Meditation log 05/31/12

Continued feeling a little sick this morning. Got ready for work slowly. No meditation.

2:45 pm 10 minutes seated silent noting at work, ending with coughing fit.

5:00 pm Arrived for counseling session with Eric. Eric didn't arrive until 5:50 -- the end of our session time -- so we had zero session. He was sad and frustrated, and expressed a wish that I would stay with him rather than meditate. I, too, was sad and frustrated, but I also felt gentleness and compassion.

6:30 pm One hour seated whispered noting. Started with moderate unpleasantness and aversion which increased to an excruciating level. Toward the end I checked my clock several times and really wanted to get up. Frequent notes were aversion, tightness, sadness, rocking, unpleasant, jerking (restless legs, which were mild and mostly in the knees), sleepiness, moisture, irritation, dryness, expansion (on in-breath).

10:00 pm About 10-15 minutes "listening for the ships in the harbor". Didn't note. I was tired and just wanted to be kind to myself.

Meditation log 05/30/12

5:40 am  Awoke to Eric's 5:30 alarm. Negative mind-states predominated, as they usually do upon waking. But I felt particularly negative due to being somewhat sick. Decided to meditate for an hour, starting with as much metta as I desired. Ended up doing a full hour of self-metta, intending to relax into the feeling of metta (instead of forcefully directing my attention back to metta whenever it wandered).

Decided to stay home from work. Worked at the computer in the morning.

9:30 am After reading Ron Crouch's brief explanation of mahamudra noting (see middle of page), I tried it again while sitting at my computer. By uncomplicating it, I found that I could quickly (within a second) reach a positive mind state by gently and simply inclining the mind to listen for the ships in the harbor.

Two hour nap, eating, reading, more computer activities while sitting next to Eric. Acute agitation as I observed Eric continue to work past the time he needed to depart in order to be on time for his psychotherapy session.

3:30 pm One hour faintly whispered noting while sitting in the sun on the back deck. No intense unpleasantness or aversion. Also, as usual, very little pleasantness. Again, tried to be relaxed, and seemed to succeed. At first, noted only once per breath. But I wished to note more frequently. Found that if I noted with a very faint whisper (rather than a strong whisper or using voice) it was not a strain to note more frequently. So I did note more frequently. Frequent notes were hearing (lots), pulsing, expanding (upon in-breath), breeze, coolness, warmth, craving, tension, contact. Most of the time I could hear a helicopter a few miles away. I thought it had to do with the two fatal shootings that took place in Seattle this morning, and noticed (but didn't know how to note) attachment to the excitement of that. I also noticed a pervasive mental attitude of dreariness that seemed to have to do with the hazy skies, constant traffic and helicopter sounds, and the fact that it was mid-day, and sometimes noted "dreariness". Occasional planning. Near-constant low-level craving for the hour to be over, although that diminished towards the end.  Also towards the end, frequent, brief episodes of sleep/dream, immediately followed by visual patterns (fine, wavy dark/light grid).

Experienced extraordinary well-being the remainder of the day. At ease, positive, non-reactive, productive, not sad, not angry, not afraid. No sense of dreariness.

Meditation log 05/29/12

Last night I read writings by Kenneth Folk and others on mahamudra noting.

6:15 a.m.  55 minutes silent mahamudra noting. I tried to take a more relaxed attitude than yesterday toward "listening for the ships in the harbor". Also, I often noted "listening" even when I noticed an unpleasant physical sensation or mindstate. I occasionally noticed spaciousness and relaxation, whereas during previous practice sessions I had not.

8:00 a.m. 15 minutes silent vipassana noting while riding the bus.

9:30 pm 15 minutes vocal vipassana noting. Tried to be relaxed about it as suggested by Beth. Only noted vocally about once per breath. Didn't try to be aware of everything possible. Sometimes, awareness rested on hearing for a minute or more. Not much was unpleasant ... until my restless legs syndrome (RLS) started up. I had intended to sit for 45 minutes but quit because of the restless legs. Until I can meditate with RLS, I might want to get most of my meditation done earlier in the day.

Meditation log 05/28/12

On 05/26/12, I had a session with Beth. Can't remember what other meditation I did; perhaps none.

On 05/27/12, I was sick. I sat with the intention to meditate for 90 minutes, but after 7 minutes, decided to nap instead.

Today:

8:30 a.m. 55 minutes whispered noting in bed.

Lay in bed with Eric, at first feeling very anxious, then finally allowing myself to receive his loving attention with trust.

Did stuff around the house, visited with Sooja. Pleasant.

5:00 p.m. About 15 minutes mahamudra noting followed by 45 minutes vipassana noting (noting whatever sensation is predominant). Beth taught me mahamudra noting on Saturday; she said it could have a similar effect to metta meditation (not sure which effect she meant) while also allowing noting practice.

I intended to do 30 minutes mahamudra, but found myself resisting it after a while. I listened for the sound of the ships in the harbor (in my case, I listened for the horns of the boats in the Montlake cut). The idea is to listen for something that can't be heard. Initially I found this calming but later I found it somewhat agitating.

So I switched to vipassana noting, the practice I've been doing for several weeks. Beth suggested I allow myself to relax while doing it, to not try to note every sensation or to investigate sensations. So I made only one note per breath. I did feel more relaxed than usual. About a dozen times I slipped into sleep and dreams. After a while it felt like too much effort to vocalize the noting, so I did it silently.

During both this morning's and this afternoon's sitting, there was not much unpleasantness to be noted, and almost no aversion.

Meditation log 05/26/12

3:30 a.m. Woke by alarm. One hour seated meditation. First: 20 minutes vocal noting. Most of the time, near-constant noting of aversion. Noted possible cold symptoms: soreness, heat. Decided to go downstairs to get a drink of water and use the bathroom. Then, another 20 minutes of vocal noting. More unpleasant tension, throbbing, soreness, pressure, nausea. The aversion was excruciating. I hadn't noted aversion as frequently ever before; often, ten consecutive notes of aversion, then, a  note of tension, pain, or pressure, then back to aversion. While noting these unpleasant physical sensations, noticed (but no time to vocally note) anxiety at not noting aversion, and craving to get back to noting aversion. Sometimes, "craving, craving, craving" for the aversion to be over. Considered whether I could give myself a break by quitting; told myself that vocal noting was tiring. Finally, decided to try silent noting. Immediate relief from aversion. Completed the hour with silent noting and almost no aversion. Tingling, expansion (breathing in), hearing, rocking, nausea, thinking, planning, anticipating, pressure. Moderate lapses in mindfulness (thinking, dozing/dreaming). Often (both today and usually) I don't note "thinking" until I'm not thinking anymore.

I don't know the difference between unpleasantness and aversion. It seems to me that perhaps I notice aversion without having noticed unpleasantness; that perhaps I don't notice unpleasantness.

Meditation log 05/25/12

3:30 a.m.  One hour seated meditation with silent noting. Started out with lots of aversion. This lessened over the hour. After 20 minutes I heard Eric coughing downstairs and wished to comfort him, so I moved to our shared bed and continued meditating while he held me (I often meditate in our shared bed while he holds me). I remembered a lot more about what my meditation was like when I woke up at 7:00, but I've forgotten nearly all of it now.

Got a total of 8.5 hours of sleep, which is more than enough. Still, when I woke at 7:00, I was very groggy and felt groggy until lunch.

1:00 pm 30 minutes seated meditation with silent noting. This is with my weekly meditation group at work.

Meditation coach chosen

Yesterday I made the decision to work with Beth Resnick-Folk as my meditation coach. We will meet bi-weekly. The first three sessions I will consider to be a trial period. We start Saturday.

Meditation log 05/24/12

3:00 am  Awoke spontaneously. Concentration seemed good so I sat up in bed for about an hour of silent noting. Noted with words 3-4 phenomena per second; wordlessly noted more in between. This is as fast or faster than I remember ever noting before. Lapses in mindfulness were few and brief. Aware mostly of unpleasant stuff -- sensations in right throat/torso, tingling in the knees -- but unpleasantness subsided toward the end. Nevertheless, toward end I periodically had strong urges to quit, so I set timer for 20 minutes so I didn't have to decide when to actually quit. Notes included aversion, fear, craving (to quit), pressure, tingling, pain (only occasionally), pulling (for in-breath), relaxing (for out breath). Several times I noted muscular tension and the desire to stretch. I allowed myself to stretch, but very slowly, so I could note the whole process. Throughout the process, noted strong and increasing craving to relieve the tension quickly. Thoughts arose periodically, occasionally followed by excitement (if the thought was, "this is going well, maybe I'm progressing"), most often followed by fear (if the thought was a memory or anticipation of the future). I had the sense of gaining new understanding of my mental processes. Seeing in such detail the arising of fear and aversion, it seemed even more clear to me why my everyday life has such background dukkha.

During meditations such as this when unpleasantness and aversion strongly dominate, I am able to persist because unpleasantness/aversion are much easier to tolerate during meditation than during daily life. The mind has no task other than to notice what arises, so it spins very few, if any, stories to magnify the unpleasantness. Also, during meditation one doesn't have the burden of trying to be a pleasant person and accomplish useful tasks.

Upon rising at 7am, started an argument with my partner. Felt down, vulnerable more than I usually do in the morning through at least 10am.

7:15 30 minutes vocal noting while running the Northwest Trail Runs race at Ravenna Park. This was the second half of my 8.2k run. The first half, I was looking after 8-year-old Emmett, and didn't have attention for much noting. A lot of pleasant visual and aural stimuli. Only occasionally did I note anything unpleasant. Toward the end I occasionally noted a craving for the pizza that I knew was waiting for me at the finish.

9:30 pm About 40 minutes seated meditation with noting. Can't remember if it was silent or vocal. Used earplugs because partner was in process of coming home, which, for emotional reasons, I found extremely distracting. Meant to do only 30 minutes but didn't hear the timer because of the earplugs. Then went to sleep.

Meditation log 05/23/12

(I have been meditating 45-120 minutes/day even though not logging.)

8:30 a.m.  15 minutes vocal noting while walking

1:40 pm 18 minutes self metta followed by 42 minutes silent noting. Felt drowsy towards end of metta, then someone entered the room noisily. I saw it was a person in a wheelchair and I helped them get settled. I was then less drowsy. My awareness was dominated by the sensations in my right torso and throat, which were accompanied by anguish and aversion. At first I didn't note the anguish and aversion much, but then I realized this was because I was judging them as unacceptable. Then I noted them a lot more. I found that when I kept up with anguish/aversion, meaning when I noted them as often as I was aware of them, they became less unpleasant and I became aware that they were not (and probably had not ever been, during this sit) in my awareness 100% of the time.

Afterward: very irritable and anger-prone at noises. Ate a bag of chocolate chip cookies.

6:15 pm  Was more cheerful than usual. Chatted with John, my bus driver. In recent weeks I have usually felt grouchy on my commute home and haven't felt like chatting with John, even though I like him a lot and enjoyed chatting with him in the winter. So it was notable that I felt up and chatty today.

9:15 pm 20 minutes anapanasati meditation, just because I felt like remembering what this practice is like. Then, set timer for 1 hour of noting, but quit after 7 minutes. It was really uncomfortable, especially restless legs. I seem to be able to sit through every discomfort except restless legs.

10 pm I was in bed reading and Eric came home. Powerful irritation came up and I left our bed to go sleep in the attic.

Who am I?

Seeing through the illusion of the self -- that is one statement of the goal of Buddhist practice. Many teachers advise pondering the question, "Who am I?" Not theoretically, but via direct experience, exploring one's sense of one's self, as in Kenneth Folk's "second gear" practice. I've been practicing this on and off for a few weeks, and in particular the past 48 hours.

When I ask myself, "Who am I?", I find that the felt sense of "I" shifts around. Typical locations are the back of the throat, the back of the head, the backs of the arms, and the chest. When I first started this practice it took some time to even realize I had a felt sense of "I". It seems that when I locate it and put my attention upon it, it shifts location. It seems that "I" is the observer, but if I begin observing "I", then the observer has to become something other than the sensations being observed--thus the shift.

Most writings on this topic are hard to follow, and now I understand why, because my own writing here seems obtuse to me, even though the phenomenon I'm trying to describe is very simple in my experience.

I didn't log any meditation over Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, because the weekend was consumed with an orienteering road trip, and Monday I felt physically, emotionally, and mentally weary. I did meditate 1.5 to 2 hours per day over the weekend, mostly in the car. I did metta, noting, and observing "I".

Meditation log 05/18/12

1pm 30 min. silent noting. Noticed and noted aversion, craving, anguish, unpleasantness related to right torso sensations. Noticed that I tend to avoid noting these things, afraid I'll get lost in them. Sleepiness. Drifted into sleep-like state a few times. Once or a few times, experienced some release in connection to noticing the aversion. Once, for a brief second noticed smell of urine--memory? A few times, felt I was in a state that was timeless, more selfless than usual, and lost/void/empty--a state I've experienced many times in recent months/years--a state I've not known quite how to name, what to think of. A state where I'm not holding onto anything, not pleasant or unpleasant, kind of a lack of experience. Did not (and still do not) want to emerge from meditation and return to people-interaction and work.

4:30pm -- 25 minutes seated vocal meditation. About half of my notes were pressure, aversion, constriction, pulsing, unpleasant ... having to do with right-side sensations. Also, some sadness. And craving ... for the session to be over.

Meditation log 05/17/12

Was up until 4:30 a.m. doing computer programming for work. Consumed chocolate ice cream cake; caffeine lift.

In the morning, seemed I had increased clarity about people's blamelessness -- mine and others'.

10:15 am: 45 minutes silent noting while commuting to work. Lots of focus; very few (and brief) lapses into unmindfulness. Insights. Enjoyable & fun to relieve myself more and more of my self. Fun to notice the self trying to work its way into the picture. Fear upon noticing self and letting go.

1:00-2:30 pm: Feeling upset about bad communication with my boss.

10:15 pm: About 12 minutes of seated noting. Restless legs drove me away.

midnight: silent noting while lying down, about 25 minutes.

Meditation log 05/16/12

Woke up spontaneously around 3am. Meditated lying down for about 45 minutes (silent noting), then sitting up about 45 minutes (whispered noting). There were difficult periods with the noting of a lot of unpleasant stimuli, especially toward the beginning when it seemed I had a lot of mild physical pain (joints?) and itches. The pain faded after a while, but there was still unpleasantness associated with the sensations in the right throat/torso. I feel anguish about those sensations ... I noted them using "aversion", and allowed myself to use that note more often than I usually do. (I think I often feel aversion to these sensations but I dislike the aversion so I try to skip over it toward something more neutral, like hearing.)

Toward the second half, thoughts were predominant, and they seemed less like self than usual.  I could see the beginnings of them a little, whereas usually I can't see the beginnings of them at all. I noted the thoughts. The layers of thought seemed to unwind more easily than usual, because I wasn't judging myself for having them.

The meditation session as a whole was rather unpleasant (even though quite focused), but there was also a gladness about it, as I trust that the unpleasantness is a sign of progress.

Workday: felt emotionally wrought up entire day, connected to sensations in right side.

Came home and had chocolate ice cream cake. Possible caffeine lift.

7:15: 30 minutes sitting meditation with whispered noting. Not unpleasant at all. Toward middle, decided to start noting a sensation that felt like self (noted as "self"); as I noted it, the sensation faded and I seemed to lose the sense of self; felt kind of like I wanted to go back and grab onto self because sensed a void and somewhat uncomfortable/unusual nothingness / spaciness. Towards end of session, felt like I was in a groove and not tired. 

Pragmatic dharma

Over the past two weeks I had introductory interviews with three "pragmatic dharma" teachers, all students of Kenneth Folk. They all teach noting practice in the tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw as an efficient method for freeing oneself of the illusion of "self". I'm experiencing great ambivalence about working with any of these teachers. They are all relatively inexperienced, each having taught for about a year so far. I think of them as coaches, rather than teachers, especially because they (for the most part) focus on a single set of techniques. I feel very drawn to the pragmatic approach and to the possibility of freedom from sense of self.

While I am deciding whether to establish regular meetings with one of these teachers, I decided to embark upon the diligent practice of noting, and of logging my experience.

Meditation log 05/15/12

Last night made an intention to awaken in the middle of the night and meditate. I did awaken, and I tried to meditate while lying down, but I was not alert enough. The meditation was lazy and intermittent, and eventually I fell asleep.

6am: 30 minutes sitting meditaton, whispered noting. For first 12-15 minutes, noted pain (joints, abdomen) and nausea a lot. Then, not much. Seems to be becoming easier to note and let go of thoughts.

11:30 a.m. Julie called and cancelled our meditation date because she was swamped with work. I didn't meditate.

6pm: vocal noting while walking to bus stop.

9:30 pm: sat in attic. Some metta, some noting. Restless legs symptoms were really unpleasant and prompted me to quit earlier than I otherwise might have.

Meditation log 05/14/12

7am: something like 20 minutes self-metta, 20 minutes noting.
9:30 am: 30 minutes vocal noting while walking to Trip's office
11:00 am: 20 minutes self-metta on bus ride. Then 8 minutes vocal noting while walking to office. In the middle of that, I stopped to buy an orange juice ($1.99) for the woman who always panhandles asking for $2.
5pm: 20 minutes vocal noting while walking to bus stop
8:30 pm: 10 minutes self-metta, 18 minutes vocal noting. Unpleasant; wanted to stop. Unpleasantness centered around sensations in right throat/torso and wanting them to resolve or go away.
Fear level stayed low.

Meditation log 05/13/12

Approx. 2am: Partially woke up and popped immediately into an alert and focused mental state. This is something that happened routinely in the winter, but has happened very rarely since then. I practiced noting for some period of time between 20 and 90 minutes. It was effortful and unpleasant, but I felt motivated. The sensations in my right torso felt especially unpleasant, and I wondered whether I might be noting them sloppily. I frequently used the words pulsing, tension, anxiety, throbbing, pressure, tingling, unpleasant, aversion. But these seemed to miss the wrought-up unpleasantness I was experiencing. I had a lot of thoughts about how this experience, and the experiences of yesterday, might mean that I'm progressing through the dukka nanas. At first I became distressed by these seemingly inappropriate story-telling thoughts, but then I remembered that I could just note them. After some time I decided I'd done enough hard work, and that I could fall back to sleep. But instead of falling back to sleep, I kept noting. Finally I made a firmer decision to fall back asleep, and did.

7am: 30 minutes self-metta. Then 30 minutes of very quiet vocal noting (Eric was next to me sleeping).

7pm: 30 minutes very quiet vocal noting while sitting next to Eric. Quite unpleasant. Vague nausea and other unpleasant roilings in the body connected with the tensions in the right torso/throat. Among the most unpleasant meditation sessions I've experienced, outside of those where I've struggled with irritation at breathing/sniffling sounds. Am I in the nana called misery?

8:30pm 35 minute run with quiet vocal noting. Fear level upon approaching or hearing other people was at about 5% the level it was at yesterday. Maybe yesterday I was in the fear nana. Had intestinal discomfort.

9:45pm 13 minutes self-metta, 17 minutes noting (vocal/silent). Not quite so unpleasant as at 7, but restless legs. Noises that had brought an intense fear reaction yesterday didn't startle me at all.

Meditation log 05/12/12

I'm going to try using this blog also as a meditation log, and note log entries in the subject line. These entries may be less interesting and less articulate than other entries.

4pm: Sat mindfully with Eric while he prepared for me to work together with him. This took longer than he expected. Strong feelings of fear and anger came up. Excrutiating and paralyzing, as is typical.

6pm: 35 minute run with vocal noting. Beautiful weather contributed to positive attitude for most of run. Noted fear each time I heard human voices or approached a human. For last ~12 minutes of run, mental state shifted to sad/gloomy/angry.

8pm: Set timer for 45 minutes sitting meditation. Intended to do vocal noting the whole time, but felt tired and sleepy and had a sore back after 30 minutes, so switched to metta at that point. After about 10 minutes of vocal noting, I began cycling through sensations of sadness every 90 seconds or so. This is something brand new. I don't usually feel sad, either while sitting or in every day life. My throat quivered a little, my head dropped, a tender feeling developed in my chest, and my voice became weak and high-pitched as I noted, "sadness ... sadness".

After this sitting, I did some stretches to relieve my back while continuing metta practice. Then ...

9pm: About 40 minutes of metta meditation. As usual, various thoughts and sensations distracted me from time to time, but my concentration increased over the sitting period. Tried to be gentle with myself about being distracted. Noticed, as usual, that I felt I didn't deserve good wishes and well-being, and kept telling myself that, yes! indeed! may I be free from terror! May I be filled with lovingkindness!

Pulsing ... releasing ... feeling ... allowing ...

Today (not unlike recent previous days, a slow evolution is happening) a constant pulsing in the right throat. Something more open than usual ... my psyche is allowing instead of constricting ... comes with a slight nausea in the right chest ... waves of pulsing slight nausea (but not so nauseous as to be quite unpleasant). My head bobbing and waving and rocking as it's done since my Sept/Oct retreat (but had never done before then) ... maybe I am re-learning how to be a mammal, how to move spontaneously. More and more I'm allowing myself to respond to things (how my work is going, what people say around me) and observe the response ... keep noticing new ways to open and feel where previously I'd automatically constrict. Always, fear ... but the fear isn't stopping me as it used to ... I keep finding places where I can allow myself to feel, where before fear would stop me.

What an adventure.

I'm somewhat inspired by reading Christopher Titmuss last night, where he said (as many Buddhist and other writers have said) that with mindfulness all of life is an adventure. You can always notice your responses to things.

Lately I've been very sensitive to my officemates throwing things into the trash. Every time I see or hear it, I feel repulsed and I tense up. I suppose I imagine I am being thrown into the trash? Will try to look at the discomfort.

Terror at completing a task

A few years ago I started noticing difficulty acknowledging my accomplishments. At the end of the work day, no matter how many tasks I'd accomplished, I'd look at the list and think, "well, that's not really anything special, that's not really enough." And then a couple years ago I started noticing a similar sense of denial upon finding an orienteering marker.

So I started taking a closer look about a week ago. Stopped myself short of trying to combat the denial with cheerleading ("Look, you've really accomplished a lot!") and just felt the denial, the discomfort, the blockage. It, too, is terror! I look at my accomplishments, and I start to tense up in the right torso. And when I "feel into" that tension, let it unwind ... I have a mental impression of a "grown-up" standing above me and to the right, shaking her finger at me and scolding me, using the word "you" a lot.

May I be free from terror.

A month ago I did a 3-day Brahma Vihara retreat, and since then I've been practicing metta daily. Metta, or lovingkindness, is a wishing well for other beings and for oneself. I've been practicing self-metta almost exclusively, to build self-compassion.

Metta is practiced by reciting phrases of well-wishing (usually silently). A powerful phrase for me the past week has been, "May I be free from terror." As a result of the concentration skill I developed on my long retreat last year, metta practice quickly generates for me a pleasant feeling in my upper chest, a kind of soft, tingly glow, which provides further motivation for practice.

This morning I did more metta practice than usual: about 10 minutes after waking, then during my 20 minute bus ride, then during the 15 minute walk to the office, and then on and off during our hour-long lab meeting.

Then, a little later, when I began a new project, I did so with less self-flagellation and more anticipation of fun than usual, and my impression that this was a result of the metta practice. I was less inclined to terrorize myself.