drive to get it done. Lessons learned regarding map/progress obsession.

Current practice: Sitting twice a day, usually a 45 minute session in the morning and 30 at night. Start with some breath concentration and then transition to noting whatever comes up. Working with Ron Crouch.

Although I am trying not to obsess as much over maps this time around, I'll start this off with a quick assessment of my current stage, which seems to be A&P with a cutting edge in Dissolution/DN territory. The bulk of sits are body shaking, mouth twitching, and fast blinking.

Usually these twitch phases speed up, culminate in a deep inhale/exhale, things open up and get spacious and wide (attention moves to the periphery), things are harder to stick with. Occasionally a twitch cycle will speed up very fast, face/neck/eyes will tighten very hard, things get chaotic, and the physical constriction in the neck sometimes gets so tight that I'll actually gag (disgust).

Anyway, thanks in advance for reading. Any and all comments welcome.

I'm going to try to update this once a week, so as not to bog it down with fine detail and bore everyone. I have more detailed daily logs I'm keeping for myself.

Hopefully these logs will keep me accountable and away from the pitfalls I fell into last time around.

Weekly update!

Here's a basic summary of the patterns I'm seeing. It's hard to remember chronological progression through these stages/patterns as I sit, so this isn't necessarily in any order.

On-cushion

▪ General feeling that "the honeymoon is over" - confidence, motivation, and inspiration all leveling off from the high levels at the start of the month, when I resumed noting practice after a long hiatus.

▪ Concentration really weak, difficult to stay with the breath for any extended period of time.

▪ Still getting body shaking/mouth twitches/closed-eye blinking throughout most of the sit, not as fast as it has been.

▪ New patterns starting to become more frequent, though mostly mild: Boredom, aversion to sitting, doubt (am I still doing this right?), expectations, desire for signs of progress, the feeling of "going through the motions".

▪ Some mild body pain at times, mostly in the lower back.

▪ Some dreamy, floaty, hypnagogic states. At these times sensations seem to melt and flow into one another, as opposed to rapidly flashing frames appearing distinctly one after the other.

▪ Getting cool sensations at times, almost like a menthol coolness coming from within the skin.

▪ Mind growing bored and tired of certain perceived insight stages, like the shaking/blinking of A&P. Thoughts like "not this crap again" will arise.

▪ Still getting some edgy unpleasant stuff, where tension and tightness build until I actually physically gag, and then things open up again.

Off-cushion

▪ Need for sleep still down, still waking up pretty early.

▪ More boredom and indecision than usual.

▪ Will often wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling that I'm the middle of an insight stage.

I plan to do a 1-day home retreat in the coming weeks, probably just following Tarin's slacker guide, unless anyone has any other recommendations.

Thanks for reading!

Updates

Off-cushion: Sleeping more, more irritable and short-tempered than usual, more easily annoyed, distracted and bored at work. Periods of edgy, tweaked out anxiety that feel like I drank 5 cups of coffee. Off-cushion noting is unclear and difficult. A few times I was awoken from sleep by a loud and startling CRACK sound, which was in my head.

On-cushion: Taking the foot off the accelerator a little and trying to be more gentle/accepting in the face of perceived increase in practice difficulty. Although there were a few sits where concentration, clarity, and equanimity were moderate or even high, the majority of sits this week followed the same general patterns/trends:

[indent]Concentration is really weak and ineffective. I'll establish the intention to count the breath and be lucky if I get to 3. Like filling up a bucket of water with a hole in it.

Still getting shaking in the body, as well as twitching and blinking, but it feels slower and milder. Usually these things are more predominant early on in the sit.

At some point I just get bored with the whole thing, sick of the practice. Strong aversion to sitting, anger, frustration, restlessness, craving for new sensations (something more exciting, something indicating progress), disinterest, distraction, boredom, going through the motions, more emphasis on the note label than the actual sensation. The feeling that I'm not even meditating, just sitting in a chair spacing out and wasting time. (these are things I note)

Clarity is almost non-existent at points. Everything is just NULL. Like I don't even know what I'm looking at. Just confused and apathetic to the confusion. Frequently lost in thought or fantasy. When I bring attention back, things are unclear, foggy, dim, vague, dull. (more things I note)

Things aren't as spacy and dreamy, but it just feels like I can't do the practice. Like whatever faculty is responsible for noting is just drugged, asleep, dissolved, blindfolded. (more things I note)

Still getting patterns where things tighten up, vision darkens, things take on an unpleasant/dark/evil tone, I will grimace and contort my face, feelings of disgust in the throat, and physical gagging.[/indent]

Questions:

Can barely tell if I'm even doing this right. Is it DN bullshit or am I slacking in some way?
One day home retreat this weekend, any advice?

Hi bud

Good idea!

If fantasy/low concentration is still an issue, then consider not eating after noon. Two mental tendencies are likely to get isolated here i) heightened fantasy and/or ii) examination of sensations in the body. I wouldn't hesitate to eat if fantasy were just going through the roof: just bring in that eating with close, sincere awareness, watch the surge of pleasure and change of mental tone that comes with this. Otherwise, I'd plan for a short nap, some regular stretching with long slow deep breathing, and considering picking an object for the day (like breath or kasina) and sticking with it.

My two cents. Good luck.

2 weeks of updates, sorry for the novel

OFF CUSHION:

Sudden interest in learning new skills, renewed interest in side projects, etc. Didn't really pick up on this at first as anything related to the DN, just seemed like a good common sense decision to pursue these things.

Then I was listening to an Ajahn Sumedho talk where he talked about witnessing rebirth in the moment - when things get boring, dreary, and dull, when the romance is over, when arising is done arising, then you have to deal with passing. It is at these times when people have a craving to be reborn, to re-create themselves as something exciting, to re-ignite interest.

Also, may have been seeking to be effective via these skills because of perceived ineffectiveness of meditation.

Off cushion anchor points (noting while driving, showering, walking the dog, etc.) is not very strong or consistent.

ON CUSHION:

Partial Day Retreat: Noted for about 7 hours, alternating walking and sitting.

[indent]Retreat was more uneventful and milder than I expected. First couple hours were a lot of A&P shaking. So much so that my neck and shoulders were stiff and store. No aversion or boredom really, though I had expected to deal with a lot of this.

A few hours in, started to hit DN stuff, a panicky mix of fear, aversion, disgust, and physical gagging. My heart was pumping and my whole body was bouncing. Really uncomfortable. This part didn't last very long (maybe 5 minutes) but it was intense and stood in stark contrast to the shakiness that preceded it and the boring spaciness that followed it for awhile.

About 5 hours in I hit a period where I suddenly felt totally overwhelmed. Completely victimized and violated by the thousands of sensations I had been noting all day. I just wanted it all to stop. I let them beat me around the edges and do what they wanted. Just surrendered and slowly noted them. I felt on the verge of tears, just overwhelmed by sadness and despair. I felt pathetic and useless. I wanted it all to just fucking end so bad. Seemed like obvious desire for deliverance stuff.[/indent]

In the days following the retreat meditation felt very natural. I felt I could easily identify nanas and knew exactly how much effort to apply and in what quantities to move things along. This ability faded as the week went on.

Frequency of "DN cycles" are increasing. Starts in the face with a tightening of the eyes, lips, mouth, and neck. Mouth puckers up like I ate something nasty and sour. Body actually pulls backwards like I'm recoiling from something in front of me. Toes curl up. Unpleasant waves of just weird unidentifiable sensations come and go. Sometimes I'll get the physical gag, which opens everything up and I feel relieved.

Not really buying into the boredom and aversion as much. Doing a better job of dis-embedding, though there are still times where I get caught up in the content of aversion.

Bulk of sits are usually spent in these spots:

1. Body shaking, blinking, mouth twitching.
2. Open, spacious, calm, quiet, neutral, dull, distracted.
3. Tight, constricted, evil, aversion, disgusting. (doesn't last long, usually fall back into 1 or 2 quickly)

Other patterns:

1. Periods of just frustrated intense sadness. Like I'm about to cry, and I'm fed up. Pathetic.
2. Whole body, especially legs, bouncing restlessly.
3. Icky skin crawling just really weird shit, not as disgust-oriented as other DN cycles, just pure weird discomfort on a very raw level.
4. More acceptance, widening.
5. Lots of practice and map thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

Hello friends, updates:

Practice has been mostly uneventful the last two weeks - a lot of dissolution stuff returning. Boredom, frustration, desire for progress, vagueness, dullness, etc. Difficulty disembedding from this content.

I do get some intense periods of what I consider to be reobservation (sadness, the feeling of being pathetically overwhelmed, an acute sense of absolute futility, whimpering, etc.), but these usually pass within a minute or two.

Mild dull pain in the lower back and neck, more often than not.

I haven't seen anything I would consider EQ.

Don't have much to report, the quest continues.

Hey bud,

Appreciate you sharing your practice. Could you link to that Ajahn Sumedho talk by chance? Thanks. Dan

Lol, it popped into my head to say, you'll be alright just keep practicing bud. And then I realized your name was bud good luck

Hello, I've put the talk on my Dropbox, so the link will probably die once too many people grab it.

The segment I talked about starts at about 8:15.

Download here

thanks

Updates:

OFF CUSHION

Nothing really noteworthy. Low sex drive. Content-based/intellectual insights into the cycle of birth and death of pretty much everything, and the dukkha that comes from clinging or getting invested in these transient things.

ON CUSHION

A lot of difficulty. Extreme restlnessness, boredom, aversion to sitting. Craving for progress, excitement, stimulation. Difficulty dis-embedding from practice content. Non-acceptance of all of these things. This is the majority of sits.

TYPICAL PATTERNS

45 minute sits. I'll start with either 5 minutes of concentration, or 5 minutes of metta, depending on whether I feel I need to condition the mind to be calm or condition it to be accepting.

I'll start noting everything that comes up. I'll get mild shaking in the body and head. Blinking of the eyes. Boredom with this stuff. It will peak and things will dissolve, become difficult to stick with. Vague, dullness, distraction. I'll try to stay with it and note these things.

After awhile, face and eyes tighten up, feeling of disgust in the throat, like I'm about to gag. Sometimes I physically do gag, but that's been happening a little less.

Most sits, I'll cycle around between shaking - distraction - disgust for a majority of the time. Towards the end is when the boredom, restlessness, and aversion will start getting very solidified, difficult, and distracting.

ATYPICAL PATTERNS

Sometimes, I'll get a sense of existential sadness. Like there is so much to worry about, so much to do, so much to consider - it's just completely exhausting and overwhelming, and I'm tired of having to think about it. Just a sense of surrender, defeat.

Sometimes, this sadness ripens into what I consider to be reobservation. It's like an extended string of dark night sensations, mostly mild fear, disgust, and a fast stream of chaotic sensations bombarding me from every point in the sense field. Panting, whimpering, and actually saying things like "I can't fucking do this" or "Help" in the worst cases.

I've had less than 5 sits where this reobservation evolves into what I think was very low EQ, which is easy to stick with, calm, and the sense of self is blurred into the rest of the field. This doesn't happen often and doesn't last long.

FEARS

My biggest fear is that I'm going to just stop.

After all, there's only so many times you can take 45 minutes out of your day, and dedicate them exclusively to feeling like shit, before you find a new hobby.

I'm starting to not care. When things get bad, I just don't give a fuck about examining them.

OFF CUSHION

I used to note off-cushion all the time. Now I barely do it. I guess I started going through the motions, lost touch with the benefit, and then abandoned it altogether.

Revisiting some old psychological content-based dukkha that I haven't worried or thought about in a long time. It stopped bothering me for a long time but now it's back, and I've seemingly lost the ability to be okay with it. Compounds the frustration of everything else.

ON CUSHION

Still difficult. Can't map my progress. My sits feel like a broken elevator, jumping up to higher stages, then dropping suddenly, then up, down. Very confusing. Desire to know what the fuck is going on. Most sits are A&P shaking, wide states of calm, then chaotic periods of sensate turmoil, oscillating between these three in hard-to-track orders.

TYPICAL PATTERNS

Will tune into impermance of whatever is arising, get A&P shaking, which peaks and subsides into a wide vague calm. Tune into this sense of calm for awhile, sometimes will get stuck here, fall back to shaking, then return.

If I can get a good sense of the calm, it will ripen into face/eye tightening, mouth puckering, DN type stuff. I just watch it come and go. Sometimes get stuck, fall back to calm, or shaking, then return.

Sometimes the DN gets deeper and everything just starts lighting up at once. Shaking, twitching, legs bouncing, face tightening, itches, squirming, thoughts and content stuff, all in a fast barrage.

ATYPICAL PATTERNS

Occasionally I'll get past the REOB stuff into (what I think is) low EQ, which is sort of like dissolution, except more tranquil, lighter, airier, kinda buzzy at times. Less effort required. Usually short-lived, and pretty shallow.

BOTTOM LINE

Although I am working with my teacher everything remains extremely frustrating. I feel stuck and I am not sure what to do, if anything. Whenever I speak with my teacher, things are great for a few days after, and things feel easy and effortless. But this slowly degrades and I return to feeling completely meditatively impotent and sterile.

Try doing more metta, maybe even switch the proportions around: 30 min metta, 10 min insight/noting.