I haven't been on this site since 2011, since after my first blip I pushed way too hard the next while and got deep into a much longer slog of 3Cs and a really agonizing Dark Night. I was feeling very pulled towards choiceless awareness and self-inquiry (tried Ken McLeod's stuff, then some very traditional Harada/Yasutani Zen) since every time I paid attention to anything I disappeared and was getting a little desparate about finding a way to flatten down those cycles. Anyway, it worked eventually, I think I'm stuck in low EQ somewhere a few cycles down the line, and it's kinda fine but kinda a drag.
This gets complicated, since my heightened awareness had an ugly feedback loop with the ADHD meds I was on, and had to spend a year slowly tapering off. I think I had to recover some of the same territory while my concentration was shifting. On the upside, the thing we call Stream Entry over here really was the beginning of my being able to pay attention to my life. I am VASTLY better at living than I was previously, and I can link it directly to the discovery that there really is no voice or feeling or sensation one is required to listen to as the truth about oneself, as well as the related ability to let go of things in daily life. Also, choiceless awareness really does help flatten the ups and downs of ADHD, so I highly recommend a stint of that for anyone dealing with those issues.
There have been a few different larger cycles (but sometimes A&Ps and path moments have gotten very confused, where the tiny blip leads to a Dark Night or the huge opening leads to a loss of an idea of self and a very quiet cycling review period.) where I've noticed to deeper extents that ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING arises and passes, including that "big invisible fish-eye-lens" feeling that hits when concentration goes sky-high, including all those feelings of a nothing behind everything, including the various senses of striving, but I can't say I am free of getting stuck on those.
These days, after an a sleepy and hard phase last summer, my most recent outrageous A&P everything-flows early last fall (Couldn't sleep for weeks), and pure agony and self-blame and twisting and neck tension and exhaustion on the mat for months afterwards, I finally came around this spring to a place where I can just sit choicelessly in arisings and passings, without all that agony anymore, and touch in with a hint of breath whenever I get lost. There's not THAT much of a difference between walking around in life and sitting, except that more things cycle and release when I'm down on the cushion.
Most of my issues are dealing with this really hard tension in my jaw and face and sinuses and eyes and forehead (all very sense-of-self-related, but oh so slow) which will turn warm and flow a little sometimes but which appears to be connected to things lower in my chest that I haven't gotten very deep into yet. I've had dozens of little releases (some with unknowing events or total resets) at various points in these areas, but no way have they changed the situation radically.
Everything flickers very evenly and quickly (the visual field has never stopped vibrating for me, and the body doesn't either), and I still can't focus very easily on a single object. Attention is WAY too wide (especially with ADHD me) for any narrow jhana practice, so I have been doing Tai Chi and Qigong in hopes it'll improve my samadhi (and seems to, somewhat). Also very recently, I've started the occasional slow-noting practice in daily life, since my previous "use the feet as focus" has gotten a little narrow for this phase and since I'm catching myself fighting thoughts as they arise again.
When I look for it, I do notice that the flicker of attention bounces "inside" and "outside" and that any third thing watching them also moves, but things clench up if I do it for too long and I don't have a complete handle on my resistance there.
Anyway, is this just another long slog in low EQ? For that worst period, it was so bad I couldn't sit for more than 30 or 40 minutes, (I'd add in 20 minutes lying down and 15 minutes standing meditation plus tai chi to boost the time per day--trying to cover all 4 postures), but I finally got over an hour again this last week. Does anyone have any kind of advice for this sort of territory?
