Hey folks!
Just walked into some new territory and I'm looking for some insight (pun intended).
I practice like once or twice a week and went on a 7 days retreat earlier this year. I practice noting and do nothing.
What should I do now? Practice has been quite weird.
And what was it?
Hypotesis: A&P, Path or Strong shift into EQ
here is how things unfolded:
day one, the unknow event:
20m into do nothing practice which felt unusually consistent. After ups and downs, there was this moment where I was experiencing unconfortable complex and rich sensations which was clearly unplesant , followed by a sensation that those experiences were actually not happening to a me but just happening, then it all blinked out for a while and reapeared on a crescendo, blissful and powerful. The following seconds I felt a euphoria (literally felt my belly chill, probably adrenalin) and mind rushing into overthink what happened. Since it grew very dificult to drop the intention of thinking about what happened and the fact that something like this only happened to me once in retreat, I decided to stop practice and reflect on that a little bit, and send you this msg.
It is important to note that mind wandering was happening. Tought stream was definetly present in like 20 to 40% of the time during the experience before the *bleep out*, but they did not compromise concentration. For a short period of time (something like 1m or maybe 5m at most) they were perceived skillfully along with everything else and it was the first time that this happened.
It felt like concentration was in par with the perceptual increase of sensations complexity and vastness for the first time, but without the tight focus I had before on retreat.
Toughts of progress, obsessive tought, belly chills because knowing to be "almost there". All was present, but concentration did not break or diminished because of that.
Path afterglow or A&P afterglow? Or was it a thick break into EQ?
2nd day after unknow event:
Normal life:
experiencing high levels of anxiety (I have ADHD + general anxiety disoeder) but with a diferent touch. It is as intense as usual, but clearly less cripling. Significant bliss and joy all over the day.
Practice:
Low clarity and very high energy. very dificult to navigate, alternating do nothing and noting...the level of restlessness and anxiety would have stopped my practice on any other day but for the first time it did not. I was somehow ok with it not making any progress and this is very diferent from what I've experienced before.
3rd day after unknow event:
Normal life:
bliss and joy beguining to fade but tolerance to general anxieties still present.
Was that equanimity against anxieties or renewed confidence against anxieties?
Will this tolerance to general anxieties persevere over the next days (weeks, months...)?
Also, social (family, friends and work) relationships became much lighter. They are usually very hard and anxiety driven, but now much much less.
Practice (30m sit):
hard, but fair equanimity to the hardness? It was hard but I was ok with the hardness. It felt vague and slippery, hard to get a grip on, and when "stepping back" or going into do nothing, would wonder lost in tought. Exaclty like yesterday sit, but with less energy.
Eventually things begun to fell like faling in place with concentration beggining to make justice to energy, but time was up.
4th day after unknow event:
Normal life:
Bliss and joy pretty much gone, lightness in social interaction remains. Sensation of mind more fluent and cool and not wasting a lot of effort on stuff still present,
Practice:
40m sit: practice seeming to follow somewhat a pattern: when noticing with intention gets intense and whrenched, and when dropping intention to choiceless awereness, mind affixates into toughts so often that force me back into noticing with intention. Is like mind is puting a hard fight against practice.
Practice has been roughly the same, but with decreasing levels of energy during the days following the unknow event.
Whatever plateaus of relative bliss and clarity that I reach now, seems to be infested by tought and experience turn unssetlig again
This happened before, the diference now is in the degree of something that might be either confidence or equanimity. Practice is now weird and whrenched and unssetling, but I can still sit 50m into it, when before I would inevitably get so frustrated and anxious that I would stop practice. I still feel pretty rough stuff, but can sit trough it regardless with not a exceptional sense of effort.
Off practice, mind is sometimes tape looped into obsessive thinking about this is or not path, etc and if what changed in normal life is confidence or equanimity.
5th day after unkown event:
Normal life:
the new lightness on social relationships and life in general still clearly present even tough afterglow of bliss and joy are gone for good. Still having bliss moments and weird unplesant moments like normal life ,but definely not associated to a afterglow.
Practice:
40m sit
First ~15m: silent
Last ~25m: roomate talking to fiancee on skype and then listeing to loud techno
Whole experience: equanimity (forgiveness, clearly cool with all things) was clearly present over the good and bad parts of the sit. Before the shift 5 days ago, would definetly have stopped practicing.
First minutes: low clarity, some concentration
Middle minutes (roomate begun talking to fiance): low concentration, low confidence, agitation, aversion.
Final minutes: (roomate still talking and then listening techno) reached some kind of plateau, with precision and clarity, energy, confidence, tranquility and some expaciousness growing present.
Roomate is also boss. Toughts of aversion and judgement on him still present, including during sits, but also those lost quite a lot it's hability to get me anxious or reactive.
6th day after unkown event:
Normal life:
Begun to notice obsessive behaviour pattern (which is normal on me) coming back with the usual strenght over the last ~3 days. Those include spending hours doing absolutely nothing on facebook and binge eating candy before sleeping. Also reading obsessively on models, stages, etc on your book.
I dont know if the impression that reality is still going on with a lighter, less anxious and less suffering touch (since the unkown event) is due to denial, confidence or equanimity.
Practice:
Suffering on sits have been quite pronounced, clarity very low most of the time. Today was the worse by far, obsessive tought driven with complex, wrenched and heavy thick sensations flickering on the background. Very hard very tought 50m sit. No technique whatsoever would "work". Again, dont know if the reason I managed to sit all trough the 50m is because of denial (not wanting to admit I cant or whatever), confidence after the unkown event 6 days ago or equanimity.
7th day after unknow event:
Practice: 40m
Tried to balance concentration and energy, because last sit was terribly powerful but with little clarity, perspective. So stick to noting or noticing most of the time. Way better. Definetly got into a nice plateau about 25m into practice and stayed there, with perspective, spaciousness, complex agregates of sensations...stayed there untill time was up.
One new thing happened thou. Felt as I was trully suffocating (in a close room with a candle light lit) and felt it could maybe be not a ñana effect or anything. Opened the window, blew out candle and resumed practice. It was prolly ñana effect thinking now with hindsight.
Noise on the outside and roomate noise were bit anoying thou.
8th day after unkown event:
Practice: 50m
Very hard again. Whenever I would use more concentration to go trough hard whrenched territory into more panoramic plateaus, flow of tought would quickly destroy this states and would go back to hard and whrenched practice again. One of the ways I kept myself on practice without dropping it over very large frustration was that I realized mind on normal life is very obsessive right now, and not particularly better or a relief from sitting.
Normal life:
Deep wish to get this done again. It hurts and it is annoying, but somehow with a lighter touch then last time. Before the unknow event 8 days ago this heavy sensation of wanting this to end and just be done already would be much more dramatic, confusing and very cripling... Now, even thou I clearly perceive I'm less functional (obsessive mind) then on other more blissful or joyful or confident states, I'm kinda ok and feeling lighter towards those intense and very desrupting emotions. Funny.
Still wondering if this "lighter touch" to both bad and good situations and emotions is due to renewed confidence, delusion, obsessive racionalizations of progress, actual equanimity or perspective shift due to achieving a path.
