Hi everyone,
I've decided to move my practice thread from KFDh to here.

So here's the current setup:

I've gotten off retreat a month ago, a week long with Christopher Titmuss, which put my practice back into gear.
I crossed A&P and got to Low Equanimity on that retreat, and since my daily conditions allow for a lot of practice (I work from home for a few hours a day and go to uni once a week), I decided to try and get stream entry at home.

For the past month, I have been practicing anywhere from 1 to 4/5 hours a day, aiming for 3 hours minimum of formal sitting practice.
During sitting practice, I practice Mahasi noting.

So for the past month I have been quite consistently getting to what I think is Re-observation (intense vibrations, no pain but sitting still feels like torture due to intense inner resistance).

For the past few days I have been getting to the spacious Low/Mid equanimity after about 2 hours of sitting practice, and today I have gotten to what I think is High Equanimity on my first hour of sitting.

It feels as if the whole reality of mind and body are becoming so transparent, and then, one moment it becomes even more transparent, and I'll notice how a second ago I wasnt seeing that clearly, and it alternates with a feeling of fog moving in and out of clear seeing at times.

Anyway, I'll keep sitting and report here, and would love any suggestions or comments if any one feels like they can contribute something.

welcome!

Reading through this thread might give you some good hints on how to proceed. good luck!

Thanks Beo.

I actually resonate less with the descriptions in that thread, but I found this little gem by Daniel regarding the Equanimity Nyana:



From a very old thread by Jackson, asking how to get to Stream Entry here

Ah ya that's a nice way to describe the effort. You do need effort - I find sometimes I just need to put a little more energy into my investigation when I'm in Equanimity to get a fruition - but a particular kind.

[quote=Yadid deeIt feels as if the whole reality of mind and body are becoming so transparent, and then, one moment it becomes even more transparent, and I'll notice how a second ago I wasnt seeing that clearly, and it alternates with a feeling of fog moving in and out of clear seeing at times.
in particular, pay attention to this fading in and out

So, still trying to get stream-entry here.

I found that after my last encounter with high equanimity, which was very spacious, freeing, transparent ,etc, I somehow struggled to get there again, and that struggle was the issue.

I somehow developed a belief that I am doing just fine and therefore that particular nyana arises for me quite quickly, whatever I do. How silly of me.

Basically, the way I first got there was by noting consistently, very persistently, and looking straight into the mind with a lot of intent, noting whatever is there, taking in 'raw sense data' so to speak.

For some reason, even though I knew this perfectly well, I still somehow struggled to notice the struggle, struggled to 'get back to equanimity' even though the way up is through just being with THIS, again and again, seeing each blip of sense impression and noting it.

Anyway, I guess some lessons have to click several times.

Ok so after 2 hours of formal sitting practice today, I gotta say, what was missing was this sort of 'raw sense data' investigation, which was what I knew I should be doing all along, and was doing, but somehow I get sucked into stories while in the DN.

So doing this kind of intensive investigation does feel like its moving things along.

once when i felt that i needed to counter the tendency to "chill out" in equanimity and make sure the investigation was vigilant and attentive enough, i blinked continuously to help my attention chop up the experience into split-second frames of panoramic now-now-now-now-now-now-now-now-now-now-now-now. (it made sense to do that blinking because i felt equanimity nana maturing during a bathroom break on a retreat, so i had to quickly figure out how to not lose continuity of awareness). I blinked a lot for about one or two minutes until the break was over, and shortly after i sat back down on my cushion, a certain path moment happened. i really can't say how much the blinking helped--i don't know if things would have moved along anyway had i not done it, but it seemed to help. i think a little bit of blink-blink-blinking could be a useful tool (but not a practice method!) at times when the attention gets a bit sluggish or too chilled out, sort of like breathing a little harder for a few seconds when you find the mind getting lost in stories.

jill

thanks for the advice jill.

just sat for another hour and really tried to cut it up into micro seconds with my noting, chop chop.
seemed to move forward.

when I continue to chop up experience by the less-than-a-second, slowly the whole thing expands and more sensations of space, expansion, etc arise,
also the usual third-eye pressure changes into a diffuse pressure on the crown spreading in, so to speak.

nice :-) chop that space, too

So I've stopped practicing for god knows how long, but I just got my 'groove' back and zeal so to speak.

I went on a 8-hour Goenka day retreat this past saturday and crossed the A&P again, and again this morning.
Rode a bicycle to work while in the A&P, wishing all those in the streets loving kindness.

Spent most of the work day in DN hell.

I am leaning towards resolving to get stream entry in daily life, doing more of these 8-hour weekend retreats.

This better work!

Wow.. this was a rough patch for the past few hours.
I did try noting negativities while going about my business now and it did seem to help, also a deep one hour sitting after work helped chill things out, and I think I will do another one before I go to bed.

Still trying to practice daily, and the weekend just came up, so I'm gonna shoot for at least 5 hours of practice on Saturday and see where it leads.

I feel that although I stopped practicing for a while, progress through the Nyanas via noting is kind of 'easier' as I've already learnt quite a few lessons from going through them in the past.

I also found myself in a kind of expansive state as I closed my eyes in bed last night, as if the whole room was huge and I wasn't located anywhere in particular there.

I dedicated this Saturday to practice, and did 6 hours of sitting practice at home by myself, noting.
Deep in the dark night.. feeling very low and negative.
All I feel like doing is renouncing the world and going on retreat, but I recently started a new job and I don't wish to go do the dark night yogi thing of messing everything up, so I'm going to try to get this resolved with home practice and weekend retreats.

I think I am breaking through to the low-equanimity nyana.
This morning's hour sit I tried to really bring attention (via rapid noting) to the subtler stuff like dissatisfaction with certain sensations, expectation, aversion, fear, etc, and it felt pretty deep - like the Re-observation sensations of the whole body being a mass of pain but there being no pain there, and a feeling of OKness with those sensations started developing.