I went into the retreat with a considerable amount of bodily pain, muscle soreness (as I have described previously in another post). That being the case, I spent the majority of the two days in bed and slept quite a bit through Day 1. I'm not sure if the pain brought up aversion, or the aversion brings up pain, or what, but I spent the majority of the retreat in what would probably be called the Dark Night. I think most of the time was in Re-observation as it had that familiar "brick wall" feeling to it, a sense that it's impossible to go forward and impossible to go back. The simple task of "being here" was incredibly irritating and bringing up all sorts of torment and anguish.
I continued to stay aware and present for a good 60% of the time. Using my best understanding of what is mean by "noting," I'd say that I was noting probably at a rate of about ten per minute, though I'm still unclear on what is or is not defined as a "note" - or what distinguishes "noting" practice from "insight" practice, as the two seem to be the same thing to me. This is still a point of some considerable confusion for me.
I may have had some dips down to misery and disgust, and maybe a little bit of fear too, and maybe dissolution (though, reading the discriptions, it sounds like some of early equanimity is a little dissolution-like). I think on Day 0, I may have also had some A&P like experiences. I also had a few jumps up to low equanimity, but these were somewhat agonizing given their very transient and short-lived duration.
During my Dark Night time, there were some experiences which arose quite a bit and which I noted with some degree of diligence and accuracy (though by no means a complete penetration): spacing out, suffering, frustration, despair, hope, anguish, tension, misery, planning, thinking, confusion, lost, anger, fantasizing, a sorta undefinable "Arg?ghauahggg!!gbaaalllaahhh?h... . " (and more...)
By the evening of Day 2, I think I must have entered equanimity, as the noting picked up. There were a couple things that helped the shift. One was reading this quote in MCTB:
"The most essential principle I wish to drive home is that THIS IS IT, meaning that this moment contains the truth. Any model [of Enlightenment] that tries to drive a wedge between the specifics of what is happening in your world right now and what awakening entails needs to be considered with great skepticism. With the simple exception of the fact of poorly perceiving the sensations occurring now and habitually coming up with the illusion of a separate, continuous individual, nearly all of the rest of the dreams are problematic to some degree. This basic principle is essential to practice, as it focuses things on the here and now, and also happens to be true."
- Daniel Ingram
Along with tarin's small hints posted to me here, I really started to focus on "THIS IS IT." - which brought about a sense of liberation, equanimity, and a sorta indescrimantory attitude to look at all experience without any inclination to value one experience more than another.
In equanimity territory, I noted: calm, peace, quiet, investigation, attention, movement, thought, self (as in a watcher, obeserver, meditator, whatever), sounds, light, space, different body sensations, breath, sinking, pulling, dropping (and all the sorta movement away from the present moment), reflecting, analyzing, excitement, spaciness, expectation,
But, I also turned my attention toward developing a kind of inclusiveness. It seems like the inclusiveness of awareness and the immeadiacy of awareness go hand in hand, and what was clear is that the noting/awareness wasn't immeadiately with experience as it arose, it was still always off by a half-beat, and that seemed to coordinate a lot with the lack of inclusivity of the field, that things were always being seen apart from the rest. And, it also seemed like to be truely immeadiate would require a sorta non-dual awareness, because to be aware of an object from outside of the object could never be inclusive (as the observer is left out of awareness), nor could it be immeadiate (because it was always known a split-second later by the arising of the observer). Hmmm.... writing this on paper now seems to be helping to bring some things together.
So, there was an out-of-synch-ness to experience, which led to expectation, frustration, a sorta low level anxiety (like trying to juggle too many objects), resistance in the form of: fear, anger, blame, etc.
Also notable was a lot of "stuff," as I am after all heavily conditioned as a psychologized westerner. Stuff included: "I can't do this" "I'm a retard" "No one likes me" "This is impossible" "I'm bad for doing this or wanting this" "I'm wasting my time" "I'm hopeless" etc. on and on and on ... And, of all this, I've come to one conclusion that I really think a good solution on a more "worldly" level would be more association with those who have attained some of this stuff and are willing to talk openly about it. So, I put up another post about that.
OK, that's about it for now.
- Daniel
