Thittato

45 min sit today. Much better today, quite some momentum in going into and acknowledging whatever arose of painful feelings, and the energy was flowing and positive. I feel refreshed. However my mind didn’t quite settle down, it almost did, but obviously there was work that needed to be done instead. When it won’t settle down I put it to work instead, working on the various blockages and trying to stimulate the energetic flow in my body.

Another possibility, which I wrote about last cycle of this, and which is related to those other dynamics already mentioned, is that I’m numbing myself to something going on which I don’t want to acknowledge. I could already feel now after this sit that some more honesty was coming into my mind about some situations I was resisting to be honest to myself about. I have two very specific situations that I’ve been dishonest with myself about these last couple of days that now I’m gradually getting some more clearity around. And NOW I feel enthusiastic and empowered about todays meditation ? I hate resistance, but I love honesty, especially self-honesty.

45 min sit today. Interesting how when the meditation was amazing yesterday it is usually not amazing today. Like I cannot get my mind in the right gear. I guess it has something to do with when my memory of my latest meditation has to do with a very pleasant experience happening on a very refined level, it is difficult to down-shit and take genuine interest in what is happening on a coarser level if the mind is feeling more coarse the next day. It probably also has something to do with when my being is very relaxed through deep meditation I cannot control the defense mechanism that are controlling whatever is still stored of traumatic experience in my body, and new layers of something is released into consciousness and I’m put into process and have to work through that stuff before my mind will go into stillness again. So some kind of interplay between these two dynamics, but I hope to find a stronger willingness to work through the coarser levels of mind even when I’m disappointed because I was expecting to just continue my journey into stillness. Been writing about this addiction to meditative states of stillness before. Some kind of shooting myself in the foot dynamic happen because I start to cling on to them when I experience them and when I cannot reproduce them the next day my desperation and also my lack of interest for whatever else is going on instead of them makes me undermine the causes and conditions for them to arise again. But these days these states seem to come and go every other day, so something is defently working here and it is probably just a matter of continuing this daily training and continue to expose and work with all these various cycles going on.

45 min sit today. Beautiful, deep concentration. Sweet stillness suffusing my whole being.

45 min sit today. This must be the best meditation-period I’ve ever had. All the drama and desperation around meditation seems gone. Like all that stuff that comes out of suffering deeply and clinging on to meditation as ones only hope for salvation. This is a just stable and good practice I’m having going in a very normal daily life.

45 min sit today. Strong momentum in going into fear. Feels like this is a muscle I’m exercising daily.

45 min sit today. Awesomeness is back. I found the reason why my meditation has been distracted for a couple of days. Some emotional pain I have been numbing myself from. Today I could face it head on and *boom* awesomeness was back. When something new comes up it usually takes some time for it to go from confusion to clearity. Good reminder to keep going even when it is unpleasant. Discomfort only means something new is being learned.

20 min yoga, and then 45 min meditation. Took the whole sit before my mind finally landed, but when it did it felt really good. I’m noticing some distractedness have been coming up for a couple of days now, where as before that I was easily getting into concentration states. Well, that is just how these cycles of various moods, emotions and mind-states are.

45 min sit this morning. Lots of resistance and distractedness. But I kind of asked for it in a way because I’ve been getting tired of fascination with these concentration-states. Just wanting to feel normal in an ordinary state of being. Fed up with striving for something extra-ordinary.

45 min sit this morning. Great stuff. Just feels like I have landed in a program now. Almost looking forward to the day I don’t have to reflect so much about it and it is just a naturally integrated part of my daily routine.

45 min sit today. Great sit. My whole inner experience just melts into flow, vibrations, softness, presence and white light. Seems like I’m getting the hang of this now. I was so desperate for these experiences before, but little did I know that my desperation was what was blocking it. I could have just relaxed into it, but I was blind to my own desperation. These days, whenever desperation comes up, I just make it into the object that I explore through my meditation, trying to penetrate into it and make it dissolve into flow by totally owning it. Of course I don’t own everything all the time, that momentum comes and goes as well, but seems like the recipe is pretty clear.

45 min sit today as well. Really feels like I can now customize this to whatever my state is at the point when I sit down.

Sooooo true!! Easy to forget sometimes if one is stuck in toxic relationships and feel lonely without them, but just watched that happen in my own life - that by freeing up capacity for more healthy people to come into my life they actually did come ??

45 min meditation today. Great sit. Easy access to these concentration states. Sometimes the energy is just right and my mind just naturally wants to go deep into stillness, other times there is more disturbance in my system and there is more work to do regarding picking that disturbance apart or just accepting that at that my point my energy is more active and that for that sit I will have to work on other qualities than my capacity for going into stillness. None of the worries mentioned in the previous post are active when I can just manage to bring my mind into stillness. I just need to trust that this manic energy that I used to crave so much, but that now I have gotten weary of, but somehow I still have some bad habits when it comes to indulging in it, I just need to learn to trust that I can go beyond it and learn to cool it down. Seems to happen more and more. At one point a few years ago I was actually getting a Bipolar 2 diagnosis, and also actually a Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis, so that explains both my tendency towards hypomania and also my tendency towards changing my priorities around so much, but thanks to therapy and meditation I don’t think these diagnosis are relevant anymore, although there are still some tendencies left, but pretty mild tendencies compared to what they used to be.

Ok, holy crap. Life has been a little bit too awesome lately. This is what happens when my meditation practice is going well. Same story, over and over. Probably my biggest challenge regarding meditation mastery. Suddenly I’m very popular in many different arenas and everybody wants a piece of my positive energy. Just a little bit of time ago I was complaining about feeling lonely, then I suddenly found myself in a therapeutic session where I totally owned my loneliness, and after that I’ve been getting waaaaay more company. If I don’t learn to conserve this energy I’m in now I will go in for a crash-landing again (as countless times before). And then I will have to start all over again (almost) with building up the momentum in my meditation practice. I see one positive sign right now, and that is that I’m listening to classical piano music in order to cool down instead of searching for next level awesomeness-material on youtube. I better just immerse myself in that soothing music right now. Anyways, this journal is here to help me navigate through this phase, so I’ll trust that this documentation is part of the solution when it comes to dealing with this phase.

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha No meditation yesterday, only 15 minutes today. I am tired from having worked so much the whole December, and also from socializing much lately. New Years Eve was epic by the way. Fortunately I’ll have one week off now. I intend to keep my meditation going like I have. In fact my first big project this year will be to read the new and expanded edition of Daniel Ingram’s Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. I bought it some time ago, but didn’t get around to read it. I’ve only read the previous editions.

45 min sit today. Working on fine-tuning the balance between effort and surrender.

1 hour sit today. Got into a very nice state of concentration again. I think now is the time to really master these states. I have been able to drop into them every now and then when my system is open and the energy is right, but I’ve always heard that it is possible to master them and bring them up by will, so I think now is the time to learn to do that. The book that has been guiding my practice all the way since 2004 is Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram. He had an early draft of that book that he published on the internet. The concentration states that I’m working on are called «The Jhanas,» and in the buddhist noble eightfold path they make up the last step called «Right Concentration» or «Right Samadhi.» So in fact, this wish I’ve mentioned here for sort of having a program that I’m following is actually something that I have. I have just been dropping in and out of it over a long period of time and I’ve been doubting whether this is the program that I want to follow or whether my capacity for learning these skills is really what it needs to be, etc. But now it feels like it is all coming together ❤️?

45 min sit today. I only slept two hours tonight, so no chance I could get anything out of this sit, except it was very easy to let go of any expectation, which is certainly getting something important out of it.

85 min meditation at work today. I was on suicide watch, looking after a suicidal patient who was sleeping, so I got 85 sweet minutes of meditation in an otherwise very hectic shift. Got immediately very deep into concentration, and it was a very beautiful and stable state for the whole sit. Yesterday I missed out on my meditation, and today I almost did hadn’t it been for this opportunity at my job. It is typical that when my meditation starts to get very good that I no longer see / feel the point of doing it because my mind is in daily life very stable and equanimous at that point, but I just got to continue because now my meditation is only getting deeper and perhaps I will be able to master these concentration states at some point if I continue like this.

Sat for another 30 min today. Now there is a lot of openness and circulation in my 3rd chakra. Only a few days ago it felt very blocked. Interesting how my breath flows more freely when there is an opening like that. Some kind of contraction in the breathing-system is released. Almost feels like I’m breathing through my 3rd eye - which is probably not oxygen, but I’m sure I’m breathing Qi-energy through it. I’m longing for spending more time with my spiritual friends. Those networks has gotten a little rusty. Not sure if I should just go with the flow, or if I should more consciously choose the direction that my social life goes in. I’m noticing that I very easily adopt the values of the people around me, so there is more support for my meditation practice among my friends who see the value in it then it is among those for whom it is a hidden thing and where we instead bond around other things that we are pulled into together.

45 min sitting this morning. Had some emotional triggers related to some social situations this morning. My capacity and willingness for going into the pain, instead of looping on the stories, seems to really have increased lately. I left the meditation with a strong boost in my confidence.

45 min meditation today. This is really working. I feel that I’m using this journal to filtrate all the stress and desperation out of my meditation practice so that I can simply just go with the program.

One year anniversary for this journal. 45 min sitting today. Strong focus and good flow. This journaling has been a success. Feels like it is all coming together now regarding my meditation-practice. My main goal is just to land - to land in myself. Today I could really investigate why the good flow I was investigating didn’t turn into something I have previously only experienced in brief periods as «full circulation» in my energetic system where it feels like everything is exactly just right, and nothing is out of allignment. I’m going to inquire more into it. What I found today was some kind of blockage around my third eye chakra. Something didn’t quite flow there. I’m going to inquire more into that tension to see if I can make it dissolve. As always, the method for making it dissolve is by totally owning and accepting it - almost shifting the identity from the tension being something unwanted outside of me that is happening to me, to actually totally becoming the tension, really questioning the interplay between the observer and what is observed.

45 min sitting today. Strong focus. Did a check-in at the beginning of the sit to explore what kind of attitude I was approaching this with, and tried to just really relax into it, seeing if I could let go of any clinging for results and also that restless «just going through the motions» wanting to just be finished with it attitude. Meditation really is quality-time with myself, so I better invest myself fully, not letting unconscious attitudes sabotage the process.