Meditation

Meditation Journal – Day 28

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 28

am 25 mins

Not to do anything is the easiest and hardest thing. Easiest: how can it be hard when you don’t have to do anything? No effort, striving, doing, thinking, solving. Hardest: I’m doing all those things, or they are happening. Sitting still, it becomes clearer what I’m up to and easier to let it go. I don’t think ‘letting it go’ is how it ceases, it’s more like the doing realises it is doing, and retires in that instant. And so in doing something, cessation results, breaking the chain, whereas doing always has led to more doing, a reaction, and from the reaction doing something about that too, and so the loops and chain continues. The cessation seems to come from nowhere, out of the blue as it were, and with it this delightful sense of freedom and space unrelated to what has gone on before. This may sound high and wondrous but it isn’t really, taking place as it does within the mundane, the ordinary, of a mind and body sat with its content brought to the cushion from the activity just before, and from the night’s dreams, and from many years.

pm 1hr

On point. Awareness of breath at the nostrils was clean. Little drama thought or daydreams, probably because had slept beforehand. Movement through the body: right leg tensed as I reached the forehead at the start; at feet, tensed right up; mouth tensed, lips tensed, jaw tensed, to the back at the joint, and it moved side to side in full range. Lips tight and slow movement of full-on expressions of pouting for a good few minutes. Right bicep pain. A delicious ecstasy teasingly nearby for the whole hour, stronger when nearer to each part.

Meditation Journal – Day 27

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 27

am 1hr

This is where I usually quit, or turn back, or suspend, or run the fuck away. The sheer uncomfortableness of it is enough to make you think ‘this isn’t working’, try something else. But it is working in the sense that it’s led to a place deep anguish and stuckness, aches and pains ignored or hidden for year, emotions not finished, troubles unresolved. Wanting to shout, cry, wail, fall to the floor. But instead to sit still, nobly if seen from the outside, and tormented within. Uncomfortable in this body. How strange! Understanding that the practice isn’t causing this, but revealing it, and in non-reaction is allowing something different to happen. This time round.

pm 1hr

Wired, wired, wired. Which is fine-ish when at work, clicking, typing, scrolling, reading, organising, meeting. And then, not long after: so still, eyes closed, nothing to click, do, work out. Wired? Strung out maybe more like it. Some kind of internal bracing for some future event imagined from the past. No idea what it is but better protect myself, tighten up. Something might happen boy so ready yourself. I’m ready – look how ready I am, all tensed up and ready to spring! Probably ready to run. Or fight it. So is this primal, the good old fight or flight? Not really needed in today’s office and home environments, but there I am, ready for it. Include this feeling. Include the bracing, the readying, the buzzy wired feeling. Include it all. You can’t just hope it’s going away. It will fade but it’s not going away without some kind of understanding of what’s going on in direct perception.

Meditation Journal – Day 26

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 26

am 1hr

It started as a slow drift back towards sleep. It turned into an inquiry into action, an action where there is nothing else that should be being done right now. It was obvious when I was skimping, sliding across sensation instead of contacting it, shooting past instead of stopping to listen. This is so very familiar in the outside world. When there is contact, movement in it’s correct timing, something else happens. Action. Otherwise things remain as they have been. It’s as much about the listener as the thing being listened to.

pm 1hr

No technique, method, system, just laid down for one hour wondering about what (the hell) is anger. I’m none the wiser. Something to do with imposition. And a boiling pot of water.

Meditation Journal – Day 25

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 25

am 1hr

A complete novice. There is no progress or advancement in this, not really. Each time it’s a man sitting down in a corner of a bedroom. He’s been told a few things, two basically: awareness, equanimity. He’s been taught a technique of moving attention through the body. In a context of: everything changes. And that’s about it. Oh, and someone told me that the observer is the observed, many times. So I found myself sat in a familiar place but unfamiliar with what to do, what happens here. It’s about suffering, misery. Those things I know are true but do my damnedest to avoid. Suffering of the mind and body, of the organism. Why is this? Why is there suffering when all that’s happening is that a body is sat on a cushion of a morning? What’s happening? The first clue was tension. In my mind. Tension and a kind of anxious desire to move, to be somewhere else – asleep? On a beach? In some kind of heaven? Doesn’t really matter where, just move! It’s beautiful how this practice strips that option away, physically at least. One doesn’t move. One can change position. I learnt a while ago that that does nothing. Change position in the mind then. That’s what I’ve been doing for all these years. I haven’t found a position there with no suffering. All the places are the same no matter how pleasuarable. So that’s another beauty of this practice: the obviousness of escape, of craving and aversion, in the light of physical stillness, awareness and equanimity as it is. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do, outwardly and inwardly. The agitation, the slight discomfort in the legs, the stiff neck and upper back, the emotion, the parts of me pretending it’s all right but knows it’s not, the part that knows it all is all right but pretends it’s not. It’s all me and here I am, showing up perhaps for the first time, more than half way through the given life expectancy of a man in the UK. Never could be any other way. There’s no other way. Etc.

pm 1hr

Conversation elements from the day reverberating.

Some kind of insistence of coming back to the breath soon dropping away.

Who cares?

Who’s to say come back?

Rather, let it peter out of it’s own accord, the to and fro of thought.

The following of a thought.

A bright idea I had in India once.

And did it.

Then and now.

After many twists and turns, a bumpy ride, the thought led me to a shouting voice, calling over and over like a dog barking.

Shouting words I can’t remember. Pointless words taking a lot of energy.

That finished pretty quick and… I was in.

What was me anymore wasn’t clear but I was in, at the deeper levels of the organism,

Brain and body and whatever else we have.

Moving down, exploring, no pushing, no shoulding.

I was in at the service levels, feeling, staying, sensing, gentle.

Repair work being undertaken, not by me but under the light now there because I was there.

Thoughts rippling in at times carrying, at times not. In from where, to where.

Then stillness in the mind, sustained, while parts of the body called out and were heard.

This is healing, there’s no doubt about it.

Changing. Changing.

 

Meditation Journal – Day 24

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 24

am 1hr

Different every time. Awake at 4-something. At just before five in the house in Alresford, I got the thick blanket around me, sat on some cushions, feet on a sheepskin, wrapped in another blanket against the minus five air beyond the window. Mostly in my head the hour long, some problems presented themselves clearly, and otherwise often half dreamed the time by.

pm 1hr

The feeling of reaching out to something else, somewhere I think I’d rather be. The anxiety and instability this causes! Unsettled and grasping, desperate. In awareness, this feeling of ‘elsewhere’ was negated and suddenly here I am, right in the present. Time to breathe, time to move in a very different way, through the body. A feeling that I need infinite time for this, give me more than an hour. For what? Across the tingly scalp and into the deader forehead, eyebrows, bridge of the nose. The nose! Suddenly I am in my nose. I am my nose. It’s become very tense. The entire nose has elongated, seemingly and tightened. A little into the area below the nostrils but mainly the fleshier parts of the nose. OK then. That lasted a wile and then I’m in the lips, and moving into an extreme pout of sorts. This moves and changes, each time ending in the thousand needles feeling. This time the tension/release reached into the gums and deep into the jaws. Then an full open mouth, but not a yawn. Wider. Rounder. Then a kind of Stephen Hawkins thing with the lower jaw. Here, the shoulders hunched and the back arched and the body started tilting forward, forward until the top of the head met the floor. Oh. OK then. And there I stayed, mouth relaxing out, feeling the upper back, breathing deep and fast and full in a kind of exhaustion. Eventually it felt there was a possibility of coming back upright without forcing it, so slowly I came up. What a novelty to be straight again! It had only been some minutes but it felt so new. Soon afterwards it was all over.

Meditation Journal – Day 23

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 23

am 1hr

Within the discipline of sitting for one hour there is a hell of a lot of freedom. I’m seeing the absolute value of this Goenka-taught technique. It’s tempting to sit there and be somewhat aware of the breath, meanwhile the mind and body continues pretty much as when in sleep, or awake, or a blend of the two, doing it’s own thing. I.e. not so different from just resting. Not that ‘different’ is the point of this. The point is to come out of suffering and that’s not going to happen sitting and daydreaming and being vaguely aware of the breath or anything else. So there’s this simple technique of moving attention through the body from head to feet and then from feet to head. To notice sensation. To be in touch with sensation. To be aware of sensation in equanimity  This sensation is the elusive ‘what is’. Or should I say this sensation, together with the reaction to it, or non-reaction, together with the awareness is the ‘what is’. And it’s there that things change, shift, move, in a way that is way beyond my understanding. There’s a nature there in our organism, that knows what it needs.

So in the freedom of sitting, when the right arm starts shaking I let it shake. I thought, ‘Not again,’ and then the thought went and I was there with the arm as it shook, lifted, moved over to the left, shaking intensifying, tensions through the upper arm into the neck and then my head joined in, moving side to side, wobbling into the low jaw, loose and mouth dribbling as it shook in a way that is beyond my ability to shake by volition. It’s kind of wild. Wild seems genuine. Not enforced wildness but wildness that comes in this setting of sitting. It calms down at some point. I come back, breathing deep, like after sex or running.

Talking of sex, there’s a massive energy down at the base of the torso. I think it’s sexual but it’s not really, that’s just the way its gone before. Where does it want to move, what does it want to do? It moved past the point where the body reacts sexually, into the very low abdomen, where it all tightened up, the energy tingling and oozing so liberally, and then dissipates. Liberal like it has endless resources. And then it’s all over, the shaking, the energy moving, the wildness that I don’t understand, nor want to, and it’s me and my body and time for work.

pm 1hr

After this morning’s wildness, very very smooth. Thought settling down, seemingly to the very bottom of the brain. I’m sure physically that’s not where it is, but that’s what it seemed like. Above that, a vast expanse of the mind, full of energy and vibrancy, very spacious. And this is so very restful, even in the alertness. No shaking this evening. Gross sensations: inner thighs, central upper back, and that was about it. Intense energy around the bottom of the spine, sending shivers of bliss and something like a mini-orgasm up through the back. This without the sex and the genitals beying invoved. Interesting…

Meditation Journal – Day 22

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 22

am 1hr

Nausea, stomach up the throat, the sick, sweet, expanded feeling.
Right hand tightened to a hook fist, spastic lock through the wrist.
Sciatic nerve, right buttock, hip. Didn’t pinpoint it.
Side of the neck mild tension.
See where I am making an effort and it ceases.
The depths of fear and it’s paralysing lock on a life.
The depths of grief and how the person grieved is of myself.
Yestarday’s headache largely gone.
Is it possible to include all elements of thought and the thinker in awareness?

pm

Yoga class. Pranayama and restorative poses for the penultimate class of the year.

Mindfulness In Plain English – Henepola Gunaratana – Distractions in Meditation

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Extracts from Chapter 11 & 12

From the point of view of mindfulness, there is really no such thing as a distraction.

So there you are meditating beautifully. Your body is totally immobile, and you mind is totally still. You just glide right along following the flow of the breath, in, out, in, out…calm, serene and concentrated. Everything is perfect. And then, all of a sudden, something totally different pops into your mind: “I sure wish I had an ice cream cone.” That’s a distraction, obviously.

…

These distractions are actually the whole point. The key is to learn to deal with these things. Learning to notice them without being trapped in them. That’s what we are here for. The mental wandering is unpleasant, to be sure. But it is the normal mode of operation of your mind. Don’t think of it as the enemy. It is just the simple reality. And if you want to change something, the first thing you have to do is see it the way it is.

…

The distraction itself can be anything: a sound, a sensation, an emotion, a fantasy, anything at all. Whatever it is, don’t try to repress it. Don’t try to force it out of your mind. There’s no need for that. Just observe it mindfully with bare attention. Examine the distraction wordlessly and it will pass away by itself.

…

Despite this piece of sage counsel, you’re going to find yourself condemning anyway. That’s natural too. Just observe the process of condemnation as another distraction.

…

Don’t strain or struggle. It’s a waste. Every bit of energy that you apply to that resistance goes into the thought complex and makes it all the stronger. So don’t try to force such thoughts out of your mind. It’s a battle you can never win. Just observe the distraction mindfully and, it will eventually go away. It’s very strange, but the more bare attention you pay to such disturbances, the weaker they get. Observe them long enough, and often enough, with bare attention, and they fade away forever. Fight with them and they gain in strength. Watch them with detachment and they wither.

…

Mindfulness is the most important aspect of meditation. It is the primary thing that you are trying to cultivate. So there is really no need at all to struggle against distractions. The crucial thing is to be mindful of what is occurring, not to control what is occurring.

…

Remember, concentration is a tool. It is secondary to bare attention. From the point of view of mindfulness, there is really no such thing as a distraction.

…

The purpose of meditation is not to achieve a perfectly still and serene mind. Although a lovely state, it doesn’t lead to liberation by itself. The purpose of meditation is to achieve uninterrupted mindfulness. Mindfulness, and only mindfulness, produces Enlightenment.

…

By distraction, remember we mean any mental state that arises to impede your meditation. Some of these are quite subtle. It is useful to list some of the possibilities. The negative states are pretty easy to spot: insecurity, fear, anger, depression, irritation and frustration.

Craving and desire are a bit more difficult to spot because they can apply to things we normally regard as virtuous or noble. You can experience the desire to perfect yourself. You can feel craving for greater virtue. You can even develop an attachment to the bliss of the meditation experience itself. It is a bit hard to detach yourself from such altruistic feelings. In the end, though, it is just more greed. It is a desire for gratification and a clever way of ignoring the present-time reality.

…

Happiness, peace, inner contentment, sympathy and compassion for all beings everywhere. These mental states are so sweet and so benevolent that you can scarcely bear to pry yourself loose from them. It makes you feel like a traitor to mankind. There is no need to feel this way. We are not advising you to reject these states of mind or to become heartless robots. We merely want you to see them for what they are. They are mental states. They come and they go. They arise and they pass away. As you continue your meditation, these states will arise more often. The trick is not to become attached to them. Just see each one as it comes up. See what it is, how strong it is and how long it lasts. Then watch it drift away. It is all just more of the passing show of your own mental universe.

…

Concentration slows down the arising of these mental states and gives you time to feel each one arising out of the unconscious even before you see it in consciousness. Concentration helps you to extend your awareness down into that boiling darkness where thought and sensation begin.

…

Let us use pain in the leg as an example. What is actually there is a pure flowing sensation. It changes constantly, never the same from one moment to the next. It moves from one location to another, and its intensity surges up and down. Pain is not a thing. It is an event. There should be no concepts tacked on to it and none associated with it. A pure unobstructed awareness of this event will experience it simply as a flowing pattern of energy and nothing more. No thought and no rejection. Just energy.

…

During meditation we are seeking to experience the mind at the pre-concept level.

…

Most likely, you will probably find yourself thinking: “I have a pain in my leg.” ‘I’ is a concept. It is something extra added to the pure experience.

…

Thoughts such as ‘Me’, ‘My’ or ‘Mine’ have no place in direct awareness. They are extraneous addenda, and insidious ones at that. When you bring ‘me’ into the picture, you are identifying with the pain. That simply adds emphasis to it. If you leave ‘I’ out of the operation, pain is not painful. It is just a pure surging energy flow. It can even be beautiful. If you find ‘I’ insinuating itself in your experience of pain or indeed any other sensation, then just observe that mindfully. Pay bare attention to the phenomenon of personal identification with the pain.

…

Your timing has to be precise. Your awareness of each sensation must coordinate exactly with the arising of that sensation. If you catch it just a bit too late, you miss the beginning. You won’t get all of it. If you hang on to any sensation past the time when it has memory. The thing itself is gone, and by holding onto that memory, you miss the arising of the next sensation. It is a very delicate operation. You’ve got to cruise along right here in present time, picking things up and letting things drop with no delays whatsoever. It takes a very light touch. Your relation to sensation should never be one of past or future but always of the simple and immediate now.

…

Mindfulness grows by the exercise of mindfulness.

…

Once you have seen fear and depression evaporate in the hot, intense beacon of awareness, you want to repeat the process. Those are the unpleasant mental states. They hurt. You want to get rid of those things because they bother you. It is a good deal harder to apply that same process to mental states which you cherish, like patriotism, or parental protectiveness or true love. But it is just as necessary. Positive attachments hold you in the mud just as assuredly as negative attachments.

 

Mindfulness In Plain English – Henepola Gunaratana – Problems in Meditation

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Extracts from Chapter Ten:

It is essential to learn to confront the less pleasant aspects of existence. Our job as meditators is to learn to be patient with ourselves, to see ourselves in an unbiased way, complete with all our sorrows and inadequacies. We have to learn to be kind to ourselves.

…

If you are miserable you are miserable; this is the reality, that is what is happening, so confront that. Look it square in the eye without flinching. When you are having a bad time, examine the badness, observe it mindfully, study the phenomenon and learn its mechanics. The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built. You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece. The trap can’t trap you if it has been taken to pieces. The result is freedom.

…

Pain is inevitable, suffering is not. Pain and suffering are two different animals.

…

Problems arise in your practice. Some of them will be physical, some will be emotional, and some will be attitudinal. All of them are confrontable and each has its own specific response. All of them are opportunities to free yourself.

…

Slouching will never be comfortable, so straighten up. Don’t be tight or rigid, but do keep your spine erect.

…

let your attention slide easily over onto the simple sensation. Go into the pain fully. Don’t block the experience. Explore the feeling. Get beyond your avoiding reaction and go into the pure sensations that lie below that. You will discover that there are two things present. The first is the simple sensation–pain itself. Second is your resistance to that sensation. Resistance reaction is partly mental and partly physical. The physical part consists of tensing the muscles in and around the painful area. Relax those muscles. Take them one by one and relax each one very thoroughly. This step alone probably diminishes the pain significantly. Then go after the mental side of the resistance. Just as you are tensing physically, you are also tensing psychologically. You are clamping down mentally on the sensation of pain, trying to screen it off and reject it from consciousness. The rejection is a wordless, “I don’t like this feeling” or “go away” attitude. It is very subtle. But it is there, and you can find it if you really look. Locate it and relax that, too.

…

…let go completely till your awareness slows down past that barrier which you yourself erected. It was a gap, a sense of distance between self and others. It was a borderline between ‘me’ and ‘the pain’. Dissolve that barrier, and separation vanishes. You slow down into that sea of surging sensation and you merge with the pain. You become the pain. You watch its ebb and flow and something surprising happens. It no longer hurts. Suffering is gone.

…

This is an exercise in awareness, not in sadism. If the pain becomes excruciating, go ahead and move, but move slowly and mindfully. Observe your movements. See how it feels to move. Watch what it does to the pain. Watch the pain diminish. Try not to move too much though. The less you move, the easier it is to remain fully mindful. New meditators sometimes say they have trouble remaining mindful when pain is present. This difficulty stems from a misunderstanding. These students are conceiving mindfulness as something distinct from the experience of pain. It is not. Mindfulness never exists by itself. It always has some object and one object is as good as another. Pain is a mental state. You can be mindful of pain just as you are mindful of breathing.

…

You must be careful not to reach beyond the sensation and not to fall short of it. Don’t add anything to it, and don’t miss any part of it. Don’t muddy the pure experience with concepts or pictures or discursive thinking. And keep your awareness right in the present time, right with the pain, so that you won’t miss its beginning or its end. Pain not viewed in the clear light of mindfulness gives rise to emotional reactions like fear, anxiety, or anger. If it is properly viewed, we have no such reaction. It will be just sensation, just simple energy.

…

You begin to drift off. When you find this happening, apply your mindfulness to the state of drowsiness itself. Drowsiness has certain definite characteristics. It does certain things to your thought process. Find out what. It has certain body feelings associated with it. Locate those.

…

Do not give in to sleepiness. Stay awake and mindful, for sleep and meditative concentration are two diametrically opposite experiences. You will not gain any new insight from sleep, but only from meditation. If you are very sleepy then take a deep breath and hold it as long as you can. Then breathe out slowly. Take another deep breath again, hold it as long as you can and breathe out slowly. Repeat this exercise until your body warms up and sleepiness fades away. Then return to your breath.

…

Use your meditation to let go of all the egocentric attitudes that keep you trapped within your own limited viewpoint. Your problems will resolve much more easily thereafter.

…

Emptying the mind is not as important as being mindful of what the mind is doing. If you are frantic and you can’t do a thing to stop it, just observe. It is all you.

…

Mindfulness is never boring. Look again.

…

At some point in your meditation career, you will be struck with the seriousness of what you are actually doing. You are tearing down the wall of illusion you have always used to explain life to yourself and to shield yourself from the intense flame of reality. You are about to meet ultimate truth face to face. That is scary. But it has to be dealt with eventually. Go ahead and dive right in.

…

If you just sit still and observe your agitation, it will eventually pass. Sitting through restlessness is a little breakthrough in your meditation career. It will teach you much. You will find that agitation is actually a rather superficial mental state. It is inherently ephemeral. It comes and it goes. It has no real grip on you at all. Here again the rest of your life will profit.

…

Beginners in meditation are often much too serious for their own good. So laugh a little. It is important to learn to loosen up in your session, to relax into your meditation. You need to learn to flow with whatever happens. You can’t do that if you are tensed and striving, taking it all so very, very seriously. New meditators are often overly eager for results. They are full of enormous and inflated expectations. They jump right in and expect incredible results in no time flat. They push. They tense. They sweat and strain, and it is all so terribly, terribly grim and solemn. This state of tension is the direct antithesis of mindfulness.

…

Trying too hard leads to rigidity and unhappiness, to guilt and self-condemnation. When you are trying too hard, your effort becomes mechanical and that defeats mindfulness before it even gets started. You are well-advised to drop all that.

…

Missing a single practice session is scarcely important, but it very easily becomes a habit. It is wiser to push on through the resistance. Go sit anyway. Observe this feeling of aversion. In most cases it is a passing emotion, a flash in the pan that will evaporate right in front of your eyes. Five minutes after you sid down it is gone. In other cases it is due to some sour mood that day, and it lasts longer. Still, it does pass.

…

Meditation is not some grim, solemn, obligation. Meditation is mindfulness. it is a new way of seeing and it is a form of play. Meditation is your friend.

…

You will have problems in meditation. Everybody does. You can treat them as terrible torments, or as challenges to be overcome. If you regard them as burdens, you suffering will only increase. If you regard them as opportunities to learn and to grow, your spiritual prospects are unlimited.

Meditation Journal – Day 21

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 21

am 1hr

Basically sat there, no adventuring through the body, no awareness of breath. In this non-technique a gripping was immediately apparent, a gripping in the brain, holding on to a safe place and avoiding unpleasantness. In its apparentness it let itself go as unnecessary. Nausea, dizziness. OK, where’s that? Nausea in the stomach and just above, sickly sweet. Dizziness at the base of the brain. Feel. Feel. Allow. It grew, it did it’s thing. Luckily it’s thing wasn’t projectile vomitus! But that would have been OK too, it seems. Once that had passed I was back to the rounds of thinking. It’s so clear that thought is one step away from the actual the whole time. Of course in itself it is actual, but in terms of it being a response, it is a step away, lagging behind the event, or trying to pre-empt to prejudice what’s occurring. The source of thought wasn’t clear but it seems it’s something to do with agitation. Energetic agitation. Later my ankle called out so I listened good, and the arch of the right foot. Then from the ankle into behind the shin, someplace secret. All this taking place in a non-fair weather meditation. Meditation is not for fair weather only but regular and consistent, to be all-inclusive.

pm 1hr

My attention would not make it past the lower back. I’d move a cm and – zonk! – off into dreams. Come back, move a cm and – zzzzz! Come back, move a cm and off into some fantasy. That was that and an hour flew by! A good rest. Haven’t been well today, with a continuous headache, so meditated lying down which may explain the above.

Meditation Journal – Day 20

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 20

am 1hr

Awake at 4, ready to go. Body weight is back to normal after losing some during the course, so I’m eating less in the evening, meaning I’m waking up naturally early. So I sat in the dark, Wild Berry incense cone delicious from the bathroom, C asleep nearby, in the pre-dawn approaching winter solstice time. Some birds began to call near the end but then were silent. The slow movement through the body, going down, up, halfway back down before time for metta. Some arm shaking, and each body part tightening as I moved by, connecting along the way. Quiet mind, nowhere else to be, life unfolding probably exactly as it should.

pm 1hr

Buzzing on Pizza Express breadsticks. Yeah they are like a drug to me. Drug sticks placed on the edge of the salad and they defy you to ignore them. Energised sitting, a kind of agitation about nothing. That’s what sugar/white flour in a baked combo does – puts me on edge from the inside, stimulated from within. Heart a bit faster, blood a bit higher, brain a bit speedier. Yes, a bit like the old speed. All this movement and there’s the body, sat still. That is until the vipassana started after 20 mins of something like breath awareness. (Rather, thought free time randomness). After a down then up, the head bowed forward and the neck tight at the back. And then the lips again, tighter and tighter, strange expressions I cannot pull. I say ‘again’ because it’s happened before, but each time is new, different, sensation and phenomenon observed. No needles this time but extreme tension in the lips and mouth in general, expressions held long. I move away but realise there is nowhere to go and moving only prolongs the painful wierdness. So I come back close, so near, and things shift into a different configuration, slowly, slowly changing expression, until finally they are released. Later I try to pull the expressions as a test or comparison, but it’s a pale imitation and without any tension. On the start of lovingkindness, I come back to upright, recovering, head aching dead centre, from the pizza express dope. On resuming activity, the frenetic browsing activity beforehand is no longer important.

Meditation Journal – Day 19

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 19

One month ago I was beginning the 10-day vipassana course / retreat. The practice fitted perfectly, right in there between yoga practice and the understanding taking place via awareness and Krishnamurti’s work, between the physical and the mental, emotional and energetic, awareness and sensation, and where the two meet is where things happen.

am 1hr

Went into sitting down with a problem or issue and for the first minutes the feeling: I really must resolve this, let’s work it out, go into it, dig about the subject. This continued for a while back and forth trying to make a decision, sort it out, the different elements wanting different things, fighting each other, or certainly clashing, once side against another. Or many sides. After a while the game became clear; that there is no solution this way, only conflict. And then I was wading through an old battlefield, the battle over, bodies lying where slain, the site of much trouble. There’s no action here, only residue of an old violent war. And soon that dissolved and the understanding that decision making is inherently flawed, that a side will always loose, and will not loose gracefully and so will resurrect. And the winner will be partial and crippled in its victory. So much time spent trying to decide things in life! I suppose I thought that if I wasn’t busy making decisions nothing would happen. And that’s kind of true but the things that happen after a decision are often really bullyish and dogmatic. ‘I’ve made up my mind.’ No, there is another way. It’s not clear how that other way works or where it leads but it is a thoroughly different approach.

pm 1hr

As I’d been reading and resting for some time before sitting I was able to work with vipassana from the beginning, moving gradually from prat to part, not too fast, not too slow, just as I was able. It’s clear when it’s rushed, fleeting – that’s the state of the mind. And too slow has no flow. Each area tightened as awareness passed through, and then relaxed to softer than before awareness came by. The grossest sensations were in the feet – which now crush up to the extreme unlike before when the arches prevented that from being possible due to the level of pain in the cramps – and the inner eyes, in behind the very top of the nose into the low forehead. I don’t exactly know where this is but it is very intense, a holding deep within the muscles of the face. Or is it energetic? Although it is painful I am not reacting with avoidance, more a curiosity and willingness to experience what’s there. Although it is tight and not pleasant, it feels good to touch upon these long-forgotten places. The sensations are their voice.

Meditation Journal – Day 18

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 18

am 2 mins

Driving all morning. Sat still a couple of minutes on getting up at 5-something.

pm 1hr

Rest in peace. This is what it feels like is happening. Not all the time, of course, but often and for sustained periods. Such joy, from nowhere, not related to a thought or an event, just bubbles up, bubbles down, from who knows where. My legs are pretty much happy to stay seated like that for an hour by now, Burma style. Generally the whole body is more comfortable. There are tensions, deep deep tensions, of muscle and of brain, yet it is more comfortable, and in this relative comfort the subtleties of what’s happening unfold, and are not dismissed or embraced. What’s happening. What’s happening? The Welsh, ‘What’s occurring?’ is such a good question!

Meditation Journal – Day 17

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Vipassana Meditation Day 17

am 1hr

After the stillness of yesterday, a wild sitting this morning. First half, thinking of work issues and dreaming of this and that, sleep nearby. Second half the body took over. Right arm shaking like crazy. At one point it was up at shoulder level, my hand flapping up by my head. I couldn’t shake it like that if I tried. Then the back arched forward and the head too, and such deep aches in the neck and around the spine and back. The head moved slowly left and right, all the time bent forward. Nothing to be done, watching as best I could with a body seemingly having a life of its own.

pm 1hr

So meaningful what goes on while sitting, yet so hard to recall if I don’t write it down quite soon afterwards. I do remember that the head and back came forward in an arc, but without the pain and tensions of this morning. And moments of deep stillness of the mind. More than moments but it’s kind of timeless. If there’s such thing as kind of timeless.

Meditation Journal – Day 16

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Vipassana Meditation Day 16

am 25 mins

Didn’t set my alarm and was blissfully unaware that it wasn’t 6am but 0745. So, 25 minutes anapana instead. Returning to the breath and – bang! – no thought. Some time later, some kind of daydream, then without it being a problem, back to the breath and – whoosh! – no thinking. In the no-thinking stages, it’s clearer what’s happening with watching the breath – how much ‘watching’ the breath really means ‘doing something to the breath’. So I suspect that watching thought really isn’t watching but subtle forms of management. How do daydreams begin? How do they slip past the watcher? The answer seems to be that they are of the watcher itself, myself and so no slipping past is needed.

pm 1hr

Feeling slightly ill all day, a survival day. And yet after a shower and some laundry chores I sat in an unprecedentedly still state for the hour. On sitting down it was incredibly apparent the effort going on in my head, like holding course or steering. It was so apparent that in the ceasing movement of the body, it could also cease as an unnecessary action. Then I was able to softly move without effort through the body, down then up. On resting back at the top of the head, the ill feeling was right there in the chest. I felt it for some time in it’s sweet nausea and a fluttering quality. There was nothing to think about and there was deep rest in the peaceful state. Sometimes some thinking of a practical nature came, found an answer, and left again. Some feeling that I’d like the hour to be over came. Yet it felt so right, so I focussed on why I’d like it to end and some aches spoke up – centre right of back, inner thighs, left side of neck. So those were the sensations, without scanning, of tightness, tension, contraction, pain. Somewhat sloppily I sensed these. And then it was into the lovingkindness stage, and the element of myself who has had to cope with the outside world, interactions, was very tired and as scared, no different as when an infant. Some sadness was expressed and I acknowledged great thanks. A meeting. And then it was over and I wrote this.

Meditation Journal – Day 15

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 15

am 1hr

This is some good shit, this vipassana meditation. You have to work, so much learning about the way one works is revealed. Because the moving from part to part continues, one cannot indulge in a particular favourite or least favourite spot. I was being too heavy-handed of late, trying to feel deep within, whereas the instructions are to sense sensations on the surface for now. Of course, attention naturally penetrates but the joy of it is that I don’t have to do that, as a struggle. This is not a struggle, or at least doesn’t need to be. Effortless effort. And so lightness returned and at the same time a more profound practice. The tenderness, the aches, the tingles, heat, coolness, it’s all there to feel. Around the subtle stiffness of the neck and shoulders, many small knots and tensions, my head moving this way and that, slowly moving, revealing tightnesses, and in the face. Right arm shaking. Nothing much doing in the legs anymore, the sciatic nervy pain more of a tingling light ache now. Very little thinking and the odd sudden snap of viciousness toward myself and body very apparent yet somehow hollow and powerless.

pm

Yoga class. My gauge how my body is changing. A lot.

Meditation Journal – Day 14

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 14

am 1hr

Finding that it’s important to be as total as possible in this practice, to include all of me in awareness and when being aware. Otherwise it seems to become yet another neurotic activity and instead of attention, it’s easy to suppress, warp, distort. And this meditation is all about things as they are. So it’s the attention itself that is as important as what is being attended to. And when it comes down to it, there isn’t much difference between the two. Yet the partial attention is actually ‘things as they are’, so you can’t fight for totality as that’s another game.

Such an ache within the face today. I say within because it’s underneath the features of the face; the deep muscles of the forehead, eye sockets, cheeks, and again into the lips, tight in strange expressions that feel like they’ll be stuck forever, and then the thousand needles come, or hot ashes or sparks within the lips, until at such intensity it begins to soften. The right arm continues to go crazy. All the computer work, I suppose, and years of holding and protecting and doing.

pm 1hr

Thought to meditate in the bath. Not the best idea. Especially with a damp face. How about that for a test of annicca as water dried in my nostrils, ears!? Supreme itches! No scratching! And then the warmth lulled me into a snoozy snooze. And later, having not moved for 45 mins, the back of my head hard on the ceramic. And then getting too cool. So no, don’t meditate in the bath. Although it was fun discovering that arms resting by my legs was actually an effort; they really wanted to float.

Meditation Journal – Day 13

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 13

am 1 hr

I had not enough energy to move through the body. Some awareness of breath. Some sense of including the whole organism. The old knot right of spine, centre of back appeared and disappeared within minutes, a much lighter prod than previously. A chopstick rather than a dagger. Instead of deep scanning, it was more about the mind and thoughts, and how a thought and the reaction to that thought are all in the same movement. I can’t profess to say they are the same, but they are of the same thing, the same movement. The thinking, ‘I hope this is over soon,’ contained within it the response of. ‘No, it is never really over, this is what life is like.’ Somehow within the end of the first thought, the seed of the response is embedded which geminates into the response. Where the two meet cannot be easily defined, nor is it clear that there are two. Or three or four or however many responses are in the chain. It is becoming clearer how reaction to sensation, to pain, to thought, to whatever, defines what that thing is, and either keeps it the same for next time, or, if there is a different reaction or no reaction, it has the freedom to change. This must be something like liberation. And it goes a long way to explaining the notion that the brain creates our world. It could well be built upon some very basic responses of towards/away, craving/aversion.

pm 1hr

Weekend compromise: lying down. I did this quite a few times on the retreat and sometimes dipped in and out of sleep, as I did this evening. Left arm shook. Back arched and neck propped forward. Movement very slow across body and where I’d gotten to was forgotten several times. Both feet: extreme scrunching, into the arches.

Meditation Journal – Day 12

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Vipassana Meditation Day 12

am 1hr

Coming up on two weeks since the end of the course, the momentum created by the course and others has pretty much ceased. I’m on my own now, in terms of deciding to sit. And there’s a fuss about it, some protest, many excuses. Usually based around: ‘later’. And new rules: ‘let’s not do it on the weekends,’ ‘let’s cut the time of each session,’ ‘let’s do it after breakfast,’ ‘let’s not do it at all.’ So what gets me sat down? It’s the inherent value of being in touch. Not really any measurable value, either. It’s not as if I’m getting somewhere or gaining rewards. Perhaps I am but there’s nothing collectable. There’s loss and something else that comes when the unnecessary is lost or ceases. There’s a quieter mind and a way less tense body. I suppose these are measurable and I can grasp thoughts and therefore say: ‘let’s sit.’ But it’s not really for that reason. More like there is nothing else left to do. Every other trick on how to live has been tried and exhausted. This isn’t how to live in itself, but there’s a certain validity in what happens when the body is in stillness, a validity less tangible in the activity of daily life.

A still sitting. Each area tightening as attention moves to it, over it, through it. It’s much like a yawny stretch but without movement – there’s a moment of tension in the stretch and then a release. The sitting gives much opportunity for this kind of release, but without ‘doing’ it, just awareness without reacting. And if there’s reaction, it’s apparent. No real mystery.

pm 1 hr

Kind of high before I started. Or a sleepy drowsy kind of lack of thought, from an afternoon nap, after walking for a few hours. After some anapana, moving from part to part, and flowing within that part. More from the centre outward today, than just on the surface; a trend starting subtly a few days ago. Each section tightening up or straightening out. Belly goes in, like a yoga bandha, shoulders go back, legs tighten to perfectly strung, before softening as attention moves elsewhere. Right arm shaking at times. Thought clearing away. Somehow it feels it is safe to do so, the body in complete stability.

Meditation Journal – Day 11

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Vipassana Meditation Day 11

am 1 hr

Some sort of daring is needed in order to get close up. Mr Duffy lived a short distance from his body. It’s easy to think that you are in touch but that daring is needed to actually touch. The daring drops away as soon as contact is made, its job over. Daring is not forceful or pushy in any way. Exploring some lesser sensations and more of the blind areas. A small twinge to the right of the sacrum, up a bit. The kidneys area, revealing a deep ache and the large tingly canvas of the lower back. Lots of subtle tightness in the shoulders and up into the neck. And of course the right arm with intense shaking down into the wrist. The left arm had a shaky go to for the first time. I felt safe in this quiet sitting. Well, safe and not safe at the same time, like anything could happen, and yet its okay. That I have never felt is okay to feel. With a daring touch.

pm 1hr

Stages of intense energy rushes through the brain, wiping and cleansing as it goes somehow. Stages of emptiness, stillness, resting in peace. Rest in peace, while alive. Clarity of thought. Clarity of the unecessaryness of thought. In the body, deep into the eyes, shoulders, outer right upper arm, feet, lower spine to the left a bit, right wirst. Tight tension, felt and changing in the feeling. Dead left leg, numb. Beforehand didn’t want to sit down. Went for a walk. Then didn’t want to sit down, but less. Ate a little. Browsed a little. Sat down. And after about five minutes there was absolutely no where else to be, nothing else to be doing. This.