6:15 am One hour seated meditation. I began by not noting at all. This is how I used to meditate, for years! I just sat and watched, but also didn't try too hard to watch. I found myself thinking a lot, but the experience was markedly different from just having a lazy mind (such as when walking, running, or riding the bus mindlessly). Perhaps because I was seated cross-legged on a cushion with my eyes closed and with the intention to meditate, I was "snapped into" a certain mind state that I think of as meditative.
After a while I was tired of wandering mind, so I began to note, first very gently and sporadically, then ramped up to my usual frequency.
Attention was not very crisp, and there was still a lot of thinking and also a fair amount of suffering over the sensations in the right side. These sensations are not only unpleasant, they seem to trigger negative stories.
I've had the sense, which has grown slowly over the past weeks and maybe even months, that my life is gradually becoming overly busy. I don't think I necessarily have too many activities scheduled. Rather, my mind is agitated and bothered, so I feel busy. Somehow, I'm rarely sitting down for breakfast, rarely doing yoga, rarely running, never going to the weight room, and I'm not getting my 90+ minutes of meditation in daily. The composure and balance I enjoyed coming out of the Forest Refuge 9.5 months ago seems completely gone.
1pm 30 minutes with sitting group at work. First few minutes, no noting. Then, chose to not reach for experience. Since I was not in the state of "abiding in the midst of experience" (which is possibly what's called equanimity), I found that if I didn't reach for experience, there wasn't much to note. I was aware that sounds, sensations, and so forth were present, but it was as though the weren't close enough to be named. So noting was very sparse and relaxed. Continued to feel feelings of anguish and longing with regard to sensations on right side. Tried a new thing: adopting an attitude of letting go. Mostly, letting go of desire and aversion. I soon was in the state where I feel something like sleepiness, and several times I had experiences like I had a week ago, that Beth said are cessations. They are really subtle, almost unnoticeable, and I experience doubt that they really are cessations. After one of them I found the fine, wavy, black/white grid pattern in my visual field. Didn't experience anything that struck me as bliss waves. Every time I anticipated the end of the meditation session, I dreaded it. I felt very absorbed in my experience, and attached to it, even though it wasn't what I'd call pleasant. I really, really didn't want to stop--felt like leaving a lover.
My attitude of not reaching for experience, and of letting go, arises from weariness of struggling with the right side sensations, weariness of wondering whether I attained stream entry, weariness of the lack of centeredness in my daily life, and an inexplicable weariness with noting practice.
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