Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/25/19 5:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/26/19 12:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/27/19 4:43 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Andromeda 4/27/19 4:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/27/19 4:53 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/27/19 5:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/28/19 8:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/28/19 10:18 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 4/29/19 9:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/1/19 2:57 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/1/19 3:50 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/2/19 2:10 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/2/19 5:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 5/3/19 5:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/3/19 6:40 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/3/19 8:21 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/3/19 3:16 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/3/19 11:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/4/19 3:24 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/4/19 8:25 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/5/19 8:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/6/19 3:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 5/6/19 11:07 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/7/19 1:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Raving Rhubarb 5/7/19 4:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/7/19 4:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 5/7/19 4:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/7/19 1:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/7/19 3:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 5/7/19 4:40 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/7/19 4:51 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 5/7/19 5:19 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/7/19 9:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/7/19 11:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/8/19 2:11 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/8/19 3:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/8/19 5:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/9/19 3:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/10/19 6:55 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/10/19 11:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/10/19 12:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/11/19 3:48 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/12/19 10:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/12/19 3:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/13/19 3:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/13/19 7:40 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/13/19 3:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/14/19 4:37 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/14/19 7:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/15/19 6:12 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/17/19 7:29 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/18/19 12:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 5/18/19 4:35 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/18/19 4:51 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 5/18/19 5:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/18/19 5:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/18/19 5:43 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/19/19 8:53 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Andrew McAlister Dean 5/22/19 8:44 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/23/19 12:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/18/19 10:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/18/19 4:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/19/19 12:57 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/20/19 5:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/21/19 6:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/22/19 4:22 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/23/19 11:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/23/19 2:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/25/19 4:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/27/19 12:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/27/19 2:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/28/19 11:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/28/19 12:33 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/28/19 1:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/29/19 3:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/30/19 11:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 5/31/19 2:44 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/1/19 4:57 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/1/19 11:12 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/1/19 12:41 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/1/19 2:03 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/2/19 3:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/4/19 5:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/4/19 5:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/5/19 6:35 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/6/19 4:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/6/19 3:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/7/19 8:24 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/8/19 4:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/8/19 7:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/8/19 3:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 6/8/19 4:22 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/9/19 3:38 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/9/19 7:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/9/19 2:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 6/9/19 3:54 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/9/19 4:18 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 6/9/19 4:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/9/19 5:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 6/9/19 6:31 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/10/19 12:37 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/10/19 4:51 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/11/19 2:30 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/12/19 5:19 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/12/19 9:13 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/12/19 12:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/12/19 1:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/13/19 4:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/14/19 6:55 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/14/19 5:10 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/16/19 11:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/14/19 2:36 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/15/19 5:38 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/14/19 5:44 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/15/19 7:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/16/19 8:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/16/19 2:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/17/19 1:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/17/19 6:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/17/19 7:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/17/19 8:31 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/18/19 11:12 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/19/19 4:50 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/20/19 4:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/20/19 5:39 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/21/19 1:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/22/19 5:55 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/24/19 1:33 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 6/24/19 7:50 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/24/19 9:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 6/24/19 11:46 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/25/19 2:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 6/25/19 5:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/26/19 2:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/28/19 6:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 6/28/19 4:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/29/19 11:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/29/19 12:25 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/25/19 9:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/25/19 2:39 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/26/19 3:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/27/19 3:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/27/19 4:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/28/19 11:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 6/28/19 4:30 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/29/19 12:24 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 6/30/19 3:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/30/19 6:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 6/30/19 3:34 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/1/19 1:51 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/1/19 7:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/1/19 11:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/3/19 12:05 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/4/19 2:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 J C 7/4/19 4:28 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/4/19 5:55 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/4/19 8:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/5/19 8:09 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/5/19 11:21 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/6/19 5:44 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/6/19 6:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 J C 7/6/19 6:45 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/6/19 7:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 J C 7/6/19 7:57 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/6/19 9:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/6/19 10:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 J C 7/6/19 2:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/6/19 4:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/7/19 4:40 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/7/19 4:38 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/7/19 4:12 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/7/19 5:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/7/19 4:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 J C 7/7/19 4:45 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/8/19 1:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 J C 7/8/19 2:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/8/19 2:53 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 J C 7/8/19 3:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/8/19 7:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/8/19 10:17 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/9/19 6:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/10/19 4:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/10/19 7:01 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/19 1:46 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/19 8:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/19 10:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/12/19 8:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/12/19 2:47 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/14/19 3:22 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/14/19 4:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 7/14/19 4:46 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/14/19 5:03 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 7/14/19 5:07 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/14/19 5:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 7/14/19 7:17 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/15/19 3:43 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 spatial 7/15/19 3:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/15/19 7:48 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/15/19 7:45 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/16/19 7:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/16/19 8:02 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/16/19 11:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 7/17/19 2:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/17/19 5:09 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 7/17/19 6:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/17/19 6:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 7/17/19 6:51 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/18/19 3:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/18/19 9:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/18/19 9:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/18/19 10:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/18/19 10:35 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 spatial 7/19/19 6:29 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/20/19 1:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 spatial 7/29/19 9:41 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/29/19 9:51 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 spatial 7/29/19 2:09 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/29/19 3:18 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 7/18/19 3:28 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/20/19 1:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/17/19 8:20 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/18/19 5:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/20/19 5:18 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 7/21/19 6:05 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/22/19 2:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 7/22/19 5:01 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/22/19 7:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/22/19 6:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/21/19 10:51 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/22/19 4:39 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/23/19 8:24 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/23/19 4:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/24/19 8:02 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/24/19 10:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/24/19 5:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Milo 7/26/19 4:43 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/26/19 4:57 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/25/19 4:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/26/19 4:07 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/27/19 7:45 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/27/19 2:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/27/19 7:11 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/28/19 7:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/28/19 6:25 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/29/19 3:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/29/19 7:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Travis McKinstry 7/29/19 8:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/29/19 9:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Travis McKinstry 7/30/19 7:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/30/19 7:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/29/19 9:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/29/19 12:55 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/30/19 9:57 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/30/19 8:12 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 7/31/19 7:07 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/31/19 7:53 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 7/31/19 8:10 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/31/19 5:39 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/4/19 1:11 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Smiling Stone 8/4/19 3:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/4/19 4:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/5/19 7:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/5/19 3:23 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/6/19 9:10 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Shaun Steelgrave 8/6/19 10:57 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/6/19 7:43 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/6/19 8:00 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/7/19 1:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/8/19 6:50 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/12/19 9:25 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/12/19 4:40 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/12/19 4:35 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 8/12/19 4:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/12/19 4:52 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 8/13/19 2:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/13/19 2:18 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/13/19 5:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/14/19 8:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/16/19 6:09 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/16/19 8:31 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/16/19 11:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/17/19 3:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/17/19 6:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 8/18/19 1:54 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/18/19 4:51 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/18/19 7:15 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/18/19 11:23 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/18/19 2:41 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Shaun Steelgrave 8/18/19 3:45 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/18/19 5:31 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/19/19 4:17 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/19/19 12:12 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Shaun Steelgrave 8/19/19 6:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/19/19 10:57 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/20/19 3:08 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/21/19 10:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/21/19 8:24 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/22/19 2:11 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/22/19 7:14 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/22/19 7:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/24/19 3:30 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/24/19 3:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/24/19 7:53 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/24/19 12:53 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/25/19 3:55 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/25/19 6:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Travis McKinstry 8/25/19 8:24 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/25/19 8:37 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 8/25/19 8:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/25/19 8:57 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/25/19 8:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/25/19 10:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/25/19 1:56 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/26/19 1:31 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/28/19 4:26 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/29/19 3:24 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/29/19 1:59 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 8/29/19 2:19 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/29/19 2:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 8/29/19 2:25 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/29/19 2:32 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/29/19 3:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/2/19 3:43 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 9/2/19 5:58 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/2/19 10:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/4/19 1:50 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/30/19 8:34 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/30/19 2:34 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/31/19 8:00 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/31/19 1:55 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/1/19 2:50 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/2/19 4:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/3/19 3:52 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/3/19 5:26 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/3/19 9:19 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/4/19 7:30 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/4/19 1:06 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/4/19 5:07 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/4/19 9:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/5/19 1:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/5/19 10:51 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 shargrol 9/5/19 11:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/5/19 2:04 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 spatial 9/5/19 6:32 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/19 1:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 spatial 9/6/19 3:36 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/19 3:46 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Siavash ' 9/6/19 3:49 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/19 3:50 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 spatial 9/6/19 4:53 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/19 5:13 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 spatial 9/6/19 4:47 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/19 5:21 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/5/19 2:18 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 spatial 9/5/19 5:02 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/19 1:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/19 4:45 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/6/19 3:16 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/7/19 7:13 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/8/19 6:32 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/7/19 12:38 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/8/19 11:04 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/8/19 1:27 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/8/19 1:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/9/19 2:59 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/9/19 6:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 shargrol 9/9/19 9:14 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/9/19 11:24 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/10/19 1:19 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/10/19 1:42 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/10/19 2:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/10/19 3:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/10/19 3:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/10/19 4:32 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Joost 9/11/19 7:27 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/11/19 7:36 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/10/19 8:45 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/10/19 11:03 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/11/19 3:28 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/11/19 5:33 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/12/19 9:30 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/14/19 11:50 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 9/15/19 6:03 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/15/19 6:22 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/15/19 8:08 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/17/19 7:47 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/17/19 10:06 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/20/19 4:56 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Not two, not one 9/17/19 4:42 PM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/18/19 1:48 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Chris M 9/18/19 6:28 AM
RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3 Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 9/18/19 6:30 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/25/19 5:52 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/25/19 5:49 PM

Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Time to start a new practice log that is easier to navigate. Also, I have had my last coaching session with Michael Taft now, so I’m going into a teacherless era. Feedback is highly appreciated.

I did 45 minutes of Mahasi noting, working with new layers of ”self”. I enjoyed it immensely (yes, I noted that). There were lots of self-grasping showing up, over and over again, and seeing the three C:s was almost ridiculously easy. I love that the direction for this new path presented itself so clearly, although I could not see it for what it was until I had it pointed out by Daniel. It feels right, working with my shortcomings and hang-ups to find truth and liberation. I can do it with compassion, now that I understand what is going on. I enjoy the difficulties, because they mean that I’m on to something. I can show all those mental processes that it is safe to come to the surface and let go of hindrances. I don’t know when it started, bit I actually feel a lot of compassion for them, for ”my self”. I remember how I used to despise them. That feels like an entire lifetime ago, but it wasn’t that long time ago. Nobody understands better than I how it is to live with my particular hang-ups. If I don’t feel compassion for it, who will? There are so many layers of hang-ups, and the current layer is very rich. I feel like an archeologist who has had an incredible fluke. I actually feel blessed for having so many obvious hang-ups, because I had gotten used to living with them and now I find that letting go is an option. That is more than I could ever hope for, and it is readily accessible anywhere, anytime.

I’m aware of investing identity into this, and I know that I will eventually have to let go of that, since it is yet another layer of self-grasping. For the moment, I’m enjoying it and mainly benefitting from it, since it is motivating. I have never really understood those people who avoid positive experiences because they will not last forever. I would rather enjoy something and then let go of it than never having the experience. That being said, letting go of the identity related to meditating will probably be a tough one. Also, paradoxically, difficulty of letting go is one of my major hang-ups. Luckily, I’m not in the habit of avoiding difficulties. I avoid a lot, but not that. Making things complicated is kind of a specialty of ”mine”. I will probably need to let go of that too. That will be yet another tough one. The liberation will be unbelievably fabulous.

Yes, I am excited. No, I am not manic. I have had many chances in life to tip over into mania but there is sort of a gravitational pull back to down-to-earth basic sanity. I guess I should be deeply grateful for that. Going through fullblown mania and then having to deal with the consequences seems incredibly tough. I don’t think I would be strong enough to take that. This is just ADHD and Tourette enthusiasm. I will probably need to let go of that quirk as well eventually. That will be a major challenge, as I have grown attached to it after learning not to despise it. Maybe it’s a tad of A&P too. I do feel like I’m in love with the whole world, and I did notice things arise and pass away simultaneously. There was clarity. Sharp clarity. And both piti and sukkha. And it was single-pointed and rather narrow. Not quite as narrow as in first Jhana. And I feel like I don’t need much sleep. I probably should try to get some sleep anyway. That’s good for sanity. Nightie!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/26/19 12:06 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/26/19 12:06 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Did an hour of Mahasi noting while on the train. The tensions in the face from points that think that they are a self popping up and creating the sense of motion did not bother me this time. It made me think of a restless puppy crawling around craving attention. It was kind of cute. There were instances of a more dreamlike state and instances where that ended abruptly. There were lots of colors, both in the shape of dots of various sizes and circles moving inward and outward. Flourescent purple, red, green, blue, bluegreen, yellow, pink. Sometimes impermanence presented itself clearly, often short impulses of craving and aversion (stinky cheezy snacks in the seat next to me). It was rather peaceful to notice all these sensations and thoughts and feelings just flowing by without holding on to them.

I went to a yoga class today for the first time in a couple of weeks or so. It felt so good. It went much better than expected. Even balance exercises went well. I felt that the yoga stirred up energies, not in a bad way, but because it had been a while, I felt a little nauseous for a short while. But most of all, it felt great.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/27/19 4:43 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/27/19 4:43 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
One thing that has changed is that I more often meditate in the midst of daily life. Today I have meditated standing on a crowded bus, at the beach while wading in water, and at an art exhibition (where a photo of me was on display, which was slightly weird; one of my loved ones is part of a photographers’ collective). This approach does wonders for my wellbeing and makes it easier to see the divine in the mundane.
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/27/19 4:49 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/27/19 4:49 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 393 Join Date: 1/15/18 Recent Posts
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
One thing that has changed is that I more often meditate in the midst of daily life. Today I have meditated standing on a crowded bus, at the beach while wading in water, and at an art exhibition (where a photo of me was on display, which was slightly weird; one of my loved ones is part of a photographers’ collective). This approach does wonders for my wellbeing and makes it easier to see the divine in the mundane.


The divine is always there. All we have to do is pay attention. Pretty cool, huh?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/27/19 4:53 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/27/19 4:53 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Indeed. Very cool.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/27/19 5:13 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/27/19 5:13 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I was playing with the sand too, enjoying the touch and smell of it like a small child. I love the feeling of merging with the touch and smell of the wind, the water and the sand.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/28/19 8:46 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/28/19 8:46 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
45 minutes Mahasi noting by lake Mälaren, until my temperature dropped so low that I needed to move my body. I can see that the imaginary self tries to get back into the imaginary driver’s seat and sometimes succeeds for a while, but I’m too happy without it to let it stay there.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/28/19 10:18 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/28/19 10:18 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I dif another 45 minutes, and then I was freezing again.

There is a lot of self-grasping in the beginning, and then it calms down, at least on the surface.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/29/19 9:01 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/29/19 9:01 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
30 minutes of Mahasi noting. Today I’m dealing with dullness and poor clarity. I have also noticed some dark night qualities leaking out, nothing catastrophical but enough to cause me to be more careful.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/1/19 2:57 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/1/19 2:57 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
That ego that insists on popping up in the imaginary driver’s seat is obnoxiously vain and self-absorbed, and I suspect that judging it for it does not help at all. It is not about keeping it away from the driver’s seat. That would be very contra-productive, as it would keep the illusion intact. The thing is that there is no driver’s seat. All the mental processes that manifest as the ego and mistakes that for a self, they need to find it in them to trust the process to unfold perfectly without the driving.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/1/19 3:50 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/1/19 3:50 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
There is temptation to hold one to the more positive ideas of myself as self, but that kind of imbalance would be a monstrosity. Even if it weren’t, I’m not satisfied with the illusion.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/2/19 2:10 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/2/19 2:10 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
This is a wake up call for the parts of ”me” that think being me is actually kind of cool: that’s not me either. I guess you are not quite ready to realize that just yet, but then at least please do not run around demanding attention like I feel that you think you need to do. Please believe me when I say THAT is NOT cool. We would only embarrass ourselves, and you wouldn’t like that. If being cool with who you are is that important to you, then just be it. Silently. Okay? Or keep it to the few who know it to be a phase and can see the fun in it and remind you that it’s not really you when it gets too obnoxious.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/2/19 5:21 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/2/19 5:21 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I still have a daily practice. I vary between noting and choiceless awareness. Sometimes it ends up somewhere inbetween, which is not my intention. The layer that I’m currently working on is rather messy. I suppose it needs to be. It is impermanent and not me, and craving for it to be less messy would only create unnecessary suffering. It is what it is. There are parts of me that do wish for it to be differently, but luckily those parts that are mpre okay with the mess are also okay with the fact that other parts are more prone to craving. In other words, I’m rather equanimous about not being more equanimous. I have no idea about how to map that, and at this point that doesn’t really bother me. I am where I need to be in order to grow spiritually. It probably does bother parts of me that are less conscious, but that’s okay. They will probably come around eventually, if there’s a need for that.

I set the alarm for forty minutes, but I forgot to turn on the volume, so I probably sat for slightly longer than that. I intended to do noting, but I was lost in content over and over again. I’m not sure what is the correct use of the terms, but I distinguish between mind-wandering and dullness. They can overlap, but quite often they do not. Today the sitting entailed a lot of mind-wandering but it wasn’t dull. The thoughts were clear, but the mindfulness about being in the middle of meditation was lacking. That’s a new problem for me. I’m sure that it would have been an issue before too of I’d had a formal practice during certain periods of my life, or even most of them. I have often had that problem when I have tried to study, for instance, or when trying to listen to information. It’s only in meditation that I have mostly been spared from it - that is, until now. At least that’s how I remember it now.

Whereas I’m not overly impressed with what shows up in the sittings now, it could definitely be worse. If there are tensions when I start, they tend to dissolve during the sitting. The mind-wandering decreases over time within the session. If I start out slightly annoyed by something, meditation helps me to let go. Some restlessness remains and I have noticed a tendency to seek out more distractions in daily life but I also abandon them because I realize that they are distractions and not fulfilling. I do find joy in many things that are not distractions. I enjoy socializing and working more. I’m less bothered by chores that I used to find unbearable. I even find myself finding joy in them. Having to change plans is less stressful now than before. I still have no problem with eye contact or socializing in crowds, and I’m still much less prone to sensory overload, and those who know me from before know what a significant change that is.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 5:27 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 5:27 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 1038 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
Hi Polly, I eventually found that it was not the the minwandering that was a problem, per se. Rather it was the paying attention to the mind wandering, instead of just being continent to let it do its own thing in the background.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 6:40 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 6:40 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Somebody (Adyashanti?) said the same thing in one of the dharma talks I listened to recently. I makes sense. It’s usually more productive to just accept it. And it actually doesn’t prevent me from noting other things. The noting continues. It’s like a parallell process. I do forget noting the thinking sometimes. I’m not sure if I forget it because I’m lost in the content or because I stop listening to the thoughts that are yapping about. I think maybe in the beginning I get lost in the content and later in the session I just let the thoughts do their own thing and stop listening, and then I forget noting them because they don’t seem important. So it’s both extremes. Hopefully it will land somewhere in the middle, noticing and noting that the thoughts are there but not assigning any importance to them.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 8:21 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 8:21 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I did a 55 minutes long guided meditation by Michael Taft at the SF Dharma collective on youtube, letting go of all intentions. I soon got into the formless realms, don’t know how many of them or which ones because I didn’t conceptualize it and they are still kind of blurry to me. It was awsome. Then I had some kind of dreamlike vision that I cannot recall, and then I fell out from it backwards (not for real) and landed with a shock throughout my body.

Now I’ll continue listening, because he’s talking about the meditation afterwards.

I’m all bubbly now and the nada sound rings in my ears.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 3:16 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 3:16 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I did another couple of hours of letting go of all intentions, with a break in the middle. This is one of my favorite practices. Love it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 11:31 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/3/19 11:31 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Yoga really helps with clarity. I went to a class that mixed yin yoga with yoga nidra and restorative yoga, and on the way home I took in all the sounds around me. I wasn’t aware that the sounds from the tram is such a symphony. I noticed that the sounds from footsteps reached me slightly after I saw the feet of a person touching the floor as she passed by me. I didn’t know that the difference in speed between light and sound was noticable for such a short distance.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/4/19 3:24 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/4/19 3:24 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I started the day with a Hatha yoga class that did wonders to my wellbeing. I have noticed a new pattern, a tell for when my mind is relatively more unified. In addition to the color dot that I see, there is also immediately a bubbly tingling on my lips, on the skin of my face, in my paranasal sinuses, behind the center of my forehead, and slightly in front of my face if that makes any sense. These sensations then spread to my ears and neck and eventually to other parts of my body.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/4/19 8:25 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/4/19 8:16 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I did three hours of letting go of all intentions. I was aware of the exact moment when the body started to disappear. It started with my mouth. I seem to have much easier to access nothingness and neither perception nor yet non-perception compared to boundless space and boundless consciousness.

I started out with a guided meditation, ”2 May” by Michael Taft. It’s a favorite. I noticed when the hearing started to break up. It felt as if there was rapid movement going on in my ears and auditory canals, and the sound was fragmented.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/5/19 8:08 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/5/19 8:08 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I did an hour of letting go of all intentions. It began rather strangely. First I felt as if I was drawn into something, and then two eyes were looking at me in space. Then suddenly I was a man playing baseball. Baseball is not a popular sport in Sweden. I have never played it and don’t know the rules, but in this dream or whatever it was, I knew exactly what to do. Then I returned to a normal state and thought that the whole hour had gone by but saw that it was only a few minutes. So I got back to meditating and got almost straight into neither perception nor yet nonperception.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/6/19 3:28 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did an hour of letting go of all intentions and 75 minutes of explorative yoga (which pretty much tends to be the same thing for me). In both sessions there were vibrations in the face and feelings of contraction behind my eyes and nose. In the meditation session, the contracted part moved downward and partly sort of fell off, as if somebody had lifted a veil. Then I got into neither perception nor yet non-perception. I wonder what it would had been like if I had stayed more perceptive. In the explorative yoga session, instead I felt sort of a cool breeze on the crown of my head resulting in relief from pressure. It was as if something opened up.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/6/19 11:07 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/6/19 11:05 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Hi Polly, this might or might not be welcome at this time, but I saw you wrote in another thread

" I have read through the thread many many times, and I suggest that you do the same. It is possible that this is a matter of cultural barrier, I don’t know, but I was as shocked by your behavior as you were by mine. I cried for hours and hours and just couldn’t believe that kind and wise people like you would persist in derailing the type of thread that you had clearly stated you were not interested in taking part in, and even tell me that my processing is tiresome and pointless and that you have better things to do, as if you were forced to take part"

Putting to one side the emotional difficulty and specific content of the message, this is a GOLD PLATED opportunity to advance your understanding of dependent origination.

You have clearly described the dukkha, and it is equally clearly tied up with new karma (the becoming of intentional formations related to the DhO) generated in the last few weeks. This becoming will be supported by clinging, which will be supported by thirst, which will be supported by feeling tone, which will be supported by contact (between sense doors and concepts) which will be supported by your conceptual schema, which will be supported by the division of the flow of sensations into subject and object, or me and it. Which is supported by your past intentional formations and sense of self.

So can I suggest self-inquiry on this chain?  Notice the truth of the first noble truth. Notice the truth of the second noble truth.  Examine what you are clinging to, what is the thirst for?  What feeling tone supported this thirst?  Attraction or aversion? From what contact? Via what sense doors? With what conceptual schema? Created by what duality?

Or, if you are very lucky, you many have an emotional or karmic reaction to this advice.  In which case the chain of dependent origination will be laid out fresh and clear in your current mind state, for you to clearly see and precisely investigate.

This is our work on the DhO, seeking liberation by understanding ourselves in very fine detail.  So why not take an hour to closely investigate this chain of DO that has led to dukkha.

With hope and love

Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 1:06 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I appreciate that you wrote it here instead of in the thread, because I still think it is important that mage-related threads are allowed to stay on topic. I’m aware of the clinging there, but it is also about what kind of world I want to contribute to. If mage-related processes are seen only as clinging, then we have a hierarchy where sage is more awake and mage is some weird phase that people sometimes go through. I’m not so sure this is what is best for the world. What do you think?

I do this kind of self inquiry, probably not yet good enough, but I would feel weird writing about it here. And yes, I’m aware of that feeling being a part of the dependent origination.

This is probably the kind of karmic reaction you are talking about, but I’m not so sure that I would want to make a breakthrough by having my wish for a world full of trust reduced to self-grasping. Is there a way to do it without ending up a sage? Not that there is anything wrong with that. I’m just not so convinced that it is my path. Couldn’t I just go for the Bodhisattva approach? Would that be so wrong?

With love to you too
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Raving Rhubarb, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 4:07 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:


This is probably the kind of karmic reaction you are talking about, but I’m not so sure that I would want to make a breakthrough by having my wish for a world full of trust reduced to self-grasping. Is there a way to do it without ending up a sage? Not that there is anything wrong with that. I’m just not so convinced that it is my path. Couldn’t I just go for the Bodhisattva approach? Would that be so wrong?
I don't know shit about dependent origination and inquiry about it, but this reminded me of something a monk said in his speech at the beginning of a retreat (and maybe it's helpful). Something like this:
okay, now you are on a retreat. This is pretty scary, isn't it? You don't know how it will be. You don't know how you will change in the course of the retreat. You may be a very different person afterwards. Will you even want to go home?
and later
Some people suggest describing Nibbana in not so radical terms. Because then the students would be scared. But I think: "So they should be". If they aren't really scared, then it challenges them not enough!
I've thought about this for some time and come to the conclusion that this is very true.
I throw myself into practices which I can't really understand, to attain a state of mind that I don't know yet.
I don't know what awakening is like, and it might be irreversible and maybe I don't like the result.
All I have to go of are first impressions and vague descriptions by various teachers which somehow resonate with me, although the teachers are all like "you don't know how it is until you are there".
How can we even live with this uncertainty? We read the texts and wear the malas and admire the statues and hang out with the advanced meditators to convince us that this is a good thing. But there is always a remainder of uncertainty, which cannot go away.
I guess the reason I even do this is that I'm even more scared of things staying the same.

So there you are, wondering about if it's a good idea to do inquiry on dependent origination on a specific behaviour because then the behaviour might change and you actually might not like that. But there's an error in this thought: Discovering the 3Cs of a behaviour does not (necessarily) remove the behaviour. It's similar to the emotional perfection models which Daniel hates with a passion for good reason. It could happen, it could not happen. The behaviour might also change for any other reason. Or maybe the behaviour becomes stronger. We can't tell you, we can only point out to you that you could look at this and maybe something happens.

Viewed on a larger scale, this single act of inquiry into dependent origination on this single issue is just one of a myriad of steps which lead you to a (temporary?) destination you don't know yet. No one can tell you if you end up as a mage or sage or in between or not changed at all (although one day maybe science finds reliable predictors, ruining the mystery for everyone involved).

If you really want to stay a mage, you could probably read a lot of mage-stories and find them really inspiring and convince yourself that this is really your path. And maybe that prevents you from slowly drifting into sage-mode. Or maybe it doesn't. Or maybe it does the opposite. This thing seems a bit random to me.

Not sure where I'm going with this except now I'm scared of my morning meditation emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 4:23 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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It was helpful for me. I appreciate it. I’m sorry reaching out to me caused you fear, but hey, that’s probably good karma.

I see the three C:s of it, and it hasn’t changed yet. I share Daniel’s conviction there and take great comfort in the fact that he has come so far without going down that road.

I don’t really think there is so much of a risk that I would entirely lose the mage approach. It might vary over time, but that’s it. I get the feeling that people think that my behavior would change if I could see the dependent origination of it, but if that is really what they think, I will probably disappoint them. And if I must disappoint people to find my way to awakening, then I guess that’s just the way it is. Conforming is not a strong pattern in my karma.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 4:31 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Raving Rhubarb I find it a great mystery as well - why do we do it when when don't know the outcome?  What drives us?  I don't know the answer, but something seems to. 

However, aside from a few potential issues along the way, well highlighted by Daniel Ingram, the outcome is continually attested to be super worthwhile.  And its not just at the end ... Buddha said the dharma is good in the beginning, good in the middle and good at the end, and that really does seem to be the case.  First, calming and stress reduction and joy, then unwinding of angst and access to great states, and then even better states and finally unexcelled liberation. 

And it is not about perfecting your emotions, but rather making sure that you are no longer a slave to your emotions. You are still yourself, still human, but are no longer tormented by dukkha, and instead live in happiness and ease.  
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 1:37 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I think that if I had to choose between caring about the world or awakening, there is a risk that I would choose caring about the world. I don’t think I need to choose. Do I?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 3:25 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Look, I know that I am currently manifesting as a very low level mage, and that is pathetic in many ways. But can’t I level up as a mage? Renouncing the way of the mage, is that the only way to level up?

Anyway, I stopped crying when I decided that even though there are karmic formations at play, I need to let them play out without resistance, and there are worse karmic fruits to deal with than suffering because one cares about the world.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 4:40 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Hey Polly, progress in morality and progress in insight are perfectly compatible.  Morality is the first training, and morality is the last training.  But morality will be more effective the more clearly you see.  So it sounds like you are doing both morality and insight (and concentration), so that's cool.  But it is just worth learning to spot that moment of impulse that arises in response to contact and clinging - that's the point at which things go off the rails.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 4:51 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yes, I am doing morality work now too, and Michael Taft thought it would be a good idea. He is not to blame for how I do it, though.

Yes, if I had been able to stop that clinging in action, I would have expressed myself more skillfully. I would still have made the same fundamental choice, though, and I would still have found the same things problematic.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 5:19 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Polly - great.  I would also add that it's not really about handling a specific event.  Rather, it's about learning to isolate and train that particular mental muscle of spotting the impulse and renouncing it (not necessarily renouncing the action - just the impulse).  Following that practice will help you to develop tranquility, reduce the hindrances, and from that bliss and concentration will more easily follow. And from that, knowlege and vision, and from that liberation.  

Rhubarb - another thing is I don't know where you are at in your practice, but I wouldn't necessarily do dependent arising investigation straight away.  It should come after some development of mindfulenss (sati) curious investgiation investigation (vipassana, or dhamma vicaya) and concentration (jhana, particularly piti).  So one step at a time brother (or sister?).

Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 9:50 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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That does make sense. Thankyou for clarifying! That I can do. I will fail sometimes, because as far as I know, stream entry doesn’t take away ADHD, Tourette and autism or traumas from having one’s way of functioning questioned all life. I have worked with most of my traumas, but there are of course new layers to deal with, as you predicted. And Andromeda too for that matter, and I got good advice for resources.

I have been in important meetings all day, some due to family matters, one as an elected representative in sensitive issues, and I have been a ray of sunshine. I have let go of this now. I’m not angry at anyone and not sad for myself but I am sad that the communication turned out the way it did and sad that this issue is so sensitive. Before the thread about McMindfulness, I had no idea that there was such a tension between sage and mage positions. I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. I still don’t understand why. I hope there is a way for all of us to find our own balance without judging each other. I’m still wondering if my thread was seen as a suggestion that everyone should think like me, and if so, why. I would like to know what framings could have prevented the miscommunication so that I can avoid it in future. But maybe not right now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/7/19 11:02 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did a couple of hours of letting go of intentions yesterday. There was a weird combination of mind-wandering and third jhana. I felt like a fluffly cloud of cottonwool.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/8/19 2:11 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I had a very interesting 40 minutes sitting with a lot of motion. I started out with noting in all sense gates. The bouncing sensation in my head from conceptualization was there, but I could let go of it. Letting go of it created a lightness that led to a very subtle fear response with increased heartbeat. I could let go of that. I noticed that there was a motion between harsh vibrations and stillness. There were expansions and contractions, expansions and contractions. Both the expansions and the contractions entailed subtle fear responses, but they were very temporary. Gravity shifted back and fort, and so did density. Tensions dissolved into little bubbles, causing lightheadedness. There were a lot of visual motion and rapid flickering and a rapidly flickering nada sound. Some thoughts popped up but I didn’t cling to them. The sensate level of the process was fascinating. After a while I found that I couldn’t really tell what was expansion and what was contraction, because it depended on perspective and a duality between inside and outside that was not really there. At the same time, speaking from duality (which cannot be escaped while conscious), there was a rhythmic ticking sound from my paranasal sinuses or nasal cavities as if something was opening and shutting. I could clearly see the 3 C:s of phenomena. 

I still have this feeling of being in motion and both heavy and very light, both bubbly and like a still pond, both contained and uncontained, and it’s all good.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/8/19 3:14 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Heh, now I feel like there is a ghost puppy clinging to my face. I don’t know whether to pet it, soothe it, or gently tell it that it is not really there. Maybe I’ll just let it discover it for itself, or undiscover it, or whatever something does that isn’t really a doer.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/8/19 5:40 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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In addition to the morning meditation I did:
40 minutes of lunch yoga
25 minutes of guided meditation (Deep Mindfulness Collective’s livestream)
75 minutes of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga
60 minutes of Yin Yoga
40 minutes of sitting meditation, noting.

My tics are rather persistent right now, even though I feel the relief when I let go of them. They disturb my concentration a bit. I seem to be balancing on the verge between reobservation and low equanimity. I get the full body showers of gentle bubbly mercifull piti that dissolve the denseness of reobservation. Then I clench up a bit, and then it dissolves again. There are reoccurring lightness and softness and porousness. There was some mindwandering (family matters) accompanied with a fitting earworm; I thought it was funny when I realized the connection.

I’m amused by the irony in finally being rather fit (compared to before) and closer to having one of those yoga butts than I have ever been - just in time for letting go of the body as me or mine. Rather typical, isn’t it?

I seem to have managed to at least temporarily introduce another ethically okay (according to Peter Singer) proteine source to my very narrow diet without getting sick. Yay! I need the variation in order to stay tolerant to foods. Now I can cut down on meat. Wohoo!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/9/19 3:49 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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75 minutes Vinyasa Yoga, 60 minutes meditation.

Thoughts popped up as embryos, before the words. Sometimes I knew exactly what they were about despite the lack of words, sometimes I just knew that they were thoughts, and as I let go of them, they never manifested themselves more tangibly than that.

Sounds came together with simultaneous activation in other sense gates, and that was immediate. I suppose that means that it wasn’t through attention, but through awareness. The awareness included mental images, mental kinesthetics and mental smells as well as perceived sounds. It all came as a package. Thoughts were as external as the sounds, or maybe the perception of sounds was as internal as the thoughts. It all appeared as activation of the senses.

Sometimes an emotional reaction caused a contraction in the heart area. That seems to be when there is identification that causes a sense of self to become. The heart area seems to be one of those places where an imaginary self pops up. It does so by way of contracting. A working hypothesis is that the heart area is where becomings due to certain emotional reactions take place, whereas certain intellectual identification processes cause similar contractions in different parts of the head. There are probably more areas. Behind the eyes seems to be one place (during this session there was stillness there, though). A lump in the throat could perhaps be another example? Anyway, this observation may explain why so different emotions seem to manifest in the body as some form of pressure in the heart area. It is the contraction that is the becoming that takes that shape. Both pleasant and unpleasant feelings can have that effect.

Vibrations take place in new locations compared to before. My old tells for different nanas no longer work. Vibrations come and go, but when they appear, they are much more in the head than before. I sometimes also notice vibrations in my shoulders. I no longer get back pain in contracted states, but my feet tend to cramp.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/10/19 6:55 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did the newest SF Dharma Collective meditation with Michael Taft, from May 9th. Unfortunately, I was slow-baking hard bread at the same time, so I couldn’t fully let go of all graspings. I rely on my sense of smell to know when the bread is finished, and I had to take out the bread somewhere in the middle. It was still peaceful, but it wasn’t the real thing. Hopefully there will be more time to meditate today although I have a busy schedual.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/10/19 11:06 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Heh, my train is running almost an hour late, whereas I’m in good time for once. First I thought ”Oh no!” but then I thought ”Hey, that gives me time to meditate, and it’s very nice outside”. After all, I was hoping for some time to meditate despite my busy schedual for the day. Then I looked down on the ground, and there were waves all over it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/10/19 12:23 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I sat for an hour, with my eyes open until the sun was too low and bright and then with eyes closed for a while. The ground did not look stable. There were waves and flickering. The light sometimes broke into different colors. There were very subtle tensions, sneaky bastards, like ”I’ll just conceptualize a little bit, very discretely, you won’t notice anything, I promise - this self is so tiny that it won’t get in your way” or ”no no, that was not giving into ticking, it was just the wind, honestly, I’m so peaceful, promise”. A few times there was restlessness, but as I saw it for what it was, it was already gone. Restlessness manifests at least partly as a contraction somewhere in the area if the lower abdomen, resulting in density.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/11/19 3:48 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I have meditated 20 + 30 minutes. I’m staying with a partner who has executive dysfunction, just like me and even worse, so together we are not very efficient in going about daily chores. There is however a lot of love to make up for that, and a lot of compassion and acceptance.

I think I woke up in dissolution (exhausted and with some brain fog), went into fear as I saw dissolution for what it was, and into misery after I had identified fear. I managed to find acceptance for the misery and see clearly that it wasn’t me. Here I did the first 20 minutes, by the lake Mälaren. There was some relief, and then I found myself in disgust. That felt even less like me. I was rather happy at the same time. Weird. Now I believe I’m resting in lower path equanimity, if that’s a thing.

The 20 minutes meditation, eyes opened: focus on the impermanence in visual and auditory fields and body sensations. Not only the water had waves. Even the stones above the water were somewhat wavy. Flickering on a micro level was more accessible, though. There is a relief in the impermanence.

The 30 minutes meditation, eyes closed: lots of impermanence/flow in visual and auditory fields as well as in body sensations. Noticed subtle contractions as thoughts appeared that entailed some form of identification. Letting go of negative thoughts and feelings and doubts led to relief and then to gratefulness, but the gratefulness involved a tightness because of the grasping in wanting to not be a bad person. When I noticed that, I could let go of it and that decreased the density and gave room to a lightness.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/12/19 10:20 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I have attended a ”whole-day” (five hours, including breaks) meditation event at a Shambhala center in Stockholm. I’m not a member, but it’s nice to be able to meditate together with other people at least some times. In their tradition they keep their eyes open, so I did that too. We alternated between sitting and walking meditation. I had too little sleep tonight, so unfortunately I was rather sleepy and dull, but I managed to stay awake at least. There were instances of waviness of the floor. Sometimes it looked as if it was breathing. There were also instances of onepointedness making the surroundings disappear. The timekeeper was sitting almost directly in front of me, at a distance of about one meter. I was focusing my eyes at a point of the floor that was about 30 cm away from her to the left. Her entire body disappeared from my vision field, and the mind filled in the gaps and presented an empty floor instead, with the same pattern as in the spot I was looking at. The mind made the whole floor repeat that particular pattern and removed other objects. There were also instances of purple swirls as a layer to the vision field. I did noting. I’m not sure if I was expected to do something differently. They seem to be accepting of people doing their own practices, though, as long as one conforms to the observable behavior.

I’m not used to sitting so long (I usually lie down for my longer meditations when I’m at home), so sometimes a leg was numb. Alternating between sitting and walking is a great idea, I think. I should make it a habit at home. It wasn’t painful at all. Some stiffness, sure, but not that bad.

Nice people too. They decided to have all these events on odd weekends when I can go to Stockholm. That’s very kind and thoughtful, especially as I didn’t even ask for it. I had mentioned briefly a couple of months ago that it is possible for me to visit those weekends, because they asked. I was the only one who attended the whole day except for the timekeeper, and last time I was the only one showing up at all, so maybe that was the reason.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/12/19 3:02 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Sometimes I feel that starting this journey without knowing anything about Buddhism wasn’t such a great idea. I don’t regret it, but it seems like I’m doing things in the wrong order and lack the frames of reference that would help me to put things into perspective and to apply the kind of framing that would facilitate communication. Suddenly I found myself outside the bucket I had been trapped in and had started climbing from the inside, only to find that there are more layers of buckets, don’t know how many, and I’m once again trapped on the bottom and no longer have access to the vaste view that I had for just a short moment before I slid down on the outside of the smallest bucket. I’m just hoping that I didn’t leave behind the tools needed for climbing the next bucket wall. In the smallest bucket there was at least some illusion of breathing space. Inbetween bucket walls it is claustrophobic. In all directions there are just walls of delusion, except for those where I can go round and round in circles.

I guess this is desire for deliverance.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/13/19 3:00 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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For the moment I feel less stuck. I have this feeling of spaciousness. The bucket walls do not seem so solid. They occur in my mind, for sure, but they are just sensations that arise and pass away just like everything else. My mind needs to process them and may need to climb them in order to eventually realize that they are mere constructs, but I don’t have to go all in. I don’t have to control it. I don’t even have to pay attention to it all the time. It happens on its own. It’s not me that does the thinking and processing, so I’m actually not stuck. There are ways to walk right through these walls. I just can’t take my mind with me when I do it, because the mind is still stuck.

Maybe that’s the unbounded consciousness quality? I have yet to cultivate it enough to fully experience it. I just have glimpses of it.

Space is still a very fuzzy thing for me. I guess that is both a blessing and a curse. About a decade ago I realized that I had been operating pretty much according to a linear idea of space. Not completely, of course. I do experience space. I just have a hard time imagining it mentally without input through the other senses. Anyway, if I knew the way from A to B and from B to C, I assumed that the way between A to C would be A - B - C. I couldn’t really process the possibility that A and C could even be closer to each other geographically than for instance A and B. I couldn’t figure out that three turns to the right meant that I was moving in a circle. Not until I got my ADHD medication. It was that bad. And there is nothing wrong with my intelligence, at least not if one believes in those tests. I just have a problem with processing the space construct (and the time construct, for that matter, but then again, time is just another dimension of the space construct, isn’t it?). Somehow I’m just as limited by the space construct as anybody else. I just have to deal with that hallucination in a different way. At least I know that my perception of space is totally bogus, but some kind of perception is still there.

I did Michael Taft’s guided meditation ”The world is inside your mind” (not sure about the exact wording). I wasn’t able to let go of all thoughts and other graspings throughout the session, because my mind is pretty busy processing things right now and it tends to draw me in, but I could let go of it often enough to see that it is possible and to see the three C:s both of the processing and of the idea (of the mind) that there is a doer that needs to make an effort to stop the processing.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/13/19 7:40 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Note to self:

One situation that triggers old conditioning in a way that I need to watch out for is when I feel that I’m being misunderstood but can’t put my finger on how. I need to remember that if I could just see how I’m being interpreted, I can probably understand the responses. I also need to remember that the interlocuters have no way of knowing about the misunderstanding, so therefore they are not aware of me not knowing what they are responding to. If the situation is Kafkaesque to me, it probably is for the interlocutors as well, due to lack of common ground.

The contractions, tightening and increased density that taking things personally entails should be a wake up call that I need to consider this.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/13/19 3:01 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/13/19 2:59 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I sat for 50 minutes, mostly just enjoying the lightness and spaciousness that occurs in my current practice after a challenging period of purification. I did notice the 3 C:s of attraction to more expansive states, though, and I did notice the un-tightening of the mind as I woke up from being lost in some content for a brief moment.

When I opened my eyes, I saw two of my cats, those two that have had serious difficulties getting along, resting together next to me in a pile of pure fluffy happiness.

There is relief. There is also a sense of openness, like having something streaming through me. Like being leaky as a sieve, in a good way. Like the resistance is temporarily gone. It’s like there is a gentle wind blowing through me. I could swear I feel the wind physically, but I’m inside my apartment and there are no doors or windows open, and the windows are not leaky. We have three glass windows in Sweden.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/14/19 4:37 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/14/19 4:37 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Sat for an hour, choiceless awareness.

In the beginning, many thoughts appeared. Initially I would get lost in content. Gradually introspective awareness increased, and I got more and more fascinated by the contractions/tightness that came together with the engaging thoughts and feelings, and the openness, lightness and spaciousness that followed as I let go of the grasping. I was so fascinated by this dance that I sometimes didn’t give much notice to the thoughts and feelings. It was obvious that the thoughts and feelings occurred on their own whether or not I engaged in them. I could just let them take place in the background. Some thoughts appeared more in the foreground. They were related to the meditation, as the mind was trying to translate sensate experiences into concepts. One such thought was that the open awareness is always there, always available, permeating everything. I just imagine it being inaccessible. I lock myself in from the inside. For a while I got lost in metaphors, and as I did so, I noticed a contraction. Noticing the contraction opened up the spaciousness again.

Some of the dance occurred behind the eyes. There were tensions and relaxation, tensions and relaxation, and motion as the tensions were arising and passing away in different locations. There was no doer making any effort. It just occurred. Apparently there is still a sense of subjective perceiver that finds this fascinating, though, but I would guess that the fascination also occurs on its own.

Previously I have thought of pity as something that opens up to a flow. Now it seemed that pity can also be solidifying. I guess it’s a relative thing.

Sometimes vibrations occurred in the throat and shoulder area whereas there was an increase in density of the body, making it more separate. At one point a thought came up: ”Oh no, this is re-observation!” It was followed by surprise. Why did I feel the need to evaluate and judge this state when I could investigate it with curiosity? Genuine curiosity occurred, and that opened up to lightness and spaciousness again. A thought flashed by that was instrumental, about using this as a method, but it was so obvious that this was grasping that it didn’t stick.

The meditation as a whole had a flavor of mercy.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/14/19 7:05 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/14/19 7:05 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Another thing that was clear was that it isn’t possible to be ”lost” in the past or in the future. Lost in content - sure - but it all occurs in the present.

...

I just woke up from sleep to notice that meditation was occurring. A light fourth Jhana was present.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/15/19 6:12 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/15/19 6:12 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I only sat for half an hour due to a busy schedule. I treasured that time and would have loved to sit longer, but I need to sleep now.

The lightness and ease are still there, despite the stress from both a job deadline and an impending workshop (logistics is not my strong suit). The mind was busy with a lot of thoughts running around, and some tightness around them, but there was space too. Peacefulness, even. The word ”liberated” has connotations in this context that make me hesitate to use it, as I’m only in the beginning of the journey, but it’s still the word that best captures how I feel. I do feel liberated, but I can't really explain why (I can explain how, though: it’s like a gentle breeze flows right through me while at the same time wings carry me safely from a mountain top over a vaste wilderness). Mercy is another word that comes to my mind.

I think I use attention less and awareness more nowadays. There were no bouncing sensations of conceptualization in my head. The sensations/perceptions took place not only in my body, but often in other parts of the apartment and outside it. I don’t get how mental images are supposed to occur in front of one’s closed eyes. For me, mental images, mental kinesthetics and mental smells are interwoven with the external sounds. Not triggered by the sounds and thus following them, but appearing together with them as a whole. Is that what is referred to as formations? Whatever they are, that’s where the awareness occurs. Not in my head.

...

I started a thread about some fears today, but I don’t think the nuances came out right. They are subtle fears, not strong ones, and I’m not afraid of the unknown. I fear the known, the predictable. If it is still a mystery what happens after death, even for arahants, then I’m content and relieved.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/17/19 7:29 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/17/19 7:29 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did meditate yesterday but I was too tired to write about it afterwards after a long day of travelling and meeting people. I meditated for an hour, after some basic medicinal yoga and a gong bath. It was close to pure peace, so not much to report. During the gong bath I again felt the wind gently blowing through me, and I also felt as if parts of me melted and seeped out through my ears. Loved it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 12:41 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I fell asleep during meditation yesterday evening. Country air... I had many micro hits of spaciousness during the day, though. I also started the day with medicinal yoga and a heart meditation, singing a mantra.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 4:35 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 4:35 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
... I had many micro hits of spaciousness during the day ...

Hey Polly, what are the causes and conditions of these micro hits of spaciousness ?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 4:51 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 4:51 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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curious:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
... I had many micro hits of spaciousness during the day ...

Hey Polly, what are the causes and conditions of these micro hits of spaciousness ?



I’m not sure what qualifies as causes and conditions. It happens when I relax. Sometimes I do it as a practice (by opening up to it). Other times it is unintended but welcome. Shinzen Young highly recommends micro hits in daily life. I can do it anywhere. When I go about my daily business I do it to sort of stay connected. When I’m happy I do it because it makes happiness more fulfilling. I’m in a phase where it seems to be available most of the time.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 5:10 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 5:10 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Interesting. What would happen if you just relaxed and did absolutely nothing for an hour, maybe sitting in chair outside?  
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 5:23 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 5:23 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Meditation would occur. I’m not quite at the stage where it totally takes over, but I’m getting there. I recognize it. When that happens, I’m not sure how it will manifest this round. I look forward to finding out.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 5:43 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 5:43 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I love doing nothing in the nature, by the way. Always have. I need that. I think civilization makes me sick. Right now I’m at a place where there are no sounds from traffic. Instead there are falcons and wild boars and other wildlife. I choose to interact with people, though, because they are autistic friends that I don’t get to meet very often, and I love the flow and effortlessness in our interaction. Just now we were lying in the grass and talking about how we experience things with our senses and how our thinking processes manifest while watching bats fly over us in the darkening skye and listening to different kinds of birds, and a summer rain was gently sprinkling over us. I’ll do nothing tomorrow when I’m at home.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/19/19 8:53 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/19/19 8:53 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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curious:
Interesting. What would happen if you just relaxed and did absolutely nothing for an hour, maybe sitting in chair outside?  



Sensory input very quickly start to break apart, even in a busy place such as a train station, if I let them.
Andrew McAlister Dean, modified 4 Years ago at 5/22/19 8:44 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/22/19 8:44 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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My first post.
Greetings!
I relate to what you said about how the meditation just arrives at anytime..if I sit still for more than 30 seconds, especially if my eyes are still (and more so if they are closed), the "flip" starts to occur.
As if, having signed up for "School", we are committed to the training.
Andrew
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/23/19 12:46 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/23/19 12:46 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Hi Andrew, and welcome! It’s an honor to have your first post in my log. Yes, we have a calling and we are committed to it, and so it occurs spontaneously. That’s a great place to be.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 10:15 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 10:15 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Meditated an hour, focusing on all sense gates. In the very beginning there was monkey mind going on. That calmed down, after going through a phase of pre-conceptual abstract images flowing by radpidly, but then there were some head nods and some kriyas instead. There were also some changes in intensity, hard to put into words. For a while there was a build-up of energy in hands and arms. It felt as if I had strong wings and could have started flying. It felt as if there was a wind that would carry me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 4:52 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/18/19 4:36 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Something has happened to my hearing. Distinguishing sounds and the directions and distances they come frome is much easier now, especially when I’m in nature. That’s weird, because I have been working on making all sounds collapse into one flow and even drop away from awareness, and on making directions and distances collapse as well. I didn’t imagine it would have the opposite effect in my daily life.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/19/19 12:57 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/19/19 12:47 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I meditated (noting) an hour on the train after hours of travelling with heavy bags to carry and low blood sugar and in a wagon with little air and lots of heat and noise. I noticed some irritation in combination with vibrations in the throat. Then I noticed that the sensations of bouncing back and forth in the head (with regard to conceptualization) were back. I found that observation very interesting (and I noted the interest). Then the bouncing stopped, and I could feel tensions behind the eyes relax. There were relief and lightness. Sight got effortless. Then something let go with the hearing as well. There was a relief of tensions and letting go of effort. After that, there was a widening of space. There were also sensations of vapor gently oozing out through the pores of my skin in the face, and a sense of spaciousness in the head. Towards the end of the session, there was subtle dullness.

Earlier today I had the opportunity to give two friends a gong bath. Very cool! Then a friend gave me a gong bath as well, and it was awsome. I sort of merged with the sound. It was autistic heaven.

I have also had instances of seeing abstract patterns in the murk behind my eye lids outside of meditation.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/20/19 5:52 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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45 minutes of choiceless awareness, nothing special to report.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/21/19 6:40 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/21/19 6:40 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I did Michael Taft’s latest guided meditation at SF Dharma Collective, ”Awareness has no center”. At the moment he is teaching nonduality, so I guess that’s what I’m doing. I didn’t plan that, but I find it interesting. I’m in a phase that doesn’t respond well to more active ”drilling” anyway, whereas a gentler approach makes something happen. Something spacious and... soothing? There is trusting.

Something weird happened during this meditation. It’s like the existence coagulated and time froze and turned into space. It wasn’t really frozen; that’s the wrong word for it. It just wasn’t time anymore. It didn’t pass. That didn’t mean permanence in any way. The stillness entailed all possibilities. I think I may have gotten a glimpse of the infinite now.

In daily life I often get a sense of being porous and sort of evaporating. It’s mostly from the skin of my face and from the crown of my head. That is accompanied by a sense of relaxation in the head region.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/22/19 4:22 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/22/19 4:22 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I only did 30 minutes of formal sitting today due to busy schedule (research conference, travelling, meeting a partner that I don’t get to see very often). I focused on letting go of all intentions (or non-focused on that, sort of). The emptiness is increasingly striking. However, it seems to be focused to the head region. The rest of the body seems to hang on to the delusion more. I’m starting to understand why emptiness is a good thing. It’s not the kind of emptiness that the word used to make me think of. It really is a relief, a mercy, a peacefulness.

I did not perceive time as space this time, but time definitely slowed down remarkably much. I wasn’t bored at all. Time just didn’t move like I’m used to. There was space within time.

I did micro hits during the day. Emptiness is very accessible.

Michael Taft replied to my comment on his youtube video. He wasn’t at all surprised that his guided meditation had made me perceive time as motionless space. He said that time becomes timelessness when we let go of the concepts.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/23/19 11:07 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/23/19 11:07 AM

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I’m at a conference but managed to find a lecture hall where it’s possible to meditate in the back end without being seen. I sat for one hour and 20 minutes, letting go of intentions. It was very restful and for a while I thought I could feel the emptiness spreading from the head to the heart region, but then I got dull. Sometimes I find this approach very challenging with regard to dullness. Well, at least I’m rested now. I don’t think I have ever been so relaxed at a conference with 1400 participants. I can feel the emptiness in the background throughout the day. It’s a source of rest and trust and compassion.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/23/19 2:28 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/23/19 2:28 PM

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I did Michael Taft’s latest guided meditation from SF Dharma Collective again. I noticed that when form dropped away, there was an immediate reaction bringing it back again. That happened more than once, but it was most evident the first time. Dropping form was effortless, but bringing it back required effort. Yet, the effort was automatic.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/25/19 4:05 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/25/19 3:29 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did 40 minutes of noting. It was pleasant and comfortable but not sharp. During the day I have also squeezed in some meditation here and there, with a similar result.

Yesterday I tried to do shamatha in accordance with Michael Taft’s latest SF Dharma Collective guided meditation. That didn’t go very well. I was supposed to visualize a full moon. I have a hard time staying focused on a visualized mental image when the murk is there, more visible and ”louder”. Also, I get bored. Change is more interesting.

I haven’t been able to do yoga for a while due to a workshop and a conference. Not doing yoga makes me dull.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/27/19 12:00 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/27/19 11:01 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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45 minutes vipassana with noting. I accepted the fact that I’m back in dissolution again (exhaustion and brain fog), and that made meditation easier. Instead of trying to clearly notice things about the focus object, I used the focus object (breathing) as an anchor and investigated the periphery. Sitting was easy and pleasant. There were distractions and dullness, but I noted that, and the periphery was crisp and clear. I had that altered sense of touch that was one of my land marks in the dukkha nanas before stream entry. I stopped appreciating it, but now I investigated it as if it was new. I think that it is a letting go of the perceiver, allowing the hands to be aware on their own. I just didn’t understand what it was before. I could notice a similar awareness in the thighs touching the hands as well. Towards the end of the sitting there was a lot of piti. Apparently piti is accessible in dissolution now, or maybe that’s a temporary respite from dissolution?

Yesterday I tried to continue with Michael Taft’s latest guided meditation. That didn’t go very well. It required ability to focus, which isn’t accessible in dissolution.

At least dukkha nanas aren’t physically painful anymore. The suffering concerns cravings for mind-speed, focus, crispness, sharpness, and so on. I need to remember that nothing of that is me and that it is all impermanent.

Dissolution in itself is really quite allright. The suffering does not lie in what is, but in what isn’t. Only because I have a narrative do I grasp for what isn’t. There is a lot to learn there. There is grasping, for self and for permanence. There is also a subtle grasping for ignorance. Parts of me prefer dullness and blankness to facing no self and impermanence.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/27/19 2:05 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/27/19 2:05 PM

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Yesterday, in the middle of an ordinary conversation, there was a moment when sounds broke apart and dissolved. My girlfriend’s voice was no longer recognizable.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/28/19 11:37 AM
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I sat for an hour, noting. Sitting was easy and comfortable. There were several instances of subtle dullness. I noted them. There was an altered sense of touch. After a while there were several instances of kriyas. There were also some nodding and some dreamlike visions. I felt a little cold. Then there was a lot of piti.

Somewhere in the middle, probably after the piti, there were harsh vibrations in the throat area for a brief moment. The vibrations were smoothed out into waves and then into stillness, and in doing so there were both a sense of relief and letting go and a tangible expansion of space. After that, sensations were more crisp. The murk was more detailed and more rapidly changing and more colorful. There was occasionally a vague sense of depth to the murk, especially with regard to motion. Breathing was easier and more pleasant. The mind speed was faster. There were champagne bubble sensations in the face and nada sound. Noting was faster, and the words slowed me down so sometimes I let go of them.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/28/19 12:33 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 5/28/19 12:23 PM

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When the vibrations turned into waves and then stillness, there was a ripple effect that seemingly had a clear center. It was also from that center that space expanded.

There are still champagne bubble sensations in my face. I’ve got to admit that I have missed them. I am attached to them, and that is something that I will need to let go of. Accepting the fact is a first step, I guess.

The brain fog is gone. There is freshness, crispiness. Breathing is pleasurable. The tendensy of the last few days to seek out distractions is gone. That was a pretty brief dark night, less than a week.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/28/19 1:59 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I finally managed to go through this weeks guided meditation by Michael Taft, ”Directly investigating awareness”, without becoming too dull to perceive the inquiry questions in the end.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/29/19 3:33 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I meditated for an hour, focusing on the three characteristics in all six senses. Sitting was comfortable although one leg fell asleep early on. Most of the time it didn’t bother me, but in the end (the last 13 minutes) I stretched out, then lay down and wiggled my toes.

There were clarity, crispness, and a wide focus. Many sensations appeared self-aware where they occurred, but there was still something that registered that those occurrings were over there. That something had a location, too, and I could sense that it wasn't really me and that it wasn’t solid although it did contract and cramp up a bit. For a while the contraction allowed a sense of pressure to build up in my head. I could alleviate the pressure by thinking ”open”.

I could feel that there were no real boundaries between self and world. There was a stream moving through all of it. That ”center” that constructed space (it was the reference point making spatiality possible) resisted the stream somewhat, but the stream went right through it anyway. When I was able to sense that, the thoughts of the center did not appear as my thoughts.

The murk contained much movement and color and depth. Sometimes the fields of color broke up into tiny dots of red, blue and green. There was space. Toward the end there was a formless quality but not true formlessness. I tried to focus on the space and formlessness, but as the breath was dropping away, there were fear responses. That caused contraction that made the body feel more solid.

After the meditation I lay down to rest. I let myself drift between different mind states and observed the shifts between them. In a hypnagogic state I saw detailed patterns. I remained clear. I sensed that my kid, who is sick and home from school, woke up (in another room) before I could consciously hear any movement.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/30/19 11:50 AM
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I set the timer for an hour and lay down to meditate. When the hour had passed, I continued, I don’t know for how long. Another hour? I enjoyed the returning clarity that was there in spite of some sleepiness, and I managed to stay awake all the time. I focused on the three characteristics in all six senses. I was about to stop the meditation when the alarm went off, but as I stretched out my wrists, new energetic motions came about and I enjoyed the visuals of it.

Yesterday evening I fell for the temptation to eat some locally produced organic icecream, and then I got into brain fog and fell asleep. The time before that, it was due to tofu and chick peas. I really need to maintain my strict diet, as digressing from it messes with my meditation. I think starting the day with 75 minutes of Kundalini Yoga helped. It definitely set about some energetic motion. I am no longer like a champagne bottle ready to pop, as I was before, but it was nice to feel that I haven’t lost it entirely. I like the feeling of things moving, even though it may very well just be purification. On the other hand, I don’t miss the pain that stagnation of those energetic motions used to entail every dark night. That pain suddenly went away after I went through the suffering door and it hasn’t come back.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 5/31/19 2:44 PM
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Today I did 75 minutes of ”Meditative Friday” yoga (we basically warmed up the spine and then did a guided meditation).

Then I did this guided meditation by Michael Taft: https://youtu.be/An00h5Cs2xw. I was shocked to realize that the infinite awareness that Michael talks about is exactly what was my default way of experiencing the world with my eyes closed until I - very recently - learned to visualize and imagine embodied and inhabited space. I don’t know whether to laugh or to yell. It was there all along! I tried to explain my experience in Shinheads when I joined it, but people insisted that I was just lacking clarity. I tried to explain that conceptualizing my surroundings took a lot of effort. Well, compared to this, of course it does! I had to unlearn infinite awareness in order to understand what people were talking about, damn it! Why do people always have to make things so complicated?! Layers and layers and layers of concepts! Gah!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/1/19 4:57 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/1/19 4:47 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I started the day with 95 minutes of yoga. It was a technique class at a higher level that I normally go to. I thought it would be too difficult for me, but it was actually easier than before. More intuitive. I loved it. The teacher had a very meditative feel to it.

Then I listened to a youtube lession in Kriya Yoga and did a guided meditation with first a mantra and then directing awareness to between the eyebrows and then spinal breathing.

I believe what I am feeling is emptiness. The good kind, not the connotations that I used to associate with the word.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/1/19 11:12 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/1/19 11:12 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did another Kriya Yoga meditation (chakra chanting) and then 45 minutes of vipassana focusing on impermanence. There’s a weird combination of crisp clarity and sleepiness leading to dullness, probably because I slept very little tonight and then went up early in the morning. I suppose I should sleep.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/1/19 12:41 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Hm, I’m probably in Desire for deliverance, because I feel like I’m stuck in a limbo where little happens. I seem to cycle without ever reaching high equanimity, and it’s all so subtle. Now I’m getting impatient and look into new sorts of meditation techniques to get things moving. I should probably investigate the subtleness instead, as well as the impatience.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/1/19 2:03 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did Michael’s latest guided meditation again, allowing open awareness to do vipassana, and now the impatience is gone. This seems to be the kind of practice I respond well to right now, so I think I’ll stick to that. Also, it clearly illustrates no self. And what a relief it is!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/2/19 3:26 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log

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I’ve decided not to demand too much from myself today, because I have PMDD and it seems to be time for pms, wherefore I’m in reobservation. I have thus had a very lazy day. I did a class of yin yoga and later I sat for 30 minutes (vipassana). I allowed myself to change position when my leg fell asleep, which it does ridiculously often during reobservation (also I have run out of ginkgo biloba; need to do something about that).

I realized why mapping is so messy now. There is more than one layer of stages. Some insights cannot be unseen. Others are yet to be made. They seem to run in different cycles, or maybe I just manifest stages from the earlier path while simultaneously going through the new path. During this sit I had the harsh vibrations and muscle tensions from reobservation while at the same time having champagne bubbles in my head and a neutrally accepting approach to whatever is, and the smooth feeling of third jhana. The mind was chatting but awareness was always there. There was no need for the kazoo player. That’s when I knew: I’m going to get through this path. The process still knows the way, and of course it does, since ”I” am not the only one it has taken on this journey. It has already walked this terrain through all weathers many many times. There is no separate me that hasn’t already done this.

Now I intend to lay down and relax from all conceptualizations to the best of my ability, just because it feels good. If I fall asleep that will be the beginning of a pattern that I need to change, in order not to build pathways leading to dullness, but I can do that. Right now I need to do this.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/4/19 5:22 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/3/19 9:55 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yesterday I timed a 45 minutes session of vipassana but then continued resting in direct awareness for a couple of hours until I fell asleep.

I focused on all six senses, started out with noting but soon let go of the kazoo player because it was holding me back. Awareness was obvious, so it wasn’t needed for the noticing. The problem with letting go of noting is that it is easier to get lost in content. For a while I did. It was about my role as a chosen representative in delicate matters. I realized what happened and took note of the becoming of self. In the beginning of the session there were vibrations in the throat and head. Later there were lots of soft champagnebubbles, not with an upward movement but rather expanding and bursting in place or moving through me in random directions. There was emptiness.

EDIT: I forgot: I also did a guided meditation with Deep Mindfulness Collective earlier in the evening, in their livestream. It was subtle metta towards oneself (”may you be peaceful”). I focused it on various parts of my ”self” that I know are different sets of coping strategies and reaction patterns. I can’t speak for all of the patterns, but at least some of them responded well. There was relief.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/4/19 5:13 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I sat for 45 minutes, doing choiceless awareness. Fascinating. This is so classical re-observation, and yet I kind of enjoy it. Although the racing mind is so utterly unfocused and compulsive, I enjoy the speed and I enjoy recognizing the quirks, and I enjoy noticing that I do. I notice that I have an attachment to the mind speed and even an attachment to all the really annoying quirks and tend to see them as very ”me”, and I find that comical, because it is so obvious that they are not me and that it is this totally irrational attachment that holds me (not-me) back, and yet I feel compassion for the attachment. Existence seems to be out of synch with itself, and the harsh vibrations are out of synch with each other, and the muscles are both tensed up and too mobile to find a steady and confortable position, but the awareness of this is as intriguing as a dystopian sfi-fi series. There were moment of stillness and peace and synch too, so I think equanimity is near. I don’t know whether it’s the first path review as a respite or if it’s equanimity of the next path. I don’t know how this works.

Fascinating also that emptiness is so physically tangible and so pleasant. I did not expect that before.

I have had a very challenging schedule today and didn’t sleep well, and I have a tough case of pms, but people tell me that I look so peachy and well-rested and full of life. I thought I was a wreck. I actually managed to do all things on the list and stay mostly happy. That’s pretty cool.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/5/19 6:35 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/5/19 6:35 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I set the timer for 45 minutes and then another 45 minutes. I focused on how impermanence manifested on its own in all sense gates. In the beginning I sat, but my legs fell asleep so much that I lay down after about 20 minutes. The first session was pretty sharp but also somewhat agitated. Like yesterday, I enjoyed the mindspeed and sharpness and even the slight agitation. It felt vital. There was clarity in the details and dynamics. The second session was more peaceful but also rather dull. When the session was over I fell asleep. It was around midnight or perhaps even later by that time, so it was probably a bad idea to do another session.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/6/19 4:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did 20 minutes vipassana meditation just to get a feel of what is going on in my head. I have a persistent headache that feels as if it’s the new re-observation stagnated energetic stuff thing. Observing the impermanence of the sensations helped to get some relief from the weird pressure. This is probably what is often referred to as energy blockage. That’s a mental construction, but either it has physical consequences or it makes sense of and deals with a physical condition (like high blood pressure), or possibly both. Luckily I have some potassium supplement at home (I’m very aware that taking supplements of potassium must be done with extreme precaution, and I know what I’m doing; I wouldn’t recommend anyone without an exceptional knowledge of their own body to tamper with such supplements).

Clarity is increasing.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/6/19 3:13 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/6/19 3:13 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Oh wow. I have a partner here that I hadn’t seen for a month so I cannot meditate as much as I would like, but I took 30 minutes now, completely surrendering to the process. It is finally happening again: the process takes over and does its thing, vipassanizes me, shamatizes me, whatever it needs to do. Concentration, sensory clarity and equanimity are increasing. I’m vaporizing.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/7/19 8:24 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/7/19 8:22 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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45 minutes of surrendering and letting go. Three characteristics were obvious. Strong jhanic factors while discursive thinking was still going on in the background, doing their own thing. Letting go of that racing mind was a great relief. Circumstances and obligations do not allow me to meditate more right now, but I’ll make room for more of it in the days to come. I need to evaporate.

Sudden nausea is a great meditation session that needs to happen.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/8/19 4:03 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/8/19 4:03 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I started the day with Kundalini yoga, 75 minutes. That increases clarity, and it also increases the amount of pain I feel. I think I can confirm now that I have developed a new kind of purification pain. It’s a sharp pointy headache (with more than one point) accompanied by a gnawing neck pain. Oh yay. Well, I guess it needs to be there. I’ll manage.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/8/19 7:25 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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My head hurts like hell and my neck is stiff and I have ache in my wrists and ancles. I think this is the first time around with dukkha nanas of the new layer. I have kriyas as well, even when I’m just resting. Colors are swirling. I probably crossed the A&P very recently.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/8/19 3:49 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/8/19 3:49 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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The headache from hell is temporarily okay thanks to sleep, pain-killers and meditation. In the latter I intuitively did some kind of hybrid of letting go and tapping into the space around and interspersed amongst the pain. Subjectively it also feels as if I allow something to gently move rather than stagnate, and that gives relief.

Maybe I shouldn’t do Kundalini yoga, I don’t know. There was a lot of focusing on the third eye, and in one exercise I felt both pressure and heat building up. The teacher gave me some reiki heeling, too, but I’m not sure she knew what she was doing. She has a very nervous vibe.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 6/8/19 4:22 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/8/19 4:22 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yeah I found that doing yoga and martial arts before anapanasati sometimes led to extremely powerful energy surges during meditation. Probably ok if you are ready to handle them - but with all the potential downsides of big purifications if you are not.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 3:38 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 3:38 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I think part of it may have been that I was prevented from meditating as much as I felt that the process needed for a couple of days, so there was already an inbalance. Yoga usually helps my wellbeing a lot, but it’s usually more grounding yoga types such as Hatha yoga. Kundalini yoga is sort of the opposite. Anyway, it may also be the case that this is the new darknight pain no matter what. I guess time will tell.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 7:20 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Pain is milder now, and the total exhaustion is gone. Sudden subtle anxiety and nausea appeared, and I took that as a cue for meditation. Another one of my partners is here now, and I hadn’t seen him for six weeks, so I only took 30 minutes. I can do some more later. It was awsome. I entered third vipassana jhana but with greater clarity than I’m used to. The three characteristics stood out clearly. What I used to perceive as ”backward hands” in the dukkha nanas earlier in my practice, and later understood as the touch sense being turned inside out, was now very clearly the hands being aware of themselves. It wasn’t just the hands, but more or less the entire body. Awareness was there, aware of itself. It seems like the inability to focus in dukkha nanas applies only to attention, not to awareness. Earlier in my practice I would focus on something, like the breath, in order to achieve clarity for the periphery. Now there was no need for that. It was all clear, only there was no center.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 2:01 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 2:01 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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45 minutes of surrendering to the process. Weird - I know that it felt chrystal clear and present, but now I don’t remember much of it. I remember that breathing was affected somehow. I remember softness, smoothness. In the beginning there were many different impressions (mental images, mental sounds and other mental constructs) swirling by fast. There were also some discursive thoughts at the same time as I was tapping into very soft vibrations on my skin. There were kriyas, mostly twisting my feet upward. Lots of impermanence. I could sense a listener solidify as I was listening to the nada sound and other sounds, but soon that solidifying was also just a set of sensations like the others. Then there were just sensations, crisp and clear, and they didn’t make it into my memory.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 3:54 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 3:54 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
45 minutes of surrendering to the process. Weird - I know that it felt chrystal clear and present, but now I don’t remember much of it. I remember that breathing was affected somehow. I remember softness, smoothness. In the beginning there were many different impressions (mental images, mental sounds and other mental constructs) swirling by fast. There were also some discursive thoughts at the same time as I was tapping into very soft vibrations on my skin. There were kriyas, mostly twisting my feet upward. Lots of impermanence. I could sense a listener solidify as I was listening to the nada sound and other sounds, but soon that solidifying was also just a set of sensations like the others. Then there were just sensations, crisp and clear, and they didn’t make it into my memory.
Glad about mental images. If I remember correctly, some months ago, in the conversations on Shinheads, you were saying that you don't have mental images, or you have just simple patterns of light. So it has changed :-)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 4:18 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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It sure has. In daily life that is very helpful, because it was rather disabling not being able to visualize anything and not even having a body image. In meditation, it’s actually rather annoying to have this new layer of mental constructs. I’m approaching this from the opposite direction than most people.

The thing is, when I was unable to visualize my own body, I couldn’t even understand why anybody would believe that they were in their head. Now that I can, I understand why. It’s because of the visual perspective. When I didn’t have that, I was as much in any part of my body as in my head. That was a mental construct too of course, but at least it was more flexible, and it was closer to direct awareness. Moving into direct awareness was not a big step. Now I have to get past the visual perspective first. That’s annoying.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 4:23 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
It sure has. In daily life that is very helpful, because it was rather disabling not being able to visualize anything and not even having a body image. In meditation, it’s actually rather annoying to have this new layer of mental constructs. I’m approaching this from the opposite direction than most people.


Yes. Sometimes it becomes annoying for me too that I can't decouple physical sensations from their mental impression as mental images. Tonight while walking I was trying to do fast fire noting on the body, but because for each sensation, at the same time of noticing the sensation, attention was moving in the body image space and locating the image of that area that sensation was on it, it was preventing me from having very fast noting. The speed of attention movements is often determined by the speed of rolodexing through mental images.

But about not having a body image, probably that has helped to access to no self/ emptiness more quickly? I recall that Shinzen was saying that for many people, they get to a point that bodily feelings are just vibrations, but because there is a stable body image, that body image retains the sense of self, and when that image turns into vibrations, they can access to a true no self experience.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 5:14 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yeah, I guess. I started out with dissolving into vibrations rather quick.

But I have to admit it’s rather nice being able to realize when I’m blocking the way for other people and knowing where my limbs are in space without looking for them. Now I finally know why other people do not knock things down all the time, and I’m able to avoid doing that too. I probably had some sense of it, but it was extremely vague. All the parts knew themselves from the ”inside”, but I didn’t have a threedimensional overview. Even when I looked at my body parts, I had often no idea how to contract that specific muscle. There was little connection between visuals and kinestetics.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 6/9/19 6:31 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Glad to hear about positive effects :-) .
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/10/19 12:37 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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One hour of surrendering to the process. I immediately entered third vipassana jhana. There were some kriyas, some heat and some purifying deep breaths. There was an altered sense of touch all over my body and smooth tingling sensations as if my whole body was going numb and was covered with velvet.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/10/19 4:51 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did Michael Taft’s latest guided meditation where one is supposed to let infinite awareness do vipassana. This time there was resistance to completely letting go of the body. There were panic reactions and strong urges to move. Interesting. It really felt as if I would die if I didn’t move, and I understand what that stands for. I was able to postpone movement, but eventually some reflex or reflex-mimicking aspect took charge. It might be interesting to keep going, to investigate these reactions further and see the end of them.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/11/19 2:30 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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30 minutes vipassana, sitting until my leg fell asleep (a reoccurring problem for me in dukkha nanas) and then lying down. Noting until I was too frustrated by the delay and changed to just noticing. Great clarity, but when I stopped noting I got lost in content for a while. I guess I need the noting for that purpose although the kazoo player thing is a bit annoying, so I took up noting again. In the end one of my cats lay down on my chest. It was very evident that my feelings made something solidify exactly in the spot of the third eye.

Then 30 minutes of just surrendering. It felt like I was floating. Subtle dullness.

Then I took some time to feel into where I am on the maps. Mapping post stream entry is much more fuzzy, and vibrations are not as reliable as they used to be, so I’m not sure, but I think I’m entering misery territory. I have had a couple of days with a bit more energy but also subtle anxiety and more solid performance anxiety, and yesterday evening parts of me reacted with panic as I was about to let go of embodiment. There is still a bit of that energy and anxiety, but I can feel the slow thickness arriving, and I have that icky feeling of being a failure, and the suffering of the world weighs me down, and third jhana is accessible, so yeah... misery it is.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/12/19 5:19 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I woke up with poor motivation to do anything and a thick heavy sleepiness, like a wet woolen blanket covering everything. Misery indeed. One of the few things that still gives me some kind of motivation in this state is continuing to read MCTB2, and I did some reading there (I have now started on the autobiographical section in the end). That got me into a state of more clarity, as it reminded me to continue the investigation also in daily life and in more challenging phases. I felt like I needed to investigate more, but I realized that I was too sleepy to successfully meditate. I wouldn’t want to reinforce pathways where meditation leads to sleep.

Then I though that sleepiness too is worthy of investigation, and if I would fall into sleep, it would probably be educational to investigate the moment leading to sleep, regardless of what I call the investigation. So I allowed myself to rest while investigating the sleepiness. It entailed a lot of impressions of textures and a lot of thoughts about strivings that didn’t lead to anything, enthusiastic collaborations that ended up with nobody taking any responsibility until the fresh new ideas were no longer so fresh and it felt useless to hope for anything ever being done about them, and I was disgusted by the whole thing (disgust!), the chain of hope and the following disappointment, and then, while having the image of puzzle pieces being put together on some boring puzzle, it suddenly dawned on me that I could put those pieces into the puzzle that I was so disappointed that nobody else put there, or at least try. I saw myself putting in those pieces that made some of those unfinished projects possible to finish, and thus getting rid of some baggage that is weighing me down. Sure, it’s late now, but we have already done much of the work, and at least it’s psychologically beneficient to go through with it. Never mind that the timing isn’t perfect anymore. It seldom is, and that is not what’s most important. I could at least go ahead and ask the others involved what they need in order to be able to move further. Maybe some of it is something that I could easily do. Suddenly I am motivated to go on with my writing. I want to finish things. I have a bunch of projects that need finishing.

Maybe this is a new and more productive layer of desire for deliverance? If so, I welcome it. It came together with a sudden return of the persistent headache, but in a mild version, and some subtle chaotic vibrations.

After all, if I wake up, I wake up to this very life. I never intended for meditation to be yet another way of procrastinating. I can’t go forward by escaping my life. I need to be mindful about my life, even the parts that I feel bad about - especially those parts. If I feel disgusted by dynamics that I am part of, maybe I should do something about it.

There are indeed valuable lessons to be learned from the dukkha nanas.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/12/19 9:13 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Okay, this is weird. I seem to be cycling rapidly through the dukkha nanas and I feel overwhelmed with nausea, fear, guilt, shame, hopelessness and panic all at the same time. There are harsh vibrations and the headache is getting worse. I feel like I may throw up, but that is probably just a feeling. I did 30 minutes of meditation because I had to, but now I need to cook some food to my kid. I will need to continue meditating later.

What I need to do to get through this is seeing things as they are, right? As simple as that, and as hard as that. The three C:s and bare sensate phenomena, right? Anything else I need to think of? Breaking down is not an option. My kid needs me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/12/19 12:26 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Weird indeed. I did two hours of vipassana, with a short bathroom break in the middle. It’s hard to conceptualize it. Lots of impressions flashing by. A lot of motion. Then relief, layers of layers of tensions in my face falling away. Lightness. Clarity. Easier to breath. Then difficult to breath. Then both at once. I relaxed and let go of the breath, trusted that it would be there regardless of whether or not I could feel it. My body started to fall away. Then another round of nausea and panic and misery all at once. Those tensions in the face solidified again, and the headache came back, and with it harsh vibrations. It was intense. I was drawned into it and it terrified me. It felt as if every cell in my body was torn inside out or something. I managed to breathe through it, bearing in mind that I have gone through this kind of panic before and later found that the very sensate experiences that made up the panic were pleasurable when I surrendered to them. Parts of me wanted to escape the process. Other parts of me were adamant to go through it and to take note of the sensate experiences. Jhanic factors were readily available in the midst of panic and nausea. I tapped into them just enough to calm down the panic. Then I felt as if strong forces were tearing me apart. I reminded myself that being torn apart is a good thing. I felt at the same time heavy, dense, and solid on the one hand, pressured to the ground, and on the other hand I was thrown around rapidly as if I weighed nothing. The notion of centrifugal force came to my mind. I felt motion sick but no longer panicked. Then the timer said that the session was over. I decided to pause enough to write this down.

Well, at least the three C:s are impossible to miss.

Now I have stomach cramp. That’s not the first time lately that I have come out from a meditation session with stomach cramps. The headache is almost gone for now, but there is still tension in the forehead.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/12/19 1:05 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I just read the MCTB2 chapter on bodysurfing. I had never heard of that before, but it seems like the perfect analogy to what I need to do right now. The sea is rougher now than before and demands more from me in terms of timing and doing just the right move. Dealing with the more forgiving waves came more naturally. I could often just lie down and float on them. It’s not as easy this time around. I need to learn the exact moment to jump in and how to stear, and how to deal with the waves that are far too rough for surfing. I can do that. It will be a rough ride until I learn, but I can learn. The patterns are there, out in the open.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/13/19 4:40 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I planned to meditate one hour. However, I missed the alarm and ended up doing maybe one and a half, probably with some micro sleep in it. I thought the sensory clarity was good, but apparently I didn’t detect sleepiness in time to avoid dozing off and missing the alarm. It is a very subtle one, but I usually hear it. Well, it was great clarity in the beginning at least. The focus was wide. There were rapid vibrations. They turned into slower waves. There were jhanic factors. My entire skin felt as if it was caressed with soft feathers. I’m not entirely sure about the order of events. I could notice things rapidly in all six senses. Tensions arose and dissolved in rapid succession. For a short moment the clarity was more crisp and the feathers stopped and gave room for something less dense and more spacious. Then there was craving for fourth jhana and equanimity, and that made the spaciousness go away. The feathers came back along with more density. Then I guess I was seduced by the softness of the feathers and lost some mindfulness.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/14/19 6:55 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I’m at a stage of relatively good clarity and concentration but with some tendencies to distraction and subtle dullness. My outlook on life is suddenly rather balanced again. Could it be low equanimity at the new path? That seems a bit too easy. Maybe I have taken refuge to equanimity of the first path? Or maybe I have dropped down to mind and body, which I don’t think I would recognize? I don’t know. The jhanic factors most readily available remind me most of third jhana. Regardless of what it is, I will keep investigating to the best of my ability and do my best to deal with the challenges of daily life and balance it with rest.

I meditated for an hour, lying down. I did not doze off. I started out with noticing as much as possible in all six senses. Noting isn’t fast enough, because translating the knowledge into words is counterintuitive. I already know exactly what I’m aware of, but words do not capture it satisfactorily. Awareness translates badly into words. Trying to translate causes bouncing tensions sensations in my head. It seems very unnecessary. I remember Andromeda describing the realization that she never was equipped with a kazoo player. I think I am, sort of, but he definitely doesn’t master it. He misses most of the symphony and the delay is unbearable. Staying alert without noting is however something of a challenge, but at this stage it seems to work. It probably doesn’t work at the level of Daniel’s rapid noting style, but it is more efficient than my noting. At the moment, I notice more without the noting than with it. Maybe I’m just bad at noting. Maybe that’s just how my autistic brain works. Translating information from my senses into words has always been draining. But then again, the senses already know, or whatever it is that knows, so maybe it’s not necessary.

It doesn’t necessarily feel like the information comes through the sense organs where they are located on my body either. They sort of come together with the formation that they belong to, if that makes any sense. I don’t know if this is poor clarity or the opposite. When I hear a sound from outside the house, it’s like awareness is outside too. Awareness isn’t only aware of the sound, but also of the touch of the wind, the smell of the air, mental images from the perspective of being outside, other touch sensations associated with being there, etc. I know that my sense organs are not involved with those images and touch sensations or the smelling. It’s a mental thing. But I really get why that is a sense too. The sensations are really there, vividly and immediately. They are instant. They come in packages. In meditation, the boundary between inside and outside seems irrelevant. Sure, the mental sense delivers constructs, but all perceptions are constructs, right? I guess the important thing is knowing what kind of construct they are, at least in daily life. It would be weird to treat imagined things as the same thing as perception. That would be hallucinating. But in meditation, I notice that the sensations from the mental sense are often just as vivid as those that come from perception via the sense organs. That’s what I notice. And even those sensations that do come from what we refer to as outside, do not appear to come through my senses. It’s more like me appearing where they are than they coming to me through my senses. Until I do noting, verbally, conceptualizing things. Then the conceptualizing tells me that they appear over there, as if I were actually in my brain or something. That is especially frustrating when the sensations are from touch, for example touch sensations in my hands. Even if I were to believe that there are things ”over there”, it doesn’t make sense for my hands to be ”over there”. Speaking from a duality perspective, my hands are as close to me as my brain is. When I skip conceptualizing, awareness is present in the hands and sort of in the textures that they are touching. When I conceptualize it, suddenly my hands are ”over there”, because apparently part of the conceptualizing is a spatial organization that takes its departure in my head, where my eyes, ears, nose and taste buds are located. Still, I’m very kinestetic and dependent on my hands, so that creates a split that is really weird.

I noticed that the richness of sensate information was distracting insofar as I was torn between different sensations rather than following some of them from beginning to end. I wanted to do the latter, so I started focusing on the nada sound or whatever one decides to call that tinnitus-like sound that seems to be present all the time as soon as clarity and concentration are good enough. That sound is something that I can actually stay with rather well. If I were to do shamatha, maybe that would be a suitable object. The sound is there for me reliably in a way that a visualization is not. From a vipassana point of view, I know that it must be impermanent. Thus, if I stay with it, it is reasonable to assume that at least part of it must vanish some time. I wanted to capture that. The sound itself is whirling, so I know that there are many arisings and passings away there, but I’m not able to point them out with precision. When staying with the sound, I did however notice that there are very very brief micromoments where I can’t seem to stay with it. It’s like a perceptual barrier, avoiding the void. Then for a moment I could hear very rapid beeps, as if the sound was binary. I wasn’t able to follow those vanishings into the void. They eluded me.

Staying with the sound made movement sensations appear in my face. It was like layers of very soft and very thin veils were dragged over (or rather under) my face and away from it, over and over again, overlapping in time. It had some kind of circularity to it. There were very subtle mental images accompanying it that I can’t translate into words. They were probably just barely conscious and mostly unconscious.

Recently a lot has been going on in my face and beneath it. A lot of movement. It’s softer now than it was before. Sort of more layers to it. More subtle, but many different sensations occurring at once, or overlapping. Thus it’s more complex. It is no longer one puppy alien crawling around there, but many thin veils moving about. They sometimes tense up, but mostly they are soft.

I noticed that when I petted my cat in the beginning of the session (sometimes it’s just more efficient to do that instead of having an anxious cat climbing me and seeking my attention; after petting him for a while he relaxes and just lies down), the movement in my face increased. It made some veils dissappear and others appear. Maybe I conceptualize less when I pet my cat but also have more feelings that are part of the self delusion.

Jeeze, if my collegues at work were to read this, or like my brother, they would probably think I’m going crazy (I mean, puppy aliens crawling around behind my face... not to mention all this rambling about the maps). Luckily I have never aspired to be normal, so I don’t think it would be that much of a shock to them.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/14/19 5:10 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Now I have started to hear a ”binary” clicking sound in one of my ears as I lie down on it. I don’t know if that’s the nada sound breaking up or something else, but it seems to have appeared as a result of listening for those gaps inbetween sounds.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/16/19 11:58 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:

It doesn’t necessarily feel like the information comes through the sense organs where they are located on my body either. They sort of come together with the formation that they belong to, if that makes any sense. I don’t know if this is poor clarity or the opposite. When I hear a sound from outside the house, it’s like awareness is outside too. Awareness isn’t only aware of the sound, but also of the touch of the wind, the smell of the air, mental images from the perspective of being outside, other touch sensations associated with being there, etc. I know that my sense organs are not involved with those images and touch sensations or the smelling. It’s a mental thing. But I really get why that is a sense too. The sensations are really there, vividly and immediately. They are instant. They come in packages. In meditation, the boundary between inside and outside seems irrelevant. Sure, the mental sense delivers constructs, but all perceptions are constructs, right? I guess the important thing is knowing what kind of construct they are, at least in daily life. It would be weird to treat imagined things as the same thing as perception. That would be hallucinating. But in meditation, I notice that the sensations from the mental sense are often just as vivid as those that come from perception via the sense organs. That’s what I notice. And even those sensations that do come from what we refer to as outside, do not appear to come through my senses. It’s more like me appearing where they are than they coming to me through my senses. Until I do noting, verbally, conceptualizing things. Then the conceptualizing tells me that they appear over there, as if I were actually in my brain or something. That is especially frustrating when the sensations are from touch, for example touch sensations in my hands. Even if I were to believe that there are things ”over there”, it doesn’t make sense for my hands to be ”over there”. Speaking from a duality perspective, my hands are as close to me as my brain is. When I skip conceptualizing, awareness is present in the hands and sort of in the textures that they are touching. When I conceptualize it, suddenly my hands are ”over there”, because apparently part of the conceptualizing is a spatial organization that takes its departure in my head, where my eyes, ears, nose and taste buds are located. Still, I’m very kinestetic and dependent on my hands, so that creates a split that is really weird.

I noticed that the richness of sensate information was distracting insofar as I was torn between different sensations rather than following some of them from beginning to end. I wanted to do the latter, so I started focusing on the nada sound or whatever one decides to call that tinnitus-like sound that seems to be present all the time as soon as clarity and concentration are good enough. That sound is something that I can actually stay with rather well. If I were to do shamatha, maybe that would be a suitable object. The sound is there for me reliably in a way that a visualization is not. From a vipassana point of view, I know that it must be impermanent. Thus, if I stay with it, it is reasonable to assume that at least part of it must vanish some time. I wanted to capture that. The sound itself is whirling, so I know that there are many arisings and passings away there, but I’m not able to point them out with precision. When staying with the sound, I did however notice that there are very very brief micromoments where I can’t seem to stay with it. It’s like a perceptual barrier, avoiding the void. Then for a moment I could hear very rapid beeps, as if the sound was binary. I wasn’t able to follow those vanishings into the void. They eluded me.

Staying with the sound made movement sensations appear in my face. It was like layers of very soft and very thin veils were dragged over (or rather under) my face and away from it, over and over again, overlapping in time. It had some kind of circularity to it. There were very subtle mental images accompanying it that I can’t translate into words. They were probably just barely conscious and mostly unconscious.

Recently a lot has been going on in my face and beneath it. A lot of movement. It’s softer now than it was before. Sort of more layers to it. More subtle, but many different sensations occurring at once, or overlapping. Thus it’s more complex. It is no longer one puppy alien crawling around there, but many thin veils moving about. They sometimes tense up, but mostly they are soft.


The TMI chapter on The Nature of Mind and Consciousness clarifies a lot of my confusion here. I think I have failed to recognize some information that preceeds sense percepts as the more raw sense data that they are, at least in my language. Or rather... I have seen them as more raw sensate data but just couldn’t apply the label ”outside” to them and I haven’t experienced them coming from my sense organs although they do. That makes sense, though, because ”sense organ” is a concept, a mental construct, that doesn’t exist within raw sense data. Thus it wouldn’t be possible to perceive raw sense data as coming from the sense organs. Such a perception would mean that the data had already been organized and interpreted and subject to generalization. Right. Well, that warrants a change of formulations. That kind of raw data is definitely more vivid and rich than the mental constructions.

That TMI chapter presents a model that explains why perceptions often come in packages rather than directly from the senses, as I observed. Cool. I have often thought of myself as a collective rather than as one mind. I have identified some higher order processes and named them to make sense of psychological dynamics that I have observed. I don’t know how that classification would map to the model exactly, but it does relate to it. The chapter is very relevant to my current practice. I have had one of those direct experience of seeing through the processes of temporal binding. I can see why Michael Taft was so adamant that I read that book now. Ironically, I don’t have enough concentration to read the book from cover to cover, but I decided to skip to the parts that seem most interesting. Hopefully that will inspire curiosity for the rest of the stuff in a way that makes me read all of it. Skipping to the later parts has also allowed me to see that there are much more nuances to the book than what I could tell from its beginning parts. I think this knowledge will decrease my resistance. I can be a very critical reader, as I’m allergic to simplifications. I realize that many readers prefer to get the basic ideas first, before complexity is added. I am the kind of reader that loses interests if I don’t get enough complexity. I mean, since we are using language anyway, which is draining, why not go all the way with abstract thinking? Otherwise we could have stayed closer to our senses and rested in a more direct awareness. Why waste energy on something that is neither fish nor fowl? Anyway, this chapter did motivate me to read. Yay!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/14/19 2:36 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I meditated for another hour, determined to be very present with watever was there. There were rapid and strong vibrations, maybe the strongest ones I have ever felt. I tuned into the vibrations, and there was little there besides from vibrations. The density varied from compact to rather spacious. If I made an effort to control something, the density increased. If I let go, the density decreased.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/15/19 5:38 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I meditated for another hour, determined to be very present with watever was there. There were rapid and strong vibrations, maybe the strongest ones I have ever felt. I tuned into the vibrations, and there was little there besides from vibrations. The density varied from compact to rather spacious. If I made an effort to control something, the density increased. If I let go, the density decreased.



More density makes the vibrations more challenging. Less density means that they have less to grab on to.

Today during a yoga session the vibrations were visible, but my feeling tone was equanimous. If this is still darknight, resistance has decreased a lot. The asanas were easier than I’m used to. I could easily shift between downwardfacing dog via plank position to upwardfacing dog and round and round. With this body! That has never happened before. Also, my legs don’t fall asleep easily anymore. It could very well be that I have dropped down to A&P again. My spine did feel warm after the warming up exercises. Some of the exercises aimed at making energies move upward and then settle down again. I could feel that they did. For a moment I feared that upwardmoving energies would build up a pressure in my head again and then stagnate there, giving me a terrible headache again. I don’t think it did. This teacher knows what she’s doing. I visualized being open rather than blocked to allow energies to move through me rather than be stuck. Hopefully it worked. Maybe I need to keep doing that for a while, in case energies are continuing to move upward. I’m sensitive to that stuff.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/14/19 5:44 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I have a very ambitious goal: I want to land second path and then master the jhanas and after that learn to slam-shift nanas and jhanas and ask Daniel to teach me. I won’t ask until I’m there, though. There are plenty of instructions in the book to follow first. Also, I need to make sure that I am stable enough for that kind of practice before I do it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/15/19 7:23 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I meditated for an hour, focusing on the nada sound, and probably did a confusing mix of vipassana and shamatha. Early in the session I felt as if drawn into something. Maybe that is the pull that Daniel recommends learning to recognize and resist in order to get precision with regard to progressing through the nanas and jhanas. I don’t have that kind of control, and the jhanic factors were very light at that time. I listened for changes in the sound but found that I could make the sound change by way of listening to it differently. The quality of the sound shifted, maybe the density of it? I noticed that the changes in the listening/sound were accompanied by the movement of a contracted point inside my head. I found myself moving that point in the shape of an eternity symbol or an 8 lying down. It was a swirling combination of hearing, kinesthetics and visualization. I did that for a while until I found myself in dreaming territory and lost the sense of control. I stayed mindful about being in this state and didn’t grab on to the content. I was still listening. After a while the sense of control came back, but there was also a sense of not really being in control. It didn’t seem to matter whether the listening caused the movement in the head or the other way around, and whether there were intentions forming what happened or whether the occurrings included a sense of having intentions.

I would probably need more time to increase concentration. My teenage kid stays with me now and I need to cook.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/16/19 8:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I invested an hour in an attempt at shamatha practice in spite of challenging conditions. My teenage kid is at home and the door to the patio was open because my three cats just can’t decide whether to be inside or outside. My neighbours are noicy - I think they have friends over and they are all out on their patio talking loud and with a whole bunch of kids running around having a good time. I am cycling in the dukkha nanas. But this is as good as it gets right now. I did manage to access at least very light jhanas, 1-3, according to TMI. I’m still unsure exactly where to draw the line between first and second jhanas; I need to read more and practice more. I lack precision and stamina and pop out of the states fast. The practice even gave me a slight headache.

I know that I have accessed very light versions of fourth jhana, but fourth jhana is rare for me and I did not get there today. I’m pretty sure that I have accessed pleasure jhanas 1-4 under ideal circumstances. Today they were not accessible. Fourth pleasure jhana was accessible to me right before and after stream entry. I’m sure of it because the difference from other states was remarkable. It was beyond words and yet so crisp and clear, more so than I had ever imagined possible. It was brilliantly clear and effortless, and yet the feeling tone was neutral. There was nothing euphoric about it, and not even the calm happiness that I associate with third jhana. More like a chrystal clear knowing and full acceptance, with all fears gone.

What a paradox it is that such a state can be so craved. My cravings for it messes up my experiences of the other jhanas and causes discursive thinking that makes it unreachable. I will be able to get through that, but I’m not there now.

How ironic it is that I have such a hard time dropping discursive thinking now, despite discursive thinking being so draining for me. Earlier in my practice I had a hard time even accessing discursive thinking when I was working on thoughts and feelings. At that time, it was just peaceful and quiet most of the time. It is ironic, too, that most of my conscious discursive thoughts spinning around are dharma related. Most of them even focus on phenomenology. Yup, that’s the problem with the maps. I’m still enormously grateful for them, though. Eventually there will again come times when awareness is so unified around some experience that the concept of me will be temporarily forgotten, and then the narrative yapping will come to rest.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/16/19 2:06 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I returned to this guided meditation by Michael Taft: https://youtu.be/An00h5Cs2xw, Allowing vast, open awareness to do vipassana.

Getting there again. Still in reobservation, but getting there. Maybe it is an equanimity subnana to reobservation, I don’t know. The reobservation equanimity subnana version of it, if that’s what it is, is actually very interesting. It has density instead of spaciousness, but the density isn’t entirely convincing. It reminds me of a huge bubble gum, as it stretches out sometimes but still has boundaries somewhere in the background. There’s a weird tension betwen openness and tightness, as it encompasses both extremes. There is a more direct sensing, where the hands are aware of themselves and the belly is aware of itself, but it doesn’t have the crisp chrystal clarity of fourth jhana.

Pathways have opened up to increased sensory clarity in the belly. That was much needed.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/17/19 1:56 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Late at night (or very early in the morning) I lay down to try some of what Michael brings up on my own. It started out with lots of vibrations but then calmed down. I did get into something vast and spacious, and my body started to fall away. I had to interrupt it to get some sleep, unfortunately.

I dreamt that I was close friends with one of the very few people I thought I could never forgive. I did forgive her ages ago, actually, but I haven’t thought about her much since then. Now this dream. It felt nice.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/17/19 6:54 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I took 30 minutes just to check in on the process. I found that I’m a mess right now. As soon as I closed my eyes there were harsh vibrations. Then I felt panic and nausea creeping up on me. A part of me felt that I’m losing it. Another part of me firmly said that I just needed to stay with the sensate experience for a short time span and that would be perfectly safe, and if I still feel that I’m losing it, then there are medicines that can help with that. That helped somewhat. Then someone said ”I have it under control”, and then hell broke loose, because other parts felt the dissonanse in that. The perceptual tensions were obvious. There was an annoying clicking in my right ear as if subconscious voices almost surfaced enough to be heard by an assumed hearer, as if there was one (the tensions seems to question that). The anxiety increased until it was almost unbearable. Then ”I” though ”There is no I that can lose it, and that’s okay. There never was.” That actually helped, for a moment. There was apparent relief. There was also lightheadedness and rapid hearbeating, but the relief was bigger. Then the anxiety increased again. So I kept repeating those words internally for a while. Then I switched to metta. First I directed the metta directly to all those parts pf ”me” that I have named plus the rest. Then I directed it to all sentient beings. That calmed down the panic. I’m still a bit shaky, but that’s okay. I’m thinking that this is progress. The resistance is coming to the surface so that there can be communication.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/17/19 7:41 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Okay, so now I have anxiety to a level that makes me uncomfortable but I’m still perfectly capable of behaving calmly and manage what I need to do. I have a few pills at home from an old prescription of a very mild anxiety medicine. I mainly asked my psychiatrist to prescribe it because it also helps with strong allergic reactions. I’m not going to take that medicine because it makes me dull and it makes my muscles stiff and I get something of a hangover from it. I have discarded that option. I also have a supplement of 5-htp which is an amino acid at the closest step to serotonine. I find that it helps, but it may just be placebo. I use it as a complement to my antidepressants (my doctor knows). I could take one extra of those. That would probably make me feel more at ease pretty soon (placebo or not doesn’t really matter). I’m thinking, though, that I should refrain from taking it. Maybe I don’t need to do anything about the anxiety other than just staying present with it and with the rest of my experience. After all, it seems rather obvious that the anxiety is stage-related and has to do with acceptance of insights. Avoiding the uncomfort is not going to help with that.

Writing this helped for now, so I guess that’s the answer. Okay then.

...

Many years ago I was starting to develop panic syndrome that would manifest when I shopped for groceries and things like that. If I remember correctly, this was before I received my neuropsychiatric diagnoses and thus before my ADHD medication, so my guess is that it was initially triggered by perceptual overwhelm. Anyway, as I read about panic syndrome and realized that I was basically having panic because of fear of having panic, I thought it was so irrational that I just refused to give into the panic attacks. Enough parts of me just said ”No way!” It was probably early enough in the process of developing it, because that worked almost instantly. The panic attacks stopped arising. Thus I think I can handle this. Except that there’s really no continuous entity there to handle it, of course. But I know that the panic attacks are impermanent and have no substance to them.

That being said, I think it’s very important not to expect from others to deal with panic like this. Conditioning and circumstances differ, and bodies differ. If it is unbearable, then it is unbearable. Treatments should be available to everyone who needs it and without questioning.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/17/19 8:31 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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After that I did 75 minutes of Hatha yoga and 90 minutes of restorative yoga, and then I was very very relaxed. I meditated for an hour with poor quality - both mind wandering and dullness - and went to sleep.

During the Hatha yoga session I entered very light first jhana (TMI). There was also a surge of piti showering through the body. It is possible that I have cycled down again but I really don’t know. If so, that was the shortest and weakest A&P ever.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/18/19 11:12 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did an hour of therapeutic Hatha yoga earlier today. Now I did an hour of meditation that lacked that crisp presence that makes it go somewhere. There were some weird kriyas, so hopefully there was at least some purification going on. One of the kriyas made my mouth open. That was a bit surprising.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/19/19 4:50 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I only sat for 30 minutes because I have a deadline. It was a weird mix of jhanic factors and challenges. I started out with noting but had to abandon that endeavor because it was too painful to force sensate experiences into that format. Taking on the observer role created pressure in my rught ear and irritation in my left eye as if there were an eyelash stuck in it, and I just couldn’t take it. Also, it is so frustrating how slow me verbal thinking is compared to the bare sensate experiences. It was apparent that verbal thinking about sensory input immediately cut off a large share of the sensory information. I could hear the difference clearly (it was most apparent in hearing). Even verbal thinking that was just on the verge of being conscious had the same effect. On the other hand, when one of my cats pushed his furry body against my skin, sensate experiences came to the foreground and made the world more alive. It was also frustrating that noting is a linear process whereas consciousness isn’t linear. The part of consciousness that I have access to seems to be in contact with many phenomena that are already presented, and there isn’t really anything there that can be linear because that ”part” isn’t really an entity. Making a linear narrative feels like lying. It is built on both continuity and separation, and on the opposite of signlessness.

I don’t know where I am on the maps. It could be an easier subnana of reobservation. There are a rapid but distracted and unfocused mind, some agitation (my tics are relatively challenging), some vibrational activity in the head and throat region, and my legs fall asleep easily during sits. No bleedthrough in daily life but not the calm positive outlook of equanimity.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/20/19 4:49 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/20/19 10:08 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Very busy day but I squeezed in 20 minutes before yoga class, in a small park near the yoga studio with a fountain that makes a lovely sound. I meditated with my eyes open. There was a lot of movement in the air, in layers. I had to touch it to see if there was mist, but it wasn’t wet. Then I realized that it was the purple swirls. There was also a much faster moment of what looked like tiny particles. The ground had waves in it momentarily.

I’m starting to think that maybe I am in a mature stage of the three characteristics of the new path, and never crossed the A&P, just came very close to it. And that’s why I had such a horrible headache. And what I have been interpreting as the dukkha nanas have really been earlier stages. I never got to learn those stages phenomenologically. And now that clarity is increasing again, it is because I’ll have another go at crossing the A&P. That actually makes a lot of sense.

Today I managed to have piti while having tartar removed at the dentist’s (which I think is horrible). Lots of piti. I was focusing on resting sensations in the rest of the body. I’m pretty content with that.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I noticed that colors were different from default mind perception. I don’t think that there was any adjustment to expected light conditions from the brain. That is something that I often notice when I open my eyes during or after meditation.

I reread the MCTB2 section on the stage of the three characteristics, and oh yes, this is definitely it. The description fits perfectly. Cool! I don’t have much pain anymore, though, after that horrible horrible headache vanished. Now that I understand what it is, I kind of like this stage. It is interesting.

I can point out at least one time I was in this stage before (on the level before stream entry), several years ago. Back then I had never heard of the maps and had only vague ideas about what meditation is. I did meditate, but very unsystematically and with no method whatsoever. I had the feeling that I was on a spiritual quest, though, and there was clarity and oh so much pain throughout my body. Interesting times. I was madly in love with a possibly schizoid loner, autistic like me, who lived in a world of lucid dreams and made weird electronic music from sounds he recorded in daily life. He broke my heart so badly. I broke the heart of a mutual friend (also quite the loner) equally badly. We are all still friends.

I also think this is the stage I was in at the beginning of my time here, at least part of it. I was new to the maps and mistook it for dissolution because I could feel myself dissolve so clearly. There were layers of vibrations and slower waves. I loved that. I have had a feeling that it didn’t add up to have such clarity in dissolution. Somewhere around that time I did also experience how everything I focused on just dissappeared, phenomenologically, which sounds very much like dissolution. I probably didn’t grasp how fast the cycling can be.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/20/19 5:39 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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40 minutes, but was disturbed by my teenage kid who couldn’t find something. Clarity is growing stronger. Vibrations are everywhere. I feel like a carbonated soft drink. It’s not like champagne bubbles, but coarser, less sofisticated, not smooth at all.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/21/19 1:05 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Sat for 40 minutes, at a Midsummer’s Eve’s party but in a calm room. There were some physical pain (food reaction + the stage of three characteristics) and restlessness, but I love the mind speed. I could feel the density vary, selfing and unselfing. The restlessness wasn’t me, so it didn’t really bother me that much. The pain wasn’t intense enough to force identification either. Space can always be found somewhere.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/22/19 5:55 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I have had brain fog due to reactions from yesterday’s food. The quality of meditation was therefore poor. I did fifteen minutes earlier today and 30 minutes now. I did it because I want to maintain a daily practice even when conditions are bad.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/24/19 1:33 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did meditate yesterday but it was so dull that I didn’t bother taking notes.

Today I meditated for an hour again, using rapid noting with the one label ”bip”. That did help. I got tired but managed to maintain the noting for an hour without losing much clarity and speed. There were some kriyas. I think clarity is slowly increasing again. The nada sound is there, but not very loud.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 6/24/19 7:50 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Interesting that you are still with the Kazoo player - albeit a very fluid and rapid one.  Can you move the noting on to the whole Symphony?That is, an intuitive (non-verbal) awareness of the arising and passing away of all sensate phenomena in the broad field of perception? Kind of like noting the champagne bubbles of both 'internal' and 'external' reality simultaneously.

 emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/24/19 9:40 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yes, but then I fall asleep in this current phase.

It’s not still. It’s again. I had to go back to noting to stay alert, although the noting creates uncomfortable tensions and is unnecessary for awareness. Didn’t you ever have any problems with staying alert in the first stages of the new path after stream entry? Were you always chrystal clear? Never too tired to concentrate? I know exactly what you are talking about but right now, especially after this food reaction, I can’t maintain alertness like that, so I’m doing what I need to do in order to maintain a practice.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 6/24/19 11:46 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Ah, I see.  My mistake.  As an alternative exercise - how about turning jhana factors on and off, or nanas, for 10 seconds each in steady succession?  Piti/No piti.  Sukkha/No sukkha.  Equanimity/No equanimity.  Awareness of form/Formlessness.  Verbal Thought/Non Conceptual Thought.  Then summon dissolution ... then fearfulness ... then unhappy worry ... then disgust ... then yearning ... then Asuric determination of confident fact.  Then go for Contracted/Expanded.   Then being present  behind the Eyes, then in the Face ... in the Shoulders ... in the Hands ... in your Seat ...  in the Cushion ... in the Wall.

That should make it hard to fall asleep!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/25/19 2:34 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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If I could, I would. I’m kind of stuck here. My plan is to learn the lessons of the three characteristics on level two as fast as I can, to get things moving. This isn’t exactly a place where I access things. I’m stuck with newbie difficulties. Noting is a way to get through that and learn the lessons. At least that’s the plan. Or at least to get back to a more mature phase of the three characteristics, away from this raw state where everything is just too much. I know that this is temporary. I had more presence and more space just a few days ago.

What is ”Asuric determination of confident fact”?
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 6/25/19 5:14 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:


What is ”Asuric determination of confident fact”?


Reobservation!  Sort of  "I have figured it out, and I have the answer, and I am right and you are wrong, mortal ... "
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/26/19 2:59 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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curious:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:


What is ”Asuric determination of confident fact”?


Reobservation!  Sort of  "I have figured it out, and I have the answer, and I am right and you are wrong, mortal ... "



Ah, thanks for clarifying!

Hm, I have never really had a sense of being in control in my meditation sessions. When my practice is at its best, it just occurs, and I’m being meditated. There have been periods when I have been able to make things happen at will, but that ”will” was probably something that just happened. Still, there are obviously people who have developed tremendous precision, and I admire that. Intellectually I have some trouble integrating that with the idea of agencylessness, but apparently it works. I don’t doubt that. I aim at landing second path and then trying to develop that kind of precision in the review phase and then try to maintain it. As for now, my practice tends to involve the process showing me what I need to learn and me following that. Sometimes it takes me a while to realize what it is that I’m supposed to learn, and so I feel like I have been abandoned. Then I usually find that it was right in front of me all the time.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/28/19 6:00 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/28/19 6:00 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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curious:
Ah, I see.  My mistake.  As an alternative exercise - how about turning jhana factors on and off, or nanas, for 10 seconds each in steady succession?  Piti/No piti.  Sukkha/No sukkha.  Equanimity/No equanimity.  Awareness of form/Formlessness.  Verbal Thought/Non Conceptual Thought.  Then summon dissolution ... then fearfulness ... then unhappy worry ... then disgust ... then yearning ... then Asuric determination of confident fact.  Then go for Contracted/Expanded.   Then being present  behind the Eyes, then in the Face ... in the Shoulders ... in the Hands ... in your Seat ...  in the Cushion ... in the Wall.

That should make it hard to fall asleep!



I need to ask... Should I have access to all this at all times? Is there something important missing in my practice if I haven’t? Should I be able to summon different stages at will? According to my own tentative mapping, I am now in the stage of the three characteristics on the next path after stream entry, and I think I have just (again) left the earliest part of the stage and arrived at something that I’m able to work with. Unfortunately, I will be attending a workshop for several days, after spending a day with my satellite partner in Gothenburg, so I will probably miss the opportunity to cross the A&P again and then drop down again.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 6/28/19 4:29 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
curious:
Ah, I see.  My mistake.  As an alternative exercise - how about turning jhana factors on and off, or nanas, for 10 seconds each in steady succession?  Piti/No piti.  Sukkha/No sukkha.  Equanimity/No equanimity.  Awareness of form/Formlessness.  Verbal Thought/Non Conceptual Thought.  Then summon dissolution ... then fearfulness ... then unhappy worry ... then disgust ... then yearning ... then Asuric determination of confident fact.  Then go for Contracted/Expanded.   Then being present  behind the Eyes, then in the Face ... in the Shoulders ... in the Hands ... in your Seat ...  in the Cushion ... in the Wall.

That should make it hard to fall asleep!

I need to ask... Should I have access to all this at all times? Is there something important missing in my practice if I haven’t? Should I be able to summon different stages at will? According to my own tentative mapping, I am now in the stage of the three characteristics on the next path after stream entry, and I think I have just (again) left the earliest part of the stage and arrived at something that I’m able to work with. Unfortunately, I will be attending a workshop for several days, after spending a day with my satellite partner in Gothenburg, so I will probably miss the opportunity to cross the A&P again and then drop down again.
Nope.  It's about shaking up the dependently originating self. I see it like as being like whipping, flailing knotted chain.

So first calm down the whipping. (Calm)
Then see the chain for what it is. (Insight)
Then start to undo the knots in the chain. (Resolving Sankhara)
Then see the underlying links of the chain. (Dependent arising)
Then crack the rust off that is welding the links of the chain together and forcing it into a particular shape. 
Then see the chain for exactly what it is and choose to deploy it however you want.

My advice is one approach to cracking some of the rust off. But it is not the only way. And once you have cracked the rust from one bit, you don't need to keep doing it again and again. The object is to have a nice well behaved chain, not to keep looking for ever tinier pieces of microscopic rust. 

I need to improve this metaphor, but hopefully it is somewhat helpful.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/29/19 11:01 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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curious:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
curious:
Ah, I see.  My mistake.  As an alternative exercise - how about turning jhana factors on and off, or nanas, for 10 seconds each in steady succession?  Piti/No piti.  Sukkha/No sukkha.  Equanimity/No equanimity.  Awareness of form/Formlessness.  Verbal Thought/Non Conceptual Thought.  Then summon dissolution ... then fearfulness ... then unhappy worry ... then disgust ... then yearning ... then Asuric determination of confident fact.  Then go for Contracted/Expanded.   Then being present  behind the Eyes, then in the Face ... in the Shoulders ... in the Hands ... in your Seat ...  in the Cushion ... in the Wall.

That should make it hard to fall asleep!

I need to ask... Should I have access to all this at all times? Is there something important missing in my practice if I haven’t? Should I be able to summon different stages at will? According to my own tentative mapping, I am now in the stage of the three characteristics on the next path after stream entry, and I think I have just (again) left the earliest part of the stage and arrived at something that I’m able to work with. Unfortunately, I will be attending a workshop for several days, after spending a day with my satellite partner in Gothenburg, so I will probably miss the opportunity to cross the A&P again and then drop down again.
Nope.  It's about shaking up the dependently originating self. I see it like as being like whipping, flailing knotted chain.

So first calm down the whipping. (Calm)
Then see the chain for what it is. (Insight)
Then start to undo the knots in the chain. (Resolving Sankhara)
Then see the underlying links of the chain. (Dependent arising)
Then crack the rust off that is welding the links of the chain together and forcing it into a particular shape. 
Then see the chain for exactly what it is and choose to deploy it however you want.

My advice is one approach to cracking some of the rust off. But it is not the only way. And once you have cracked the rust from one bit, you don't need to keep doing it again and again. The object is to have a nice well behaved chain, not to keep looking for ever tinier pieces of microscopic rust. 

I need to improve this metaphor, but hopefully it is somewhat helpful.


Ah, right. Thanks! That metaphor describes pretty much what I have been doing to surivive in daily life for a decade or so. I just didn’t think of it as meditation. I had never heard of insight practices.

...

This morning I woke up with a headache but healed it by leading piti to it and having it dissolved.

Apparently I am no longer very afraid of heights. I just climbed a high window by standing on a friend’s shoulders because the entire workshop had been locked out from the silent room. I didn’t even realize until afterwards that this was a new thing for me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/29/19 12:25 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Okay, this must be A&P. I feel great, almost hypomanic. I took 30 minutes during workshop dinner to sit and do vipassana. So many sensations, so many thoughts, so fast and so temporary. So many instances of self-becoming without continuity. I tried the exercise of two fingers touching just to confirm the clarity. It took a few seconds before I could clearly feel attention to touch arise and pass away very rapidly in the fingers, one small point at a time. I could also feel that attention is much more limited than the awareness itself. The fingers are already aware of the touch on their own, regardless of my knowing. That is actually what I felt when I tried this exercise before, as a beginner. I just didn’t have the words for it, so I trusted that it was simply poor sensory clarity. It wasn’t. It was poor translation.

A&P after stream entry is tricky insofar as the boundaries that I had before are no longer there to the same extent. I must make sure to check in with other people’s boundaries and needs. I notice that my mind has a tendency to jump too fast and with less inhibition, and as I already have ADHD, that can probably be a bit too much. Maybe this is a good time to check in with the ten point mind training, to maintain a moral compass.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/25/19 9:54 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I noticed a change so I took 20 minutes inbetween things to feel into what is going on. That empty space in, behind and slightly in front of my face - the emptiness that is so full of presence - is slowly coming back into awareness. I can feel it moving around in thin soft layers. The clarity of awareness is not yet even close to being at its best, but I’m grateful that it’s even there at all. The last three days it has been gone. As always when it comes back after having been gone, it is accompanied by some weird pressure changes in my right ear and painful irritation in my left eye, as if a couple of eyelashes were stuck in the eye. These symptoms seem to appear as soon as I conceptualize something to a certain extent and thus distinguish between subject and object.This time I could let go of that very quickly. In the end of this mini-session I tried the ”bip bip” noting technique just to see if the symptoms would come back. They didn’t. Maybe ”bip bip” does not require enough conceptualizing to trigger them. That’s good to know, in case I get sloppy without the noting.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/25/19 2:39 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Later: 45 minutes. Enough clarity in the beginning to manage to stay alert without noting although I was lying down; if I sit, the pain distracts me too much right now. I could feel little bubbles in my earlobes and in my toes from the breathing. There were some tensions between sense organs and the brain in the beginning as I was using my attention, but the more I relaxed into awareness, the more I was liberated from such tensions and the more present I felt - until the relaxation turned into some kind of detachment and dullness appeared. It seems like there is a very narrow window that allows for alert presence right now. This is a very non-equanimous stage. There were kriyas in my feet and a subjective feeling of tensions and energy blockage there. I massage my feet several times a day because they tend to tighten up otherwise. Apparently that’s not enough at this point.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/26/19 3:27 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I sat for 30 minutes, trying to be present to whatever arose. There were some unpleasant feelings making contractions in the heart area. They had to do with the difficulties of this stage and some unawake thoughts about loss of previous qualities. I contemplated the fact that they were never mine to lose. They are impermanent and not self. There was never a self that could lose anything either. That gave relief and pity. Then a hope, a craving, arose: maybe this is how I get them back. Busted in the midst of becoming. I could see whole chains of suffering unfolding. As soon as I was liberated from one, another one arose. I probably need to see this clearly over and over again, and the limitations of my current stage is key to that. After all, this journey isn’t about all sorts of cool abilities, but about liberation. For that purpose I guess I need the limitations. This insight gave a feeling that is very hard to describe. I have had it before. It’s familiar, and I think it is also at the same time a feeling of a certain kind of familiarity, of connectivity, of glimpsing something that is impossible to fully see, of being where I need to be perhaps. A feeling that it’s all coming together.

Then there was mindwandering, all about things that I need to do and guilt for procrastinating things and not being able to do more. I realized that I had lost my mindfulness, and then I realized that it was no coincidence that my mind wandered away in that particular direction. It is all about the chains of suffering, the identity invested in things, the cravings and aversions. There was more mindwandering, dharma related things, probably also connected to becoming of self in the midst of trying to deconstruct it. More chains of suffering.

Then I noticed tensions in my back causing me to lean slightly to the right side. I remembered the recommendations in MCTB2 to be attentive to the other side of the body to see what is going on there, and sure, there were tensions there. So predictable. So unpersonal. A pattern that reliably repeats itself, arises and passes away over and over again so that Daniel could write down this advice before I even had a daily practice, an advice that would help me now because what I’m going through has nothing to do with a separate me.

More mindwandering about what I need to do, guilt and anxiety. I soon realized that I was just repeating another chain of suffering.

Seeing this made breathing easier and allowed a lightness to appear.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/27/19 3:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did some more meditating yesterday. During the day I did some walking meditation inbetween activities. I have no problem whatsoever feeling my feet in detail. I guess that’s a mixed blessing of living with Tourette’s. I feel the touch sensations in great detail and they are always assymetric and never as smooth as the idea of the touch. My tics are cravings for certain sensations that are in harmony, but the harmony is unreachable. Trying to balance it up with new sensations just causes a new inbalance. It is very annoying. Ask anyone with Tourette’s about urges and physical sensations and suffering and you will get a full report. I don’t understand how it’s possible not to feel one’s feet in great detail while walking, or the touch of the clothes to one’s skin, or the touch of basically every single hair touching one’s body.

I saw waves in the ground, so at least some perceptual clarity has returned. I guess that’s the impermanence of visual input when not counteracted by mental constructions making the perceived sight solid.

I did 75 minutes of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.

I tried to do Michael Taft’s latest guided meditation on the three vehicles. I started out sitting but soon one of my legs went numb to the extent that I had to stretch it out. I lay down, and after a while I fell asleep. Maybe I should do more walking meditation. That should keep both me and my legs from falling asleep.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/27/19 4:59 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I sat for an hour, and suddenly sitting was easy. My legs didn’t fall asleep at all. Initially there was some annoying itching, but I let that go, and then something opened up behind my nose and made breathing easier. Tensions were relieved in my back. There were fierce vibrations, almost like shaking, and then finer vibrations with an additional layer of slower waves, suddenly in harmony with each other rather than colliding. The vibrations were in my throat and upwards against the third eye, on my lips, in my paranasal cavities, on the skin of my face, in my hands and feet, in my back and spine, in my eyes (!)... They took away tensions and made breathing easier. The nada sound was there, but there was also occasionally that annoying pressure-chaning flickering sound in my right ear. Sometimes there was lightheadedness. Mental images flickered by, many of them unfamiliar. There was some mindwandering having to do with a workshop I will be attending soon. When I noticed that, I let go of the thoughts. In a dreamlike scene I was in the midst of a riding lesson although in reality I’m allergic both to horses and to hay. A kriya made the fingers of my left hand move upward for a while. There was an altered sence of touch, or what I have come to understand as the awareness of touch waking up to self-awareness. Something similar happened to my hearing.

Earlier this evening I did 75 minutes of Vinyasa Yoga. I could feel that it made energies move around and that it increased clarity.

During the day I have paid attention to the touch sensations of my feet while walking.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/28/19 11:15 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Practice log Friday June 28th

I had about ten minutes to spend while waiting for a train. I did vipassana standing up and with my eyes open. Almost immediately the visual input broke apart into impermanence. I could see how there were large fields that were just filled out by the brain to compensate for attention not being at those particular spots, and what parts were filled out like that changed constantly, very fast. A train went by in high speed, and instead of agonizing about the sounds and the scary fact that something that could easily crush me went by me so fast, I investigated the visual input of the train. It was pretty cool. It didn’t look solid at all. I refrained from resisting the sounds, and it actually gave me piti. When it was calm again, monkey mind popped up and tried to hijack my attention. It succeeded momentarily, but then I noticed it and got back to being mindful about sensory input. There was some restlessness, but I noticed it and let go of it. Then vibrations arose, first rough, then more finegrained, and then they transformed into upwardmoving piti. Then the train arrived.

A few hours later: 40 minutes vipassana (maybe somewhat more), sitting with eyes closed. In the beginning lots of movement and vibrations. Later stillness but buzzing hands and buzzing face. Sitting was easy. The position adjusted itself as tensions were relieved in the spine. Somewhat stiff neck, though. Some upwardmoving energies but very calm. Not eruptive at all, more like filling a bottle of water. Improved clarity.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 6/28/19 4:30 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Practice log Friday June 28th

I had about ten minutes to spend while waiting for a train. I did vipassana standing up and with my eyes open. Almost immediately the visual input broke apart into impermanence. I could see how there were large fields that were just filled out by the brain to compensate for attention not being at those particular spots, and what parts were filled out like that changed constantly, very fast. A train went by in high speed, and instead of agonizing about the sounds and the scary fact that something that could easily crush me went by me so fast, I investigated the visual input of the train. It was pretty cool. It didn’t look solid at all. I refrained from resisting the sounds, and it actually gave me piti. When it was calm again, monkey mind popped up and tried to hijack my attention. It succeeded momentarily, but then I noticed it and got back to being mindful about sensory input. There was some restlessness, but I noticed it and let go of it. Then vibrations arose, first rough, then more finegrained, and then they transformed into upwardmoving piti. Then the train arrived.
Good!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/29/19 12:24 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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curious:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Practice log Friday June 28th

I had about ten minutes to spend while waiting for a train. I did vipassana standing up and with my eyes open. Almost immediately the visual input broke apart into impermanence. I could see how there were large fields that were just filled out by the brain to compensate for attention not being at those particular spots, and what parts were filled out like that changed constantly, very fast. A train went by in high speed, and instead of agonizing about the sounds and the scary fact that something that could easily crush me went by me so fast, I investigated the visual input of the train. It was pretty cool. It didn’t look solid at all. I refrained from resisting the sounds, and it actually gave me piti. When it was calm again, monkey mind popped up and tried to hijack my attention. It succeeded momentarily, but then I noticed it and got back to being mindful about sensory input. There was some restlessness, but I noticed it and let go of it. Then vibrations arose, first rough, then more finegrained, and then they transformed into upwardmoving piti. Then the train arrived.
Good!


Thanks, Malcolm, for the feedback! It’s good to have that kind of validation. Sometimes I worry that what I do is just rubbish.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 6/30/19 3:38 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda/Polly there seem to be lots of accounts of really mixed progress between 1st and 3rd. Things don't always happen sequentially, or we don't always notice them if they do. You seem to have strong practice and good jhanic access, and some appreciation of emptiness, so getting on to more real-time sensate deconstruction and connecting that 'external' deconstrunction to concentration states in the mind-body system is really good. Keep being open to this (i.e. with gentle intention rather than striving). Eventualy you may find more intense clarity and luminosity starts to pop out. If it does, then wallow in it. Squeeze the honey out of it. 

emoticonemoticonemoticonemoticon   
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/30/19 6:42 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Thankyou!

I think the progress was mixed from the beginning. I have had to temporarily unlearn some things in order to be able to learn what I was supposed to have learned before that.

I have a hunch that this insight cycle is centered around letting go rather than around the weird special effects that I have become too attached to. I can totally see why I need to work on that. Still it feels somewhat banal - which is of course one of the reasons that I need to work on it.

Real-time deconstruction in the midst of daily life seems to be what is most effective for progress right now. I’m a bit surprised because it doesn’t fit my idea of what meditation is supposed to be. And yeah, it is very clear that striving doesn’t work at all. Discovering it and letting go of it, on the other hand, works very well. And fast, it seems. Often just seeing it is enough. It just doesn’t make any sense to hold on to it. And when I let go of it, I instantly feel clarity increasing and awareness being more direct. It is subtle but consistent, and it is firmly grounded in sensate experiences.

I don’t know about good access to jhanic factors. It feels so weak compared to before.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 6/30/19 3:34 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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During the day I have been hypomanic (not pathologically, but very noticably). In the morning I even had the feeling that I would be able to fly. Of cource I knew that it was just a feeling, and a weird one too. I think it symbolized the feeling of being in synch with the world and on top of things that often appears in A&P. I felt great and my mind was fast. During walks I was almost dancing. I was talking fast, thinking fast, probably talking too much. At the beach my girlfriend thought I was climbing the rocks like a gazelle (I’m not so convinced that gazelles climb rocks at all, but I think she was referring to the speed and agility). I am usually very clumsy, but I knew instantly where to put my feet and hands and how to shift the balance, and I had a lot of energy. In the evening I found myself a bit too speeded and wired up, and I think that was clinging to stay in the euphoria of the A&P. After I realized that, I felt that I was sooooo tired and suddenly rather foggy. It dawned on me that this must be dissolution already, and I found myself sort of regressing to a tired three-year-old for a moment, but then I was cuddled by my girlfriend and felt that it was actually a relief to unwind and calm down. I was becoming insufferable anyway, and I really don’t want to go further on that road. It is time to let go. There is a sense of peace in that.

I sat for 30 minutes. Focus was terrible, but there were some mild jhanic factors. The earlier buzzing transformed into something that felt more like being immersed in tempered water with some bath oils in it. Sitting was still easy, but I could feel my neck and lower back stiffening into something less mobile and less energetic. Stagnating. Time for some physical rest as well. Okay then. I guess I can live with that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/1/19 1:51 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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It is morning and I’m not as brain foggy as I thought I would be. Instead I’m already noticing signs of fear. Rapid heart beats for no reason at all. Physical symptoms of fear. Some tremor. Some butterflies in the stomach. I can tune into the emotion of fear but at the same time I know that I’m safe so I’m not really buying it. My body language doesn’t say fear either. It is relaxed and I find myself wearing an amused smile. Ah, there are the vibrations and the special kind of energy that fear brings. A bit like the alertness from a surprisingly cold shower. Fascinating how this pattern lives its own life.

A part of me thought ”Oh great, at this rate I’m probably in misery just in time for my seminar about love and relationships” (in a weak moment I agreed to do it although it wasn’t my choice of topic). ”That’s just great”. But then another voice thought ”Well, so what? It’s not like it has anything to do with me anyway. Just let it do its thing. It won’t stick”. I remember Michael Taft saying that without the resistence towards the insights of the dukkha nanas, they are not a problem. I guess I’ll just explore it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/1/19 7:27 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Took 20 minutes before my seminar to check in with the process. There were strong visuals, color swirls that were not flat, structures of tentacles in three dimensions, multicolored geometric patterns, short glimpses of photorealistic objects that I couldn’t identify. It started out with a black/bluegreen dot with a red halo. The dot grew to a disk. Then there were figure-ground reversals and inwardmoving and outwardmoving circles, and after that the more elaborate visuals showed up. I could tune into an emotion of fear that was there in the background together with other stuff, but there was no identification with it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/1/19 11:05 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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In the late afternoon/early evening I sat for an hour. Sitting was easy. The spine kept itself straight on its own. No numb legs. Speed. Lots of impressions from the senses, thoughts, and embryos of thoughts were flashing by fast as lightning, kind of like when you are making popcorn in a large pot and realize that you forgot to put the lid on. Occasionally, photography quality images stayed for a while and gradually dissolved into the murk (for instance images of people walking in both directions on a promenade on a sunny day). Similarly, some thoughts stuck for a brief moment, but as there were no intentions to feed them, they dissolved and immediately fell into oblivion. Towards the end of the session, some worries about shortcomings were engaged in for a brief while. That was accompanied by the lower back both swaying and getting tense at the same time, and by my left eye tearing up from irritation and my right ear making that weird sound and touch sense of pressure equalization or however I should put it. A split occurred. Duality came to be. When I realized that, those features gradually decreased and instead there was a sense of a gentle breeze blowing through me.

A while before the very realistic images showed up, there was a sense of being drawn into something, or a pull.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 12:05 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yesterday morning as I was walking to the workshop location I noticed a slight headache, and automatically piti arose and dissolved it, and a gentle breeze blew through me.

Then on a group walk led by a friend, without thinking it through I kind of put myself in follow mode and closed my eyes while walking. I could feel where my friend had been walking and follow that. Then I realized that this isn’t something that I should normally be able to do, and I noticed a buzzing feeling in my body and especially in my hands. Questioning the ability made it go away. However, when I catched up with my friend and came closer to them, the buzzing came back and felt rather strong. That lasted for a short while, with buzzing especially on the side of my body that was closest to them.

Then I was very tired. I had slept far too little during the night because I stayed up too late talking to people. For several hours I was sleepy and dull and felt cold. I managed to take a short nap but it didn’t help much. The tiredness lasted until another friend of mine led us in an evening session of liberating dance. That gave me lots of energy and increased clarity. After that it was time to walk home to where I’m staying. It was a 30 minutes fast walk. When I turned my attention to the door in order to open it, I saw very clearly how impermanent and in flux visual input is and how totally unsolid and flickering everything looks according to raw sensory data. I also could feel how the pain in my feet from arthritis was rapidly vibrating and thus containing a lot of space. The continuity was only illusory.

I meditated for 30 minutes and then went to sleep directly afterwards. There were many impressions and thoughts popping up. Some content carried me away in the beginning, until I turned on more mindfulness. Then... hm... I remember noticing things with okay clarity, but those things probably didn’t make it into long term memory. I do remember that thoughts and tugs from the senses were released and replaced with stillness as soon as they arose.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 2:00 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yesterday was the last day of the workshop with, by, and for autistic people. In the afternoon/evening when I came to the train station together with two other participants, at first the station felt sort of like a war zone. I had been in the autistic space for several days and suddenly needed to deal with ”normal people” and that kind of synch and all the massive sensory input. The weird thing is that only after a few minutes there was a very tangible shift: I could observe how my brain switched its mode. In a second, or perhaps a fraction of a second, the station environment looked and felt completely normal and not overwhelming at all. I can’t translate the change into words, but the perception changed in the blink of an eye and I caught it happening. It was like a reactive pattern autoliberating as soon as it became aware. It happened as I took a closer look at the reactions.

Back home I lay down to meditate for 30 minutes and got into a very smooth but light third jhana. I know that more things happened that I intended to write down, but I wanted to go on for another 30 minutes. During that session I got dull and eventually fell asleep, and now I have forgotten what I was supposed to write down. ... Oh yeah, I noticed that I am more prone to dualistic splits with a ”perceiver” when I focus on hearing or seeing, but much less so when it comes to physical sensations. I started out with that annoying flickering pressure change sound in my right ear and the irritation in my left eye that are my tells for a dualistic split. I noticed that at the same time, in the sense of touch there was no such split. By tuning in to the touch, it was so obvious that all those sensations were self-aware. I could rest in that open awareness. It took away the tensions. Then I could hear and let it be just hearing without a hearer.
J C, modified 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 4:28 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” :
The weird thing is that only after a few minutes there was a very tangible shift: I could observe how my brain switched its mode. In a second, or perhaps a fraction of a second, the station environment looked and felt completely normal and not overwhelming at all. I can’t translate the change into words, but the perception changed in the blink of an eye and I caught it happening. It was like a reactive pattern autoliberating as soon as it became aware. It happened as I took a closer look at the reactions.
...
By tuning in to the touch, it was so obvious that all those sensations were self-aware. I could rest in that open awareness. It took away the tensions. Then I could hear and let it be just hearing without a hearer.

This is so cool - I love those moments where things "pop." That is insight. My whole practice now at 3rd path is popping things. Thanks for writing this out so clearly - it really helped me - the "reactive pattern autoliberating as soon as it became aware" part.

What was your SE / review experience like? Did you write about it somewhere? Last time I was on the forum you were in High Eq I believe. I'm glad you missed me emoticon You are awesome too.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 5:55 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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emoticon Thankyou, JC!

As far as I understand it, I had stream entry on March 20th this year. If I’m doing the linking correctly, this should be the post where I wrote about it: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/12300608#_19_message_12432512. I managed to repeat a fruition later that day, and then I had another one on March 25th. Around that time meditating was like a buffet with revisitings of all favorite experiences and combinations of them and new jhanic experiences and a precision that I had never previously had. Next time was probably not until April 12th, after a tough time with ”self” struggling to be back in charge. That shift was amazing, but after it new layers were uncovered that took some time to stabilize. When that calmed down, I was stuck in newbie difficulties for a while as the new path took form. Now it seems that things are moving about again. I seem to have crossed the A&P of the new path. I don’t know if that is really realistic, but it’s my best guess as to where I am. It is confusing, though, that the darknight doesn’t seem to stick. Maybe it isn’t the real thing, I don’t know.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 8:29 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I seem to have either come down with some kind of stomach bug, or had a histamine reaction or simply been overcome with exhaustion. I have tried to meditate several times today (yesterday, as it is now past midnight) but have been spacing out or fallen asleep. Inbetween these tries I have had great clarity and felt the emptiness, so that’s somewhat confusing. Psychologically I am totally fine, although it’s clear that I need to rest this mammalian body.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 8:09 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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60 minutes, lying down. There were slow pulsating waves, maybe one and a half per second. There were some rough kriyas. Some subtle anxiety in the background. Some mindwandering in the very beginning but then very few thoughts. It was smooth but dull, thick. For a while there was heat building up. I think I may be in the borderland between dissolution and fear, and it feels more physical than emotional. In daily life there is exhaustion and irrational anxiety with regard to tasks that require executive functioning. I feel somewhat intoxicated, but less so than before the meditation. Maybe I’m working through a new layer of embodied trauma, I don’t know. I guess I’ll keep going. It feels as if it is what is needed. I can feel that there is clarity behind the thickness, and that the meditation makes the clarity more accessible.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 11:21 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I rested for an hour and a half in something that was free from verbal thoughts and peaceful. At one instance there was touch that couldn’t be localized because it didn’t seem to be connected to anything (I think that happened yesterday too). At one point, the body disappeared entirely, but fear arose and brought the body back.

Then I took a break and made some food.

Then I sat for 30 minutes. I started out with noting to get some speed. Breathing was easy. Direct awareness took over. There was clarity and there was speed. Vibrations were fast. There were some annoying earworms, especially in the beginning. The nada sound was there too, still is. The murk was changing very rapidly. It was synchronized with the hearing. It was such a relief to have synch. Hearing was so effortless and beautiful without that bouncing and with both beginnings and endings so vivid. At that point, the vibrations had stopped.

Afterwards, breathing is still easy and I feel rested and alert. I’m ready to do at least some of the things that were associated with anxiety earlier today.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 5:44 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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And then I undeniably woke up in dissolution. How does this work? I can’t be cycling so fast already, can I? Have I been in dissolution all the time but taken refuge to the earlier path?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 6:34 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Now it’s fear again. I didn’t even do anything. It’s like somebody just gave me a shot of adrenaline. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything. From brainfoggy to jumpy in no time.
J C, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 6:45 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Now it’s fear again. I didn’t even do anything. It’s like somebody just gave me a shot of adrenaline. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything. From brainfoggy to jumpy in no time.


Are you still in review or on the new path? Or in the weird in-between area where it's hard to tell?

What was review like for you? Did you feel the clicks?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 7:01 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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If there is such a thing as a weird in-between-area, this could be it, I guess. It’s utterly confusing.

What do you mean clicks? It was like a buffet of earlier experiences showing up one after the other. I didn’t choose for any of them to appear, though. They just did. 

I really thought I was on the new path, because I have been stuck in newbie territory for a while, but now I don’t know. I haven’t had fruitions since April 12th. Some new insights have occurred. It made sense for a while. The maps seemed to fit. Well, I guess time will tell.
J C, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 7:57 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yeah there's definitely a weird in-between area. MCTB has a good chapter on it. You sort of have the review cycling going on in the background faintly and it kinda fades in and out.

But being in Fear of the new path seems pretty reasonable - why couldn't you be?

What were your fruitions like - did you get visuals?

For me, being in review means there are these loud "clicks" in my head. Like my breath is chopped up into little time intervals. It's like a heartbeat in my head.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 9:32 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I seem to have been cycling back and forth between dissolution and fear. I’m just trying to watch netflix and get some rest, but now there’s a ringing in my ears and a slight pressure in my forehead and intervals of vibrations like drum rolls. I guess I need to be meditating.

I had three different kinds of fruitions. First two where the world came back with a beep. In the first one of those, there was sort of a pumping (I could feel it kinesthetically) when the world gradually came back online. The other one had a shorter bip and then a little whoosh. Both were very banal and subtle in themselves but had profound effects on my perception. Then there was one where I saw three brief images: sort of vibrating strings, waves, and particles gathering around a black hole which I then fell into. The third kind was physically and mentally painful because I was all tensed up, but I did metta on the different parts of myself, to make them all feel safe, and suddenly there was a jump, and then my body sort of came back in steps, without the pain being there. They are all described in my previous practice log on the dates mentioned above where I posted the link.

I didn’t get clicks like that, but I was cycling and there were energetic phenomena, like a constant flux, and I went up and down the jhanic arch. Later the cycles were slower and I subjectively experienced a stagnation of energies that was both physically and enotionally painful. That disappeared with the last fruition, which was such a relief. It felt like mercy.

Hm, I do get clicks in my right ear sometimes, though, that feel like pressure changes. I don't think that’s what you’re talking about, because they are accompanied with pain in my left eye and seem to appear when I try to be in control, as a perceiver, which causes a dualistic split.

I’m not very visual. My experiences are mainly kinesthetic, with some odd exceptions.

Is it possible that I’m rapidly cycling between A&P (mainly energetically, not emotionally), dissolution and fear on the next path? I guess I need to really experience the here and now deeply and completely to know what’s going on. Maybe I’m resisting it. I feel like curling up under my cozy blanket with my cats and waking up when things are more stable and less overwhelming. I convince myself that I can meditate lying down, under the cozy blanket, but that doesn’t give me enough clarity. Damn it, I need to meditate properly. Why do I not want to? That’s new. There is resistance to meditating. That settles it. Now I’ll definitely do it sitting up.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 10:33 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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So I sat for 45 minutes, and sitting was easy. Clarity shifted between good and very dull. Body temperature shifted. Sometimes I felt cold. At one point there was piti throughout my whole body. After that there was brain fog again. Somewhere before that I actually heard a click, but just one. It occurred in a shift between states or stages, from something thick and dull to something more open and spacious with more clarity. At some point I felt some very vague fear in the background. There was an altered sense of touch, the kind of touch that lacks a perceiver. That was the only thing that seemed relatively stable.
J C, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 2:06 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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One of the wisest things Daniel said to me was "This is not a mapping practice! It's a sensations practice!"

You're not as much of an obsessive mapper as I was, but it's definitely worth looking at the suffering behind mapping - the need to know where "you" are, the need to "do" something, the sense that it's not enough (unsatisfactory) to just sit, the confusion and uncertainty.

Mapping is only helpful when it helps you notice the 3Cs of all perceptions. It's a tool, not an end in itself. Maybe try letting go of mapping and just notice when the inclination to map arises.

At this point I think reading (or rereading) MCTB cover to cover would be really helpful to you.

I love your descriptions - I'm really bad at those.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 4:02 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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True. I will reread it as soon as I’m finished reading it. I am at the section about the benefits of powers right now. I have reread some parts many many times but I believe you are right. I remember that the first parts were putting things into perspective in ways that would be very beneficial to revisit.

As far as sensations go, I just spent a couple of hours immersed in what felt like cotton candy. Soft, sticky, dense, soothing but not very sofisticated. It feels as if it consumes the brain fog. Or maybe it is the brain fog, just experienced with greater clarity and concentration.

Thankyou! Both for the kind words and for that gentle reminder and push. I guess I feel kind of lost right now, but there is no getting lost. There is only the here and now, and that entails feelings/thoughts of being lost, and those are part of what needs to be investigated on a sensate level.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/7/19 4:40 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Rested for 45 minutes in nonverbal awareness.

Or... in the beginning of it, it was not so restful. The bouncing sensations in the head were there again. But then I focused on the warm waves that I could feel. There was still an earworm in the background, but apart from that, there were just the waves, and then there was stillness. It was not a clear stillness, though, but a vague one.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/7/19 4:38 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Then I did 45 minutes of trying to visualize the full moon. Visualizing is an almost impossible task for me, but most of the time I managed to bring back awareness to a mental image of the moon even if it was not a very vivid image. Sometimes there was inner light, but none of it looked like the moon. In the end of the session I was lost in vague fantasies that didn’t stay in my memory.

This morning as I woke up I saw detailed black and white images. The resolution varied from poor to chrystal clear. The latter was just for very short moments whereas the poor resolution lasted longer. It was fuzzy as if I had forgotten to put on my glasses, or had the wrong glasses.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/7/19 4:12 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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45 minutes fire kasina with poor results. Both the red dot and the background were flickering. The red dot was lacking details and didn’t last as long as I’m used to. It had a dark bluegreen halo that sometimes covered it. I could bring the red dot back several times but eventually the dark halo took over. Sometimes it turned pitch black, but there was never a disk. Poor focus. This must be dissolution. Either that or I have a serious burnout. Also, I really need new glasses.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/7/19 5:48 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Okay, I’m NOT saying that these were the actual nanas, but... I was writing a miserable rant about how I was stuck in dissolution and how worthless I felt about it and how feeling worthless about it made me feel like a fake, as there is no self to feel worthless about. Then I was disgusted by the rant and by being so full of self pity in a world where people are actually starving and so on. Then I saw misery and disgust right there and thought ”hey, this is actually moving forward - I must not waste this opportunity!”... desire for deliverance. And now I feel restless and somewhat agitated and intoxicated, as if I’d had too much coffee (assuming I were able to drink coffee). Jeeze, thoughts and feelings are so predictable!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/7/19 4:29 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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In the evening my muscles tightened up more and more. That freakin’ reobservation pain is back. I thought it disappeared with my last fruition, but apparently there is a new layer of pain to experience. I meditated for 45 minutes, sitting the first half and then standing up because my legs fell asleep. I could barely stand straight because my muscles were too tight. I could lead piti to the pain and get some very temporary relief, but it didn’t dissolve the pain. There were fast vibrations, like tremor. I decided to really feel the pain, intensely. I’ve got to say that it has a vitality to it. At least it’s not boring. It was like forces were tearing my limbs in different directions. Weirdly enough I kind of prefer this pain and violence to having nothing happening in the meditation. How messed up is that? Either I suffer or I suffer from not suffering. Well, I guess I got what I asked for. I even got some piti from the pain, or from the alertness that it brought.
J C, modified 4 Years ago at 7/7/19 4:45 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Okay, I’m NOT saying that these were the actual nanas, but... I was writing a miserable rant about how I was stuck in dissolution and how worthless I felt about it and how feeling worthless about it made me feel like a fake, as there is no self to feel worthless about. Then I was disgusted by the rant and by being so full of self pity in a world where people are actually starving and so on. Then I saw misery and disgust right there and thought ”hey, this is actually moving forward - I must not waste this opportunity!”... desire for deliverance. And now I feel restless and somewhat agitated and intoxicated, as if I’d had too much coffee (assuming I were able to drink coffee). Jeeze, thoughts and feelings are so predictable!


Haha, yes, that's a classic dark night sequence. I've been there many times.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 1:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Right. Hehe. I guess I have been thinking about the dukkha nanas as more separate from each other, not as spinning around like that. I did go through sequences like that towards the end of the last path, but not as early on. Maybe the cyclings occur on more than one level. Maybe I just didn’t notice that as much before, or maybe the complexity has increased. Anyway, I think I am in reobservation now, at least on some of the levels, and I’m messed up enough to kind of like reobservation. The apathy is gone and there is mind speed. I can work with that. Or it can work with ”me”. My body doesn’t cooperate at all, but I’m used to that from before. It’s a relief to have had a look at the terrain I will be circling for a while. The landmarks are relatively familar from before albeit not exactly the same. I’ll get by.
J C, modified 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 2:15 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Do these current dark night stages feel different from the way you experienced them in review?

For me, as I cycle through them in review, they become less and less difficult, and then when I start a new progress cycle, they get emotionally difficut again.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 2:53 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 2:53 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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For me they stopped feeling difficult some time before stream entry, after I learned to go through reobservation. Dissolution would last the longest. Fear, misery, disgust and desire for deliverance dissolved as soon as I saw them for what they were. Reobservation became shorter and shorter. Equanimity lasted longer and longer. Then for a while I only cycled between reobservation and equanimity, and I could easily make it back into equanimity. If I woke up in reobservation I would just meditate until I reached equanimity and stop there before I went to work. After stream entry it was the same development backwards. The last dark night I had in review was emotionally difficult but without the physical pain. Then I haven’t been darknighting at all for a while, I think. Three characteristics reminded of it, though, and before I realized what it was, I thought it might be dark night although I couldn’t fit it into the maps.
J C, modified 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 3:32 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 3:32 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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What do you mean by same development backwards?

It's happened a few times that I go through what clearly seems to be the dark night stages and then hit the A&P, meaning what I thought were the dark night stages were actually the 3C nana.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 7:23 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 7:08 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I meant that dukkha nanas continued to be relatively light and fast for a while, and then gradually became more of a challenge again.
EDIT: although there was one difficult dark night in review, I guess, that stood out from that pattern: before I went through the suffering door.

Yeah, I can see why that happens.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 10:17 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/8/19 10:17 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I sat for 60 minutes and then lay down for 15 minutes, opened up to sensate experiences. I placed the cushion in my bed so my legs didn’t fall asleep. Sitting was fairly easy this time. Clarity is increasing. There is still pain but it is decreasing and doesn’t bother me much. A headache is building up, but so far it is mild. For a brief moment there was a thought that gravity was causing the headache, because I felt pulled down to the earth while at the same time drawn upwards. I kinesthetically imagined/thought/felt that the contours of the body are merely an illusion wherefore there is nothing that can be held down and forced to be contained. That helped. I could feel emptiness in and through my head and the pressure decreased. There were harsh vibrations throughout my body and especially in the head and throat. I actually like those. There was alertness. Some mindwandering but not so bad. Some fear and anxiety, but it didn’t feel personal. There were lots of movements, expansions, contractions, tensions that were let go of. There were some light jhanic factors - pleasurable sensations on the skin, easy breathing, pleasure in sitting, mindfulness.

Today I have been able to do some things that I have procrastinated and my mood is better than yesterday. I’ll do 75 minutes of Vinyasa Yoga soon.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/9/19 6:40 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/9/19 6:40 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I spent several hours on a bus today and took the opportunity to just feel into my body. The touch sense has regained a higher resolution, and I’ve got to admit that I have missed it. There were jhanic factors. It felt as if I had put my face into a pile of the fluffiest, silkiest kittens ever.

In the evening I meditated lying down for 30 minutes. There was a lot of movement. There were instances of seeing glimpses of images in the murk behind the eyelids. There was tranquility.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/10/19 4:32 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I started listening to what I thought was a dharma talk by Adyashanti on dropping the meditator, but as it turned out to be a guided meditation, I went along with it. It was very similar to what I usually do, but it reminded me of the factors that make it work. It was a good reminder. I was tired and sleepy, but that didn’t really matter since I’m not a doer anyway. Clarity was there regardless of me. The guided meditation was half an hour, but I continued afterwards for another two hours, just resting in awareness. I was still sleepy but there was clear awareness about being sleepy. I slipped in and out of different degrees of clarity and mindfulness, but there was awareness about those shifts and mind states. The shifts were marked by differences in the breath and probably by the degree of activity in hippocampus, because some shifts felt similar to when ADHD medication kicks in. Still, not being caught in the illusion of being a doer, that kind of shift has a different texture. It’s like a light switches on, or a veil is abruptly drawn away, and suddenly there is lightness and ease instead of seductively slow thickness.

Sometimes there were purple swirls, sometimes a faint and relatively large red dot (not at all like with fire kasina). Sometimes there were dreamline scenes, but mindfulness continued and they just passed away since they were not being engaged with. There was much awareness in the body.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/10/19 7:01 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/10/19 7:00 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Wow, I did it! I can actually use resolution to get back to a higher nana from the last path. I didn’t imagine it possible. But I had the opportunity to talk to Daniel today, on video, and he described the process: remembering it vividly. I’m not very good at visualization (that’s an understatement) but remembering is less difficult. Anyway, I didn’t plan to do it, because I was content being where I was, but I became curious. I’ll describe it from the beginning.

I set the alarm for 45 minutes and sat down on the cushion. Sitting was surprisingly easy for being in what I think was dissolution. I had a somewhat stiff neck but it didn’t really bother me. There were jhanic factors there from the beginning, starting before I sat down. It felt like features of third jhana, being immersed in very soft silk veils. Breathing was very easy. The airways were wide open and the breath felt silky too. I took some time to enjoy that. Soon features of fear appeared - physical fear responses without the emotional component. There was resistance to it at first, but I let go of that. After all, I wanted too see things as they were, not try to change them. I did have some hope that rather than an unusually clear dissolution, this was actually a sleepy version of equanimity, but apparently this wasn’t it. And that didn’t really matter. The fear wasn’t sticky. I enjoyed the sensations. Resistance was not only futile but also totally unnecessary. So I accepted the here and now and went for experiencing it fully. The jhanic factors were still there. It felt good. Except for that annoying squeeking clinging sound in my right ear that I have started to see as a tell for a dualistic split. First I tried to let go of any effort to make it go away. Then I thought ”what the heck - this is part of the here and now as it is” and instead I decided to pay as much attention to it as I could, to really experience it. That made it go away.

Before it got away, there were moments when I managed to recall how to experience the moment with less of a dualistic split. That made something open up and there was a ticking sound in my head. Since JC asked about clicking in the head, I have weirdly enough started to notice that it does appear for brief moments. According to JC, this is a feature of review. I don’t think I am in review anymore, but have crossed the A&P of the next path, but I thought maybe there are moments where I slide back to features of the last path anyway, I don’t know. I hypothesized that the ticking in my head could be a tell for that, but I wasn’t sure what made it arise. So I figured I should test the hypothesis by vividly imagining being back in a more mature nana. I came to think of the stage where the visual snow is felt as touching the face and where it chrystallizes into larger chunks and starts to organize into images. I had been reminizing about that earlier in the day as I read through old notes, so I could imagine it vividly. It took some time, but Daniel said that after the A&P it would take longer time, so I was patient. And lo and behold - it started happening, very gradually. But no ticking sound in my head, so that hypothesis was proved wrong.

After the 45 minutes were gone, I set the alarm for another hour and lay down. I wanted to continue experiencing this, as I was starting to feel unsolid in a way that I’m very fond of and haven’t experienced in a while. It was great. But it was night now and I was tired, maybe more so from the effort, so after a while I fell asleep.

So... this dark night hasn’t been bad at all so far. I had a great day today. I enjoyed talking to Daniel very much. Then I had a yoga class, explorative yoga 75 minutes, that went well. When I walked home it was a wonderful golden evening, so I stopped in a park and sat down with my feat in the children’s pool. That was nice. I should do it more often. Then I continued walking home. The smell from the lime blossom was seductive and I stopped again to harvest enough of it to make tea. Then I went home, had something to eat, and then sat down to meditate and found out that I could do something I didn’t know I could do.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/11/19 1:46 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/11/19 1:29 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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When I woke up in the morning, the murk organized itself into several different images. I guess this is where the wellknown mess starts: this did happen a few days ago too but I don’t think I’m there in the progressing cycle right now, so this may be because I resolved to get back to that nana yesterday. I don’t have the accompanying kinesthetic sensations at all. My neck hurts and I’m really tired because I had trouble sleeping. I would be repressing emotions if I didn’t admit that it does bother me. There is selfpity. So how does this work? Did I come back to the progressing cycle? This could very well be misery, Oh wait, I actually do have the kinesthetic sensations very vaguely in the background. Am I in two different nanas at the same time?

I did think that I didn’t know whether I would like to continue with this experiment to see if I could get fruitions again or continue on the next path. Is my ambivalence showing up like this, with two separate layers of nanas simultaneously?

I don’t know if I’m imagining things, but subjectively there is an equanimous mind state there too, side by side with the misery, and there is both lightness and heavy density. This is actually pretty cool. I’m manifesting as two persons today.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/11/19 8:06 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/11/19 7:46 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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This seems to come with a cost. I lay down to meditate (it turned out to be two hours and 20 minutes, interrupted by an insistant cat). In the beginning I drifted in and out of mindfulness because I was very tired, and there were many instances of those weird sudden loud outbreaths. I could feel that there was somehow sensory clarity in the background. The more I tuned into it, the more I could also feel my neck hurt. I wanted to fully experience the moment, including the pain and the weird split between high sensory clarity and the features of misery. It became more and more painful, now also manifesting as headache and as sort of being torned. I came to a point where I felt that I needed to decide whether I wanted the sensory clarity or the misery. I chose the sensory clarity. I heard a click (one point to that hypothesis) and things sort of opened up kinesthetically and lightened up visually. There were several cracks sort of in my paranasal cavities. Breathing was easier. It felt like veils were drawn out from the cavities. Clarity increased (lots of impermanence). However, so did the pain, both the neck pain and the headache. I did some metta on all the different parts of ”me”, to make them feel safe and part of the process. That felt good but the pain continued to intensify. I could feel the subjective point moving about rapidly but didn’t manage to merge with it to experience the falling away of one such bounce. There was a build-up but no release. Then I was interrupted by one of my cats who seemed really concerned about me showing life signs and paying attention to him. Strangely enough, the pain is very mild now. What I do feel may very well just be the result of too much yoga exercises. No headache. Weird. There are tensions in the forehead, though, and maybe a slight fever.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/11/19 10:15 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/11/19 10:15 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
This seems to come with a cost. I lay down to meditate (it turned out to be two hours and 20 minutes, interrupted by an insistant cat). In the beginning I drifted in and out of mindfulness because I was very tired, and there were many instances of those weird sudden loud outbreaths. I could feel that there was somehow sensory clarity in the background. The more I tuned into it, the more I could also feel my neck hurt. I wanted to fully experience the moment, including the pain and the weird split between high sensory clarity and the features of misery. It became more and more painful, now also manifesting as headache and as sort of being torned. I came to a point where I felt that I needed to decide whether I wanted the sensory clarity or the misery. I chose the sensory clarity. I heard a click (one point to that hypothesis) and things sort of opened up kinesthetically and lightened up visually. There were several cracks sort of in my paranasal cavities. Breathing was easier. It felt like veils were drawn out from the cavities. Clarity increased (lots of impermanence). However, so did the pain, both the neck pain and the headache. I did some metta on all the different parts of ”me”, to make them feel safe and part of the process. That felt good but the pain continued to intensify. I could feel the subjective point moving about rapidly but didn’t manage to merge with it to experience the falling away of one such bounce. There was a build-up but no release. Then I was interrupted by one of my cats who seemed really concerned about me showing life signs and paying attention to him. Strangely enough, the pain is very mild now. What I do feel may very well just be the result of too much yoga exercises. No headache. Weird. There are tensions in the forehead, though, and maybe a slight fever.


Towards the end of the meditation it felt like my whole body was contracting more and more.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/12/19 8:41 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/12/19 8:39 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Feeling great today. For a while I was wondering whether it was EQ or A&P, but then I felt heat in my spine so now I’m sure it’s the latter. What I don’t know is whether it is A&P in the new path or the previous path. Regardless of which, it’s really good timing because I need to get things done today, and A&P is my most productive stage, especially when a lot of executive functioning is required. It really is true that body work is good for dealing with the challanging stages. Yesterday I took four 30 minutes walks and did 75 minutes of Hatha sun salutations. The latter was supposed to purify the body, which felt like exactly what I needed. Today I have taken two 30 minutes walks and done one hour of explorative yoga. My body was really cooperating today, and there were jhanic factors during the yoga. During the walks I pay attention not only to my feet but to my posture as well. I try to have a tadasana feeling while I walk. I need to do it in order not to be in pain afterwards, so it’s kind of forced walking meditation.

Yesterday after the yoga I did some fire kasina. Nothing new happened, and I wasn’t impressed at all, but at least I could see some progression over time. There were jhanic factors while looking at the candle flame.

...

After writing the above, I did an hour of sitting meditation while waiting for the food to cook enough for the next step of cooking. In the very beginning, there were annoying squeeks in my right ear. That stopped soon, as I listened to what was going on in the inner hearing. Then I could watch the monkey mind in full action for a while. Jeeze, that was hyper. I could easily notice which senses were involved in the thinking and the arising and passing away of it. There was a yoga tune going on in my head, and rather than trying to repress it or ignore it (that would lead to more squeeking noices in my right ear), I decided to use it as a mantra. I didn’t know the lyrics but used the sound. I thought it might be a good idea to calm the mind down already in A&P so maybe there will be less of a crash in dissolution, so I turned to shamatha. I focused on the breath by the nostrils and tip of the nose. When there was a taste of concentration, I focused on that instead. I noticed the shifts between first, second, and third jhana. The shift tosecond jhana was marked by more stability and a smoother taste, distinctly less rough. The shift to third was marked by a widening (I’m not very visual, so it was more a kinesthetic feeling of having more air around me, or maybe water - like when you swim out in a lake and feel in your body that the water has become deeper because of the cooler undercurrents), and an altered sence of touch, with touch being aware of itself, and awareness of the entire body. It was very calm. The shifts to a higher jhana tended to come with things becoming brighter for a while, I think. There were shifts downward as well, but I wasn’t able to pinpoint them. During the shamatha part, there was very little verbal thinking, but it did occur. At one point I noticed that outside sounds were muffled and fell more into the background, but they didn’t go away completely.

Sitting was comfortable and easy, although afterwards I felt that the legs really needed to be stretched out. I hadn’t noticed.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/12/19 2:47 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/12/19 2:45 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I lay down for an hour, silently chanting Ohm. Amazing how even a silent mantra can fill the whole body with vibrations, including earlobes and toes.

I think I’ll make it a habit to do shamatha while in A&P.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 3:22 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 3:21 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yesterday and today I did this guided meditation by Michael Taft: https://youtu.be/Rp__z9kc-Rk, Awareness aware of awareness, and I’m so glad that it works for me after some time where I have been unable to do his weekly SF Dharma collective guided meditations without spacing out. I do them partly because I thoroughly enjoy them (when I can do them), partly for the sake of diagnosis.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 4:13 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 4:13 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Oh, I forgot: In the beginning I felt pain in my neck (I was lying down). That has happened repeatedly lately, only to disappear as I end the session, but this time I decided to not buy into it. I read in TMI today that there is a stage when this sort of thing shows up to distract further progress and that it is important to ignore it as it has nothing to do with physical causes. So I just relaxed and believed that it wasn’t real, and then it vanished, and after that the meditation took on new depths.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 4:46 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 4:46 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Oh, I forgot: In the beginning I felt pain in my neck (I was lying down). That has happened repeatedly lately, only to disappear as I end the session, but this time I decided to not buy into it. I read in TMI today that there is a stage when this sort of thing shows up to distract further progress and that it is important to ignore it as it has nothing to do with physical causes. So I just relaxed and believed that it wasn’t real, and then it vanished, and after that the meditation took on new depths.


Do you remember which chapter in TMI, and in description of which of the stages based on 10 stages model ?
Thanks.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 5:03 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 5:03 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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It’s stage 8, the last paragraph on page 311. I have gone through this before, in much more violent and weird ways. This is more subtle, which makes it a bit tricky. It camouflages as something ordinary.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 5:07 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
It’s stage 8, the last paragraph on page 311. I have gone through this before, in much more violent and weird ways. This is more subtle, which makes it a bit tricky. It camouflages as something ordinary.


Thank you. Sometimes something similar to it happens for me too, some aches and pains in chest and back, and when I ignore it, it goes away, however I think my experience matchs mostly with stage 7 now, so probably it's different from that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 5:13 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Models are always simplifications. I don’t think the practice is that linear. It could very well be the same thing.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 7:17 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yeah, sure.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/15/19 3:43 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I find it increasingly hard to describe my meditative experiences because of the apparent emptiness of language. Seeing that emptiness is probably a good thing in itself, but it becomes frustrating because I wish to relate to others in the mundane way of human communication. Maybe what I think is a jhanic factor is really a feature of some ”natural state” that is said to be the opposite of jhanas. How should I know? I really need to get back to basic descriptions, but there are no genuinely basic descriptions, perhaps especially not for this stuff. It seems like we are stuck with metaphors, and metaphors tend to be more poetic than exact. The fact that different senses are dominant for different individual minds doesn’t exactly help.

Anyway, I did 75 minutes of Vinyasa Yoga, and before the class started I lay down on the mat. I was immediately drawn into some state. It was a very physical experience of what I believe can be described as touch sensations or physical sensations being aware of themselves. That’s an experience that I find very pleasant, and I think being absorbed by the pleasure seems like an accurate description. It’s the kind of state where I really don’t want to move or respond to anything because that might break the spell, so to speak. Also, gradually the concept of a body falls away, and it feels more like a field of phenomena occurring on their own. When I move my body, the concept of having a body comes back and the sensations feel less rich. Some of the experience remains, though, when the activity is centered around touch, like in yoga, or cuddling for that matter, or liberating dance,

I think my ”inner light” is gradually developing. It is not mature enough to form the base of luminous jhanas, according to Culadasa terminology, but it’s slowly getting there. I saw inner light almost consistently during the yoga session.
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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 7/15/19 3:49 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/15/19 3:48 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I find it increasingly hard to describe my meditative experiences because of the apparent emptiness of language. Seeing that emptiness is probably a good thing in itself, but it becomes frustrating because I wish to relate to others in the mundane way of human communication. Maybe what I think is a jhanic factor is really a feature of some ”natural state” that is said to be the opposite of jhanas. How should I know? I really need to get back to basic descriptions, but there are no genuinely basic descriptions, perhaps especially not for this stuff. It seems like we are stuck with metaphors, and metaphors tend to be more poetic than exact. The fact that different senses are dominant for different individual minds doesn’t exactly help.


I also find this horribly frustrating. It's like, why even bother talking about these things?

What I want to know is if you find it possible to communicate with a yoga teacher.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/15/19 7:48 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Hehe, because we are becoming phenomenology junkies whether we like it or not, maybe? Thanks for the validation! I needed that.

Whether I find it possible to communicate with a yoga teacher? Hm, yeah, to varying degrees, I guess. I consider it an enormous success if we manage to get somewhere at all. I’m very grateful to some of my current yoga teachers for helping me physically move my body the way it should move, so that I can feel for myself how it is supposed to feel. That has made wonders to my proprioception and recognition of specific muscles. Visual descriptions and metaphors are mostly not very helpful for me, except for a few that I can relate to in a kinesthetic way. I am gradually finding ways to translate visual information to something that makes sense to me. There is sort of a grammar to the different movements, so I can build on previous translations.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/15/19 7:45 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I lay down on a mat to meditate for an hour. There were certainly things going on, but right now language is not my strongest suit so I will refrain from saying much, except that there was direct awareness of various touch sensations.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/16/19 7:14 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Before I went to sleep last night I found myself in a hypnagogic state where I was visualizing something. I think it may have been somebody’s hair reflecting the sunshine. I noticed that I could actually see that bright part of the hair in the murk and that it turned into a brighter and brighter focused spot in the center. When my attention turned to it, it vanished. This was repeated a few times. Then I got curious and thought that I’d check if I could control the colors. I imagined green, and very soon there were green swirls in the murk. Then I thought about pink, and soon pink swirls appeared.the same happened with turqoise and yellow, but it was a bit more faded. Then I believe I fell asleep. I had been staying up far too late late so that was about time I did.

On my way to today’s yoga class I noticed that my body posture wasn’t at its best. I thought to myself ”darn, it really would be so much easier to do yoga while in A&P”, and I remembered the feeling in my body of doing yoga in A&P. Suddenly I felt waves of rapture showering through my body in upward movements, and the wind gave me pleasant shivers in an almost orgasmic way. I felt high, and my body posture was great all on its own. That didn’t last very long. The energy dropped and then I had to struggle a bit to maintain a good posture. After a while there was a bodily fear response. It didn’t last long either. There was a thought about trying to get back into A&P but that felt wrong. Most active parts of me seemed to want to deal with the challanges just as they were. They are so transient anyway, and I was content with just knowing that I had actually managed to call up a nana with my intention.

I sat down on the yoga mat before the class started. I thought about green again, as I did at night, but this time it took quite a while for green swirls to show up, and they alternated with the regular swirls of flourescent purple. I set the intention for the yoga class to bring clarity. The color swirls stayed during the class. Green and purple kept alternating for a while, and then red tones entered the mix and green gradually disappeared. I think I had better clarity with regard to using the muscles right than I usually have, and I could do the exercises with more precision despite not feeling high anymore. I could also clearly see on the movement of the color swirls how different exercises made energies move more freely. At one brief instance while having my eyes closed I saw the image of a piece of art. It’s a face that has arms crossed where the eyes should be.

On my way home from the yoga class I noticed feeling a bit low. I felt sorry for myself for having a deadline and wanted to just crawl into my bed and bury myself under a cosy blanket. I realized that was probably misery and immediately felt slightly disgusted about my thoughts. I felt vibrations in my body and thought ”hey, why don’t I just reinforce these vibrations into those of reobservation and get this over with?” - which was of course desire for deliverance. Then I imagined the vibrations being stronger and rougher and tearing myself apart, and they indeed got rougher, until they suddenly stopped and there was calm and grace. That didn’t last very long. Soon there was an energy surge and I was overflown by rapture from the wind and fwlt lifted up. Then the energy dropped and my posture sank a bit. Then there was a new fear response with rapid heartbeat, and so forth, until I reached equanimity again. Then I probably dropped to three characteristics. My posture felt assymetric and unbalanced and stiff. Then A&P again, and this time I resolved to stay there for five minutes. I didn’t have a watch so I was unable to check the time, but it certainly lingered for a fe minutes. Then I lost focus and felt that my posture was slouching. Then there was a bodily fear response without the emotional content, and I took a moment to appreciate the crispness of it. Then I was home. I felt a bit low and nauseaus but didn’t focus on it. I got engaged in planning how to write a report on all this and get it right (a version of desire for deliverance?). Then I found myself imagining writing an upset rant about the ridiculousness of all this cycling and arguing that it should be impossible to take any of these thoughts and feelings seriously when they are cycling around so fast, and questioning the point of it all. Then I saw how comical that was, because it was obviously reobservation, and I found myself smiling and relaxing.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/16/19 8:02 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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By the way, I noticed that extrospective awareness such as peripheral vision really does decrease in A&P compared to later stages, so calling up A&P while in the traffic is probably not the best idea. Thankfully there was a footpath most of the way.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/16/19 11:04 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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60 minutes lying down:

Heat, immediately as I lay down.
Agitation, until I was able to relax.
Gross dullness? Or just less conceptualizations? Maybe both. Formless aspect? Very little sensory input but there was awareness.
Kriyas: hands lifted, head turned to one side - several instances.
Several instances of my mouth suddenly opening itself to let air out (with bad breath? Purification?)
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 7/17/19 2:26 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda/Polly,

Have you had surprising and permanent changes to aversion (e.g. much less freaking out about interaction with the world?). If so, can you describe them, and when they occured?  Also, have you had changes to attraction - a qualitative difference in your relationship to desirable objects/people.  If so, can you describe them, and when they occured? 

(But without asking you to over-share! emoticon)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/17/19 5:09 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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curious:
Linda/Polly,

Have you had surprising and permanent changes to aversion (e.g. much less freaking out about interaction with the world?). If so, can you describe them, and when they occured?  Also, have you had changes to attraction - a qualitative difference in your relationship to desirable objects/people.  If so, can you describe them, and when they occured? 

(But without asking you to over-share! emoticon)



Permanent changes is probably too much to say just yet, although it seems promising. Surprising, yes. It was a great surprise to suddenly find that my previously hardwired autistic often panicky overwhelm by eye contact was completely gone, and similarly that situations of mingling no longer overwhelmed me and that I no longer get nauseous for the rest of the day from the noice in the laundry room or even bothered by it while spending time there. Nor do I suffer from repetitions of unpleasant sounds in my memory as I did before. These changes came instantly after what I believe was stream entry. I have also noticed that I can more easily just focus on the pleasant sansations while going through unpleasant ones (probably dependind on just how unpleasant they are; it’s not like I can ignore all degrees of pain, of course). I have found that I actually enjoy some sensations that I used to have aversion for, such as some degrees of freezing. Now I appreciate them as a quality of being alive and as part of the great diversity of experiences that being alive allows. I don’t know for sure whether these changes came at the same time or somewhat later.

When it comes to attraction and people, I haven’t told this to anyone before, in case it would be misunderstood, but I feel like there is less of a ”hook” in my attachment to the people I love and I don’t know what to make of that really. I don’t long for them in the same way that I used to when they are not around. I hadn’t expected that. I don’t remember exactly when I first noticed that, but I have attributed it to stream entry. At least I know that it wasn’t there before it. It is possible that it came later. In any case, this makes me slightly uncomfortable because it has introduced an assymetry to the relationships that wasn’t there before. Is there such a thing as romantic love without craving? Similarly, there is less of a hook in sexual attraction. The attraction is still there but it doesn’t feel like a fundamental need in the same way. I had not expected that. But maybe it is only temporary. For a while very recently (I think it may have been after I crossed A&P of the new path, of that is what happened) it felt really weird to use heart emojis as well, because they felt empty in a way that I knew they weren’t in my partners’ views. I made a brief attempt at finding a more authentic way to communicate, but that creeped one partner out, so I gave up on that. It’s not like anything has really changed anyway, as they were always empty, so it’s not like I’m suddenly lying now. If it’s important to the people I love, then it is important.

Was this what you were asking for?

EDIT: I still love a lot of people, though, and I keep getting fond of more people, so it’s definitely not like I have grown out of being attracted, and there is still attachment. Just slightly less in some specific respects. Just minutes ago I found myself being very happy about a letter, in a way that put a smile on my face and made my steps dance-like (and that’s not even someone I have actually met or am likely to ever meet), so I probably shouldn’t read to much into that small hook being gone. There are plenty of other hooks in the chains, and plenty of chains.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 7/17/19 6:20 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/17/19 6:20 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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i think love as a householder is one of the most challenging aspects of the path. But if you keep going, it all comes right in series of really good developments.  One of the things you might find, if the situation arises, is substantially reduced grief (the angsty aspect of it) which can also be challenging in terms of social expectations. But don’t worry, it doesn’t make love any less real. If anything it is more real because it becomes less about you and more about them.

Anyway, how would you interpret all the things you have described in terms of the ten fetter model ?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/17/19 6:43 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Thanks for those validating and comforting words, Malcolm!

I don’t know enough about the ten fetter model to say much about it. I’m guessing that it is a simplification as any other model. Each of the fetters probably have many subordinate components, so maybe they can be weakened but still be there. Does that make sense? I’m not sure that I believe in a linear development. It seems much more complex than that.

Do you have something particular in mind?
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 7/17/19 6:51 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Sure. Actually, by the way, your account of changes is exactly what I suspected you might say.  

Anyway, in the ten fetter model, the lower five fetters are belief in self, doubts about the dharma, attachment to rites and rituals, sensory desire, and anger/ill-will. The last two are supposedly to be first substantially reduced, and then elimated. Daniel doesn't like this model as he rightly notes lots of sex and arguments among those advanced on the path. But I think if you reinterpret the fourth and fifth fetters as passion obsession and resistance obsession, it starts to make more sense. These can get really weakened when we start to truly realise that the objects of our obsessions are really just mental fabrications we constantly recreate.

So if you do have significantly weakened passion obsession and resistance obsession, it might be time to get out of a rut, and push on towards non-duality. Aim for full awareness of the flux of reality as a practice (the end point of super rapid noting). Work on the seven factors of liberation - maybe even taking up a new practice to help give you a really dedicated focus on those factors. Look for those insights about time and space, self and other, separteness and connectedness.  When you get an insight surprise, wallow in it, keep it going for as long as possible. Look for a vivid absorbing connected non-dual world to start to appear as baseline. That baseline can pop in and out (including before stream entry), but as you upgrade perceptions and deconstruct the chain of dependent arising and the five aggregates, it becomes more and more prevalent, and should be cultivated for a while, eventually becoming a default waking state (my interpreation of the end of third) 

Stream entry, the end of third, and fourth path seem pretty clearly delineated.  But the territory bewteen stream entry and the end of third seems really variable and confused for many.  So I wouldn't worry too much about where you are.  Instead, just ask yourself, is it time to push on?

emoticon

Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/18/19 3:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Thankyou very much!

I’m not sure. I noticed that there is still a lot of resistance, parts of ”me” that are not on board. After I had replied to you, they arose to the surface and fought a battle for passion. That was weird. Suddenly I had so strong feelings for an American pen pal that it hurt. Reading your recommendations was like putting a needle into that balloon, though. Within a blink of an eye there was peace again. Flux of reality, indeed. I probably need to integrate more before I can push forward. Otherwise there will be too strong reactions.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/18/19 9:25 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Wow. I just had a breakthrough thanks to you, Malcolm. Not an attainment, but I found direction and it made a difference. I’m not sure this was exactly how you intended for the help to take shape, but you played the part the universe gave you very well, and it was exactly what I needed. Much obliged. You probably knew that the universe would provide and trusted that, regardless of what shape it would take.

I just had a slightly more than two hours long session with so much happening that I don’t know if I’ll be able to pinpoint the most significant occurrings in writing. I’ll make a tentative report anyway. Still in afterglow from some jhana, I think. I feel the need to eat some heavy food and ground myself. Heating some food while I start writing. Gee, I’m so hungry!

So, where do I start? Temptations. I was pondering over temptations. No, that’s not how it started. I started out trying to do rapid noting, and honestly, I suck at rapid noting. I totally get why it is a great tool, but I can’t use it. An autistic researcher that I’m starting to get to know, Hajo Senn, proposes that autistic people have a separation between sensate experiences and conceptualization that neurotypical people do not have in the same way. Putting things into words is a draining translation process. I think he is on to something. Using concepts creates a distance between me and sensate experiences. It’s a real struggle for me to put the experiences into boxes. I tried to do noting without words, ”bip” for every noting, but that didn’t help. Distinguishing a part from the reality in order to count it is conceptualization too. If I do that, then it’s not the reality I experience. So, I couldn’t do the noting. That wouldn’t get me anywhere. And I was feeling the brain fog from dissolution (after a night with repeated A&P:s) hovering over me like a thick warm blanket.

(Took a short break here to get the food.)

No, that’s not how it started either. It actually started with a narrating voice, which is a bit ironic since I just told you (with words) how draining that is. There was a narrating voice dictating a report for this log.

No, actually, before that, there was the thing that the narrating voice was narrating about. As I lay down to meditate (that is how the narrating voice started, I believe, before it corrected itself to make sure that the report also included a record of me setting the alarm to 60 minutes, which was what I first planned)... As I lay down to meditate, something immediately cracked open behind my face, and breathing was markedly easier. THEN I noticed the brain fog sort of hovering over me, like an evil spirit in a Korean Netflix series, tempting me, and that’s why I tried to take on the advice about rapid noting, to avoid being taken over by oblivion. Then I assessed that the noting wasn’t working, and I was annoyed at the parts of me that had given in to the temptation of calling up A&P over and over, since that would inevitably lead to dissolution, which I hate, I thought. That thought immediately led to two reactions. One was the realization that it was really contraproductive to condemn these parts of me, as that wasn’t fair and would only lead to further disintegration. The other one was seeing that the great problem with dissolution for me is not hating it. The problem is that I’m tempted by it. By the ignorance. By the indifference. By being swept into that warm cozy fog of oblivion as the mind-speed and focus takes a rest. I knew that but I didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to acknowledge it. Maybe that’s an even greater temptation for me than the A&P, or maybe they are equally strong, I don’t know. Hm. Yeah, they probably are equally strong, and I gave names to two archetypical figures a decade ago when I went through therapy, that pretty much had these features. I wanted to integrate them. They had a dialogue and finally made enough peace with each other not to cause any too great splits since then, but I think now that it was more of a live and let live deal than a real integration. I kept cycling and thought that’s just the way life is, and in many ways that is true, I guess.

Anyway, as I realized that the brain fog was actually a temptation, something that I gave power instead of following my true path, it couldn’t get to me. I could see that it was space around it. I didn’t have to submerge myself in it, or let it embrace me (technically, it was still hovering above me in my image - there were a lot of images in this session although I normally have trouble accessing mental images). I could clearly see how I get distracted by temptations from different directions and how that keeps me stuck, and I wanted clarity more than anything. Not the concept of clarity or some abstract ideal of clarity, but real clarity. I wanted to see things for what they are. I wanted to see my place in the greater scheme of things so that I could fulfill it without distractions or defilements. That felt authentic. It resonated with my entire being, vibrated, and there it was - the baseline. The one that I was supposed to look out for. It was right there.

The narrator tried to make something more heroic of this moment by adding something about compassion which I usually feel strongly for, but that didn’t resonate and vibrate the same way. I felt that I primarily need clarity in order to even know what true compassion is. I didn’t want any views. I wanted the thruth. Reality just as it. I inwardly repeated formulations such as ”I want clarity” and ”I want to see this moment just as it is”, but soon I felt that the words created a split. Then I got caught up in a story about not getting caught up in stories, then in a meta-story about that, laughed inwardly (perhaps also out loud) and let go of it. I immediately forgot what it was about (although now I remember it again). I tried to think a verbal thought about that but only nonsense combinations of syllables came up. I was suddenly unverbal.

Then there were lots of sensations that are hard to describe as they weren’t conceptualized enough. Conceptualizations arose again at some point. I think they may have vanished again and come back again a few times. That part is a bit fuzzy. I think I zoomed in and out between raw sensory data and complex mental processes. As for the former, I have a vague memory of very rapid arisings and passings at a level that I can’t describe. As for the latter, a lot came to the surface as dream scenes, but I either stayed lucid or rapidly returned to lucidity. A lot of unconscious processes were seen as they were, but I don’t remember much of it. Maybe they returned to unconsciousness at least partly disentangled. Energy was flowing calmly most of the time. Sometimes I noticed that my body was clenching and noticing it was enough for it to unclench. I could let go of the tensions, and I felt that it enabled energies to keep that calm flow. I saw clearly how I have been grabbing onto those tensions, engaged with them and thus given them power.

There was space. I was in space. I still had a body. It was moving through space. The space was pretty bright. I think I sometimes opened my eyes slightly and let the light in, but at one time I remember checking that my eyes were fully closed when there was brightness. I noticed that brightness tend to occur every time I came back to lucidity from a dream scene. I literally was bringing unconscious stuff into the light. There was no Kundalini feeling to this. It was something else, maybe a metaphor being manifested. I remember thinking something like that, wondering whether it was really bright or if it was a metaphor, and then I remember thinking that it didn’t make any difference since it was all mental constructs anyway. Then I let go into wordlessness again.

Sometimes there was a pull, as if my body was falling through space, falling away. At several instances, I reacted with a contraction that fixated my body in space. I realized that I was resisting formlessness but couldn’t do much about it. I wasn’t ready yet. Then I felt like I was floating or levitating. Somwehere around here I think conceptualizations came back gradually. I remember thinking that I wanted the session to last two hours, not shorter than that. It felt like two hours had passed but I tried to stay in the meditation a while longer. It didn’t fool one of my cats. He noticed that I was back and jumped onto me and required my attention. I slowly moved my hands to cuddle him, then looked at the watch. It had been slightly more than two hours. Impermanence was dominating my vision as I opened my eyes. The light looked greenish but there were dots of blue and red among the green ones as well. The nada sound was loud. It took a while to feel stable and solid again.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/18/19 9:26 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Gee, it took me two hours to write that down.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/18/19 10:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I remember that the dreamlike scenes bringing unconscious complex mental processes into the light had a tell. Before they showed up, there were hypnotic purple swirls.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/18/19 10:35 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Oh, I also remember that there were instances when something moved from my head down to my heart, and it felt like balance was restored. It was accompanied each time by direct awareness, that is, phenomena representing themselves. That must be exactly what Loch Kelly describes, that movement from the head down to the heart. It felt as if I moved into my heart. But at the same time, I knew that was also a construct. Whereas the phenomena representing thermselves felt very natural, the solidifying of the heart area felt contracted and weird. That solid knot moved back and forth between my head and heart a few times.
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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 7/19/19 6:29 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/19/19 6:29 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Oh, I also remember that there were instances when something moved from my head down to my heart, and it felt like balance was restored. It was accompanied each time by direct awareness, that is, phenomena representing themselves. That must be exactly what Loch Kelly describes, that movement from the head down to the heart. It felt as if I moved into my heart. But at the same time, I knew that was also a construct. Whereas the phenomena representing thermselves felt very natural, the solidifying of the heart area felt contracted and weird. That solid knot moved back and forth between my head and heart a few times.


So much of what you've been writing about lately seems like it coincides with my current experiences. Being attached to A&P while falling asleep...the effort it takes to put things into words...asymmetry in relationships...something cracking behind your face making breathing easier...getting irritated with the narrator...trying to fixate the body in space...

Do you ever get angry when you think about how none of this stuff is validated at all in mainstream meditation literature? Maybe that's just my personal issue...
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/20/19 1:32 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/20/19 1:32 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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spatial:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Oh, I also remember that there were instances when something moved from my head down to my heart, and it felt like balance was restored. It was accompanied each time by direct awareness, that is, phenomena representing themselves. That must be exactly what Loch Kelly describes, that movement from the head down to the heart. It felt as if I moved into my heart. But at the same time, I knew that was also a construct. Whereas the phenomena representing thermselves felt very natural, the solidifying of the heart area felt contracted and weird. That solid knot moved back and forth between my head and heart a few times.


So much of what you've been writing about lately seems like it coincides with my current experiences. Being attached to A&P while falling asleep...the effort it takes to put things into words...asymmetry in relationships...something cracking behind your face making breathing easier...getting irritated with the narrator...trying to fixate the body in space...

Do you ever get angry when you think about how none of this stuff is validated at all in mainstream meditation literature? Maybe that's just my personal issue...


Angry? Why? That never crossed my mind. Can’t say I have read much mainstream meditation literature, though. I do think that the hype of mindfulness without these nuances is problematic, as people may run into difficulties without enough support.
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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 9:41 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
spatial:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Oh, I also remember that there were instances when something moved from my head down to my heart, and it felt like balance was restored. It was accompanied each time by direct awareness, that is, phenomena representing themselves. That must be exactly what Loch Kelly describes, that movement from the head down to the heart. It felt as if I moved into my heart. But at the same time, I knew that was also a construct. Whereas the phenomena representing thermselves felt very natural, the solidifying of the heart area felt contracted and weird. That solid knot moved back and forth between my head and heart a few times.


So much of what you've been writing about lately seems like it coincides with my current experiences. Being attached to A&P while falling asleep...the effort it takes to put things into words...asymmetry in relationships...something cracking behind your face making breathing easier...getting irritated with the narrator...trying to fixate the body in space...

Do you ever get angry when you think about how none of this stuff is validated at all in mainstream meditation literature? Maybe that's just my personal issue...


Angry? Why? That never crossed my mind. Can’t say I have read much mainstream meditation literature, though. I do think that the hype of mindfulness without these nuances is problematic, as people may run into difficulties without enough support.


I think it's my own personal issue. I'm starting to wonder if it is due to a fear of rejection and a sense that it is dangerous to talk with others about what I am excited about. This is fascinatingly interesting to me...I didn't always have this issue...it only appeared when I had certain insights. Before that, I probably just called it "shame" or "I'm not good enough" or something like that.

Good luck on your retreat!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 9:51 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 9:51 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Thankyou Spatial! I really hope that I’m not about to get stomach flue now or something. That would be so typical.

Ah. Yeah, it’s difficult to talk about, but I’m used to being weird and most of my friends are weird in one way or another, too. It would be nice to have peope to talk to about it afk who do understand what I’m going through, though. One of my closest people is really frustrated about not understanding, and that’s tough.
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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 2:09 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
One of my closest people is really frustrated about not understanding, and that’s tough.
That sounds difficult. I'm curious to know more about that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 3:18 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Well, he has a brain damage that causes him to function very atypically. He has never had the feeling of having an integrated and continuous self, has always seen suffering in everything, and has always seen everything as impermanent. Yet, he is clearly not liberated, as there is a lot of suffering going on there. I was thinking that he might benefit from the dharma, but he has trouble seeing where the hooks are for him. All instructions tend to assume that the meditator functions typically and has the typical hooks. He can’t even understand how anyone would see anything else than the three characteristics, as they are formulated and as he understands those formulations, but apparently he must have some aspects of these delusions although he would use other wordings. I can see some of his hooks but explaining them in a way that he can understand is beyond my competence, and it would probably be a bad idea for me to do it anyway as we are lovers.

Anyway, he has expressed sadness because I was the one person whom he could understand and who could understand him, with regard to basically anything, and now suddenly all I’m talking about is this thing that is totally incomprehensible to him. I used to be involved in lots of discussions but since I started meditating on a daily basis I have lost interest in that. I do work on my research too, but that process is usually of limited interest for others. So yeah, I can see why it’s frustrating and sympathize with it, but I have no interest in going back to being caught up in debates all the time. Also, I have come to need more silent time, and he kind of talks non-stop. Interesting stuff, sure - he is one of the smartest people I know - but sometimes I need a break from analyzing and conceptualizing.

So I guess our dynamics have changed, and he is sad about that (impermanence right there, I tried to point out, but he didn’t buy it, because in his understanding of language he distinguishes between that things change and how they change. Yeah, well...).

I think we have had a breakthrough now, though, thankfully. I used to get defensive about the dharma as I misinterpreted his frustration as criticism, but that was not at all what it was. We talked it through thoroughly and I think that I can now see his frustration for what it is and have compassion instead of getting defensive. Maybe we can even have interesting discussions about it eventually. After all, we are both very interested in how atypical functioning affects different spheres of life, and he often has fascinating perspectives on things. We just need to find a way to understand each other in this.

We are both very open about this sort of things so I don’t think it is unethical for me to write this. Also, I don’t think we are alone in finding that relationships change when one of the persons involved suddenly dedicates themself intensely to the dharma. It’s probably good to be open about that.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 7/18/19 3:28 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Great! You might notice very occasionally as you relax deeply an overlay of a screen in your daylight vision, a kind of dappled field, or mesh of hexagons, or a subtle sacred geometry but with eyes open in the light.

And for noting, even the 'bips' can be dropped. Just wordless appreciation of all the sensate data including the sense of space and time is enough. Try to appreciate everything all at once, but continuously and without gaps.  Find joy in that appreciation - kind of like piti that is outside the body.

And expect more purifications.  As shargol says, you need to keep peeling back the layers of the onion.  

Keep going!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/20/19 1:25 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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curious:
Great! You might notice very occasionally as you relax deeply an overlay of a screen in your daylight vision, a kind of dappled field, or mesh of hexagons, or a subtle sacred geometry but with eyes open in the light.

And for noting, even the 'bips' can be dropped. Just wordless appreciation of all the sensate data including the sense of space and time is enough. Try to appreciate everything all at once, but continuously and without gaps.  Find joy in that appreciation - kind of like piti that is outside the body.

And expect more purifications.  As shargol says, you need to keep peeling back the layers of the onion.  

Keep going!


Cool. Can’t say I have seen that, exactly, but if I relax my gaxe in the light, I see the light streaming, and it sort of has facets to it, patterns in the movement that create fields. If I look at it for a while, it intensifies and almost starts to look like a shimmering portal.

Wordless appreciation I can do. I like your description of it. Will do.

I welcome the purifications.

...

I meditated another hour the day before yesterday, and yesterday I did an hour. Both times I mainly observed the sensations of movement between head and chest. I try to keep a meditative investigation throughout the day as well, with varying degrees of success. Yesterday it went well as long as there was heat in my spine, but after that I was probably darknighting and had difficulties finding the joy.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/17/19 8:20 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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45 minutes, lying down.

In the very beginning, there was monkey mind. I did some noting until monkey mind was silent. Then I just relaxed. I soon entered that weird state where there is stillness but no taste of concentration and yet there is still awareness. I wasn’t sleepy in the ordinary sense, I think, but not alert either. Maybe it is like lucid dreamless sleep? I don’t know. Maybe this is the Bhavangacitta? There is no afterglow. There is no piti. I don’t think there is any point to going there apart from just knowing that it is possible. I am curious about all the different states of consciousness. Or maybe it is good rest and/or purifying, I don’t know. There are instances of having the mouth open by itself to get rid of air, and I know that it’s not snorring. Maybe it’s the body letting go of toxins the way it does during sleep. But I guess I could just sleep instead, I don’t know. Why do some meditators want to stay aware while having dreamless sleep? Is that something completely different after all?

Before I got there, it was very bright for a brief moment. Maybe I did have concentration but then lost it.

I did still have a sense of time, because I had set the alarm for 40 minutes and right before the alarm went off I remember a thought arising that time was up. Then the alarm said so. I thought I would just meditate a little while longer, but now monkey mind was awake again, so after 5 more minutes I decided to stop.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/18/19 5:15 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Being able to call up nanas opens up to temptations. Apparently there are less conscious parts of ”me” that are very attached to A&P. As I was trying to sleep, they kept calling up A&P over again, disturbing my sleep. As soon as I relaxed, there was a new surge of A&P. Finally I started pointing out the three characteristics of A&P loudly. That, together with Malcolm’s advice and a dharma talk on 7 point mind training, enabled me to regain balance and direction and fall asleep, far too late.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/20/19 5:18 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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There was a new layer of misery. It felt bottomless. Then it breathed itself out, after purple swirls started moving around and a gentle breeze blew through me. Then I felt that there were blockages in the muscles between the lower back and the butt, so I did some acupressure with therapy balls. That enabled me to breathe out more of it, and energies started flowing again.

Weird how feelings can be so overwhelmingly strong and then just reveal their emptiness. I’m left wondering how on earth I could get so caught up with them, or why I stopped, or both. I guess I understand why I stopped, but I feel that there are still parts of me that feel surviver’s guilt for letting go. This is not entirely done yet. There will be more backlashes.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 7/21/19 6:05 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
There was a new layer of misery. It felt bottomless. Then it breathed itself out, after purple swirls started moving around and a gentle breeze blew through me. Then I felt that there were blockages in the muscles between the lower back and the butt, so I did some acupressure with therapy balls. That enabled me to breathe out more of it, and energies started flowing again.

Weird how feelings can be so overwhelmingly strong and then just reveal their emptiness. I’m left wondering how on earth I could get so caught up with them, or why I stopped, or both. I guess I understand why I stopped, but I feel that there are still parts of me that feel surviver’s guilt for letting go. This is not entirely done yet. There will be more backlashes.
Yes, non-empty parts will react and resist. Looks like you have some good strategies for purifications of those parts. Some others that may help include.

1. Spotting the moment of voilition in which the reaction starts, renouncing it, relinquishing it, and then doing a micro-dose of pure conceptual externally joyful shamatha to zap the underlying sankhara. Then let it go.

2. See it as being ridiculous, and laughing and laughing and laughing about it.  Geniune laughter seems incredibly purifying, as does joy in the experience or emotion that is opposite to the problematic one.  Then let it go.

3. Very detailed body scans (for me, this is two hours to scan the body internally and externally) that flush out all the physical sankharas, soften them, release them.  This seems to work on a more subconscious level and plays out over a longer period.

Keep going!

emoticonemoticonemoticonemoticon

Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/22/19 2:43 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Thanks! I will certainly keep going. No doubt about that. I have a rather limited tool box, though. In a moment like the one I described, when there was bottomless misery, I don’t think I could zap it with shamatha. I don’t have a systematic shamatha practice. Laughing is perhaps something I could try more. I have always appreciated gallows humor, so that’s something I may be able to access even when things seem hopeless. As for body scans, do you do that systematically or intuitively? Do you follow any specific method? Body scans never really worked for me before, in guided meditations, because they tended to trigger my tics. I don’t know if that has changed. I have never learned any technique for doing it on my own, but I guess I could just go through the entire body. What do you mean externally? Do you mean the outside of the body, like the skin, or something more like energy fields outside the body? As for the latter, I have no idea how to do that.

I mainly go with my intuition. The plus side of that is that I have learned how to listen to it fairly well. Or rather, I have learned how to let go of doing anything. Instead I just let things occur. The minus side, I guess, is that when things for some reason don’t just occur on their own, I don’t know what to do. I probably need to find a way of working more systematically with hindrances. I believe in letting things work on a subconscious level, but maybe the subconscious processes could use some pointers.

Sometimes I think you overestimate my abilities. I do my best to listen anyway, even when I don’t understand, because after all, this isn’t about individual abilities but something much greater, and I trust that there are subconscious processes that recognize things that I don’t know anything about consciously. The conscious ”me” is very limited and really doesn’t have much access to anything. Maybe I need to find a way to welcome more insight into my conscious mind in order to develop that tool box that people seem to have. Maybe I have worked more with ”my” unconscious than with ”my” conscious mind? Is that backwards?

This made me realize that I have been judgemental about my practice. I have thought about some sessions as rather useless, but there was probably purification going on, and that’s a good thing.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 7/22/19 5:01 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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The feeling that you have to have really high standards can often be a barrier to practice. Just give it a go!  Keep trying, and don't stop. Sometimes the simplest things can work, but we create barriers in our minds that stop us even trying.  

On body scans - something that was part of my progress was progressive scanning of the skin using 2cm circles of awareness, noting every part of the skin (about 2cm deep too), and softening it if necessary.  I would start with one foot, and then the rest of the leg, then the other leg, then up around the hips and so on and so on. Knees and shoulders seemed to take the most time, and ears. Then on subsequent occasions I would progress to the interior of the mouth, nose, the sinus, oesophagus. Eventually I got to the stage where I finished by scanning all the internal organs as well.  Not saying you have to do that but maybe a five centrimetre circle going over the exterior skin would release a lot of sankharas.  You could probably cover every cm of skin in about an hour.

But if you have some other practice that is working, that it is helping you to progress, then stick with it rather than change!   The real message is keep trying.  Keep going with viraya  - engaged effort - or the third factor of awakening.  Don't sink back, but keep trying.

Can't you just about sniff the next stage?  Keep purifying.  Find those non-empty bits, and expose them for the silliness they are.

Malcolm
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/22/19 7:03 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Stopping is not an option.

Can’t there be sort of engaged effortlessness? For me, the word ”effort” leads my thoughts to a doer doing something, and that doesn’t work well for me. What works for me is trusting and surrendering to the process, and being patient and continuing to trust it when I seem to be stuck, because things tend to open up on their own when the time is right if I just let them. Are you saying this isn’t enough?

I think we are waiting for more parts of ”me” to get on board rather than providing a shuttle service for every little stray process, if that makes any sense. Or maybe I’m just convincing myself that, I don’t know.

Maybe I’ll try that body scanning method. It seems to be sufficiently kinesthetic for it to be compatible with the wiring of my brain.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/22/19 6:34 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I lay down for two hours to open up to whatever purifications needed to occur, in shavasana but with some variations to open up the flow when needed. The session was varied. Sometimes breathing was easy, sometimes really heavy, and sometimes there were those loud sighs with the mouth opening itself to let the breath out. There were occasional kriyas. There were instances of brightness and great broad mindfulness, often starting with a click inside my head. There were dreamlike scenes that unfolded on their own, and nonsense thoughts that appeared to pop up randomly. There were instances of piti showering through my entire body very suddenly, and passing away equally suddenly. There were periods of deep relaxation and little engagement with anything, and I think my body temperature dropped. There were at least one instance of rapid heartbeat. There were periods of access to flow states. There were purple swirls. There were rapidly shifting abstract forms that almost made it to the surface as mental images but didn’t. There were movements of something within the body, and movement of the body within something. There were moments with an intense feeling of familiarity - of what I have no idea - and I knew that I was going in the right direction. Towards the end I felt that there were blockages in the ancles, so I made circling movements with my feet, and energy was released and clarity increased.

Now things feel clear. The nada sound is loud. I have booked a yoga class for tonight.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/21/19 10:51 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did an hour with lots of dullness, dreamlike scenes and weird outbreaths. There was some direct awareness among the dullness.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/22/19 4:39 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I have done very little pure shamatha practice, so I decided to try some. First I made use of the time before the yoga class started. I think it may have been 15 minutes. I focused on the breath, on experiencing each breath fully from beginning to end, especially the pleasant qualities of it, and yeah, sure, that’s effective. I think I got into a soft version of first jhana. That was a good way to start a yoga session.

Later tonight I sat for 45 minutes and then lay down in shavasana on a yoga mat on a firm matress for another 45 minutes, following the same simple technique. I’m not sure what jhanas I reached and what depths, but there were differences to the states. Very soon pleasant qualities arose. The breath was silky and smooth. Sitting was easy. It was easy to notice beginning and end of every breath. There was a shift where it became very effortless. My posture was better too, all on its own. The pleasantness became its own focus, with a feedback loop. Somewhere along the line my skin started to feel very silky. There was a cool clarity. There were periods of brightness. The flourescent purple swirls centered themselves and became brighter and whiter. I’m not aware of reaching a completely nonverbal state, though. There were periods with a loud nada sound, probably at the same time as the brightness. There were instances of feeling light and of feeling heavy. There were instances where I got back to focusing on the pleasantness of the breath after having focused entirely on the pleasantness as its own quality. There were instances of bodily flow and instances where the breath was all over the place.

The session ended because of cats running over me and meowing heartrendingly.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/23/19 8:24 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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*giggles* The irony of talking to oneself out loud in praise of not having to use words, using words. And then describing it here, in words.

I have had a very intensive meeting with a friend and collegue in a shared writing project, which ironically happens to be pretty much about the translation process between autistic sensate level processing and verbal thinking and how draining it is. So we talked and talked about how draining it is to verbalize. Now I very much look forward to letting go of the words and get into a wordless state, if the process allows it. And if not, I will probably get a close look at the hindrances, which is also great. Can’t fail. I love that about meditation. I intend to meditate the rest of the day, basically (it’s late afternoon here in Sweden). Yay!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/23/19 4:21 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I have done five hours of shamatha. I can no longer rely on happening to stumble upon jhanas, but need to cultivate the factors that allow me to get there with precision. It seems like the layer I’m currently working on is where much of my ADHD is located, so it’s an interesting challenge. I seem to have developed a kriya that makes me bounce back into mindfulness - subtle in cases of subtle dullness, but like a jumpscare in cases of gross dullness. I came across a recording from an entire jhana retreat with Bhante Gunaratana, so after dinner today I started following that. His calm and thorough instructions and ways of starting each session with metta resonate with me. I can feel that it does something powerful. Now I’m bathing in oxytocine.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/24/19 8:02 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I woke up with another strong feeling that was not me. I saw it for the temptation that it was, after having identified with it for a moment and almost chosen it, and said out loud ”I see you, Mara” and laughed a little, and it immediately went away. May I be strong enough to continue with this renounciation and mindful enough to recognize the temptations for what they are and awake enough to fulfill my true purpose. May I overcome the hindrances and continue on this path with clarity.

Just to clarify, I don’t wish to get rid of feelings. Not at all. I’m just not in it for the drama. I’m not buying it. I saw the hook in this feeling clearly, and I don’t want the hook. I renounce the hook, not the feeling. There’s a difference.

I need to keep working with the hindrances, and I think I need more concentration for that. The previous layer was easier to work with. This one is quite the challenge.

Now I hear that ticking inside my head again, the one that I have been hearing lately. I wonder if it’s the same sound as JC was talking about as typical for the review. If so, maybe I have gone back to the review after all? I don’t know. But Daniel said that there is no shame in going back. Whatever happens is the way of the universe. I’ll do what I can to walk the path with as little resistance as possible.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/24/19 10:47 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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50 minutes metta jhana practice, guided meditation, sitting
40 minutes metta jhana practice, without guiding, sitting
20 minutes metta jhana practice, without guiding, lying down
20 minutes vipassana, lying down

I find that the metta really helps with overcoming hindrances. It makes it easier to concentrate. Both kinesthetically and visually I had the impression that something was evaporating from my body. There was lightness and brightness and space and movement. I don’t know whether or not I was truly in jhana, but I know I was really motivated to cultivate loving friendliness and I could feel it. It felt really good. It felt transforming. And when I stood up from the cushion I was surprised to find that my legs were stiff. I hadn’t noticed. Any time I felt dullness I opened and rolled my eyes and used metta for overcoming the hindrances, and it really helped. Switching over to vipassana in the end was a bit tricky. That’s where most of the dullness occurred. There were several kriyas in the vipassana part as well, and some other energetic stuff.

Now I’m a bit dizzy and lightheaded. I just saw the room spinning around. I hear the nada sound. Impermanence is apparent both visually and kinesthetically. Breathing is easy despite some mild allergic reactions earlier today. I feel clear and relaxed. I just realized I don’t think I had any tics for all this time. The impulses just came back. Wow.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/24/19 5:49 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I continue listening to the dharma talks from Bhante Gunaratana’s Jhana retreat and do the guided meditations. I think I get into the first jhana from just listening to him talking about the dharma. I’m still all buzzing. I don’t know why this affects me so much. It could be that he provides me with the foundations that I lacked. I have been working so intuitively and thus never really cultivated anything systematically. I don’t know anything about this teacher*, but he gives a very authentic and trustworthy impression. He is very clear about why he teaches the way he does and what is the purpuse of every single exercise. I love it. There is something about him that makes me intuitively trust him, and something more that I can’t put into words.

*) I just checked: he is one of the teachers assessed by Daniel to be an arahant.
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Milo, modified 4 Years ago at 7/26/19 4:43 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Wow good stuff, Linda! It's very interesting that you seem to be able to perceive a locality of ADHD in this mental landscape. I'm really interested to see where that goes.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/26/19 4:57 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Thanks! :-) Yeah, well, it’s probably spread all over the place, but this layer is really saturated with it. The Tourette is there too, for good and for bad. It would be nice to be able to let go of some of its remaining hooks. I don’t mind being neurodivergent, but those hooks suck bigtime. The dukkha of them is very evident as they aren’t exactly subtle. That’s a mixed blessing, I guess. Could be a way into the dharma. Obvious stuff to work with. Can’t miss the clues.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/25/19 4:26 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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One hour of metta jhana practice with much appreciated help from Bhante Gunaratana’s recordings.

Today I feel that the jhanic factors are weaker and the first jhana more fragile. I think I’m darknighting. I appreciate the opportunity to take notice of the factors as they come and go and to what strengthens them. Earlier in my practice things have been too binary. When the concentration faltered, it faltered so much that I was unable to see this. There are more nuances now, and that enables me to work with this. I’m grateful for that. I feel that today (compared to yesterday) I need to rely more on support in order to cultivate wholesome thoughts. Thankfully there is support available. I think I’m starting to grasp what the jhanic factors are - not only theoretically and vaguely experientially, but in a clear way experientially. I can feel what that initial thought does. It is what makes the brain fog have space around it and enables me to not let the fog embrace me. It is that clear space. I can feel the seductiveness of the hindrances and see what it does.

When the jhanic factors were to weak and the hindrances too strong, I felt that first jhana broke apart and I entered what I think is a very shallow third vipassana jhana. It had that landmarks of backwards hands standing out in direct awareness and a really foggy center. What a weird contrast! I managed to get into first jhana again from that, I think, if that even counts since it was very brief. It felt as if I shifted my focus upwards through a wide cone towards its top. I had to start at its wide bottom where there was clarity. I cultivated thoughts of loving friendliness, compassion and letting go out there in the periphery and managed to move them closer and closer to the center. Does that make any sense?

Now I have a work deadline to attend to. I’m going to need both wholesome thoughts and concentration for that purpose.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/26/19 4:07 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I’m continuing with learning from the recordings of Bhante Gunaratana’s jhana retreat. It is exactly what I need right now. Jhanic factors have become more accessible and I have started to feel unsolid again. Today my body began to fall away. It took me a while to locate it even as I tried. It was still there. I just had let go of touch sensations. I can get into a shallow jhana briefly even in public. Spiritual kindergarten, I know, but my concentration has been poor for a while so I’m keeping track of the small changes for the better; it may be comforting to read at another time of struggle. I barely slept at night because of a deadline, and then my disability aid arrived early in the morning (early for me), so the fact that there is still concentration feels like a blessing. The nada sound is loud even in daily life. I wonder if that is what people call tinnitus or if that is something entirely different. It doesn’t bother me at all, regardless. It seems to come together with the feeling of being unsolid, and it makes me feel harmonic. I can focus on it to make the monkey mind silent, and that opens up the breath in a very pleasant way.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/27/19 7:45 AM
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I’m having what I would describe as semi-lucid dreams. In those dreams I’m not aware of sleeping but I’m aware of the reality in them being a construction that is affected by my intentions. Last night visions of a beloved cat that passed away years ago appeared to me, and I knew that it was just a construction but I interacted with him anyway, and that made him solid for me. I petted him for the rest of the dream. We were inseparable. Nobody else in the dream could see or touch him, so it looked very weird, but I didn’t care. It was all just a construction anyway.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/27/19 2:23 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I have had a stubborn headache the entire day, and it has affected my meditation. Jhanic factors were there but did not last long. Dullness was too strong. Thankfully, the meditation seems to have gotten rid of the headache now. I may be too tired to get any better results, but I’ll give it another go just because I enjoy it regardless of the results.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/27/19 7:11 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Interesting. Apparently there is a five jhana method with five different rupa jhanas for people who need more steps in order to achieve the same things. I’m not sure but I think I may be one of those people. That would explain why I have such trouble to fit my experiences into the usual taxonomies. For instance, I have found that piti seems to stay longer than it should. I have to explore this further.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/28/19 7:14 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I woke up with pain in my entire body and with brain fog after a terribly fearful and violent apocalyptic dream (very obvious darknight material). I dedicated a few hours to listening to Bhante G and practicing metta and shamatha, and that gave relief. I could let go of both the pain and the brain fog. They are still there, but during the practice they often were not as they were not engaged with. I think I’m finally learning how to access jhanas in less than optimal times. The Brahmaviharas are key to that. I had to do the letting go over and over again as it is still not stable. I’m learning how to cultivate the factors, connecting the dots and hopefully conditioning my mind into something that is more beneficial for everyone around me and less draining for this mammalian body. Outward sounds really do get muffled and sometimes I don’t notice them at all. This is not a silent environment, so that’s pretty amazing. When I did hear my neighbors making noice (mostly happy sounds from people spending time together and children playing; the otherwise draining traffic noice didn’t reach me) I wasn’t annoyed but spontaneously truly wished them well. That is the type of reactions I would want to cultivate, as annoyance doesn’t make anything better. I really wish for my default reactions to be friendly, compassionate and generous. Non-judging. Fearless. Unless fear is needed for survival, I guess. Not dwelling in fear and suspicion when they do arise. Being able to let go of the hooks. Something like that. Not repressing emotions, I don’t mean it like that. That wouldn’t be compassionate.

Letting go makes things bright and spacious. My body felt light, like I was floating. I wasn’t able to let go of feeling touch today, but I’m grateful that I could let go of the pain. Now afterwards the pain feels less sticky. I think I can manage to do the things I need to do today in spite of the pain and the brain fog that is now both there and not there. Somehow the universe will provide the strength that I need.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/28/19 6:25 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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About 40 minutes of vipassana because I felt the need; there were stubborn harsh vibrations, mainly in my lower body (feet, legs, uteris?, hips) but also in my hands.

In the very beginning, there were tensions from the split into subject and object. There were low-frequency crackling noice in my right ear and painful irritation in my left eye (standard stuff for some reason) and body tensions and loud earworms. Then direct awareness took over and the meditation did itself. Tensions no longer bothered me since there was much less sense of a me to be bothered. There was peace. Higher pitched sounds took over. My body was fluid, waves, fast vibrations, and heavy and light at the same time.

In a couple of days I will go away for a five day silent vipassana and qigong retreat, my first retreat afk.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 3:08 AM
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80 minutes vipassana.

I woke up with rather severe pain and harsh vibrations and earworms and a contracted body. Even my eye balls were vibrating. I could see the three C:s of it but also accepted that this is what has to be dealt with today. There is no way around it. That made something crack open behind my nose, enabling somewhat easier breathing, and there was brightness and space. Still contracted, still in pain, but I can live with it. I have comittments today, two deadlines and other things I have promised to do, and things I need to do to prepare my retreat, and I’ll do it and it will be okay. There is no need to get caught up in suffering. It really is okay.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 7:32 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Okay, that constructive approach didn’t last very long. I feel like I’m about to throw up my soul over and over again, but since there is no soul to throw up, I don’t know what to do really. Or I guess I do. I’ll force myself to eat something nutritious and then meditate until I’m okay again. I feel that meditation wants to happen. There are things that want to come out, or something like that. Delusions of self to get rid of. Layers to peal off. I had forgotten that darknight could be like this.
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Travis McKinstry, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 8:36 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I find your practice log very interesting. Forgive me, but you had mentioned that you are preparing for a retreat. I’m curious about the details of that retreat. 

 I also think I am finished with review and onto second path, It definitely has some similarities to first bath, but some very obvious differences. It’s interesting :-)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 9:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Travis McKinstry:
I find your practice log very interesting. Forgive me, but you had mentioned that you are preparing for a retreat. I’m curious about the details of that retreat. 

 I also think I am finished with review and onto second path, It definitely has some similarities to first bath, but some very obvious differences. It’s interesting :-)


Thankyou! It’s a five days long vipassana and qigong retreat, silent except for during some classes. There are three teachers who are alive, unlike Goenka. They seem to be undogmatic. They all have long backgrounds in meditation and have studied for different teachers. I don’t know anything about their attainments. It seems to be very well organized. Right now I’m too nauseaus to check for further details.

Hm, that was a very short review, if that’s what it was (I’m in no position to give you a diagnosis). Are you sure it’s a good idea to rush through it? Why not try to repeat fruitions to see more clearly if that’s what it was, and attain fruition knowledge? Why not call up the different nanas and integrate the insights? What differences are you noticing?
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Travis McKinstry, modified 4 Years ago at 7/30/19 7:00 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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You raise a few good points. I guess I’m not necessarily trying to rush through anything or keep anything the same. I’m just trying to go with the flow. I’ve got a 1 month retreat coming up so I’ll take that as an opportunity to see where I am
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/30/19 7:13 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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That sounds like a good idea. Wow, a one month retreat, that sounds great. I need to work on my hindrances, because I could feel a bit of envy and greed coming up there. I’m going to my first retreat away from keyboard tomorrow and it’s only five days. I’ll try to make the most of it. I won’t be writing here until I get back.

...

After meditating today I did 75 minutes of Vinyasa yoga to further stabilize my physical and mental wellbeing. It really makes a great difference.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 9:27 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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It took an hour of vipassana to be okay again. I did rapid noting of ”gone” until the mind racing stopped. Impermanence is such a relief when things are horrible.

Then I listened to Bhante G for half an hour. Then I resolved to get into first jhana and stay there for ten minutes. It wasn’t exactly stable, but at least there were factors of the first jhana there for that amount of time. Now I feel dizzy. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to practice first jhana immediately after getting some relief from a really tough reobservation. Or maybe I’m actually ill? I booked some yoga for the evening. That was before I started feeling horrible. It might be a good thing to do some yoga, but it might also be a diasaster. I’m hoping for a stableizing effect.

Now the harsh vibrations are starting over. I have still got deadlines to attend to. This is bad.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/29/19 12:55 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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75 minutes of Hatha yoga was really the best thing I could do. I hadn’t had a chance to go to a yoga class for a week, and in that short time period I was already going back to feeling like I used to do while having chronic fatigue and chronic pain plus dizziness and energetic inbalances or whatever it is. Meditation alone doesn’t do it for me. Seriously: never ever again skipping yoga altogether for a whole week! Even if I’m sick I could at least do some really mild exercises sitting down. I can’t afford not to. I think Hatha yoga is probably the most grounding and stabilizing form. I warmly recommend it for darknight yogis.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/30/19 9:57 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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40 minutes of vipassana, lying down.

I started out with rapid noting of ”gone” until direct awareness took over. Then I was fascinated by the waves and pulses of sensations, with gaps between them, that make up the experience of having a body. There were some low-pitched whirling sounds in my right ear, but mostly high-pitched nada sound (internally, I guess). Contractions and expansions behind the face affected the quality and frequencies of the sound. Contractions in solar plexus made dense and seemingly solid but impermanent points turn up. They seemed to be in synch with something similar going on in or behind the face. Impermanence was dominating the tactile experience. Instrumental music by Mike Oldfield accompanied it, as an earworm.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/30/19 8:12 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Visual impermanence manifests as beautiful patterns of motion in the air (with eyes open). Those patterns are growing in complexity.

Last night I had a dream that was very similar to one that I reported as I started to stabilize in equanimity on the previous path: I dreamed about a childhood friend that has betrayed the confidence of me and others close to me so many times that I used to feel hatred for her, but in the dream we were close friends. There were no hard feelings whatsoever. I did forgive her many years ago, in reality, but we haven’t stayed in touch. Anyway, it felt really good to have that trusting relationship in the dream. Very healing.

That spacious and light feeling that I often refer to as emptiness (I don’t know if that’s correct) has started to occur spontaneously again.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 7/31/19 7:07 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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That spacious and light feeling that I often refer to as emptiness (I don’t know if that’s correct) has started to occur spontaneously again.

Can you give a little more details on this spacious and light feeling? Thanks.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/31/19 7:53 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I can’t put it into more precise words than that, I’m afraid. Well, sometimes it feels like a gentle breeze blows right through me, as if there were no barriers.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 7/31/19 8:10 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I can’t put it into more precise words than that, I’m afraid. Well, sometimes it feels like a gentle breeze blows right through me, as if there were no barriers.

Ok, thanks. Have a happy retreat :-)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/31/19 5:39 AM
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Before, I used to get showers of piti when there was enough unification of mind. Lately the tells are much subtler. The showers of piti have been replaced by a subtle crack behind the nose, opening up the breath.

On my way to retreat now. Metta to all.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/4/19 1:11 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I’m on my way home from a short Vipassana and Qigong (and metta) retreat ranging from Wednesday to Sunday. We alternated sitting meditations with walking meditations and Qigong. In the evenings there were also dharma talks and chanting. There were two group sessions with teachers; talking was allowed during those, but otherwise it was a silent retreat (autistic heaven - yay!). We were allowed to change positions during the sittings, although encouraged to try not to. In fact, were also told that if we were the type that is too hard on themselves, it might actually be a good idea to be less hard. After all, the theme of the retreat was finding a true refuge. The teachers were not the striving type. At mealtimes there was time enough to take a swim in the small lake/pond/tarn next to the buildings, or even paddle a canoe around the lake (it was possible to paddle around the whole lake in less than fifteen minutes). The lake had waterlilies in it and was surrounded by a forest. The main building had a large veranda overlooking the lake and with terraces leading down to it and to a garden. The buildings were simple red cottages but creatively decorated (hippie style) and the views from the windows were very relaxing because of the nature outside. It was very idyllic. I developed a routine of spiralling my body down into the cool water three times per day, making shapes in the water as if caressing it, and merging with the water and the skye above as I swimmed and floated. I love that. After the silence was broken, several people approached me to tell how much they had enjoyed watching me bathe. I told them that this kind of ritualistic exploration of sensory pleasure is autistic culture. It is.

No new attainments, but I got to repeat some old personal favourite quirks of the practice that I hadn’t experienced for a while. I was in at least three different jhanic states, although I’m not sure whether the variation was with regard to types or depth, and also I need to check whether I’m one of those people who tend to have five different formed jhanas instead of four because of the need for one small step at a time. I also revisited that thing when I feel as if there is some force tearing my face and drawing it out in different directions.

I noticed new details of the breath. I noticed that the air was moving in spirals inside the nose. Those spirals were like subwaves to the wave that was the breath. They were in synch with the vibrations of the body, and the vibrations were like fractals of the waves and subwaves. Sometimes I could notice some kind of wavelike rhythm that was at a larger scale than the breath, but I don’t know what that was. I grew quite fond of that little twist that the breath makes before it stops (with a subtle click) and pauses before it turns. At the inbreath the nostrils and lips are sucked in a little, but during the ”twist” the intensity of the breath has decreased enough to reach a critical mass and thus lets go of the nostril walls and the lips, and so they gradually return to their default position (the start of that movement is distinct). At the outbreath the nostrils and lips are pushed out a little, but during the twist in the end of the breath the amount of air isn’t enough and so they return to their default position, too, but from the other direction. Talking about the rising and falling of the abdomen is such a simplification, as different muscles rise and fall at different times. I like the way this is synchronized with the waveform of the intensity of the air stream in the nose and with the timing of the twist, and with the flourescent purple swirls in the visual field as the breath turns to silk. It’s like I’m breathing flourescent purple trails of mist doing qigong in my nose, visual field and belly. Sometimes I couldn’t tell where the air ended and my nose started. It was all vibrations. At one point I couldn’t feel my body at all, and no vibrations either, but that didn’t last long because of the clinging that arose.

I have had some nice visuals, quite a lot of bliss, much relaxed and calm happiness, some instances of feeling that the floor was doing qigong movements, a short instance of lucid dreaming in which I investigated the visual screen and its dissolving into murk as the dream ended, and some shallow unity experiences. I had rather strong reactions from the qigong, both the morning routine and the shibashi. At first I did the mistake to move the body as if it were yoga. That was too rigid, and so the energies stagnated and caused pain. I realized that and relaxed more. Then I instead had heat reactions, very specifically in the three dan tiens (however that is spelled; I need to read up on this) and I even started shaking. After one of the sessions I was dizzy for quite a while. I think it was good, though, because it clearly opened up the meditation and the movements made me happy and gave me energy.

I relearned that flies walking about on my skin actually feels delightful when I’m mindful about it and take notice of each moving little foot and that cool soft trunk gently sucking salt from the skin. I used to enjoy that as a kid but somewhere along the line I ”learned” that it is annoying and tickles. I learned that slow mindful walking meditation helps with hallux valgus and arthritis in the toe joints, at least when walking on hot wood and spreading my toes, putting down one toe at a time. I learned that there are many rapidly shifting instances of vedana in each single chewing of a piece of food. I learned that although I love the silence, vedana is often so primal and spontaneous that it slips out. There were a few instances of ”oups” and ”ah” every day, I think, and one case of ”Eeew!” when I found a big fat larva in my food (followed by hoping that it was from the salad rather than from the steamed vegetables, because then it may have survived; it didn’t move but I carefully put it in the tall grass just in case).

I enjoyed the dharma talks, especially those from Greg Scharf. They had a lot of warmth to them. I’ll try to make a regular routine of the qigong, perhaps especially the shibashi. People were nice and beautifully vulnerable as they tore down their walls. It was interesting to observe how the synchronized coreography of people tuning into each other nonverbally suddenly broke down as the silence was broken.

I don’t agree that it is so much easier to do a dharma diagnosis while on retreat, at least not on such a short one with this kind of setup. I have a lot of alone time in my regular daily life and lots of time to medidate. I often do longer sessions than this. Also, the challenges of daily life bring out aspects of the different nanas that I never experienced during the retreat. I was happy throughout the retreat. No difficult emotions. That would probably have been different with a stricter regime, of course, but now I couldn’t tell all of the dukkha nanas apart because the symptoms were so few. I did notice very rapid cycles of some of the typical traits, though. The body feeling asymmetric and tense and then suddenly straightening itself as the focus sharpened in a narrow attention field, then focus decreasing for a short while, then increasing directly around the center, accompanied by a short and mild adrenaline rush with rapid heartbeat, then gradually moving further out in the periphery, then gradually filling up towards the center again albeit not quite as sharp as during its peak. So sure, that I could see, but I have noticed that in daily life as well, albeit not quite as distinctly with regard to the gradual change of the focus and how very precise it is ”geographically”.

Because of my complicated food intolerances and allergies, I was offered a mono diet of boiled rice/quinoa and steamed vegetables. I was allowed to bring some seeds and a home made crisp bread to get enough proteine. I thought I would be hungry, so I baked quite a lot of bread, but that turned out to be totally unnecessary. For the whole retreat I wasn’t hungry even once. I usually have a hard time waking up early in the morning (although remarkably less so since stream entry). That was not a problem at all during the retreat. I woke up before the bell rang each morning and wasn’t tired. The energy varied somewhat during the days, but not much. The qigong kept the energy flowing.

Weirdly enough, what I’m looking forward to above all after coming home is getting to meditate for longer time periods without breaks. That and cuddling my cats.
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Smiling Stone, modified 4 Years ago at 8/4/19 3:59 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 341 Join Date: 5/10/16 Recent Posts
Hi Linda,
Welcome back! Nice that you enjoyed your retreat, sounded quite special.
Good phenomenology. The air swirling in spirals through the nose, that's a beautiful one to notice... That's what water does when it comes from the source (well, always when it is "alive"?). And winds?
When you say you identified slower rhythms, have you heard of the craniosacral rhythms, linked to the dura mater and so on? They train to recognize them in biodynamic craniosacral therapy (I have a hard time!)... interesting.
with metta
smiling stone
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/4/19 4:49 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Hi and thanks! Oh, really? Then it wasn’t my imagination. No, never heard of that. I’m not very familiar with biodynamic ideas. I’ll have to look that up.

Oh, I forgot to write that I noticed the deluded ”self” moving around in my body very tangibly. That was pretty weird, like a sphere of solid matter. Maybe it was my attention? For instance it visited my ears, one at a time, and even went out through the ears. It was like I was in that sphere flying out through my ear, and at the same time I had still also the perception of being the entire body. It didn’t add up. Maybe that’s another version of the tensions due to a dualistic split.

Also, I finally had patience and mindfulness enough to test if it is true that mosquito bites (well, from Swedish mosquitos anyway) don’t itch if one lets the mosquito finish sucking the blood. It actually seems to be true. More than forty years of unnecessary itching!

In noting hindrances, defilements and other stuff that might lead to judging myself, I have added the note ”being human” to include a touch of compassion in my practice.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/5/19 7:06 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I slept long today and was tired when I woke up. I did a qigong morning routine and later an energy routine. That got things flowing and somewhat heated. Now I did 30 minutes of vipassana to check in with the process. There are slowly flowing billowing movements and synchronized rhythms. Focus could be better, as there is a lot of mind-wandering. Not very restless mind-wandering, but wandering none-the-less. There is a subtle prickleness to the flow, but it is getting smoother.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/5/19 3:23 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Later today I did the following:

- listened to a dharma talk by Bhante G on cleansing the mind
- walked mindfully for 20 minutes
- warmed up the spine and neck and ahoulders for 15 minutes
- did 60 minutes of Hatha yoga
- drank some detox tea
- walked mindfully for 20 minutes
- did a 15 minutes Qigong exercise for moving the qi
- took a shower
- sat for 45 minutes, doing vipassana. There were visual and kinesthetic imagings of spiralling, waving, billowing, bouncing movements. It seemed like energy manifasted where the mind was, and the energy took physical form, phenomenologically; hence the perception of spheres moving around in spiralling movements. The breath had a bounce to it, before it came to the twist that I described yesterday. The bounce is related to the different muscles cooperating to move the breath between the belly and the chest. It is about the intensity of the stream of air moving. This makes the waveform of the breath look like a camel with two humps and then a small valley where the camel’s neck starts. This was synchronized with the visual and kinesthetic imagings of movement most of the time. That was in turn synchronized with the flickering of points of light arising and passing away in the murk. The clarity of the details varied, especially with regard to the twist and the end of the breath. There were regular instances of non-perception of synch and regular instances of perception of non-synch. The latter came together with prickly vibrations and uncomfortableness and earworms (which were soft and billowy tunes, though). Toward the end the neck was getting stiff, but there was a moment when a thought arose that I don’t need to engage with that. I can acknowledge it but not let it embrace me, and so I tuned into more harmonious sensations instead, without pushing away the uncomfortableness and pain. I just let them sink into the background. That opened up something and there was more space.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/6/19 9:10 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did some qigong this morning too. During the day I have continued listening to dharma talks and meditation instructions from Bhante G:s jhana retreat inbetween tasks and while cooking lunch. Now I took a 20 minutes’ break to meditate focusing on relaxation and friendly thoughts. I seem to have dropped down, possibly to the 3C nana. There were intense vibrations, and tensions kept arising. The nada sound was loud. It still is. There were flourescent purple swirls.

Tonight I will do 75 minutes of vinyasa yoga and then meditate some more.
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Shaun Steelgrave, modified 4 Years ago at 8/6/19 10:57 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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what are your first three nanas like? like phenomenologically speaking. i can barely get a feel for them. aside from mind and body my eyelids are very restless.
just curious
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/6/19 7:43 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Not sure. They are pretty nebulous to me as well. The 3C nana has become more clear to me after the new path began after SE. It is rather similar to re-observation but feels more focused, although it is an unsofisticated form of focus.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/6/19 8:00 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I had a deadline and wasn’t finished until late at night (or very early morning). I spent 30 minutes on vipassana. I started out with poor concentration and lots of tensions, perhaps especially in my feet. That annoying low-frequency whirling sound in my right ear appeared several times, together with the usual irritation in my left eye (they always come together). After a while I thought what the heck, I’ll just investigate the breath to the best of my ability regardless of distractions and limitations to clarity and concentration - at least it will build foundations for sessions to come. And so I did. It wasn’t exactly the best clarity ever, but I did notice that sometimes (often?) the breath actually ends when the ”twist” begins rather than after it has ended, probably at times when I’m less relaxed and therefore breathe in a more rushed manner. I also caught my mind in the act of fabricating continuity when my attention had faltered. The breath was a bit jerky at first but then became smoother as I relaxed more and found focus. I surprised myself by suddenly entering first jhana despite the poor conditions. I was so surprised that I dropped out of it. I re-entered but dropped out of it again as I lost mindfulness. There were a couple of instances of regular showers of piti. A few times, when I regained mindfulness after having lost it, the nada sound was so loud for a brief moment that it was almost painful.

Earlier in the evening I walked mindfully for 20 minutes to the yoga class and 20 minutes after it. This does miracles to how I walk. Before the yoga began I lay down to relax and found that my body was tense and that there was very obvious non-synch between vibrations and breath. The yoga class went fairly well anyway. After coming home, I did a very short qigong session focusing on cleansing the qi. That felt good.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/7/19 1:38 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I have done three 20 minutes’ mindful walks, 40 minutes of qigong by a forest lake (purging + shibashi), 40 minutes of flowing movements in water, about an hour of mindfully spiralling my feet, mostly in water; an hour of meditation in a reclined position (with lots of purification going on and subjective experiences of emptiness - not full emptiness, of course, since I experienced it, but a taste of it) and 75 minutes of ashtanga vinyasa yoga. I have listened to two dharma talks. I think I may have been relieved from some blockages and tensions at least temporarily. I feel relaxed and open and clear.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/8/19 6:50 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Conditions were unfavorable today since I had a histamine reaction, probably at least partly due to the allergy vaccination treatment I had today. I did only 30 minutes of formal meditation but applied mindfulness during the day. I also did some qigong and listened to dharma talks. I noticed that when the outbreath stops, the belly rises a bit from the relaxation, before the inbreath starts, and when the inbreath stops, the belly falls a bit from the relaxation before the outbreath starts. I noted hindrances and characteristics.

Tomorrow I will go hiking with friends. Depending on the weather I’ll be away for either one or two nights without internet access. One of my friends doesn’t have proper boots, so if it rains we will probably need to go home. Anyway, I will meditate but I will not report it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/12/19 9:25 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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After a typical A&P during the hike, with inner lights lighting up my entire experience, I have now spent a couple of days in dukkha nanas. I was totally exhausted for two days, which is typical dissolution for me. Then I had nightmares, which perhaps qualifies as fear. I woke up in misery today; the pms from hell doesn’t really help with that. I think somewhere down the line it transformed into disgust. As I realized that, I found myself wishing I would get to desire for deliverance as that would at least give me some drive to practice. Then I realized: that probably counts as desire for deliverance, at least a pityful version of it. So I guess I have reobservation waiting for me now. Yay. Morale could be better. I’m grateful that this is impermanent and not self. Weird how a couple of days can seem like being forever stuck in the mud. The mind really makes up stories of continuity, desperately, even when the stories are depressing like hell. Why is it so terrified by discontinuity? Would it really rather be stuck in an illusion of continuous apathy or despair than open to the possibility of emptiness?

Writing this felt like dispersing the clouds. Outside the clouds actually did disperse, funny enough, and now the sun is shining after a thunder storm. I feel fragile but lighter. This too shall pass.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/12/19 4:40 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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After writing the above, reobservation peaked with increased bodily tensions, tics and compulsions. I’m not surprised, because this seems to be mandatory during pms. I decided to try body scanning. As I’m not used to working with such methods, I listened to two different guided meditations, in total slightly more than 90 minutes. Previously in my life, before I started my daily practice, I found that body scanning methods tended to increase my tics as I compulsively tensed up even more. I was glad to find out that this is no longer the case (thanks to insights, I suppose). Some tension did arise from trying to control the attention. Tears were running from my left eye and crackling low frequency sounds arose in my right ear. I didn’t react much to that, though, but just let it happen as it happened. Gradually awareness took over more and more and even knew how to move before the instructions came. That made it easier to let go of tensions. Sensory clarity increased noticably. Higher frequency nada sound became increasingly louder. I think I had another A&P event and then cycled back up to reobservation again. In the end of the first guided meditation I was instructed to let the palms of my hands meet, and as I did so, I could feel sensations arise and pass away very quickly in one point at a time, forming waves of pressure flowing through the palms of my hands but with distinct arisings and passings at every single point. After that there was deep relaxation, then a mild adrenaline rush with rapid heartbeat, then a very tangible widening of the focus. After the second guided meditation I remained in stillness for a while, I don’t know how long (ten minutes perhaps?), doing some choiceless awareness. I could feel those ”backward hands” that show up for me in third vipassana jhana, together with harsh vibrations and some remaining tensions due to non-synch.

This seems to be a method that makes reobservation bearable even during severe pms. I could actually let go of the tics. That makes it easier to remain somewhat equanimous as the impulses arise now afterwards. I do not need to act on them. That’s a relief, because this new layer didn’t seem to grasp that until now. It will probably need several reminders, as there are so many different processes involved with each layer and they are not listening at the same time.

Thanks, Malcolm, for suggesting this kind of method earlier. I’ll add it to the tool box.

(Edited for typos)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/12/19 4:35 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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As the body was tensing up again, I did another guided body scan meditation. This one was only 30 minutes long, but the results were basically the same. It’s like having a dam of sensations burst while at the same time letting go of any ownership of them. Next time there will probably be no need for the guiding voice.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 8/12/19 4:38 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I'm glad it is useful to you!  :-) 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/12/19 4:52 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/12/19 4:52 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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The method makes it very obvious that the sensations were already there in awareness before tuning into them. They don’t need any observer to occur.

At one time there was the perception of an eye in the middle of the belly. Don’t know what that was about, if it was about anything.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 8/13/19 2:50 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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It's really interesting to see the relationship between 'self' and 'body'.  Not in the gross and obvious sense, but in the interplay between physical tensions and mental craving.  
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/13/19 2:18 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/13/19 2:18 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Indeed. And it seems to be a key issue for this layer. Physical tensions and mental cravings are aspects of my neurodivergence as well, which comes together with this mammalian body, so that adds to the complexity. I have said it before, and I don’t know if it makes sense, but subjectively it is my experience that working with this layer has laid bare many such challenges. I would say that they are even more deeply rooted than what is usually meant with conditioning. I know that I have heard a distinction between conditioning and another term, but I cannot recall what that term was. It was in Tashi Nyima’s teachings. They are more hardwired, so to speak, and intertwined with the conditioning that can be dealt with through insight. Therefore a focus on purification is called for.

...

If I were to do a dharma diagnosis, I would say that I am cycling over and over again but that reobservation is the dominating nana both quantitatively and qualitatively today. I don’t know if that’s how it works, but that’s my subjective experience. That brings out the worst aspects of my ADHD and Tourette, but I’m kind of used to it so it’s okay. Just because I am used to it, I probably need to do this over and over again until enough processes associated with the deluded self come to realize that it’s actually not me. I have gotten so used to living with this reoccurring irritability that it has sort of been incorporated into my mammalian survival mechanisms, I guess. After decades of struggling, I have learned to turn them into something constructive at least part of the time, which is perhaps why I appreciate the energy and dynamics of reobservation despite its tensions and bad reputation. That has been helpful both in daily life and in my earlier practice, but I suspect that what I need to do now is to let go of some clinging and find ways for this mammal to function without those suffering-based driving forces. That is probably one of those things that seem impossible until they suddenly reveal themself as not only possible but also so simple that one is left wondering why one didn’t just do it all along. Well, it’s not simple now.

I needed some support to unclench, so I listened to yet another guided body scan meditation (listening to so many different ones is probably an expression of rstlessness right there. Duly noted.), for 45 minutes. It was supposed to be vipassana, but due to reooccurring dullness it didn’t really serve that purpose, but it did help me relax which was very much appreciated. After that I listened to a dharma talk by Ayya Khema on first jhana. It was a great talk, very substantial. Then I spent three hours trying to remain in first jhana for ten minutes, as I want to learn to master each jhana thoroughly. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t succeed, but I’m still content with the fact that I continued to bring the focus back to pleasant sensations of the breath for three whole hours despite my current difficulties. There were no apparent dullness, sloth or torpor during those three hours (I made sure to take my ADHD medication, which I otherwise too often forget). Restlessness increasingly became a problem towards the end, but over all I think the main problem was lack of onepointedness. I noticed that there were several parallell cognitive processes going on, and my attention wandered between them. The focus on the breath didn’t entirely disappear (although I’m sure there were gaps in it since all cognitive processes, like everything else, are impermanent and discontinuous) but stayed in the background when it wasn’t in the foreground. Parts of me would sometimes be convinced that I was still focusing on the breath until ”I” realized that more engagement was actually involved in something else, but by other processes. That really illustrates no self. The ”self” is a cacophony of voices, resembling the Tower of Babel more than anything else. So whereas the vipassana session turned out to be a relaxation exercise, the shamatha session turned out to be more of a vipassana session. One could say that it evens it out, if one wants to be optimistic. Regardless of which, I needed to lay that foundation, persistently coming back to the intended focus. This layer needed it.

The breath did have pleasant qualities to focus on every time the focus was directed there. There were instances of blissful wordlessness with clarity (followed by verbal thoughts about not being able to access verbal thinking; so typical). There were instances of inner light, albeit too faint and unreliable to be focused on. Jhanic factors were there, but hindrances were obstructing the process, and those hindrances were in mascopy with my hardwired executive dusfunction and attention deficit.

I wonder what it will take for this layer to surrender to the process as readily as the previous layer. How come it’s not obvious for all those processes that struggling to ”stay” in command, despite the fact that there never was a command to stay in, only results in suffering? Weird. Patience... and compassion. Perseverance. Experiencing it on a sensate level over and over and over again. Anything else?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/13/19 5:04 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/13/19 5:04 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Listening to a short dhamma talk by Thanissaro Bhikko. Apparently a way to avoid getting caught up in thoughts is focusing on filling the whole body with awareness of the breath, because that keeps you busy. Makes sense. When I have been in stable jhanas, I have had that kind of wide focus.

During the session today, focus varied in scope. I made no effort to widen it, but sometimes it widened on its own.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/14/19 8:04 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/14/19 7:28 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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90 minutes, reclining, started with a quick body scan to increase sensory clarity and then focused on pleasant sensations of the breath in the whole body.

Body scan:

I felt my attention moving through my body as if it was a physical object, like a sphere. Some parts of the body (especially face and hands, but also the soles of the feet) were louder than others and insisted on being heard over the others, but I persistently turned the attention back to the chosen body part and could feel that vividly too. Parts that are harder to feel are the back of the knee and and the arm pit and rapidly distinguishing two of the middle toes from each other when they are not touching anything. Once I have listened in on a body part, it stays in heightened awareness for quite some time, so this is a good way to prepare for noticing the breath in the whole body. I haven’t started listening in on the organs yet (except for the heart, but I forgot about that this time, and the lungs of course), but some of them I’m already quite familiar with. Apparently I’m much more sensitive in the ovaries than what is normal, for example. Ovulation can be quite painful long before the egg is ready. I often feel contractions in the uteris due to oxytocine when cuddling, and I can feel hormones spreading in my body.


Shamatha:

The breath felt silky and light and smooth, after some initial jerkiness. The airways behind the nose cracked open, and breathing was very easy. Still is. There were occasional grasping of breath as it seemingly disappeared, although I know that’s supposed to happen and is nothing to worry about, but gradually that calmed down. There was a high. I suspect that’s what it’s like to have morphine in health care. There were times of wordlessness. I may have spent most of the time in lite or very lite first jhana, but it was never quite stable. Pehaps first jhana doesn’t get more stable than that? I don’t know. Maybe only short moments qualified as jhana and the rest was balancing on the edge of getting there? I don’t know. Verbal thoughts popped up now and then. I got back into the wordless bliss over and over again.

Okay, so focusing on the whole body and really making an effort to stay that wide to prevent mind wandering seems to be key to getting into and staying in first jhana.

There was a feeling of surrender, of letting my body just float and be drawn in. There were swirling lights and high frequency nada sound and finegrained vibrations.

There is an afterglow.

Maybe I’m finally grasping the technical aspects so I don’t have to rely on chance. Not that there is an I that can be in control of the process anyway... This is so paradoxical.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/16/19 6:09 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/16/19 6:09 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I have bought an oil lamp that runs of vegetable oil. It has a very stable and nice flame, so out of curiosity I tried som fire kasina. The stillness of the flame made it easier to be absorbed by the flame (I have had some trouble with that due to a flickering flame and a propensity to be easily distracted lately). It was very peaceful. Nothing arose that hasn’t arisen before, but it seemed to have some potential. The after images were very wide. The dot was vivid. The murk seemed... alive. There was a jhanic feel to it, despite disruptions from a restless cat.

Yesterday I did a body scan for half an hour and then some not very concentrated shamatha for another half an hour, until a phone call from my mum interrupted me. I had been up working the whole night due to two deadlines, so conditions were poor.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/16/19 8:31 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/16/19 8:19 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Bah, I was doing shamatha and was again interrupted by the phone. I can’t shut it off right now because I’m waiting for an important phone call any day now. I wish I could filter out social calls. I guess I’ll try in the evening when I know that the important call won’t happen anyway.

Anyway, I was floating. That’s nice. Subtle dullness made it unstable. Reentering jhana seemed to be accompanied by lights. The entering is about surrendering, not as in giving up or not caring, but as in letting oneself be embraced and drawn in and welcoming it without trying to make it happen. There is an openness and a readiness for letting go of anything else.

Am I the only one who has the body suddenly venting out toxins or something through a loud outbreath that sometimes smells?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/16/19 11:59 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/16/19 11:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today there has been a subtle shift towards more ease. I’m not quite there yet, but I have let go a little and remember to enjoy the ride. I have done some soft vinyasa yoga followed by yoga nidra, all in all 75 minutes, and while walking there and home again I made sure to enjoy the breath. I’m having a touch of the feeling that was there during the retreat, of smooth gliding movements and spiralling. I feel like I could almost just glide and float, but that I’m still just a tad too heavy. I just saw a little boy with a helium ballon. It was a spiderman ballon. The boy was walking fast, striving to keep the same pace as his mother. The ballon lagged behind and did spiralling movements, rising somewhat to the skye but then falling a bit towards the ground as it was dragged forward. It couldn’t strive forward and rise to the skye at the same time, so it was flying low. When the boy rested and relaxed, the ballon rose to the skye. Then he had to run forward again, and the ballon was forced downward, but not completely. It could still float up a bit, in spiralling movements. I feel like that balloon. That was a great dharma lesson right there, provided by the universe, featured by Marvel.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/17/19 3:47 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/17/19 12:27 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I woke up with healing vibrations in my lower back. This was the second time this summer that I had a week’s break from yoga, and both times it resulted in pain that was then dissolved after I had done yoga.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/17/19 6:23 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did shamatha, don’t know for how long, maybe an hour or so. I was cycling the jhanas. I don’t know for sure if I was really cycling all the eight jhanas or if it was for instance the first three and then a number of different subjhanas, but I think they may have been the real thing. The shifts felt so fast and seamless that I didn’t realize that I was cycling (there was no thinking) until I came back to access concentration from what I cannot explain any differently than neither perception nor non-perception and knew that I had still been fully conscious and yet could not recall anything, and then found myself entering second jhana again before I even had time to return to the breath. Next time around the farthest I came was to when the notion of having a body started to fade away and I couldn’t tell where the limits of my body was. This time there was too much of an observer to keep going. I could return to the lower jhanas but not continue the cycling. The notion of wanting to remember the details was too strong, so I found that the session was over. I’ll makes notes of the different states that I can recollect:

The breath was so delightful that I let it fully embrace me. There was breath from every pore, and it was as if I was breathing a silky flourescent smoothly dancing mist. So beautiful, so blissful.

I forgot about the breath. The bliss was gently showering through my whole body on its own. I didn’t have to do anything. There was a total surrender. It felt very healing.

The gentle showerings came to a halt and there was stillness and peace, with remaining happiness.

I forgot about happiness as the stillness and peace deepened.

I forgot about my body. The first time around I didn’t even notice the shift because there was no notion of having had a body in the first place. The second time of cycling I was aware of the process and could feel that the boundaries were gradually dissolving until I didn’t know where they were, and then I came back to access concentration before I had completely let go of the idea of a body.

There was sharp clarity everywhere and nothing but that. The clarity had sort of a brightness and pureness to it.

There was nothing there, really. I forgot about the clarity.

Then I forgot about the nothingness.

Then I sort of came to it, had senses again and wondered how the heck I could know that I had been conscious when there was no recollection of observing anything. On the way out of it, before the senses came back, there was bright clear pureness everywhere again for a very short moment. I don’t know whether or not it was nothingness before that. I think it might have been. I think perception of nothingness was what came back first. Then the vaste clarity. Then access concentration with thoughts about what the heck that was.

...

In the morning I did 75 minutes of vinyasa yoga and listened to dharma talks by Ayya Khema and Thanissaro Bhikku. They both made shamatha feel so easy, so I let go of all my doubts. I didn’t plan on cycling through all the jhanas, though. I was only determined about really enjoying that breath, because I felt inspired to do so.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 1:54 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 1:54 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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So, a good idea to enjoy that, and deepen it, for a while.  Don't try to go anywhere else just now, instead just dwell in those new abilities for a bit.  :-)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 4:51 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 4:51 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Thanks! Yeah, I think I may have had similar experiences while in review but I didn’t take the chance to learn the technicalities and deepen it, so it disappeared rather quickly. With my kind of brain wiring, concentration would be a great help, I suppose, so this time around I’ll try to cultivate it. Now I need to learn how to go from ”Hey, I think I was actually cycling all eight jhanas” to just really enjoying the breath without any striving or greed. That might be the trickiest part for me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 7:15 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 7:15 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I’m probably in dissolution now. Concentrating is suddenly much more difficult. I did a guided body scan by Ayya Khema that was challenging since focusing was so much more elusive now. Focusing on one small area of the top and back of the head at a time was difficult. I was then supposed to sweep graudually until I reached the bottom hair line of each side. The sweeping insisted on stopping at a point that I thought wasn’t the hairline. Out of curiosity I touched it with my fingers and found that it actually was the hairline after all. Moving the attention really feels physical. When the jerkiness of it stops, it sweeps around like a wave. I guess that could mean that I didn’t manage to focus it directly with the attention, because I know from before that when I do, it becomes binary just like in the wave/particle model. Another difficulty during the sweeping was that the body tensed up in parts that was not in focus. The sweeping took an hour.

Then I shifted my focus to the breath and tried to enjoy pleasant sensations of it. That didn’t go very well. The mind drifted into dream mode and I had to turn the focus back to the breath innumerable times. I never reached that full silkiness of the breath, but it cracked open and light many times. When the focus drifted away, it went back to a contracted mode over and over again. That was one of the tells, the most reliable one, because the other tells were too seductive. The contraction of the airways has apparent dukkha. In the end I abandoned the search for pleasant sensations and instead focused on following the breath from the start to the end and noticing the pause in-between inbreath and outbreath. That was less difficult. I could do that. That also made the focus wider, because clues to where I was in the progression of the breath were in many locations. That did not generate enough joy to enter jhana, though. I don’t know for how long I tried doing shamatha. Not more than an hour. I stopped because dullness was too hard to overcome and I suspected that it was time for my ADHD medication, which was correct. When I stopped, I took some time to feel into the stop. I noticed that piti was there. It just wasn’t strong and wide enough.

I guess one way forward could be to just work on the foundations. Apparently both clarity and concentration in dissolution are better now than they used to be. I might investigate how to balance the systematic following of the breath from start to end with focusing on pleasant sensations and learn more about subtle tells of both dullness and piti.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 11:23 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 11:22 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Okay, now I’m not in dissolution. I was cooking and simultaneously watching netflix when I felt the urge to meditate because there were sensations all over my face. I took 20 minutes during which the food was still boiling and the neighbors were using a hammer and stuff, so conditions weren’t very beneficial. Yet I felt the pull from jhanas wanting to happen. I have errands to run. Now I wish I had already done them instead of resting. I need to get used to cycling being fast again. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 2:41 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 2:41 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I decided that both netflix and errands could wait, so I spent two hours on shamatha foundations. I seem to have missed the window for today, but I found that failed shamatha gives some insight instead, so that’s okay. I learn about my mind’s weak links. Right now it has a propensity for getting into a dream mode. The heavy food probably did not help. Cats jumping on me and sudden loud noices from the neighbors definitely did not help with concentration either, but it did remind me to get back to the breath.

There was purification going on: kriyas and sudden big outbreaths with the mouth opening itself. The kriyas unclenched my body. I think I have some afterglow from the unstable first jhana that did occur.

That first jhana felt very... dense... after doing the others.
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Shaun Steelgrave, modified 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 3:45 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Cats are notoriously anti-dharma.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 5:31 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/18/19 5:31 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Hehe, yeah, well... they are very pro-sensory pleasures.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/19/19 4:17 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/19/19 4:17 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I squeezed in 45 minutes of shamatha before going to yoga class, so I don’t have much time to write about it. I was floating, which was delightful, but dreamlike scenes kept coming up. Stories, stories, stories. I don’t remember them. At least one of them disguised itself as insight, don’t remember what. I do remember realizing it and letting go of it. Maybe I need to watch out for weird influences. I remember letting go of tensions that arose temporarily. Now I feel very relaxed.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/19/19 12:12 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/19/19 12:12 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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One hour of medicinal yoga, lovely.

Feelings of silky veils being drawn out from behind the face in daily life.

I set the bell for 80 minutes of shamatha. Felt ready when three minutes remained. I cycled from first jhana via second jhana to third jhana and was then spitted out, three times in a row. The first two times the spitting out was startling, like I fell out from it and reflexes arose to protect my body from the fall. The third time I noticed that I was about to drop out of it because I had stopped being mindful about the jhanic quality. Then I dropped in and out from first jhana for a while until I couldn’t even get into first jhana anymore. It didn’t feel that pleasurable anymore, but very heavy and dense, but there wasn’t enough drive to reach higher.

Every time I was spitted out, the airways above and behind the nose were contracted, and when access concentration was established again, they cracked open. The first jhana is the most physical one. It is close to actual touch sensations for me. The flourescent bright purple is sometimes almost blinding, and the nada sound is loud. It is more vulgar than the other ones. The second jhana is more easygoing and gently flowing, more about the feeling than the sensations. I think I may still be clinging to the sensations because they are easier to focus on. I don’t know why my mind right now doesn’t find the calm harmony and beginning equanimity of the third jhana interesting enough. Maybe I’m darknighting and on an unconscious level clinging to more action and drama. I’ll probably get tired of that eventually.

When the session stopped I felt like the gravity was much stronger than before. Things felt so heavy and dense. I felt like those grapes that have been pressed into an unnaturally spheric and dense form on an airplane.
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Shaun Steelgrave, modified 4 Years ago at 8/19/19 6:13 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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when life gives you grapes...

sorry, couldn’t resist.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/19/19 10:57 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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How would that sentence end? Make wine?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/20/19 3:08 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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My back pain was gone today. I did 75 minutes of Vinyasa Yoga. Later I planned to do a guided body scan as a preparation for shamatha, a 45 minutes long one by Jon Kabat Zinn that I find helps me relax and let go of thoughts. It didn’t go quite as planned. While listening, I almost immediately dropped into first jhana and then into second. Therefore I had trouble listening to the instructions and go through with the body scan. Still, I wasn't able to make the decision to abandon the body scan altogether, wherefore I couldn’t go further to higher jhanas. Instead I dropped in and out of the lower jhanas and went through with the body scan to the best of my ability. Some dreamlike scenes were interspersed with that. When the guided session was over, one of my cats insisted that I was finished too. I kept trying to stay in jhanas, but I could hear that he was about to pee on my things, so after 20 minutes or so I gave up and let him out. I felt overheated anyway, so I guess purifications were involved. Now I have a slight headache. Earlier today I felt that something was happening inside my head. It felt like there was a renovation going on in there, sort of.

Yesterday evening I tried to do a body scan without guidance, but that made me fall asleep. Maybe it required too much executive functioning, or maybe I just needed to sleep. The fact that a beloved partner was sleeping peacefully, snuggling up to me, probably contributed substantially.

Maybe I should do just a very quick body scan geared towards relaxation before shamatha, and learn to do body scans geared towards vipassana if I want to work with it more systematically.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/21/19 10:48 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I listened to this short dharma talk to set a framing for the practice that followed: https://youtu.be/Ow5qjrSkOjQ
Then I did shamatha for about one and a half hour.

The talk was about feeding on the breath energy in the sense of making the breath interesting enough to allow absorption. I realized that there is a common notion of energy as a substance that enters the body at the inhale, but that’s not what I experience phenomenologically. I mean, sure, the body feeds on the oxygene, but energetically (?) the outbreath is just as nurturing. Not only does letting go of the air allow for new air to enter the mammalian system, but the letting go is more than that. It’s not just an instrumental thing, but key.

Focusing on the joy and spreading it was easy. It was a joy of letting go. This time I was aware of the clinging to physical and seemingly physical sensations, and I noticed that letting go of them made a difference. Letting go of them gave space to lightness and brightness. It wasn’t an entirely linear process, so I could reconfirm that. Letting go was a relief, so it wasn’t that hard to let go of happiness either. Sometimes there was still residual piti in the background, though, so the letting go wasn’t without resistance. There were different degrees of the experiences. For a moment there was the kind of stillness that resembles a completely calm lake with clear water. There was also a notion of deepening of that, with the kind of dropping of agency that I associate with fourth jhana. However, if the different jhanas are like the different colors of a rainbow, I wasn’t distanced enough to discern whether or not the seamless change had reached the point of the next color.

At one point I felt that there was a dissolving of the notion of having a body. That didn’t reach completion, and I cannot tell whether that was a subjhana aspect or a possible beginning of immaterial jhanas. At one point there was a pure bright light filling the entire consciousness, or perhaps being it, but that was too vague for me to tell for sure or even place it chronologically. Somewhere around here I lost mindfulness. I wasn’t abruptly spitted out this time, but noticed that I was losing mindfulness. Mindfulness came back, and with it some of the sense of losing agency, but not completely. Something was still clinging, and there was awareness of that.

Then I asked the process to show me what I needed to see. After that there was sort a of kinesthetical and very vaguely visual exploration of expansion and contraction, first the expansion/relief from density and then a gradual contraction that was unpleasant but very educational as it illustrated clearly how entangled the contraction is, and how unnecessary as it is just snared by itself and squeezing around itself in so many ways and with so much repetition.

I was kind of waiting naively for disentangling to happen afterwards, but the compression and entanglement remained. It felt as if I was held down by it. No surrender could help there. I had to actively let go there. So I did, partly, in snapping out of it and getting up. Apart from a very mild headache, there was nothing there to hold me down for real. But that was just the part about getting back to baseline. The rest of the disentangling is the road ahead, I figure. It’s the work that needs to be done. And that’s a lot of work, undoubtedly. Still, it is possible, because in that giant tangled mess, there was no single real knot or breach.

Now, I know that all sorts of stories should be met with uttermost scepticism in the meditative practice. This was not some ultimate truth, but I believe that it was what I need to go forward at this point, immensely simplified and adapted to the limitations of my mind. I’m grateful for it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/21/19 8:24 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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After the last post I went to the yoga studio and did 90 minutes of ashtanga vinyasa yoga, rested for 15 minutes during which I felt healing vibrations, and then an hour of yin yoga.

As I laid down to sleep, I listened to dharma talks by Bhante G and dropped into jhana again, and when I looked at the watch, almost three hours had gone by. Over and over again I cycled the four fine material jhanas. The pull to get into the next jhana was very strong. The fourth jhana was more clear and distinct this session. It had that chrystal clear quality and sharp abstract visual mode and relief from agency and that profound peace that I associate with fourth jhana. At one point close to the end of the session, I felt the body dissolving into waves and nothingness, and then it was back, really heavy. I found myself hearing Bhante G again, with words and sentences that I could now comprehend as a whole, not only fragments here and there. I felt the need to adjust my neck. There were thoughts, reflecting upon what had happened. The thoughts included reflections on how much time had passed, that it must have been quite a while. That’s when I knew the session was over.

How I have missed the fourth jhana!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/22/19 2:11 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Crossposting from a thread where I asked about the distinction between energetic stuff and a finegrained sense of touch:

Based on comparisons between shamatha jhanas and vipassana jhanas (among others) I have come to the following preliminary conclusions:

The phenomena I asked about are two distinctly different phenomena that sometimes occur simultaneously, the latter of which is one of the reasons for my confusion. One consists of raw data or relatively rawer data from the sense gates. These data are not accessible for non-meditators, and even for most meditators they are not accessible at all times. They require great clarity and some form of developed concentration. However, the higher and the deeper (shamatha) jhanas, the more they fall away from awareness. Therefore, concentration may also render them unaccessible. That is ayet another reason for my confusion. In vipassana jhanas, the raw data are accessible, at least if they fall within the scope of one’s meditative focus.

The other phenomenon is the energetic stuff - piti or kundalini, and possibly some other categories of energies (I don’t know enough about the different terminologies to make out which of them might be included when people in western dharma talk about energetic stuff). That doesn’t come from the sense gates, but is mind-generated. This often requires concentration, but some individuals have more access to energetic stuff than others and may have these experiences in situations that they do not think of as concentrated at all. However, a critical mass of mind-processes need to be on board for this to happen. Maybe in these situations it could be described as sort of a mutiny against the ego, or parts of the ego. The energetic stuff also falls away more the deeper and higher the (shamatha) jhanas.

To complicate matters further, language is inadeqate to describe any of the phenomena clearly enough. Different individuals use their wordings differently. For instance, Shinzen Young uses the wording champagne bubbles to talk about clarity with regard to raw sensory data, because that’s how he thinks they feel (and I agree). Daniel Ingram uses the wording champagne bubbles to talk about energetic phenomena normally associated with the A&P, which is quite a different thing. I agree that it’s a good description for that as well. Still, the phenomena do not feel exactly the same. There are overlappings, which is probably at least partly due to the fact that the phenomena are also overlapping. That confuses the mind, at least my mind. Shinzen also often uses the term flow to indicate a wide range of phenomena, including both of these phenomena.

The raw data champagne bubbles occur in nanas where the energetic champagne bubbles do not occur. So when Daniel says that if there are champagne bubbles it is most likely A&P, that’s because he is referring to the energetic stuff. There may very well be champagne bubble sensations in equanimity, but that’s the raw sensory data stuff, if that is how one usually describe those.

...

I came to these conclusions during a 90 minutes long session of restorative yoga. Those resting positions took me into vipassana jhanas and reminded me of how they feel. Since I’m currently mostly doing shamatha, I was able to discern the differences and hopefully clear out my confusion.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/22/19 7:14 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did shamatha for a couple of hours before going to sleep. I mainly investigated subtle hindrances and what they do to the experience. Swallowing makes the body appear again if it had disappeared, or breaks the spell of first jhana and takes one back to access concentration, or any kind of downshift in-between. The same goes for any form of change in the breath into something less subtle. On the contrary, making the breath more subtle can take one for a ride. It strengthens the pull of the next jhana. Very subtle changes have great impact. I guess this means that if I want to resist the pull and stay where I am, I need to resist the impulse to make the breath more subtle. By being mindful of details like this, one can balance on the verge of different states and climb up and down. That needs to be automatical, since strategic thinking is no longer at play in the jhanas. I had to do this analysis after I had exited the jhanas, but while there was still an afterglow.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/22/19 7:42 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I did shamatha for a couple of hours before going to sleep. I mainly investigated subtle hindrances and what they do to the experience. Swallowing makes the body appear again if it had disappeared, or breaks the spell of first jhana and takes one back to access concentration, or any kind of downshift in-between. The same goes for any form of change in the breath into something less subtle. On the contrary, making the breath more subtle can take one for a ride. It strengthens the pull of the next jhana. Very subtle changes have great impact. I guess this means that if I want to resist the pull and stay where I am, I need to resist the impulse to make the breath more subtle. By being mindful of details like this, one can balance on the verge of different states and climb up and down. That needs to be automatical, since strategic thinking is no longer at play in the jhanas. I had to do this analysis after I had exited the jhanas, but while there was still an afterglow.


This is dependent arising. It illustrates all the three characteristics. Jhanas are impermanent. The illusion of continuity must be reconstructed over and over again moment to moment. There is no continuous essence there. Craving and aversion, or ignorance, can cause suffering at any point.

So I guess I did vipassana too.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/24/19 3:30 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yesterday evening I did only 45 minutes of shamatha, because I have a hot date staying with me. A hindrance was actualized very tangibly right before we both took a 45 minutes timeout to do stuff we needed to do (which in my case was meditation), so the conditions for shamatha were not ideal. Still, at least I got into a not very stable but very reoccurring first jhana. I consider that a success. Luckily the hot date is occupied with other things for several hours today, so there will be time to practice without the physical presence of the source for strong hindrances. The presence would allow for excellent vipassana, but I’m trying to cultivate concentration to learn the technicalities of it right now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/24/19 3:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Crossposting because I need to have this documented in the chronological context of the development of my practice. It’s a response from me to a thoughtprovoking reply in my thread about distinction between energetic phenomena and finegrained clarity with regard to sense of touch. I had suggested that energies are concepts whereas raw sensory data are nonconceptial, which was a very gross simplification.


I pretty much agree with you, and that is a main reason for my difficulties in distinguishing the phenomena from each other (massive rewiring going on here), but I don’t think that is necessarily contradictory. I’d love to hear your input on the following: conceptualization occurs on many different levels. This is not mereley a theoretical overlay on a discursive level, but it has a basis that lies on a much deeper level. I think human beings are hardwired to have that kind of concept, because it is key to how we function. Since we are also hardwired to as a default mode (before awakening) project a continuous self to ourselves and to each other and to phenomena in general, we also do that in this case, and since we do that at such a deep subconscious level, that shapes the reality as we know it. It’s a magickal thing that is woven into the fabric of being human. Without this kind of magick, we wouldn’t exist as living conscious beings.

I also think that the difference between the different energies that are named may be intimately related to the depth of level. Prana is probably more fundamental than kundalini. Kundalini is so obviously sensitive to intentions, and sort of reactive. I don’t know much about prana (or anything really), but I have a sense of it being more like those very large scale wave motions of the ocean than the waves that we generally observe and the manifestation of which are more dependent on wheather conditions and resistance (my guess is that kundalini is closer to that). All the layers of waves are basically manifestations of the same phenomenon (expansions and contractions), and they manifest in synchrony, but at the level of reality where human beings relate, they manifest very differently. The way they interact with us also differs a lot. Kundalini is very interactive.

Another way of putting it is that as soon as we perceive something as energetic, or as anything that can be categorized, we have constructed something with concepts. We have made a continuity of something that was merely an arising an passing away of sensations. If we interpret the sensations as an energy, we have already interacted with it. That is how creation occurs. And energies are creation. This is where it is very obvious that there is no doer. There is only creation, no doer. That’s how it is possible for something so fundamental to our very existence can be a construction. It is the occurring of construction itself.

To complicate matters further, the raw sensory data cannot exist without creation either. That is why it is also true that everything is energetic, although it is probably more the case that everything is a manifestation of energy. But as long as we are living human beings, the existence of raw sensory data is already there in the package. They are the closest thing to an objective reality that exists, because they precede all our interpretations. Still, we know that even small particles such as electrones and photons behave differently depending on whether or not we observe them. I don’t know how such particle/wave phenomena relate to the raw sensory data, so that still remains a source for confusion, but in general, creation is part of how we relate to the world. Magick is key to how we relate to the world.

So yeah... It is not even that relevant to say whether or not energies are concepts. But for the purpose of phenomenology in dharma diagnosis, that simplification is helpful. Because if I experience the sensations as an energy, that means that I have conceptualized it as energy. It is still the same fabric of reality, dualistically speaking (not ultimately), but that perception has made other things relevant than if I would have just perceived it as random incomprehensible sensations. And the way I interact with it differs. That affects how it manifests. That is why one can say that some nanas involve energetic phenomena wheras others don’t. That statement has nothing to do with whether or not energy is involved (it always is), but is about how reality manifests. It is a pragmatic distinction for specific purposes, such as dharma diagnosis.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/24/19 7:53 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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1 h 40 minutes of shamatha on the breath.

There was a lot of becoming going on, which is probably related to starting a new relationship. Lots of narrating, lots of mind-racing. Papancha. It is pretty cool to see that with enough time it eventually does calm down. There is a very palpable surrender there, and a marked shift in experience as the pull into jhana no longer has competition from a cacophony of verbal thoughts. That’s quite the kick. Then the nimitta was suddenly very bright for short while. Unfortunately, by that time my ADHD medication was losing its effect and my mammalian body was losing energy because of lack of food. Mindfulness didn’t last very long. Thus I ended the session, or rather found that it had come to an end. Taking medicines and having lunch might be a good idea. I was going to write that at least the mind-racing and narrative rambling had stopped, but I didn’t get to it before I noticed that it was starting again. Maybe I will be more mindful about it, maybe not. There are lots of remaining fetters.

It is interesting, though, how starting a new relationship is different after the view of self has dramatically diminished. There were lots of questions of what I want, what I long for, etc., with the emphasis on me as a subject (in his questions), and I really did find it odd to assume that there would be a subject here that was a continuous entity with an independent agenda. I’m in it for the ride as it happens to unfold. I think it might be an amazing ride. Do I crave it? Actually not. Embrace it - yes. Crave it - no. I don’t feel the need to actively shape it in any certain direction, but that doesn’t make me passive. It just happens as it happens. No need to plan for it, other than for the practical purpose of using protection and stuff like that. One might think that individual agency is required for things to happen, but actually not really. When the walls are down, things have a way of happening.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/24/19 12:53 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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My daily life reflection in the post above came out in a misleading way, and I don’t want to contribute to unrealistic ideas about meditation. Of course both cravings and selfing are still involved. They just manifested differently from what has been common previously, and I found it interesting. It took me by surprise that the usual narrating mode didn’t kick in by default and that I felt so clearly that I don’t believe in separate and continuous selves anymore. At the same time, I was still in many ways embedded in positioning and dualistic interplays, and I enjoyed that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 3:55 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I decided to do Michael Taft’s latest SF Dharma collective guided meditation, ”Vanishings into the void”, now that I have enough of both concentration and energy to make it without either falling asleep or getting dull (especially since I prefer meditating in a reclining position) or getting distracted by rambling thoughts. At times I find his explorations on what he calls spacious awareness quite challenging since there is nothing there to keep the mind occupied. When they do work for me, I find them amazingly restful and purifying. This was one of those times. After the session while listening to his talk I kept dropping in and out of spacious awareness and noticed how thoughts would dissolve in the middle of thinking and then how intentions and thought would take form. This happened over and over again and sort of had a rhythm to it, like reality itself was expanding and contracting as if breathing.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 6:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yesterday while waiting for my laundry to be finished I did a body scan lying down on a bench outside the house in which I live. When I looked up, one of my neighbors was staring at me with a worried look on her face. She looked very relieved when I smiled and said hello.
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Travis McKinstry, modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 8:24 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Haha oh my goodness. 

 I once decided to meditate right before work. I do contract work so I go to different places almost every day. This particular day I was going to an elementary school. So I sat in my car and meditated for about an hour and had someone call the cops on me. They said I looked suspicious.  Who knew sitting in your car with your eyes closed looks suspicious... In all reality I wasn’t upset, I am a young white male and that sort of fits the description of many school shooters now days unfortunately. I thought it was funny tho
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 8:37 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Oh. Yeah, that’s both funny and sad. Fear really has a grip on people (the way I see it, fear in a wide sense is what drives those shooters as well).

Sometimes I go to the beach because that’s actually a place where it is considered normal to be silent and non-social and either close one’s eyes or sort of merge with the environment. I also hang out with people who find that perfectly normal, despite them being non-meditators.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 8:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Oh. Yeah, that’s both funny and sad. Fear really has a grip on people (the way I see it, fear in a wide sense is what drives those shooters as well).

Sometimes I go to the beach because that’s actually a place where it is considered normal to be silent and non-social and either close one’s eyes or sort of merge with the environment. I also hang out with people who find that perfectly normal, despite them being non-meditators.



I've heard Thich Nhat Hanh define freedom as not having fear, or as he says: non-fear.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 8:57 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Siavash Mahmoudpour:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Oh. Yeah, that’s both funny and sad. Fear really has a grip on people (the way I see it, fear in a wide sense is what drives those shooters as well).

Sometimes I go to the beach because that’s actually a place where it is considered normal to be silent and non-social and either close one’s eyes or sort of merge with the environment. I also hang out with people who find that perfectly normal, despite them being non-meditators.



I've heard Thich Nhat Hanh define freedom as not having fear, or as he says: non-fear.



That makes sense.

When I need support to find compassion for people who are aggressive or defensive, I try to remember that it’s about fear. I don’t always succeed, but when I do, it is really helpful. And that goes for me too, of course - I also have fears, and it doesn’t bring out the best in me. Addressing the fear with compassion and enabling a sense of safety (no threat) to arise make it easier to avoid escalating the situation.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 8:50 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I spent some time - I estimate it to around one and a half hour - practising shamatha on the breath with varying success. If I remember it correctly, I was rather rapidly going through first and second jhana to the third, and then came to the surface to remember that I should resolve to stay in each jhana for five minutes before moving on to the next. I lost momentum there. After that I think I was gliding between lower jhanas and that state of spacious awareness that Michael Taft talks about, and that was a pretty confusing mix. I know that the sense of having a body was dissolving, coming back, and dissolving again, and I don’t know if it was due to concentration or dullness or something else.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 10:50 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
I spent some time - I estimate it to around one and a half hour - practising shamatha on the breath with varying success. If I remember it correctly, I was rather rapidly going through first and second jhana to the third, and then came to the surface to remember that I should resolve to stay in each jhana for five minutes before moving on to the next. I lost momentum there. After that I think I was gliding between lower jhanas and that state of spacious awareness that Michael Taft talks about, and that was a pretty confusing mix. I know that the sense of having a body was dissolving, coming back, and dissolving again, and I don’t know if it was due to concentration or dullness or something else.



I did another session, close to two hours, with a similar result, although I never reached a full third jhana. Now I have a very subtle headache. I don’t think I have had enough of water today, and I was a bit sleep deprived to start with. It was a nice beginning, though. The breath felt like it was the air holding me up reliably and safely as I spread my wings and was gliding through the skye.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/25/19 1:56 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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After having had something to eat and drink, I did another of Michael Taft’s guided meditations, ”The Fox Wedding”. It wasn’t supposed to induce jhanas, but it felt pretty much like I was arching some version of jhanas. The material jhanas, at least, were very recognizable. In addition to what I usually describe, it felt like a lot was going on with the eyes. A stepwise widening to panoramic vision and then a feeling of having the eyes dropped back into their sockets, deeper inside the head. After the fourth jhana, it felt as if the eyes were focusing on the third eye and awareness was squeezed out through it into space. It wasn’t completely formless, though, but very subtly vibrational. Then there was sort of an oumph to it, with brightness, and instantly awareness was everywhere. There were still very subtle vibrations. Then there were sort of cool, crispy, subtle vibrations at the top of my head (thus definitely not formless), on the scalp, like static electricity. Everything was so light and free, like I had been compressed by strong gravitational forces before that. Then they moved to the back of my head, where it probably touched the mattress (as I was lying down). That’s what I can remember right now. There were some fuzzy moments somewhere down the line.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/26/19 1:31 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I’m going through a dip with regard to both energy and concentration. I feel like I might have come down with a cold. It would also be typical for dissolution to appear now, since yesterday seemed to be a peak, quite likely A&P, especially since I didn’t feel like sleeping at all but just kept meditating and listening to dharma talks. I did the same guided meditation as yesterday, The Fox Wedding, with a very different result. I let go of thoughts and irrelevant sensations, allright, and I know that I didn’t fall asleep, but I was probably dull a large proportion of the time. I was still aware and not lost in something. I was mindful of my state. There were times when I couldn’t feel my body, but the next moment it was there again because some small movement made it appear. There were some kriyas. There was one incident of a sudden loud outbreath with my mouth opening itself. That seems to be related to purification.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/28/19 4:26 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Still having a dip in clarity and concentration and energy. Yesterday I fell asleep while meditating after an entire day of intense job meetings. I tried to stay with the breath as often as I could during the day. That probably did some good. This evening I focused on metta. After a period of restlessness I started sweating, and then there was some unclenching.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/29/19 3:24 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Building foundations for shamatha with body scan geared towards tranquility and then focusing on the breath as it manifests pleasantly in the whole body.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/29/19 1:59 PM
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90 minutes of shamatha of the breath.

Finally there is some concentration available, despite noicy environment and some initial annoyance. There was a clear progression from first jhana to second and from second to third. In first jhana there were obvious pleasant sensations from the breath (directly or indirectly, always conceptually linked) dominating the focus. It was energetic. In second jhana things sort of settled down and the bliss was in focus. Happy happy. Fulfillment, no more sensations needed. In third jhana harmony and peace overshadowed the happiness. Happiness was let go of after fulfillment of that.

Then mindfulness was lost and there were dream scenes arising and passing. I remember realizing several times that I had been caught up in nonsensical content again and so I let go of it. I don’t remember the content. It disappeared as soon as I let go of it.

For some reason the alarm didn’t go off, but when the time I had settled for had passed, the mind knew it. Suddenly there were itchings and other sensations and I felt the need to check what time it was.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 8/29/19 2:19 PM
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What exactly you use as the object of meditation for entering first Jhana? Do you use what Bhante g suggests in his Jhana retreat or other method?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/29/19 2:21 PM
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The breath. Pleasant sensations of the breath in the whole body.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 8/29/19 2:25 PM
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Thanks. That's the only thing that I can sustain my attention on its pleasantness, but I don't know why it's not mentioned much. I don't remember to hear Bhante mention that, in his retreat, to use the pleasant sensation of breathing. Or has he said that ?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/29/19 2:32 PM
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He briefly mentions it as an option, but he uses metta. Many others use the breath as their preferred method. Thanissaro Bhikku explicitly advices that one should focus on breath in the whole body. Ayya Khema says that some need to start out with a narrow focus and others with a wider focus and advices everyone to learn what their personal triggers are.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/29/19 3:04 PM
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It is very obvious that shamatha is a vulnerable practice. It is easy to lose momentum. Suddenly I can’t meditate anywhere, anytime, but need to find a relatively calm and secluded place and have enough time to be able to relax without any stress. That’s dukkha.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/2/19 3:43 AM
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
He briefly mentions it as an option, but he uses metta. Many others use the breath as their preferred method. Thanissaro Bhikku explicitly advices that one should focus on breath in the whole body. Ayya Khema says that some need to start out with a narrow focus and others with a wider focus and advices everyone to learn what their personal triggers are.



Actually, in the end of his (Bhante G:s) first guided metta meditation of the retreat, he says that it is now easier to stay with the breath as it is lighter. Then he elaborates a bit on using breath as focus for the jhanas.

I woke up in a bad mood (a phone call with bad news woke me up) so I felt that I needed some Brahma Viharas to be able to live with myself. It took one dharma talk and one guided meditation, but now I feel somewhat lighter.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 9/2/19 5:58 AM
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Thanks. I'll listen to it again. In other places (I guess including that retreat also, but I am not sure), he says that focus on the breath, then for entering the Jhanas, after that breath has become so subtle, the gross sensations of breathing disappear, and you focus on the memory of the breath. I was reading his interview with Richard Shankman, and he says the same thing there too, that the external object, breath or kasina or whatever, is no longer there, and you use its memory to enter the Jhanas. I don't know what exactly he means by that memory, does it mean like normal memories in terms of some mental images and talks, or something more somatic for the breath.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/2/19 10:47 AM
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That’s basically what he says here too. I think of it as an idea of the breath as energy or something like that - a very idealized concept and positive feelings from that rather than physical sensations.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/4/19 1:50 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
That’s basically what he says here too. I think of it as an idea of the breath as energy or something like that - a very idealized concept and positive feelings from that rather than physical sensations.



This didn’t come out quite right. It is important to distinguish it from poor mindfulness, which is also an idea and an idealized version. I think the difference is that in jhana one does not just perceive an idealized version of what is really going on, but actually allows the idealized version to manifest.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/30/19 8:34 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/30/19 8:34 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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67 minutes of shamatha on the breath. I decided that I wanted to have enough time to let the session end because it was ready to end rather than because there was an alarm, so I set the alarm for 100 minutes with the intentions of breaking whenever I felt ready but at the latest after 100 minutes had gone by.

Concentration is growing. I had company; a partner was lying on the bed next to me playing a video game as silently as he could. Today I wasn’t disturbed by it. I very soon went into first jhana. There was a clear progression to second, third and fourth jhana, with fourth being deeper and agency less and intensely focused. Then I think there were very brief small glimpses of the fifth and sixth jhana but probably not quite as pure as they are supposed to be. Maybe they were just sub-aspects of the fourth, I don’t know. I remember a vaste space and realizing that consciousness was in every direction without boundaries, and then booom, strong bright light everywhere, and then back through space to the fourth jhana I know, which was solid in comparison.

Then into something new again, until I realized that it wasn’t new. I was going backwards. It was third jhana, but coming from fourth jhana it had a different feeling to it. It was interesting to get to know third jhana from that direction. It felt very clear but more shallow. When I explored that shallowness, I learned that it wasn’t really that shallow. It just felt so in comparison. It was still very deep and calm, but there was a sense of agency in it that wasn’t there in the fourth. It was like being in a deep pool of clear water but being able to see the surface from below. In fourth jhana there was no sense of there being any surface. It was just stillness and clarity. Back in third I had a sense of direction. I knew that I would be going back. It didn’t feel like I was in control of it, but I knew that somewhere down the line the intention to go back to second would occur. I felt a very subtle smile arise. There was happiness among the equanimity. It was subtle, but it was there. I knew that closer to the surface there would be more of that.

And then I was in gentle bliss (back to second), with happiness flowing through my body. There was a body there, although the boundaries of it were fuzzy. It was more like a fluctuating field of energy. There was movement, undercurrents. The environment felt noisy but I still felt no need to react on it. I was in such a great place. Why would I bother with that? I lingered for a while because there was no will to go anywhere.

Then pleasant feelings of the breath pulled me back into first jhana. Right, the breath, it could feel like that. I had forgotten. Oh, the energy rush from it! I could feel it clearly in my body, tingly and bubbly, and it felt as if I could just get up anytime and tell my partner about it, until I realized that I actually couldn’t. The intention wasn’t there. I lingered in first jhana for a while. I had to wait for intentions to arise. Then the intention to write the log suddenly arose and I found myself acting on it.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/30/19 2:34 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/30/19 2:34 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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A little less than one hour of shamatha (breath).

I was climbing to fourth and back but was interrupted in second jhana on the way back by the caughing attack from hell by my partner next to me. Now I feel somewhat disoriented.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/31/19 8:00 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/31/19 8:00 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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75 minutes of Kundalini Yoga in the morning, focusing on balancing chakras. It led to an A&P event, with energies moving through my body and heat building up in the spine.

A few hours later: 70 minutes of shamatha (breath). It took longer time to reach first jhana and it wasn’t very stable. I got to second jhana and then back to access concentration, then rapidly back into first and second jhana again, until there was a call from nature.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 8/31/19 1:55 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 8/31/19 1:55 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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For the evening session I did a 45 minutes long guided body scan geared towards relaxation and then 45 minutes of doing nothing. Part 1: Clarity wasn’t too bad, but the very point I was focusing on tended to disappear. Part 2: There were kriyas but otherwise mostly deep rest.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/1/19 2:50 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/1/19 2:50 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I have had three sessions that were all around half an hour. In all of them I was lost in something trance like. It was as if something was going on at a subconscious level.

The center of my focus is blurry. It’s like some visual impairment where only the periferal vision is clear. I guess I’m in dissolution.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/2/19 4:04 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/2/19 4:04 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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75 minutes of hatha yoga.
100 minutes of shamatha (breath). I didn’t get any higher than first and second jhana.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/3/19 3:52 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/3/19 2:38 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I started the day with the Jonang aspiration prayer and then one hour of guided body scan geared towards insight (Ayya Khema) and then the Jonang dedication. The center of my focus is still blurry, which is rather frustrating to be honest. Trying hard to concentrate on the specific spots made sensations arise in other parts. There was a lot of movement going on behind the face, for instance. Expansions and contractions, and feelings of having things crack open and of having thin silky veils drawn out. By moving the focus back and forth I managed to feel sensations at most spots despite the blurriness. I noted elements.

As for yesterday evening... shouldn’t I be able to reach third jhana while in the dukkha nanas? There were some landmarks of third vipassana jhana that I forgot to mention (feelings of being torn), but not third shamatha jhana as I understand it. I find that confusing.

Impermanence is rather obvious with regard to attainments, and not self, and suffering because of the clinging and craving, but that’s old news. I was hoping to be able to use jhanas for insight practice, but they are still not reliably accessible. I have ordered books by Shaila Catherine and Leigh Brasington but they haven’t arrived yet. Now I’m not sure how to proceed. I should probably practice patience.

In daily life I’m going through some confusion with regard to what I want, apart from meditating. Wordly stuff overwhelms me, and stuff that I used to like feels meaningless or even disgusting. I think disgust was the dominating nana yesterday. Thankfully this is all impermanent and not self.

...

Then I read the thread about what people see behind their eyelids, and I was reminded of having neglected that part of my experience for a long time now. I set an alarm for 20 minutes just to check in with it. I didn’t expect much to arise because of the blurred focus. It started out pretty blurry, but that changed. I could distinguish sparks of light, small color dots and rapid shifts, and then color swirls arose, and then statics again. What was most interesting was not visual, though. Focusing on the visual opened up for inner kinesthetics and some extent of nada sound. The kinesthetic sensations were very third vipassana jhanaesque. Apparently third vipassana jhana is much more accessible to me than third shamatha jhana. I like third vipassana jhana so maybe I should switch back to vipassana for a while to explore this further. I’m aware that this may be a symptom of desire for deliverance impatience. Maybe I’m just fooling myself but I’m thinking that maybe I can alternate between vipassana and shamatha and do both regularly without losing too much momentum. Advice is welcome. Anyway, the combination of inner lights, inner sound and inner kinesthetics was very fruitful before. Maybe I should try that for a while. It tends to break apart views of self.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/3/19 5:26 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/3/19 5:26 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did about an hour of focusing on the rapid flickerings of visuals behind the eyelids, inner kinesthetics and inner sound. There’s a vibrational chaos. I get the feeling that it’s all just the same thing going on. It just manifests differently, but the closer one zooms in on it, the more similar it gets.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/3/19 9:19 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/3/19 9:19 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I lost count on how much practice I did today (or yesterday, really, since it is now past four o clock in the morning). I don’t know if any of it did anything good. Now I can’t sleep for some strange reason. I wish I could at least get some decent meditation done, but I still lack the clarity and concentration. I guess I’ll just continue walking that road back and forth, and gradually that will make it more accessible.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/4/19 7:30 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/4/19 7:30 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I’m terribly easily distracted now, which is very frustrating. I have been meditating for three hours with little success. It was a weird mix of monkey mind, access concentration, third vipassana jhana and in the end brief instances of first shamatha jhana. At least the books I ordered, by Shaila Catherine, have finally arrived. Yay!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/4/19 1:06 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/4/19 1:06 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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In this period of poor concentration and bad mood I went to a yoga class, 75 minutes of Ashtanga Vinyasa. For the first time it was a teacher from India. He had a slightly different approach to the exercises than the Nordic teachers. It was more energetic. It was tough but very educational. I felt focused. There were purple swirls all over the place. My tensions peaked for a while, with sharp pain in my knees in a resting position that I knew couldn’t hurt my knees. I applied an equanimous approach to that pain, and lo and behold, it dissolved. I was completely unclenched and at ease. Then in in the short meditation at the end of the session there was instant first jhana with no effort whatsoever. I guess that could mean that I dropped back into A&P again. Time will tell. In any case, it felt nice to have that focus again. I felt very grateful. However, I also lost my voice roght after the session, which is usually a sign for an upcoming histamine reaction, so this may backfire. I guess I’ll have to wait and see if the healing of the yoga counteracts the inflammatory reactions that my body has such a propensity for. My voice is back to normal now.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/4/19 5:07 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/4/19 5:07 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did another hour and a half of shamatha. I was too tired for it, really, so I only accessed first jhana. Still, it felt like there was more joy to it than the last few days and therefore a more solid foundation.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/4/19 9:21 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/4/19 9:19 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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What if this restlessness and insomnia are just stories that I keep telling myself? They probably are. That’s how it works, isn’t it? Thus it should be possible to just stop fuelling them. Sweet dreams then! (It would have been nice to realize this somewhat earlier than 4.20 in the morning.)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 1:32 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 12:49 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
What if this restlessness and insomnia are just stories that I keep telling myself? They probably are. That’s how it works, isn’t it? Thus it should be possible to just stop fuelling them. Sweet dreams then! (It would have been nice to realize this somewhat earlier than 4.20 in the morning.)



It worked. Of course. There must be some perks to not self. Thanks to Spatial and Shaila Catherine for inspiration!

Now I just need to remember not to fuel the thought that pops up: ”Why the hell didn’t I realize that sooner?!” That’s just the same trap playing hide and seek. I see you Mara.

So that’s the kind of dirty mind games I need to see through now. Good to know. Oh yay. This is going to be tough. I need to un-accept so many things that took me decades to learn to accept. And if I tell people about it, that might be used against all my friends with similar disabilities who are already gaslighted enough by the society as it is. I need to tread carefully.

Gah, Michael warned me about this*. He knew it. And I understood what he meant theoretically. I just didn’t see the exact practical implication.

So, how do I know what is hardwired and needs to stay accepted and what is merely conditioning and storytelling? I guess I’ll have to find out the hard way. I can’t afford to go back to internalized ableism.

*) He didn’t specifically mention my identity as disabled, just that I would have to throw out identity work that had been a life saver. I knew immediately that my neurodivergence would be involved, because that’s the identity work that did save my life (both the disability part and the diversity part).
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 10:51 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 10:51 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I’m having unknowing events that fit into Shargrol’s description of cessations but I don’t think they are cessations. First there is clarity and then I slip into a dreamy state for a while, with visions, and then I’m drawn into a void - and suddenly there is a cracking sound and I find myself back in my body, wondering what happened. I believe that these instances are short visits in some formless realm that spits me out because I’m not ready for dwelling there longer. This last time I could feel my body disappearing right before the gap. That has happened before, but there have also been many instances that were more fuzzy as to what preceded the gap.

There was a minor afterglow, but jhanas have that too. I feel somewhat rebooted, but jhanas have that effect. It’s a different kind of reboot. If they were cessations, which I doubt, they were probably from the previous path. Maybe they were? I really don’t know. I just definitely do not believe thay any of them was a path moment.

I did an hour of just letting things happen as they happened. I slipped in and out of different states that I cannot name. Some of these states were jhanic, some not. Among the latter were very realistic dream visions (I have had a lot of them lately). Before I started a serious daily practice I used to listen to guided meditations of a very new agey kind because I enjoyed it. I never really managed to visualize my spiritual guides and stuff like that because I couldn’t visualize faces or details (except for once as a teenager when I saw a blueskinned person with eight arms - that feels very scripted, haha - and once as an adult when there was more of a kinesthetic experience than a visual one). Now I see faces of unknown people in detail. Great detail. They are looking right at me. But as I’m not having discursive thoughts when I do this, I don’t have the words to describe the faces. Now that I have access to words, I don’t have access to the imagery more than for a fraction of a second at a time, and that’s not enough for me to connect the images with the words. Or well... one of them was male-looking with long hair. One looked like a woman, I think. But I studied the faces closely as we were looking into each other's eyes (one face at a time). I know that those faces were as real-looking as in any face to face meeting. Now it is all so fuzzy.
shargrol, modified 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 11:22 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 11:22 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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For what it's worth, I'm glad you're not taking my general guidelines and turning it into a strict definition! (I have to admit, I somewhat regret that sloppy post, because someone, someday is going to think that I was stating things definitively. emoticon )

For sure there are MANY different non-knowing events which seem to outside of time that aren't cessations, including dips into formless realms. And there can be many cessations which aren't path moments. emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 2:04 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 2:04 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Thanks for your reply, Shargrol! I didn’t mean to imply that it was intended as a definition. Sorry for my poor wording! I was mainly thinking out loud, because it is very tricky indeed to discern what is a cessation and what isn’t, except sometimes when it is very clear. Your post had me pondering. I think I have become stricter and stricter in my own criteria for attainments. For a while I was questioning myself there. Then, on my way to yoga class, I realized that it actually doesn’t matter whether or not these more vague unknowing events were this or that. Or more accurately, it doesn’t matter for me to find out. I’ll just stay on the careful side, and that’s fine. Whatever happened happened. Conceptualization is irrelevant. Since I am still a phenomenology junky I will keep mapping events that are clear enough to map, because I find it fascinating. The rest of it I’ll leave for the universe to deal with, because it knows better than me what to do with it (I don’t mean the universe as an entity but as a process that I’m pragmatically antropomorphizing because that makes language easier).
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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 6:32 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 6:32 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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shargrol:
For what it's worth, I'm glad you're not taking my general guidelines and turning it into a strict definition! (I have to admit, I somewhat regret that sloppy post, because someone, someday is going to think that I was stating things definitively. emoticon )

For sure there are MANY different non-knowing events which seem to outside of time that aren't cessations, including dips into formless realms. And there can be many cessations which aren't path moments. emoticon

I liked your post, especially this part:

"If the "scene" that was being observed had the odd sense of "seeing the self seeing the object", that somehow "you" and "it" were being held in the mind at the same time, and got kinda confusing, and then you found yourself where you already were but somehow time must have passed: cessation."

I don't really see the problem with sloppy definitions here, personally. We are practicing something, not publishing mathematical proofs. But hey, this is Linda's log, so she gets to make the rules emoticon
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 1:32 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 1:32 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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spatial:
shargrol:
For what it's worth, I'm glad you're not taking my general guidelines and turning it into a strict definition! (I have to admit, I somewhat regret that sloppy post, because someone, someday is going to think that I was stating things definitively. emoticon )

For sure there are MANY different non-knowing events which seem to outside of time that aren't cessations, including dips into formless realms. And there can be many cessations which aren't path moments. emoticon

I liked your post, especially this part:

"If the "scene" that was being observed had the odd sense of "seeing the self seeing the object", that somehow "you" and "it" were being held in the mind at the same time, and got kinda confusing, and then you found yourself where you already were but somehow time must have passed: cessation."

I don't really see the problem with sloppy definitions here, personally. We are practicing something, not publishing mathematical proofs. But hey, this is Linda's log, so she gets to make the rules emoticon


The problem is if people think they had stream entry when they haven’t. That could actually cause harm. I wouldn’t say that all of it was sloppy, though. It’s just helpful to have some alternative diagnoses in mind for the more vague parts.
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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 3:36 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 3:36 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
The problem is if people think they had stream entry when they haven’t. That could actually cause harm. I wouldn’t say that all of it was sloppy, though. It’s just helpful to have some alternative diagnoses in mind for the more vague parts.

What kind of harm did you have in mind?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 3:46 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 3:46 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Delusion, reinforced wrong views, wrong ideas about what kind of practice is fruitful, possible clinging to something that is false... and as the best case scenario, only disappointment as one finds out the truth.
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 3:49 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 3:50 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 4:53 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Siavash Mahmoudpour:


This article raises good points. It doesn't seem to me that the conclusion is "don't claim attainments", or "don't encourage others to claim attainments", but rather "don't be a jerk toward people who have misdiagnosed themselves". 
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Siavash ', modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 4:57 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 4:55 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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spatial:
Siavash Mahmoudpour:


This article raises good points. It doesn't seem to me that the conclusion is "don't claim attainments", or "don't encourage others to claim attainments", but rather "don't be a jerk toward people who have misdiagnosed themselves". 


Yes. I posted it as an example (isolation) for the harm that could be done in these processes (Not having clear definitions, and based on that making false claims).
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 5:13 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 5:13 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Siavash Mahmoudpour:
spatial:
Siavash Mahmoudpour:


This article raises good points. It doesn't seem to me that the conclusion is "don't claim attainments", or "don't encourage others to claim attainments", but rather "don't be a jerk toward people who have misdiagnosed themselves". 


Yes. I posted it as an example (isolation) for the harm that could be done in these processes (Not having clear definitions, and based on that making false claims).



I was thinking about this too but I was too tired to motivate that chain of thoughts as I too saw the logical objection that the main problem in this example is that jerky behavior (and I knew that Spatial would see that). Still, given that people often behave like that, that kind of harm is also something to take into account.
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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 4:47 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 4:46 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Delusion, reinforced wrong views, wrong ideas about what kind of practice is fruitful, possible clinging to something that is false... and as the best case scenario, only disappointment as one finds out the truth.
Hm, maybe. I'm not sure how to think about this. It's very confusing.

I can only say that I find it useful to try on different labels, and see how well they fit me. It helps to focus my attention on what is happening, and on what isn't happening. It helps to raise questions in my mind about what is supposed to be happening.

I take it as a given that when we start our practice, we all have delusion, reinforced wrong views, wrong ideas, clinging, etc. So, the question is: what's the best way to reduce those?

I just don't know the answer. I'm glad to have found this community, because otherwise, I wouldn't be practicing as much as I am. I would never have known that enlightenment is something that people actually tried to do.

Let me ask you: if you were suddenly convinced that you had never actually attained stream entry, what kind of disappointment would you feel?

I will say that in my case, I would say "I guess I misunderstood the definition of stream entry", but I don't think anything about the way I view my practice or insights would change. I'm not sure what that would mean.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 5:21 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 5:07 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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spatial:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Delusion, reinforced wrong views, wrong ideas about what kind of practice is fruitful, possible clinging to something that is false... and as the best case scenario, only disappointment as one finds out the truth.
Hm, maybe. I'm not sure how to think about this. It's very confusing.

I can only say that I find it useful to try on different labels, and see how well they fit me. It helps to focus my attention on what is happening, and on what isn't happening. It helps to raise questions in my mind about what is supposed to be happening.

I take it as a given that when we start our practice, we all have delusion, reinforced wrong views, wrong ideas, clinging, etc. So, the question is: what's the best way to reduce those?

I just don't know the answer. I'm glad to have found this community, because otherwise, I wouldn't be practicing as much as I am. I would never have known that enlightenment is something that people actually tried to do.

Let me ask you: if you were suddenly convinced that you had never actually attained stream entry, what kind of disappointment would you feel?

I will say that in my case, I would say "I guess I misunderstood the definition of stream entry", but I don't think anything about the way I view my practice or insights would change. I'm not sure what that would mean.


I think you have a wise approach. For you specifically it would probably be less harmful than for most people. Vanity doesn’t seem to be that much of a problem for you, and that renders many of the risks irrelevant. Maybe it wouldn’t corrupt you.

If I were to find out that I didn’t have stream entry, I hope I would be glad that there are even more goodies in the goodie bag. As for how I would really feel, I don’t know.

I think many people adjust their practice to what seems to produce attainments. If one mistakes headnods for cessations, one will cultivate practice habits that lead to dullness.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 2:18 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I forgot to mention that the breath manifested as flourescent light blobs of varying size and luminosity.

...

Then I did 90 minutes of restorative yoga, during which I came to realize why I tend to clench up so much periodically. There are parts of me that fear that if I let go of that contracted state, nothing will hold me together and not even the ground will hold me. Like I would just dissolve into a formless gel and be smeared out or even leak out through the floor, or have body parts falling apart and then keep falling through the ground and further on, endlessly. That was one of my greatest fears as a child. I used to have visions of endless gaps of nothingness and it creaped me out back then. But now I’m actually not scared, at least not all parts of me. I have had experiences of both dissolving and falling into a black hole, and there was nothing scary about it. Dissolving, falling apart and being sucked into nothingness are basically the goals of the practice. So it seems that I am applying huge amounts of efforts NOT to awaken. What if I were to just... stop...?
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spatial, modified 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 5:02 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/5/19 5:02 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
So it seems that I am applying huge amounts of efforts NOT to awaken. What if I were to just... stop...?

My guess is that something interesting would happen...Do it!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 1:27 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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spatial:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
So it seems that I am applying huge amounts of efforts NOT to awaken. What if I were to just... stop...?

My guess is that something interesting would happen...Do it!



Yup. Trying. Oddly enough, it isn’t as easy as it should be. There are signs telling me that it’s the right eay to go, though. Clarity increases more the more I manage to let go.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 4:45 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I’m trying to be mindful in daily life. When I look at chains of association, dependent origination becomes more and more obvious. Right now I have had the tune ”Cats in the cradle” in my head for a couple of hours, and I know exactly why. I wrote a post on this forum that contained the word cradle, and directly after I read a post that contained the word cats. It’s always like that. Even complex ideas arise from combinations of input that happen to coincide.

I’m struggling with unskillful thoughts. Parts of me wish I had said things that I was thinking about a person that was very well respected at the time, because they all turned out to be true, and those parts of me (or of not me) cling to being right. It wouldn’t have been right speech, though, and I would probably had said ”told you so” now and that would also be very unskillful. The fact that I’m even telling now that I would have been able to say ”told you so” is unskillful. But damn, the feeling of being right is so tempting. I probably need to see over and over again how it only leads to suffering. It is obvious to me that I have invested a lot of identity work in my intuitions about people. I usually am right, even when I wish I weren’t. That intuition per se is very helpful to have, but the selfing involved in the identity work around it isn’t. It causes pride/conceit, wrong speech, clinging, and probably other defilements as well.

Saying those things at that time would probably had done no good anyway. Nobody would have believed me. I barely believed me.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/6/19 3:16 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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75 minutes of Kundalini yoga. I avoided the elements that are designed to force energy upwards through the spine, though, because the energy knows the way perfectly fine on its own, and forcing it when the timing isn’t right only causes inbalances and pain in my experience. So in practice I guess I turned it into medicinal yoga instead. It was very relaxing.

Two hours of shamatha starting out with the breath. Initially I was easily distracted, but the reward was immediate every time I managed to return to the breath and stay with it. I felt as if I were floating. There was some minor pain in the beginning but I remember deciding that it was irrelevant, and then I forgot about it. The eyes were relaxed and unfocused. The whole body was relaxed. I think I may have skipped second jhana and gone directly from first to third. There was more equanimity than happiness. There wasn’t much of an I. Discursive thinking fell away. There were instances of something being cracked open behind the face.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/7/19 7:13 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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1 h 20 minutes of shamatha on the breath without specifically aiming at the traits of specific jhanas. Apparently that can lead to bouncing around between basically any altered states of consciousness rather than climbing the jhanic arch in a predictable way. I probably need to be more clear about intention before I start.

In the beginning I struggled with mind wandering, but every time I noticed that, there was a shift into a state where the breath was the only thing that seemed to exist, sort of. It’s like it went from monkey mind straight into full absorption without passing access concentration.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/8/19 6:32 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
1 h 20 minutes of shamatha on the breath without specifically aiming at the traits of specific jhanas. Apparently that can lead to bouncing around between basically any altered states of consciousness rather than climbing the jhanic arch in a predictable way. I probably need to be more clear about intention before I start.

In the beginning I struggled with mind wandering, but every time I noticed that, there was a shift into a state where the breath was the only thing that seemed to exist, sort of. It’s like it went from monkey mind straight into full absorption without passing access concentration.



This post from September 7th was also when I first started having brief moments of immediacy in a way that makes me think that I know what arahants talk about when they talk about immediacy. They were just very short glimpses, but wow, the presence... It felt realer than real. Everything but that very moment was just irrelevant. No, not just irrelevant. It didn’t exist.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/7/19 12:38 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Now I have had the weird experience of feeling no boundaries to the body except for that part that lies next to and touches a beloved cat.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/8/19 11:04 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I had an hour of interesting meditative experiences, despite being interrupted by restless cats a couple of times.

I was in jhanas that cannot be placed in the eight jhana arch as far as I understand. Maybe they were custom made jhanas, I don’t know. When entering jhana there was a gentle whoosh experience and then gentle tingles. There were joy and happiness. After a while I realized that those sensations were not in my body, though, but in a layer outside of it. It was my body and yet it wasn’t. Maybe it was the energy body, I don’t know. It was sort of a layer of static electricity in an aura outside the physical body. It started in (outside) the crown of the head, and as it did, there were lightness and spaciousness. There was a high pitched sound vibrating. The static electricity tingles gradually moved towards the top of my head. There was also a feeling of something melting and seeping out through my left ear.

Somewhere here I think equanimity started to dominate. Maybe that’s also when density increased again, or maybe that was at another point in time. I’m not sure. When dencity increased, the high pitched sound lowered somewhat in frequency. There was some phase that was more fuzzy than the others which were very crisp and clear. At some point it almost felt like roots were growing out from below the back of my head, grounding me.

Then the electric tingles moved from all parts of the hed to the forehead and joined together at the third eye. It felt like large bubbles of air or a very tempered foam of water were gently seeping out through the third eye.

I’m not sure about the chronology here, especially since I was interrupted and needed to go back in, but it was something like this.

I recognize this from before. Something very similar happened right before stream entry and then again in the review. Maybe this is past the post eighth junction point or whatever Daniel calls it? But I don’t know... There are still so many dips and such a rollercoaster ride. Oh well, whatever it is, it is temporary and not self, and craving it or clinging to it leads to suffering.

Edited to add: I don’t know if it’s relevant, but earlier today I resolved to get into the kind of jhanas that I would need to see what I needed to see to develop new insight. At that time I entered into deep rest, though, with loud outbreaths doing themselves, like if I was awake to hear myself sleeping.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/8/19 1:27 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I went back in after having had something to eat. I resolved to have the kind of meditative experiences that would allow insight to mature. Then I just breathed and put my trust into the process. ”The process knows the way”, I thought.

I either skipped or rushed through first and second jhana. Came into third. Felt how heavy it was in comparison. Then came to the threshold of fourth jhana. I could see impermanence vividly as I peaked into fourth jhana. It was as if the whole reality was flickering. So fast! I took like a tentative step inside. It was even heavier than in the third jhana. I stayed on the threshold. ”Dense”, I thought. From there I could peak into different jhanas, as if there were multiple doors open. I peaked into the first of those other jhanas outside the arch. There were occasional zaps of static electricity. It was much less dense. I peaked into third jhana too. On the threshold it wasn’t as still as it is in full absorption. It had more of a vipassanaesque touch to it. I recognized my old landmark, ”backward hands”, that is touch feeling itself. As i investigated it further, I could feel that there were layers to it. I could feel the attention moving back and forth between hands and the thighs that they were touching, and moving alongside the whole area of touch. I could feel it as a wave motion or as binary arisings and passings depending on how I used attention/awareness. I could also feel the field of touch as an uninterrupted stream of energy with no boundary between the hands and the thighs, and that enegy stream was what felt itself.

Then I tried to peak into fifth jhana. That was harder. I could feel my eyes sort of squinting, but I still felt my body. It was spacey, allright, but I wouldn’t call it formless. Maybe it isn’t possible to balance on the threshold to formless realms without being formed. Maybe really entering the formless realms requires a leap over a wide moat. I didn’t take the leap. I was standing on the threshold trying to focus on unbounded space, but it’s hard to imagine that quality while standing firmly on a threshold.

Instead I found myself feeling that static electricity around my head and then a heavy pressure on the third eye. Heavy and dense. I imagined there being no boundary, to let the energy flow through. So it did. Then it trickled down as if on a shield around me. Then there was lightness and vaste spaciousness, but not formless. I felt as if I was floating upwards, hovering over where I had been before. There was less gravity, sort of. I stayed there for a while, enjoying the lightness. Then I sank down again. There was pressure against the third eye. The pressure sank down and filled up the head, made it heavy against my pillow. I was rooted again, through the back of my head. Then I wasn’t. It was lighter again and then heavy and very non-energetic and calm and peaceful (fourth jhana). Then I found myself gradually rising against the surface (third jhana). It was still non-energetic. Sounds were loud again. One of my cats was scratching on the patio door wanting to come in. I thought I would be able to get up and let him in but thought I would allow myself to rise up to the surface gently and gradually. I felt more and more happiness coming back. In second jhana I tried to move my body to get ready to get up from bed (the noice was really loud now as my cat was desperate). It’s like I didn’t know how to. The body wouldn’t move. There wasn’t enough of an intention. Piti came into awareness again and increased. I was in first jhana. After a while I managed to move my toes and then the spell was broken.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/8/19 1:42 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I think I finally managed to see the three characteristics of fourth jhana. I should be glad, I guess, but to be honest I feel rather disappointed. I had put fourth jhana on a pedestal and now I’m sad to have it fall down.

...

I think the session was about two hours but I’m not sure.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/9/19 2:59 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Today I must do a bunch of tasks that I have procrastinated. That is associated with anxiety. Thanks to this podcast with Daniel https://youtu.be/OC1q63K8SSo I was reminded that it is also a great opportunity for spiritual growth if I apply mindfulness to it, so I will. I will notice the thoughts as thoughts and feelings as feelings and investigate how my mind creates the suffering. That will help me to get the work done while simultaneously allowing me to practice. That’s something I need to do all the time.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/9/19 6:22 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Oh no. So that’s what I have been hiding from myself: I’m actually spiritually bypassing. That is, I have been allowing the dharma to justify and feed my avoidance behavior. I must stop. I need to see the avoidance in action. It’s not hard, really. I just don’t want to see it. But that ”not wanting” is also just a feeling that happens on its own. It’s not dangerous. I don’t need to let it control me. And the anxiety isn’t dangerous either. It’s basically a contraction of muscles around solar plexus on a sensate level. It doesn’t even hurt. It affects my breathing, but if I change my breathing it works the other way around too.

I need to remember that everything is an opportunity to be mindful. Doing stuff that takes a lot of my energy and concentration is not a threat to my practice. They don’t compete. They can strengthen each other. At least if I do Vipassana and stay mindful while going about my daily business. I guess focusing on Shamatha has made it easier to justify putting off things that would require much of me. So that’s part of the dukkha in Shamatha. Sneaky!

I cannot let my passion for the dharma be corrupted like that. That’s disrespectful, contraproductive and bad karma. I will not allow it to go on.

I guess as I am about to meditate I need to ask my self each time ”Am I doing this to avoid doing something else or am I doing it for the sake of doing it?”

At least I’m not procrastinating my practice. That’s something. Maybe I can use my practice as a reward to allow myself after I have finished other important tasks. That and using the tasks as a practice too - not instead of the formal practice, of course, but as a complement.
shargrol, modified 4 Years ago at 9/9/19 9:14 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Such good investigations! I'm really enjoying your posts.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/9/19 11:24 PM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Oh. Wow. That means a lot coming from you. Thanks!

...

I did 75 minutes of well needed Hatha yoga. Because I had so much to do, I putted up meditation till late in the evening (night, actually), but that was definitely not a good idea either. Now when I look back at the practice log, I don’t regret taking the time to meditate so much during the weekend (I didn’t report all of it, because some sessions only resulted in rest). I seem to have needed it to have a breakthrough. I think I need to prioritize my time better in general and take care of my health better so that I don’t have to feel that I should have worked during the weekend to catch up with what I prochrastinated during the week. I need to realize that weekends aren’t magically endless - it just isn’t possible to squeeze in what I should have done during the week days. It would be better to make sure that I don’t neglect my duties during the week and then have the time off to meditate as much as I feel like during the weekend, apart from the daily practice.

As the session started, I think I had dropped down to reobservation. There were three different tunes alternating on a high volume in my mind, and thoughts and feelings all over the place despite starting with the Jonang aspiration prayer that is usually good for clearing my mind. I managed to let go of that chaos and of remaining tensions, but then I was low in energy. The stress was what kept me going and without it I was sleepy. I decided to sleep instead of continuing meditation. I hadn’t set any timer and I was too tired to look at the time but I estimated that the minimum of 30 minutes must have passed, so allowed myself to fall asleep.

During the day I sometimes could hear a high-pitched vibrating sound while investigating thoughts, feelings and intentions.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 1:19 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Trying to learn when sleepiness is just a feeling part of my aviodance behavior and when it is actual need for rest. It’s tricky, but I suppose that when saying ”feeling” out loud results in suddenly clearly seeing the material world flicker point by point it was a correct observation.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 1:42 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I notice that when my ADHD brain feels sleepy after reading some complex text paragraphs (totally within my area of expertise but requiring a lot of conceptual and abstract thinking), impulses pop up to ”just” check if some interesting comments have been posted on this forum. Facebook used to have that function so I guess it’s an improvement, but avoidance impulses nonetheless. I’m not allowing myself to read posts now but I’m posting this as a note to ”self” and as part of my practice.

Hm... I just felt very subtle static-electricity-crackling-like sensations at the crown of my head or slightly above it and something cracked open behind my nose making it easier to breathe.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 2:06 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 2:06 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Reflection:

Okay, this is probably at least partly avoidance behavior but I just have to comment... I’m doing work related reading, and in the text there is a quote from Auguste Deter, the famous patient of Alois Alzheimer in 1901 - the patient that enabled the dicovery/construction of Alzheimer’s disease. When asked by her psychiatrist who she was, she said the famous words

I don’t know myself
I don’t know at all
Oh, goodness gracious
What is it all

Those words are often cited so as to vividly illustrate the tragedy of Alzheimer’s disease, but this is actually more clarity than what most people have. At least she knew that she didn’t know.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 3:08 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 2:59 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Gah! I’m reading an overview of theories and empirical research about self/identity and dementia, and I just can’t stop seeing the dharma in it. It is basically a whole essay on how people’s sense of self is constructed and conditioned in different ways. So far I haven’t seen any idea that the Buddha didn’t somehow cover, but it actually covers a lot of what the Buddha taught (except for the central point that the self itself, as a continuous entity, is an illusion). It is SO tempting to abandon the task at hand and instead write a long post about this. However, that would mean letting people down, so it will have to wait for a time more suited for it.

I really need to write that post soon, though, because the overview is actually a great framework for my practice. It is a comprehensive (albeit very wordy) checklist for the different aspects of selfing in need of investigation.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 3:47 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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More than usually I see connections between the different things going on in my life. It’s that sense of synchronicity. It is all so connected. Whatever I read it adresses and vividly illustrates something I have been dealing with in a completely different context. Either my mind is in tune with the synchronicity of reality or I’m really going crazy this time. I’m not that worried, though. More than four decades of living with autistic wiring, ADHD and Tourette has finally taught me how to pass as fairly normal. I can do consensus reality. (And if I do screw it up, my diagnoses are the perfect cover. People are very keen on attributing basically anything to an autism diagnosis. I could go haywire without them acknowledging any difference. I bet that even levitating, if there were such a thing, would be attributed to autism and considered pathological if done by an autistic individual.)
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 4:32 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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It just dawned on me: I’m actually doing detailed empirical research on other people’s selfing processes for a living. That’s a veritable goldmine for practice ideas.
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Joost, modified 4 Years ago at 9/11/19 7:27 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
It just dawned on me: I’m actually doing detailed empirical research on other people’s selfing processes for a living. That’s a veritable goldmine for practice ideas.
That sounds super cool. I'm just catching up on everything here Linda.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/11/19 7:36 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/11/19 7:32 AM

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Thanks! Of course we don’t call it selfing processes, but in most cases that’s pretty much what is going on. It’s just that we usually point that out as something healthy, because the participants have diseases that all too many people still believe make them lose their selves. In reality, they are just as busy with selfing as everybody else.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 8:45 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Short sessions of vipassana during the day, together with what Shinzen Young calls microhits (stop on a dime and start on a dime), actually helps with daily tasks. They can be done practically anywhere, anytime. I just took 15 minutes of vipassana because I was overwhelmed by a spinning brain after an intense seminar and with ADHD medication running out of effect. Wow, what an effective tool it is! I would guess that it took me from reobservation (which is basically the stereotype of ADHD) to EQ. When the session started there were impressions and reactions to them everywhere, so fast, so many, so overwhelming. I started with noting but had to switch to direct awareness. Sometimes the kazoo player tried to get on with the show, but the poor guy wasn’t at all in tune or in synch with what was going on, so that was just painful. He kept insisting from time to time so I allowed him to sink into the background. Back there he was pretty harmless. Impressions stopped being overwhelming. Thoughts found their place in the background and I could choose to listen to those that actually had relevance for the investigation at hand. I took interest in a slow wave rhythm in the head. The waves were about four seconds long (longer than the pulse, shorter than the breath) and seemed to involve some form of expansion and contraction, of what I don’t know. The rhythm may or may not be related to that annoying squeeky sound of pressure regulating in my right ear and the coexisting sense of irritation in my left eye, sensations that I have tentatively assumed to indicate tensions due to duality split. I don’t have enough data, but it may be the case that these sensations correlate with the peak of contraction in the wave.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 11:03 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/10/19 11:03 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did some shamatha before falling asleep. I was really tired after a stressful day with even more unexpected work loads piling up together with an urgent family matter, so I didn’t get into more than first jhana. It started out pretty strong with luminous aspects bit that didn’t last very long, Some thoughts were coming up now and then. First I was under the impression that the strong bodily joy and happiness remained while I was having those thoughts and listening to them. I thought that was curious, so I investigated it. It turned out that the thoughts took away attention/awareness from the body so I couldn’t register any such sensations or feelings. Instead, the mind kept reproducing the memory of them to maintain continuity. As the thoughts stopped, the real thing was there again. Thus, I was slipping in and out of the first jhana but was under the false impression that it was more stable than it was. Sneaky mind!

Earlier in the evening I did 75 minutes of Hatha yoga. That really does wonders for dealing with stress. It calmed me down really fast. I had to concentrate in order to do the positions correctly.

Oh, now I remember what the thoughts were about, those that popped up during the meditation! I must write them down. They were great ideas for that new work load.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/11/19 3:28 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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I did noting on my way to work. It was prompted because I noticed restlessness and craving. The way to my work is a few minutes walking + a few mintes tram ride + another tram for a few minutes + a few minutes walking again. The trams were pretty crowded so most of the time I had to stand up. My ipad’s battery is dead so I need to use a powerbank for it, which is not worth the trouble for such a short ride, and yet I found myself desparate to use it to entertain myself, which is ridiculous really. I noticed that and wondered why I felt the need to flee the moment, so instead I took up noting.

There was an instant reward telling me that it was the right decision: the feeling of veils drawn out from behind my face, opening up to emptiness. The noting was busy, so I could tell that I was back in reobservation, the better part of it when meditating is possible and even benefitting from the mind speed. I sort of like that part in spite of the rushes of anxiety heart beating and the earworms and the spinning mind. The three C:s were apparent. I could notice chains of reactions to impressions. Not all reactions were bad. For instance, walking past a bridge to the part of the university building where I used to have my office arose good memories and a feeling of loving my job. That feeling reminded me that the professor I have been working with had thanked me very generously in the acknowledgements of his latest book, which I had seen the day before when he gave me a copy.

I noticed that I was anticipating jolts of pain (arthrosis) inbetween the actual pain impulses, which caused unnecessary suffering. That’s no news. However, I also noticed that even the short impulses of pain contained sub-pulses within them, so there is much more space there than what I have realized before.

I got lost in content part of the time. There was a girl walking in front of me who was clearly walking in a way that did damage to her knees, hips and lower back. That observation took me by surprise, because not long ago I would never have been able to see that. Apparently all the yoga has worked miracles with my body awareness. That thought arose and triggered vanity but also I couldn’t stop thinking about the damage and the pain the faulty walking would cause eventually. I can’t just walk up to a complete stranger and give her lessons about how to walk, so of course I didn’t, but I couldn’t let go of it. For each step she took I kept imagining the pain. Luckily she turned to the left at the bridge, and that’s where good memories were triggered. After noting that chain of reactions I came back to thinking about how I got lost in the imagined pain of a complete stranger. There and then it didn’t seem to matter that much that it wasn’t even my body. That’s a lesson in suffering and not self (the latter because the pain was so obviously mind made, which illustrates how much of our experience is constructed; it is all constructed, of course, but on different levels, and this was a more tangible level of it).
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/11/19 5:33 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Lol - forgetting ADHD medication while in reobservation is really not the best idea ever. That mind-racing, haha! I think being used to dealing with ADHD helps with reobservation, though.

I think that may have been close to Daniel type mind speed. The reality was really going ratatatatatatatatatata.

Weird how dexamphetamine (my prescribed medication) helps with that. Or not so weird, really, since it alerts the part of the brain that selects attention and thereby calms the hyperactive mind. Hm, maybe it would actually be a good idea to skip medz in reobservation some other time when I’m not overloaded with work. It would do wonders to my noting. It would be horrible for shamatha, though.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/12/19 9:30 AM
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RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

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Yesterday:

75 minutes of Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga ending with pranayama and guided relaxation before the rest. I could feel tingling sensations outside of my body and I felt as if I was floating.

40 minutes of shamatha. It started out well with moments of immediacy and the inner light being strong and full of detailed threedimensional texture. Then I had an allergic reaction from foods and couldn’t concentrate.

Today:

Woke up with pain in my back and neck, headache and brain fog. Cured myself with a combination of conventional medication (antihistamine, histamine 2 blockers, painkillers and my ADHD medication), ayurvedic medicine (holy basil) and purging qigong.

1 hour of just letting things happen. I noticed that not only sensations have an echo, but also thoughts. The thoughts were there before ”I” thought them. I was just echoing something that I had already heard. There were moments of immediacy. There was an unknowing event with a sound in the head when I came back, not much different from my two first fruitions*, but I didn’t get that feeling of the entire reality gradually powering up. It wasn’t that groundbreaking. It might have been a fruition from the previous path or something entirely dfferent. I wasn’t dull when it happened but not very focused either. I was in the middle of a thought, which was interrupted. Throughout the session there were jhanic factors interspersed with some dreamy scenes and some regular distractedness.

Now I feel relaxed and breathing is easy and pleasant despite some lingering headache.

*) But I don’t think the beep sound after those fruitions were located so clearly inside my head, because the body came back after the sound. This was different. The head was already in place.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/14/19 11:50 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/14/19 11:48 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I have had a couple of dull sessions yesterday evening and earlier today after my morning yoga class. Now I got stuck with an errand that allowed for the perfect opportunity to practice vipassana in daily life. I was supposed to pick up a new bed and mattresses, but there were all sorts of problems with the order. I was stuck at the counter for one and a half hour and the situation is still not quite solved. After the initial problems were sorted out, they were searching for a lost mattress and it took forever, so I investigated restlessness. As unpleasant as it subjectively feels, the unpleasantness cannot be found in the body as anything else than very brief impulses to do something else. The impulses themselves are not unpleasant. It’s just the thoughts of what one could be doing instead that create suffering, and the stories about consequences of not doing something more useful. This observation opened up for a gentle breeze inside and a feeling of anything being possible (emptiness) and did something to how colors were presented. They seemed realer, somehow, less edited, sort of. Then I chose to focus on other things, such as how happy that young couple seemed and how cool those kids were.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 9/15/19 6:03 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/15/19 6:03 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 1038 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
Who is this "I' that is doing all this stuff?  
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/15/19 6:22 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/15/19 6:22 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
A construction of course. Language is dualistic. Communication in itself presupposes division. How else should the reports be written?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/15/19 8:08 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/15/19 7:50 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
What constitutes the I differs between moments as it is a new creation each time. Yet, human life is based on the construction of continuity, and that informs this forum as well - hence the individual user names indicating that there are units of personality that remain over time. We feed this dualistic construction over and over again.

...

One hour of breath shamatha.

I keep having those unknowing events that might be fruitions from the previous path. This session there were several of them. There is clarity and then things get dreamy, and suddenly there is a short beep sound coming through that signals being online again, followed by intense presence and a ”whoosh” feeling. I don’t get the aha-feeling from something being fundamentally restructured, so I’m not sure if there’s any point to these cessations, if that’s what they are. Still, it feels like they do something, like bending and stretching the weave of reality somewhat. Coming out of them it kind of feels like reality is that ”wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey thing” that Doctor Who talks about, but more like a de ja vue than a new thing.

They actually make me feel nauseous. Why do they do that? Does it have to do with jumping between paths?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/17/19 7:47 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/17/19 7:47 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I forgot to meditate yesterday. That usually never happens to me.

Today I lay down to do shamatha for an hour. There was instant jhana and great clarity but suddenly I seemed to forget what I was doing and then there was a short bip sound and a feeling of coming back online and strong presence. Immediacy. I stayed with it and noticed that the wibbly-wobbly feeling afterwards was actually awsome. I felt weightless. Reality felt so... light. I noticed my old meditation landmarks for the post A&P practice passing by on their own. Then I felt as if I was laughing, but not a sound came out. The body didn’t want to move. Then there was a bliss wave of relief. Tears ran from my eyes. At the same time there was a thunderstorm outside, which was pretty cool. When the 60 minutes alarm went off I stayed in bed for a while. It felt as if it could happen again, but then the sense of agency came back and slowly I walked/swayed to the kitchen to tell my partner. I couldn’t find words for it, and my voice didn’t quite obey me, and I was giggling. My partner said that if he didn’t know better he would have thought that I was drunk.

Could this be second path? I’m not sure what to believe.

The last few days I have been focusing on being mindful about impulses in daily life, to work on my avoidance behavior. It was very challenging at first but the results were great and that led to a great decrease in anxiety and some important work being done. I have no doubt that the avoidance behavior will fight back. I have had temporary success before. Still, I believe that if I keep doing this, it will get easier and easier to get back on track. Today I noticed lots of avoidance impulses that were so obvious and irrational and silly that I could laugh at them. I was in the middle of a task that I enjoyed and found interesting and not too demanding. Yet, at every instance of some part of it being finished, these impulses arose to do something completely different (such as visiting this forum). Some impulses were not even about doing something that I enjoy, but meaningless stuff to pass time (this forum does not belong to that category, of course). Or I would just ramble about random stuff. I noticed it faster and faster and it started to self-liberate. Daily life with executive dysfunction is such a goldmine for vipassana.

Still feeling light.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/17/19 10:06 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/17/19 10:04 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Meditated for another hour and a half. There were a couple of unknowing events that were unclear. There is some kind of shift in perspective, I think, but I don’t know yet how to put it into words. It’s about discontinuity. Sensations didn’t feel like they were mine or occurred to any continuous entity. I’m trying to figure out exactly how this differs from post SE. Maybe it’s something like this: before, I could feel sensations arise on their own and feel them from inside them, but there was still a notion of an I that took it for granted that it was in the center of the sensations, even though that center couldn’t be pointed out. I knew that there was no center, because I know from my practice leading up to SE that the point that was the subject would dissipate and then a new point would arise and so forth. Yet there was some taken-for-granted assumption that even when the sense of having a body was starting to dissolve and sensations existed in a field of awareness rather than being located on the body, they somehow belonged together. They all happened to the same mind and there was no question about that, even though I could feel like one with the universe and thought that I had experienced dissolving of the self. Now... even with the subjectively felt boundaries of the physical body still remaining, the sensations didn’t have that taken-for-granted connection. It felt weird that all those discontinuous knowings should form a mind. Weird that thoughts arose about how these sensations ”should” be connected but wasn’t. Weird that thoughts arose that aspired to form a whole, as if it were its birthright.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/20/19 4:56 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/17/19 11:35 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Or maybe something like this:

Before SE: This thing that is happening to me, I’m not the one doing it.

SE*: The perceiver is only illusory. It arises and passes and cannot be perceived. Thus there is no center in this ”me” that things can be happening to. Yet they sort of do.

Now: I’m not the one doing it and I’m not the one experiencing it. There isn’t even a continuous it... or I... or one... Then how the hell do I know that it happened? How can there even be an assumed I? Utter confusion. Wherever these questions pop up, how does the questioner have access to what happened on its own to no-one? Who the hell is asking this now? How can infinite meta-levels of these questions arise?

My partner said ”I may have an answer to that... It’s not to be understood, but just to be taken in.” For a moment I was waiting for him to deliver that profound answer that I wasn’t expected to understand, but just to take in. Then I realized - of course that was his answer - and gave a hearty laughter. When I told him, he started laughing too. He said ”Nope, wrong meta-level.” It wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out that the big cosmic joke has to do with meta-level-related confusion somehow.

*) EDIT: This preceeded SE, to be more precise, but deepening that insight led to SE.
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Not two, not one, modified 4 Years ago at 9/17/19 4:42 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/17/19 4:42 PM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 1038 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
Reality is actually kind of absurdly hilarious, isn't it?  emoticon

Try to avoid unnecessary ecsatsies this time.  Keep going with whatever you just got.  Enjoy the new pespectives.  Be open to bliss waves and fruitions.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/18/19 1:48 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/18/19 1:48 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
It sure is.

You knew this was happening, didn’t you? You asked about it right before it happened.

Not feeling extatic at all, for now anyway. Can’t guarantee anything, but so far this feels like a subtle and calm thing. Last night I could feel endorphins flowing and I enjoyed feeling unsolid again, but it felt so much more... normal... this time. Like the step between solid and unsolid is only illusory anyway and thus no big deal.

I did have a color show going on in the room (dark but far from pitch-dark) with my eyes open before I went to sleep. I hear that’s normal for some people, so it doesn’t count as extacy, right? The colors weren’t that bright either. I have seen worse before. Anyway, it was fun playing with it. I (that absurd I that shouldn’t be able to exist) could choose what colors would turn up. Some were almost instant, others took a while to evolve. Red showed up as pink instead. Orange was really tricky. I had to tell yellow to be less greenish, but it did obey. I could decide how the colors should swirl, how fast and in what direction, but one direction of circling was smoother than the other. Then I fell asleep and slept like a baby until one of my cats decided to pee on my stuff right next to me. He does these very recognizable scratching sounds before doing it, so they woke me up. Cats have a tendency to bring one back to earth. I felt very unawakened as I was washing up my stuff in the middle of the night, swearing like a sailor.

I was planning on learning to call up different jhanas and nanas more systematically this time. It would be cool to cultivate the same kind of precision that Daniel has, but that may be way beyond what is possible for me. I’ll have to reread that section, because right now I don’t even know how to start. Just letting the universe do its thing whenever it wants to feels so much easier than putting on the controler hat, even though I know that the intensions are beyond control anyway. If I were to learn to ”control” the jhanas and nanas, that would only be how it already is. So I guess either it’s in it for me or it isn’t. Whatever I decide to do doesn’t change anything. That actually takes away a lot of pressure. I could just try out of curiosity in order to uncover what outcome is already there. Well, well... There’s no rush. I don’t feel that eager to go through newbie terrain again too soon. I have three books on the jhanas to read and practice.

There are occasional subtle clicking or snapping sounds going on inside my head. At least I think they are inside it.
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Chris M, modified 4 Years ago at 9/18/19 6:28 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/18/19 6:28 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
I notice that this thread, due to its size, is taking a long time to load in a browser. Any chance we can start a new thread?

Thanks!
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 9/18/19 6:30 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 9/18/19 6:30 AM

RE: Polly Ester’s practice log 3

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
You are right. Will do. Thanks!

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