Hello everyone,
After about a month and a half of meditating for 30 min to 1h30 every day, I think I can benefit from your advice.
Background: I have done some form of concentration meditation, mainly inspired by what I had read on Zen, irregularly since I was 16, with more intense periods of 3 to 4 weeks every year since I was 18. I decided to go back to meditation and follow it through this time after reading stuff on mindfulness and psychotherapy and I am seeing a psychotherapist who practices and teaches mindfulness in a therapeutic context.
What I've been doing: I read Daniel's book early on, so throughout the past month and a half I have kept at least 30min of at least trying to do insight meditation.Most of the time, that was sitting, but I've also done walking meditation. Whilst sitting, I usually begin by basic concentration to settle in, then I try to notice every single sensation that make up the general feeling of the object I've chosen for as long as possible. I am not usually able to sustain this for the whole session, so I tend to settle back for some concentration for a bit, or for some metta. I started with the breath at the nostril, but found it difficult, then at the top of the nose, I tried at the diaphragm, found it challenging but ultimately too confusing, and went back to the nose. For a few days, I have also tried to focus on vision as an alternative, as I seem to easily hit upon something that I would call vibration: I can see tiny little dots flashing constantly like snow on a TV screen but much smaller and more rapid, and I can not their appearing and disappearing at a rate of about 4 per second, even though I am aware they're going much faster. When I try to do the same with the breath, it takes longer to get there and I hit "the wall" much more rapidly. What I call "the wall" is a sense of growing pressure, soon accompanied by irregular shaking of the whole body and irregular movements of whatever sense-organ I'm moving on (breath becomes very very short and irregular, eyes start moving like crazy). It seems both that my organs are trying to replicate the rapidity of the perception I focus on, and that something is trying to resist very violently to my observing it. I try to stay with the dots or little waves of feeling, but soon enough I have to focus on the other thing even if just for an instant and then everything falls down for a whilem, until the pressure mounts again etc. At times I also note whatever is going on, returning to the breath but focusing on, for instance, a mounting fear in my abdomen, or a pain in my back, and alternating between various of these, but that makes noting a whole lot slower, once evry two seconds or so, and not nearly as precise. At times I try to focus on the three characteristics and it's helped me "perceive" the bits but slowed the noting down and it encouraged daydreaming.
Off the cushion, I try to regularly go back to noting when I don't need to be deeply involved into something. I can now see the dots pretty much all the time and on all surfaces, and the breath is a bit trickier but not too much so. I do it because it's fascinating more than out of a sense of duty. I feared this would be like day-dreaming and make it more difficult to relate to the world, but I've found that whenever I'm interrupted by someone I know I end up being more spontaneous and cheerful than usual. I also do sort-of tonglen, as in when I realize that I start to think about my "stuff" and it's making me nervous or fearful, I concentrate on the pain/fear/etc, even asking for more and giving away whatever would be the opposite, and follow it grow in intensity and decrease. For a few weeks I did Chi Kung-style standing meditation for 20-30 min first thing in the morning, and it seemed to ease some physical pain, ground me more and give me more energy, but lower-back pains started to emerge and since I don't really know anyone to correct my posture I thought I'd stop.
Weird stuff/moments of insight: Realizing that pain, fear and lust rise and fall by themselves if I just look at them did me some good and helped me get back in control of some slightly addictive behaviours. I had a very brief instant when I knew that what I was seeing was just on the surface of my eyes, that it was me, and simultaneously that neither what I saw nor any of my experience was me but that they were as if projected on a screen in front of me. This realization was accompanied by some claustrophobia, as in realizing that I'm only there and will never be able to escape from the world. I think there's something like that in "the wall", a sort of desperate attempt to escape the realization thatI only know the world through my senses.
Thanks for reading all of this if you have, and if you have any opinion, advice or question they are appreciated. I think I'm around 3 Characteristics on Daniel's map, but I'm wondering in particular if what I see, the pulsating dots, are what I should be trying to see or something uninteresting. Other than that, I'm wondering if I should join a community/find a master, when the only available around me are either very very tibetan, or very therapeutical and low-level. Posture-wise, I sometimes sit on a chair, sometimes sit cross-legged on a bunch of old pillows, and I wonder if I should get myself a proper zafu etc. For now, retreats seem out of the question because far too expensive even to get to the free or cheap ones, but because my financial situation has changed I'm considering either a cheap introductory "Meditation and hillwalking" (I know... but it's cheap and near) or one at gaia house (this http://www.gaiahouse.co.uk/course.php?code=10162 or this http://www.gaiahouse.co.uk/course.php?code=10163) or a Goenka.
Any comment appreciated, I should reply tomorrow as it's 9 PM here in Scotland!
Victor
