7:40 am One hour seated noting. I tried to notice what it is about my "usual" (pre-equanimity?) meditation experience that makes it different from "abiding in the midst of experience". Am I reaching out for something, and, if so, what is it? As usual, when I started out meditating I did not feel like I was abiding in the midst, and I noticed its somewhat frantic and grasping quality. I thought, "what if I just relax and observe only those sensations that come to me?" I did so, and noticed that suffering and identification increased. It seems that I try harder to notice and note many things in order to avoid the sense of identification. After maybe 10 minutes I entered the easier "abiding in the midst" state where I could note in a more relaxed way without the burden of identification. I wished for the experiences I had last night that I hoped were cessations, but anxiety came with the wishing, and I didn't have any such experiences. I noted many unpleasant things, including aversion and a wishing for things to be different. Can this qualify as equanimity?
Met with Beth in person today! She said that she and Kenneth both think that what I experienced last night were cessations.
3pm 20 minutes noting with Beth. We did a kind of noting where every note was a question of the form, "Who hears? Who thinks? Who feels pleasure?" I didn't consciously try to think about "who". We did this verbally, first one doing three notes, then the other, at a very relaxed pace. Soon, if not immediately, I felt very comfortable and present. I noted pleasure a lot. Sometimes there was anxiety about what to note and what words to use; I did not note this anxiety. On a few occasions I said, "Who vibrates?" or "Who feels vibrations?" I was looking for vibrations because I had recently read they were a feature of high equanimity.
Drank coffee after dinner for an alert drive home from Deena's. I drink coffee extremely rarely and it usually has a powerful effect on my experience for about 24 hours, usually exceptional focus followed by exceptional tendency toward negative mind-states, with the two phases overlapping.
12:30 am (half past midnight) 65 minutes seated meditation. First, noting. Again, tried to have cessations. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. Not sure. Then, "relax for 2 to 5 seconds". Then, anapanasati concentration practice. I was curious what this practice would be like in my current state of mind. I wanted to go deep and feel quite absorbed in my object (though, of course, not to the point of jhana). But, given that I had limited time, and that I was striving, it is not surprising that I didn't ever feel exceptionally absorbed. I did not even reach the level of absorption that I used to reach after just a few seconds while I was at my long retreat last year.
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