Time: 3 sessions - about 50 minutes each.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, half lotus.

Experience: I settled my attention on the inside of my nostrils and observed the vibratory quality of the sensation of the breath as it passed that spot. Shortly, I observed a pressure build between my eyes, but kept my attention focused on the breath. Pleasant surges of sensation coursed through my arms and torso and there were some light-effects behind my eyelids. My perspective widened-out from the narrow focus on the object (breath). There was a sense of deep calm, but also of effort and "need." A few times the thoughts and sensations I normally experience as distinct vibrations of touch, or sound, or thought, etc., seemed to coalesce into single "blocks" and to vibrate in those blocks as one "thing." Every session was characterized by the sense that there is something big looming and a strong desire on my part to "get there."

Observations: These sessions were characterized by a strange mixture of calm and effort - they were all pretty exhausting. I feel like I'm close to some profound insights and want desperately to make those insights - I try to turn my attention to this desire and to watch it vibrate along with the rest of my perceptual universe, but the desire doesn't go away. Its occurred to me several times today that I'm trying to "make" myself get somewhere by observing things as they are instead of JUST observing things as they are. I need to let go.