2024-07-02

Today I meditated for an hour. I started by setting the intention to face difficulties with loving-kindness, to accept, to be present, to fully experience the difficulties, to understand them, and to have compassion for myself. I began by observing the mind and body, noting naturally without forcing it. Around 20 minutes in, I entered the phase of difficulty, losing control of the meditation, nothing too obvious, noting with difficulty, moments of awareness, moments of unawareness, moments of trance, moments of awareness where I could note better. I noticed myself coming out of the trance because there was discomfort, and then I went back to noting. I realized I was in the desire for liberation phase because I wanted to have control, the desire to leave the meditation, the desire to leave that state of difficulty, wanting to correct it, wanting to have control. And when I realized this, I thought, "Oh, I am in this desire for liberation phase." I started to let go, to relax, to release, trying to embrace the difficulty. At first, it came and went. I noticed discomfort, the desire to change, but this perception that I was there would return, and then I would let go, and the desire for liberation passed, leaving only confusion. So, it seems I was in re-observation. I noticed that experience repeating like being in a washing machine, spinning around inside. I only saw confusion, had no control over anything, but I no longer had the desire to control it. I did not have the desire to fix it, and I stayed there. This was in the last 10 minutes.

DAY 2024-07-03

Today I meditated for an hour. I started by relaxing my body and mind, with the purpose of being present, experiencing what I had to experience, facing what I had to face, without trying to change the situation. And today, I quickly reached access concentration. The centering was strong. I was more centered. I even thought I was going to experience more vipassana jhana than nanas because I was very centered. But around 20 minutes in, I started to notice my memory faltering, losing control, my vision becoming more blurred, my memory becoming shorter, remembering less about the investigations that had to be done. For example, I like to keep asking, who is meditating? Or, who is in control? Trying to perceive the sense of self, remembering the best notations according to the difficulty I am having. This type of instruction, then I start losing this control, this memory of what to do, what to investigate, how to behave. And I started losing this, which is the phase of difficulty that I have, it seems to be going towards the nana of re-observation, where we have no control, it seems to be spinning, spinning. But today, compared to yesterday, I had more control, I had more awareness. I had far fewer moments of unconsciousness. Today I had around 20 to 30% of unconsciousness. I had moments of desire for liberation, a desire for that confusion and discomfort to go away. I noticed many moments of aversion because of this. As we become aware, perceive the aversion, we change and accept the situation and then it gets better. But I can't get out of this.

Andre, are you pasting your comments into DhO from Word or some other text editor? The text size is extremely small and that's is probably caused by the text commands embedded by the processing app.

I copy directly from ChatGPT app and paste it here. Sometimes this happens, I notice it and correct it right away. I will try to be more careful next time. Thanks for letting me know!

DAY 2024-07-04

​​​​​​​Today I meditated for an hour. I started by observing the body and the mind. I quickly entered access concentration. I had a great firmness and courage to see and face difficulties, with a lot of determination, willpower, and courage. Around 20 minutes in, the sense of control started to diminish. That's fine. I'm used to it. I continued noting. I was aware. I noticed the field of vision narrowing, the control diminishing, and the memory of what to do fading, but I still knew what I had to do, which was to note and be present. I managed to do it. Today I used a teaching from Ajahn Chah, where, when something negative came up, like an expectation that I would become unconscious or have illusions, I said: uncertain. I could see the negative part of the mind and the positive part of the mind, which I clung to. I was firm with the positive part. I perceived the positive part of the mind. So I said uncertainty. And it was indeed uncertain. This gave a nice, positive perspective because there could be a thousand possibilities. Whereas when I looked at the other side, where I could become unconscious and end up dreaming, there was only that possibility, that negative. So saying it's uncertain gave a very nice perspective. And I became more and more positive and kept going. Despite seeing little and being really uncertain about what I was seeing, I had a certainty that I was there, conscious, and seeing it. And with that, I had much more awareness. I had few phases of unconsciousness. I still noted illusions, moments of wandering, and trance, but very few. I had greater moments of centering, of being absorbed. These were moments of freshness. Many moments of absorption. I had few moments of dukkha today. Many moments of consciousness. I think, towards the end, it was as if I was outside watching what was happening. It's like that simile where we talk about the washing machine, where you see your clothes, but then you see yourself outside of it.

DAY 2024-07-05

I meditated for an hour. I started by setting the intention to face difficulties. I quickly entered access concentration. During the first 20 minutes, I was in the control phase. I had several reminders of what to observe: posture, emotions, bodily sensations, mental objects. In short, I was in the control phase, and it was pleasant. Then, around 25 minutes in, I started entering the difficulty phase, losing control. I began to notice desires for change, wanting to fix things. I couldn't see much, so I just noted the difficulties and let go. I noted awareness, uncertainty, and discomfort. Towards the end, I started to feel bodily pains, wanting to adjust my spine. I let go. Illusions and thoughts came up. I started having more discursive thoughts, more in a trance. In the end, I regained more awareness. The discursive thoughts diminished. I was having more difficulty with physical sensations and pains. I noticed changes in the difficulty phase, with about four different phases of difficulty.