Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  Awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations arose and passed at an increasing rate from perhaps 8 times per second up to around 16 times per second. The happened over the course of about 30 seconds. Awareness shifted to sight-sense; these sensations were also arising and passing at around 16 times per second. Concentration and equanimity were high. I reminded myself of what the Three Characteristics are and that if it is observable, it isn't me. I observed sensations arise and pass. I fell into a little story. When I popped out concentration and equanimity were very high. Mind-sensations were objects just like physical sensations. The process of assigning a sense of self to sensations was obvious. The physical sensations that usually (immediately) precede "strong" mind-sensations like anger and sadness arose and passed and were clearly just physical sensations. The mind did not assign a mind-sensation to them like anger or sadness, awareness just recognized that, for example, the tension and heat in my upper chest and tightening of the temple-muscles that usually precedes an "anger-sensation" in the mind was arising, and then observed it pass. That was all. A few light shows. Some body-twisting. Then a story. Then more physical sensations that usually precede "strong" mind-sensations. More observation of them arising and passing. Lather, rinse, repeat. End of session.

Observations: Coolio, Yo.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  Awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations arose and passed around 12 times per second. Awareness shifted to sight-sense; those sensations arose and passed at 12 times per second as well. Concentration and equanimity were low. I reminded myself of what the Three Characteristics are. Mind-sensations were difficult to observe as not "me", just a sixth category of sensation. I fell into a series of stories. After maybe four or five stories, the speed of sensations quickened to around 18 times per second, and the character of sensations smoothed-out a bit. There was physical pain. There was aversion to pain and to meditating. I wanted to stop meditating. I continued to meditate. Equanimity increased. Realization: "I" was not the cause of perceiving sensations, sensations were perceived without "me", and that to the extent there was a "me", it was just a part of the moment of perceiving. Not-self came to the fore. Mind-sensations were just sensations. White light. An almost physical "clunk" of awareness doing something. More pain. More aversion. Less equanimity. Less concentration. Then less pain and aversion and more concentration and equanimity. A kind of cycling between these. The timer went off. I was startled.

Observations: N/A.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  Awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations arose and passed at about 8 or 10 times per second. Concentration and equanimity were moderate to high. I reminded myself of what the Three Characteristics are. Mind-sensations were observable as sensations just like any of the five physical sensations. Sensations were very much not "me", they were just sensations in whatever moment they were "doing their thing" in, and then, of course, they passed away.  Awareness entered a story. When it popped out, the rate of arising and passing of sensations had increased quite a bit, if I had to guess: ballpark 25 times per second. The character of the arising and passing was smooth and fine, but the periods of "nothingness" between one sensation passing and the next arising were very discrete and perceptable, despite the speed involved. The body began to twist and tilt for some reason. Proprioception was off and there was some physical pain the lower back and shoulders. It was difficult to tell whether I was sitting in a normal upright position or not. Awareness entered another story. When it popped out, sensations were arising and passing just as fast as when awareness entered the story, but the pain and proprioception/twisting issues were gone. Continued observation of sensations arising and passing. The alarm beeped. This session did not feel long, but it didn't feel like the blink of an eye either. 

Observations: N/A.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  Awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch sensations arose from nothing, did their "thing", and then passed away utterly, at a rate of about 8 or 10 times per second. Concentration and equanimity were low to moderate. I reminded myself of what the Three Characteristics are. Data from the sense-organs (including "mind") presented distinct from each other, but part of a moment of time, as if the data-experiences were pieces of a puzzle (large, chunky, and not terribly a "part of" the other pieces, but still fit the others perfectly). Not-self was very, very clearly visible. I fell into stories a few times. This session seemed very long; it ended. 

Observations: N/A.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  Awareness settled on touch-sense and after a moment sight-sense as well. The two flickered in and out of existence in tandem at a rate of about 12 times per second ("vibrated"). The texture of these vibrations was smooth. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are. Vibrations slowly sped up to about 16 plus times per second. Concentration and equanimity were high. Mind was doing its thing - trying to assign things a status of "I", "painful" or otherwise "undesirable" - all of these activities had been pretty absent from the scene for about a week, so this was new, but all of these activities were very transparently observable as mind just doing it's thing, and having nothing to do with anything other than that. I dropped into stories several times. There were no black-out-like fruition events. No lights behind the eyelids. In many respects it felt like the Dark Night, but the "unpleasant" character of it was CLEARLY a series of obsessive, repetitive, mind activities labeling it as such. The session ended.

Observations: This session was exhausting. It had a great deal of laser-like focus to it, and the sort of broad perspective that comes with mind-contacts being clearly discernible as such, but it was very new to me to go through a chunk of territory that was seriously unpleasant while seeing it just as it is, instead of being embroiled in the unpleasantness of it and "feeling" things "paining me". Instead the painfulness of experience was clearly the product of foolish, arbitrary mind-activity, and not anything to do with a "me" or the "thing" that was "painful".

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  Awareness settled on touch-sense and after a moment sight-sense as well. The two flickered in and out of existence in tandem at a rate of about 10 times per second. The "out of existence" voids were opaque and cavernous. The flickering had a rough quality to it, like chop on the ocean. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are. Over the course of perhaps a minute or two, the flickering sped up to about 16 or 18 times per second and smoothed out too. Concentration and equanimity didn't seem particularly high at the time, but in retrospect they were off the charts high. Awareness-stimulus-organ "contacts" arose and passed at all six sense-doors. Experience began to be defined more by awareness of a moment versus void of non-awareness than by the nature of the particular contact being experienced (for example, sound); I'll go ahead and call this "formations". I dropped into a brief story. I popped out and the meditation continued as before. Then there was a dip into non-awareness for a moment. A brief  bliss-wave through the body, and then lights behind my eyelids, REM, eyes rolling into the back of my head, then back down, and extreme mental quietude. Then back to the formations, of which physical and psychological "pain" were components. I put quote marks because the sensations that made up the "pain" were not felt as painful, or happening to some separate "me". They were just happening and observable more as just another sensation in the body - they were just happening in their moments, along with everything else. Then a dip into non-awareness and the whole thing repeated once more. Then back into formations, with the moments flickering in and out of existence smoothly and rapidly until the session ended.

Observations: This is new territory for me. I feel like I'm always saying that about meditations! But it is new to me. I'm still sussing-out what this all is and what it means. I feel like I really could use an extended retreat to  investigate this new quality of experience - 45 minutes a day is great, don't get me wrong, this just feels like a whole new vista that I don't quite "get" at this stage of the game. Oh well. Onward we go.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  Awareness settled on touch-sense. It flickered in and out of existence in at about 8 times per second. Concentration was high. Equanimity was hard to really evaluate. Mind-activity was observable as any other object would be. All sense doors received data when I turned awareness to them. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are. After a few minutes the flickering of sensations sped up to maybe 16 times per second. I dropped into a story. When I popped out sensations were presenting very fast. Data from multiple sense doors presented simultaneously. Then awareness was gone for a moment. My rolled up in my head and there was REM and lights behind my eyelids. My eyes rolled back down and a bliss-wave went through the body. Then lots of equanimity and observation of vibrations again. Fast. Then awareness was gone for a moment. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. At no point was there a felt sense of self. There were just "contacts". The session ended.

Observations: I've been meditating since the last entry on this blog, but haven't blogged about it. There has been no felt sense of a permanent or separate "self" since the last entry. Just "contacts". Discursive thought continues. Uninvestigated "emotions" feel like they always have, but investigated ones are simply touch sensations in the body, which flux and eventually dissipate over time. This is unlike what I expected, but not bad; just different.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  Awareness settled on touch-sense. Almost immediately sight-sense was observed. They flickered in and out of existence in tandem at about 14 times per second. Concentration and equanimity were high. Mind-activity was observable as any other object would be. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are and to follow and deconstruct any felt sense of self. A long period of trying to "do" the meditation followed. There was frustration and anxiety; a feeling of having lost "it". I dropped into a story and when I popped out the flickering of the confluences of organ-object-consciousness had increased to maybe 18 times per second or so. Then awareness was gone for a moment and then came back. A bliss-wave through the body. REM and crazy lights. Then pain. Then anger and sadness. Then a fading. A smoothing out. High equanimity. Again awareness was gone for a moment. This repeated and repeated. The time between the bliss-wave through the body, up the scale of experience to the moment when consciousness went became incrementally smaller as the session went on. I understood the statement "to understand two of the Three Characteristics is to understand the third" for the first time. For some reason the old koan "if a tree falls in a forest . . ." popped into my head. I felt like I understood that too. For the first time, there was the experience of "I" as a mind-activity, just like any other; for the first time there was experience of things just happening - no "me" to happen to, just mind-activity happening concurrently.
The session ended.

Observations: N/A.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  Pretty much the same as the last session. There seems to be a warm-up period of about ten minutes or so before the first (of what I believe is) fruition occurs. Then the cycling begins: bliss-wave in the body, crazy visuals, REM, and eyes rolling up into the back of the head, the physical pain and psychological discomfort, then choppy vibration and some space from the pain and discomfort, the smooth vibrations and extreme mental quietude, the *blip* - a non-experience, then bliss-wave in the body, repeat on and on. I spotted the door to several of the fruitions I experienced in this session, but mostly they were not-self. The session ended and here we are.

Observations: That tingling in my crown chakra and third eye chakra has been going on for about three days now.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  I closed my eyes and awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations flickered in and out of existence at a rate of about ten times per second. Sensations at all six sense-doors were observable when awareness alighted on them. Concentration and equanimity were high. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are and that sensations will do their thing without involvement by a "me". After a bit I fell into a story; I popped out concentration and equanimity had both increased a little and sensations were flickering faster than before. Sensations were clearly visible as either existing or not existing. Multiple sense-doors were stimulated simultaneously - I believe these were "formations". Then *blip* - consciousness was gone for a moment - I believe this was a "fruition". A bliss wave moved through the body. Then all sorts of visuals and some weird rapid-eye-movement. A brief period of lowered concentration and equanimity; anxiety and fear were present. Then concentration and equanimity were high again. Lather, rinse, repeat four five times. I was able to spot the door of one fruition (not self). Then the session ended.

Observations: This session was pretty similar to the last with the exception of being able to spot a fruition-door. I experimented a bit with "calling up" various stages of the progress of insight at will, as people in the fruition stage can supposedly do, and had some moderate success, which was kind of cool. I'm a little suspicious of what is going on though - uncharted territory.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  I closed my eyes and awareness settled on touch-sense and sound-sense. Sensations at both sense-doors flickered in and out of existence at a rate of about twelve times per second. Sensations at the mind door presented just any other sensation would at its applicable sense door. Concentration and equanimity were high. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are and that sensations will do their thing without involvement by a "me". After a bit I fell into a story; I popped out concentration and equanimity had both increased and sensations were flickering faster than before. Sensations were clearly visible as either existing or not existing. Multiple sense-doors were stimulated simultaneously - I believe these were "formations". Then *blip* - consciousness was gone for a moment. There were all sorts of visuals. A brief period of lowered concentration and equanimity. Some disturbing mind objects. Then concentration and equanimity were high again. Sensations were very clearly and distinctly discernible as existing or not. The periods of non-existence held a gravity all their own. Then it was as if I fell into one. *Blip* consciousness was gone. Lather, rinse, repeat about four or five times.

Observations: This weekend was a little too chaotic for me to blog about my meditation sessions, although (mercifully) I was able to get the sessions themselves into chaos. They've all pretty much mirrored the above experience, just less intense. And for the past three days or so the top of my head and the area between my eyes have tingled in a way I associate with some of my experiences with the Pure Land Jhanas. So it's been an interest past few days.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  I closed my eyes and awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations flickered in and out of existence at a rate of about twelve times per second. Mind-objects presented just any other sensation would. Concentration and equanimity were moderate. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are and that sensations will do their thing without involvement by a "me". Sensations were observed very clearly as just sensations, doing their thing. I dozed-off several times. The session ended.

Observations: For whatever reason I'm just exhausted today. It was tough to stay awake during this session. But that's life, I guess.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  I closed my eyes and awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations flickered in and out of existence at a rate of about twelve times per second. Mind-objects presented as if any of the other ("traditional") five sense-objects. Concentration and equanimity were moderate to high. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics and that sensations will do their thing without involvement by a "me". There was a long period of observing object/organ/consciousness "contacts" flicker in and out of existence. There was no "self" being "told" that it was not this or that contact. There was no "self" being "held in abeyance" while "I" meditated. There was just contact, nothingness; contact, nothingness. Mind was reminded again and again that the contact wasn't some "self", and neither was mind; it was just a contact. Then a brief story; when it was done, flickering was going at about twenty-five times per second. Realization: what I call this body is mostly just tactile and sight data, with a little bit of taste and smell thrown in; its not like it isn't "body", but what body IS is not what this mind thought it was. All of the foregoing was so low effort compared to past meditations. The last third or so energy flagged relative the first two thirds, but still lots of concentration and equanimity. Proprioceptive anomalies and tingling in the head and face indicated some of the upper jhannas were out there to be solidified, "this" just continued doing vipassana. The non-euphoric"meat-and-potatos-brand of clarity" I noted last session was in major evidence this go 'round, and then some. It is still in evidence now.

Observations: N/A.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  I closed my eyes and awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations flickered in and out of existence at a rate of about twelve times per second. The texture of the flickering was smooth. Thoughts and emotions were observable as objects. Concentration was moderate and equanimity was moderate to high. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are and that sensations will do their thing without involvement by a "me".  I fell into a brief story and when I popped out of it, the rate of sensation-flickering was more like twenty times per second. Sense-data from multiple sense-doors presented simultaneously in each moment. I had a realization that sensations were never composed of data from more than one sense-door; when there's data from more than one either its a formation (a moment with data from more than one sense-door presenting simultaneously) or its a misunderstood sensation. The process of assigning "self-hood" to objects-organ-consciousness "contacts" was apparent, and then, realization: I have been been laboring to stop the conflation of self and phenomena, but this assumes that there is a permanent, separate self out that can be conflated - the realization was that there is no such self. There is just phenomena doing their thing, and sometimes the mind gets confused and calls these phenomena "self" when, in fact, there is no such thing as a "self". A layer of effort dropped away. There was still selfing happening, but it was just the mind, not a "self". This provided a non-euphoric sort of meat-and-potatos-brand of clarity for the rest of the meditation, and even now, as I write this.

Observations: N/A.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  I closed my eyes and awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations flickered in and out of existence at a rate of about five or six times per second. The transition from sensation, to not sensation, to next sensation, to not sensation, etc was a little rough and "chunky". Thoughts and emotions were observable as objects. Concentration and equanimity were high. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are and that sensations will do their thing without involvement by "me".  I fell into a brief story and when I popped out of it, sensations were flickering in and out of existence at rate of about sixteen times per second or so. The chunky texture of the flickering process was gone; it was now smooth. Sense-data from multiple sense-doors presented simultaneously in each "flicker". The process of assigning "self-hood" to objects-organ-consciousness "contacts" was apparent, and seemed tragically misguided. There seemed to be "a lot" of this sort of assigning this session - I don't know if this is because that is actually the case, or I was just observing what has always been the case, but has not been apparent to me. Several times there was "sheet lightening" behind my eyelids. A few times discursive thought stopped, and slowly rebooted. This meditation seemed to last, from the inside, about as long as it lasted "from the outside" (to my stop watch).

Observations: N/A.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  I closed my eyes and awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations flickered in and out of existence at a rate of about ten times per second. Thoughts and emotions were observable as objects.Concentration and equanimity were both moderate. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are and to allow sensations do their thing without effort from "me".  I fell into a series of brief stories; one right after the other. When I popped out of them, sensations were flickering in and out of existence at rate of about twenty times per second. The flickering itself was silky-smooth and subtle. Sense-data from multiple sense-doors presented simultaneously in each "flicker". The flickers of perceived sensations were separated by periods of non-existence/perception/nothingness that arose and passed with equal speed. The process of assigning "self-hood" to objects/organ/consciousness "contacts" was very clearly apparent, and just seemed utterly boring and pointless. Several times there was "sheet lightening" behind my eyelids. This meditation seemed to last five minutes, tops.

Observations: N/A.

Time: 65 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  I closed my eyes and awareness settled on touch-sense. Touch-sensations flickered in and out of existence at a rate of about ten times per second. Thoughts and emotions were observable as objects. Concentration and equanimity were high. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are and to allow sensations do their thing without effort from "me".  I fell into a story. When I popped out, sensations were flickering in and out of existence at rate of about eighteen times per second. The process of assigning self-hood to sense-objects was obvious, a little irritating, and a little tedious. About halfway through the session, the felt sense of self disappeared. There were just sense-door/sense-object/consciousness contacts, over and over, at a high rate of speed. There were several *blips* of non-experience and several small light-shows behind my eye lids - it is difficult to reconstruct the timeline, but they seemed to occur: blip, lights, no-self/contact; blip, lights, no-self/contact, etc. This session flew by.

Observations: N/A.

Time: 45 minutes.

Situation: A quiet room with my eyes closed, sitting in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Experience:  I closed my eyes and awareness oscillated between touch-sense and sight-sense. I don't recall the speed that sensations flickered in and out of existence. Concentration and equanimity were high. I reminded myself what the Three Characteristics are and to let go of any sense or idea of "doing" the meditation. Thoughts and emotions were observable as objects. I fell into a story. When I popped out, concentration was still high, but equanimity had decreased a little. Sensations flickered in and out of existence at fourteen or fifteen times per second. The arbitrary assignment of a "me" to sense-objects was clear and uncomfortable. Throughout the session, discursive thought would completely stop, then slowly get going again, then stop completely, then slowly get going again, etc. Several times, for prolonged periods, the felt sense of self did not exist, there was simply consciousness/organ/object "contact", arising and passing, many times per second. Sensations from multiple sense-doors presented simultaneously in each moment. There were a few sheet-lightning-like light shows behind my eye lids "late" in the session. When the bell rang, although 45 minutes had passed, but it felt like only three or four.

Observations: This session had a low level feeling-tone of irritating/uncomfortable to it. Unpleasant emotions, urges, and subtle mind-objects of all sorts seemed particularly "visible" during this session. Effort and the assignment of "self" to sensations were particularly uncomfortable. Anyway . . .