Hello all

The idea of this thread is to make a summary for myself of my journey until now, how my practice is going and the current obstacles. If anyone chimes in with thoughts, ideas, recommendations I will of course be very happy, but the logging is meaningful in itself, so its all okay. Ive been logging a bit for myself since january 2024, but not daily, and I dont know yet how often and how much I will log here.

A bit about my meditation journey until now
I've been meditating daily since start 2023 and have slowly increased the time spent. My general practice is now 60 min. in the morning and 15-30 min. in the evening. The first year of my practice was mostly inspired by Eckhart Tolles "The power of now" and some Zen litterature and guidelines, so it was very barebones and focusing mostly on just being present in practice and off the cushion - but also only short meditations max 20 min. This period of like the first 9 months of 2023 felt in many ways like the happiest ive ever been, i was so amazed by this new way of experiencing the world and thinking about "myself" and often felt like i had it all figured out. In January 2024 i came across the Deconstructing Yourself podcast and TMI by Culadasa and from there slowly evolved my practice in the sense that i thought more about where i was in my practice and where i was headed.

I went on my first and until now only 10 day vipassana noting retreat in may/june. In short the first few days was caracterized by agitation, the next few days by drowsines andthen some days with joyful feelings, good concentration and a lot of interesting bodily sensations. The last few days was very hard to go through with some of the worst anxiety and dread Ive ever experienced. I was very unsure if I even wanted to keep practising when i got home.I kept practising anyway with a lot of deep breaths and Metta - but everything felt meaningless for a while. In the last few months Ive read abit about the insight stages and I was probably in some dark night territory, but since then it has been very hard for me to figure out where I am and how my practice is going. In the last year ive been going to psychotherapy and while both meditation and therapy has been very meaningful and somewhat transformative I've also been in contact with a lot of unpleasent feelings of anger, sadness, doubt, anxiety, shame and more. These feelings was much more intense in the period right after the retreat, and Ive been working a lot with trying to accept everything. I also wanna say that physical practices like yoga and taiji have been a big part of my routines even if it doesnt have that big of a role at the moment.

Right now my 60 min practice is 30 min Samatha on either stomach or nose and then 30 min vipassana which is one bodyscan followed by noting (seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking - and sometime extra freestyle notes). Im generally enjoying vipassana more that Samatha, at the moment, because i get more curious about the objects and its more stimulating for me. It feels free and alive. Samatha feels more strict and I have a bigger tendency to be judging of my own levels of concentration, which i often have a hard time evaluating. There is often a lot of distractions, but its hard for me to figure out if its mostly what culadasa would call gross or subtle and if i sometimes still experience "forgetting". The shorter daily meditation is whatever i feel like - sometimes more thematic like Metta or forgiveness.

Some of the doubts and questions i have at the moment
In Samatha I have a hard time choosing the object - breath under the nose is more vibrant and gives a good indication of sensory clarity which both makes it more stimulating, interesting and also easier to keep as an object but I often feel like Im naturally tensing up a bit and if I check my breath is in the upper abdomen instead of the lower part. Having the object at the lower abdomen or inside, Hara, gives a more stabilizing feeling and less of a tendency to tense up, but it also gets kind off boring, which makes concentration worse and its harder for me to evaluate if im getting dull.

I have a hard time with thoughts in the sense of figuring out if there IS thoughts or not. Sometimes its clear and they stand out. But often they feel subtle and I cant really "grasp" them, but i still have some underlying idea that I have been thinking. This makes it hard in Vipassana to know when to note "thoughts". Feeling and hearing feels so much easier to recognize clearly and consistently. Subtle visions accompanying the other senses is present what seems to me at all time. I feel like i cant sense anything without it being somewhat represented visually aswell and so i often dont know if i wanna note "seeing" or not.

I often have a tune/song playing in my head, like its playing whenever there is no other thoughts. Im aware that its "just a thought" and therefore labeling it "thinking" but i find myself often having aversion towards it, wanting inner silence instead - while at other times im simply laughing a bit when it feels silly.

All comments are very welcome. Thank you for reading

I always use the tip of the nose as an anchor for samatha and the belly as an anchor for vipassana. It's harder to work with the tip of the nose and get the right balance but I think that can be a feature, rather than a bug. The belly can super interesting if you get into it. There are so many sensations that make up the rise and fall of a big area like that, which is made up of many different tissues. Sometimes the range of sensations in the belly gives me a feeling similar to standing in a big library and knowing that not even an entire lifetime would be enough to read all the books. But, for that reason, I would never use it for concentration. 

BTW, you can make up your own labels like "semi-though" or "pre-thought" or "visual thing" or whatever. Shinzen Young uses see out /see in, hear out/hear in, etc., to distinguish between sensations coming through sense organs and sensations in the mind that correspond to sense organs. You are looking to find out what is going on. That will be somewhat different for everyone, and it also changes over time. A set of custom labels can be a very useful disposable tool.

Thank you so much for your comment and suggestions Martin.

August 26th
Poorer concentration than usual with many word-thoughts and some drifting into forgettings. Many of the word thoughts were in English (my native language is danish) and dealt with evaluation or thoughts around logging and sharing. When I got further into the meditation with still poor concentration, I noticed a growing aversion. I was also often lost in my thoughts in my vipassana and started to feel anger which I chose to express by shaking and making some noises. Afterwards I felt a degree of relaxation and acceptance. All in all a very hard meditation which had a much lower quality of both concentration and sensory clarity than usual.

Subsequently, for this reason, I have thought that the idea of ​​logging in publicly in English probably entails an extra layer of distractions that I am not ready for at the moment. Apparently my ego really wants to be seen as a good yogi in here. The need for recognition, achievement, etc., which was brought to life at the same time as a desire to formulate good sentences in English. All this gave vent to a great many insistent word-thoughts.

Language of inner monologue is a very interesting topic for multilingual people, I think. My native language is Dutch, but I live in France and speak English with my partner; my degree was also entirely in English and I'm very online-native, so my inner monologue has been consistently in English for a very long time. Personally I think it sometimes masks certain things; thinking in my native language does feel a lot more "visceral", in the same way that swear words hit way harder in my native language than in English, where I tend to swear like a sailor. Would probably be good for me to think in my native language a bit more often.

I am also only just starting to write practice logs here and I can definitely relate with regards to it making a huge impact on my mental talk during a sit. Sensations are just sensations and so long as they are perceived clearly it really needn't be a problem, I think, but I agree that it's pretty challenging, and there's something to be said for not making things too hard for yourself too -- "middle way" and all that.

I go for the tip of the nose for shamatha too. I gave the abdomen a serious shot, since it's such a popular and classic anchor, but because it's a more "vague" and diffuse sensation I tend to get anxious about which part of it exactly my attention should rest on, and then because the breath and the general torso area is so involved in anxiety it tends to amplify itself. It's also just kind of an uncomfortable medium for me; if I really want to find concentration it's better to have a narrower focus, and then I tend to shift to full-body awareness when I want to settle down and stabilize more, which, being larger, gives more space and is also more challenging which helps prevent boredom.

You're definitely right that there's a huge spectrum in "thought" ranging from "loud fully-formed, well-articulated sentences heard in the head" to "vague distant rumblings that a thought might be coming". I also agree with you regarding subtle visions being almost always present.

I'd say a couple things. First, mind that there's no rule that says "one note = one word", and noting "sublte thought", "subtle image", "thought and image" can be a really good clarifying exercise. You get to the point where you notice sensations faster than you can label them pretty easily, and yeah, having to manage "what do I label and how do I label it?" gets very burdensome.

Mind that restricting your focus range and choosing to note only thought, only physical sounds, only images etc is an option. Also, at some point, it's easier to drop the labels. Labels are very useful because they're good at keeping you "on topic" and they provide a good feedback mechanism (in the sense of "if you labeled it, you definitely noticed it"), but they are not necessary to notice something. It's not all-or-nothing either; you can choose to label the subtle stuff and just notice the more overt stuff. I won't say "don't overthink" it, but I will say: "note overthinking!" :-)

Definitely a big +1 for checking out Shinzen Young's stuff -- he has very thoroughly systematized and simplified noting techniques in a way that is very clear and extensive about what options you have while also strongly simplifying what feels like a lot of decisionmaking in noting techniques as taught in e.g. MCTB. Sometimes what's in MCTB feels like it's an engine that starts at third gear, and Shinzen's stuff feels like it adds the missing first and second gear to me.

Thank you for the comment Akko that was very useful.

I appreciate both your and Martins comments about Samatha but i still feel unsure, since i really dont wanna just sit and tense up for 30 min. But maybe i will go for the nose and try to have an intention to relax and "drop down" into the body at the same time - maybe shift to full body attention for a short time if I notice that Im tensing. That might work.

I will definitely experiment with restricting noting to certain sense doors in the near future. I have to play around some more with different kinds of noting. Sometimes when i feel the my "flow" in noting is very good and fast, and so the notes feel more like an obstacle to the "real" speed, I switch over to just noticing instead - which feels great, but my concentration is not always good enough for that shift.
And I will make sure to read Shinzen Young - its already on my list for one of the next books. Right now Im reading Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach and it feels very meaningful, given that im no doubt too hard on my self in both meditation and in general.

I agree that the extra mental talk about logging is just another distraction/object and therefore not necessarily a problem, and it would probably normalise if i just kept to it. But from my very limited one-time experience it felt like too much, haha.

My general algorithm for tightness is to go wider -- dropping down into the body tends to be good, yeah. Was mostly just reporting my experience, what makes for a good shamatha object varies quite a bit from person to person. It's worth experimenting and getting a sense for what works for you in different situations -- with the important caveat that changing your object all the time, especially within a sit, prevents you from going deeper or getting used to the object, so I try to balance "choose what works" with "stick with it".

For techniques that are more about the breath within the body, how the breath relates to the body and so on I've found Thanissaro Bhikkhu's stuff (dhammatalks.org) very useful. Tons of good material there. While not necessarily "stuffy" in any way, he is very orthodox Buddhist.

Personally I think Shinzen's actual book, The Science of Enlightenment, is actually only so-so compared to how good I think his actual systems are; it's alright, but not one of my favorite dharma books. A lot of Shinzen's stuff kind of floats around as random PDFs on his website and in other places. There's a ton of good talks and interviews with Shinzen on YouTube as well. Mind that he's changed some of his systems around a few times and changed terminology more than once, though I didn't find it that hard to keep track of and the older stuff still holds up.

I definitely think that being unsure on my object in Samatha and therefore often "searching around for it" is having a negative influence on my concentration. I will try and look into both Shinzen and Thanissaro Bhikkhu's material, thank you for the recommendations.

I will be logging for todays practice:

27.08
Fairly good concentration in Samatha with focus around the nose. Periods of thoughts, subtle thoughts and silence. A few individual times where the attention was distracted away from the nose for approx. a breath or two. Generally I think I am in a form of Subtle dullness through much of the meditation.

I spent a long time on the body scan as it felt interesting and alluring today. Experienced many bodily sensations - all familiar. Small and large vibrations in the hands. Many mini-tensions in the skin, especially in the face, which are dynamic and constantly changing - sometimes experienced as small animals crawling around under my skin (this happens relatively often since the retreat in June). 

I sit right on the edge of a chair: Gradually throughout the sitting, my torso begins to rotate to the left and I collapse slightly in the upper body - this position feels reasonably stable and relaxed, but at the same time slouched - and perhaps it is too relaxed taking into account my experience of subtle dullness. I am in doubt as to whether I should correct the position slightly back to the starting position, which is a little more straight, whether I should be mindful about my position and try not to fall into the slightly slouched position, or whether I should simply let it happen and thus avoid movement and "manipulation".

Practice logs from the last few days. When I dont write time its 60 min, and I usually dont log my smaller evening meditations. I almost always sit on chair.

28.08
(50 min)
Good concentration in Samatha with focus at the nose with a feeling of simultaneously (rapidly alernating) awareness of both body, sounds and thoughts much of the time. Attentive to word thoughts and often subtle word thoughts - usually quick noting and then return without reluctance. Sometimes my focus was off the nose for approx. an exhalation. Maybe once or twice with a little longer time, but still interpret it as just "gross distractions" in Culadasa language. Fairly high degree of detail with poking/pecking and slight wave sensation at the upper lip. Slightly worse attention during body scanning - more difficult to maintain awareness and concentration during this - but it is probably generally more demanding. However, I felt a better retention than most of the time and that I could often note down or simply pay attention to word thoughts in the meantime.

29.08
Many thoughts. Could be aware of many of them but also several times where I was drawn into them and out of my attention leading to brief forgettings. Aversion to the amount of thoughts, attempts to accept this aversion, but difficult. The thoughts were many different kinds and often it did not feel like "me" but just as various voices that appeared again and again. Vipassana was difficult as I couldn't stay present with my thought. I kind of "gave up" or maybe just let go.
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30.08
(40 min)
Lots of word thoughts at the start. Pleasant high pitch tone in the last part that felt as if it came from both ears and all over my head. Caught myself thinking “there are no thoughts” and started laughing. Felt high degree of acceptance of thoughts. At the end i felt a lot of joy and pleasure and sat with a big smile. I could feel pleasant warm tingling and buzzing in the whole body.

2nd sitting (30 min)
Samatha and short body scan
Fairly good concentration, especially at the beginning when there were almost no gross distractions - longer periods with the breath as a continuous object, with lightning-fast jumps to other objects, which almost feel like a simultaneity of the attention (Maybe these shifts are what Culadasa would call subtle distractions? ). High sensory clarity at the upper lip below the nostril - could clearly feel large pulsations and smaller mini-pulsations like little bubbles popping. Noticing aversion to thoughts, noting “thinking” when I detect thoughts, which is very often. Would like to try to meet this aversion with acceptance and see if I can cultivate a joy at the moment I become aware of thoughts.

31.08
Had an impromptu meditation without timer on the couch which became focused on feelings: at first a subtle fear. Related to the fear of my father as a small child. Get in touch with 4? year old Jacob. Then "role play" with a scene from Christmas Eve a few years ago. Noticed the situation and tried different strategies: confronting, just observing with love, going up to him and just looking deep into his eyes and daring to show my sadness, fear but also courage to do this. In the end, I came back to 4-year-old Jacob, comforted him and felt sadness.

2nd sitting
Not the best concentration at the start. Maybe a little more restlessness and slight anger+fear after the previous "therapeutic" meditation. My usual tension in the throat transformed at one point into a green/blue soft mass that squirmed and moved, a bit like a lump of slime. Had a good sense of what might be considered chi clearly in both arms, legs and face and at one point also in the chest region. Constant tingling movement, light but at the same time with a tightness at the skin. I got the idea that it originates from the stomach but I cannot feel it in the stomach region itself. Spent some time in whole body breathing and conscious cultivation of "chi" by gentle exhalations and partially conscious visualization. This was a pleasant experience even with an often coexisting/alternating tension and discomfort in the throat/chest. My concentration seemed to improve in the noting part of my meditation after I opened my eyes due to a feeling of subtle dullness. Towards the end I was hit by a strong discomfort, fear, bodily pain, tension and restlessness. Got an association to some of the last days of the retreat. I managed to discover the aversion to this experience and tried to accept this aversion and thus also to some extent the whole experience. There was generally a fairly good mental balance and acceptance throughout the meditation despite varying concentration and a lot of bodily discomfort.
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01.09
A lot of thoughts, but felt equanimous and accepting. A gentle joy and a slight energetic fullness in the body (apart from stomach/chest) - my arms and legs was getting gently blown up like a balloon. Ok concentration. High pitch tone in left ear in some periods.

In terms of concentration sits, here are some advantages to finding a stable starting position and to getting used to not slumping but some slumping is very common and correcting it every so often is pretty standard practice. There are advantages to an upright position, which can increase arousal/awareness/energy, which probably outweigh the disadvantages of moving during a sit. Basically, unless you are trying to do something that specifically demands that you not move at all, I would not worry about correcting your posture a few times during a longer sit. 

Perfect. Thanks so much for the reply Martin. It makes sense to me, especially since i often tend to get a bit dull in my practice. I wont worry too much about posture corrections then.

02.09 (60min)
Dullness - sometimes subtle other times gross. Therefore spent a lot of time with open eyes and full-body breathing. Relatively poor concentration? Atleast not on the nose continuosly. A lot of gentle energy I could follow around but was sometimes a bit in doubt when it was more related to subtle dullness (A feeling of a comfortable quilt over the body). Or perhaps it can still be thought of as energy/chi but that it becomes different depending on one's wakefulness/energy level.
Emotionally, I started out with doubts (about practice, past, future, life choices) and a slight tightness in the chest. Afterwards I experienced pleasure and joy through the meditation, many times with small laughs, but still often with a slight hint of insecurity.

2nd sitting 35 min
Mild insecurity/anxiety
Wanted to do concentration but turned into noting vipassana - a feeling of high awareness and being able to switch between the sensory objects clearly, but there was also something about this experience that was a little unsafe/scary, perhaps especially because I was sitting on a bench in an unfamiliar place. However, I felt that I maintained an overall equanimity and confidence in the process. Saw a shadow of a man in front of me for my inner gaze several times. I try not to interpret but simply note "see".
It was like the feeling "cleared up a bit" at the end when I decided to straighten up more and open up the chest.03.09 (60 min)
Fairly neutral and pretty equanimous. Half poor concentration and a subtle aversion to this. Doubts about development. Focus on acceptance and enjoyment of thoughts. Period of connecting breaths at the upper lip, which worked well.I mostly wanted to do concentration today - I didnt have my usual same desire for Vipassana, maybe because I couldn't quite get into any kind of "flow" with it.

04.09 (20 min)
Was very tired from when I woke up. Tried sitting in quarter lotus on the floor because it requires more strength and energy than sitting on a chair. Felt all the time that I just wanted to sleep. Was mindful of the experience of sleepiness, how my body seemed to "close inwards" and how I had to fight to stay upright. Decided after 15-20 minutes to go and lie down in bed and fell asleep a bit. I thought that I could easily accept that it was like this today, but I could feel a frustration about it, a reluctance that I didn't get to meditate and a fear that it would be like this many times in the future, for example if one day I get small children and therefore not as much sleep.

2nd sitting 60 min
High concentration in Samatha. It is difficult to assess whether the individual slightly longer fluctuations from the object were gross distractions, but I felt to some degree that I was constantly aware. Followed the full movement of the upper lip clearly with clarity - like a soft wave with gentle tingling and pulsations in it. In the last part of the concentration part, I felt my attention beginning to spread out. First to the entire upper lip, then face, chest and arms. I gently pulled it back towards my nose. Once or twice I experienced complete silence, but when I listened there was typically one or more high pitch tones and a light buzz. Later during vipassana there was also a slightly deeper and slightly vibrating tone. The start of the body scan, my whole face just started to feel like a collection of vibrations without a clear delineation. In noting I had a lot of back pain and got a reluctance to continue and tensions in the body. I tried to feel emotions clearly - vague outlines of rapidly changing emotions: fear, anger, sadness, joy. Finally, I opened up my body and looked up a little as if to open up to all feelings, to allow everything. Saw a vision of myself sitting with light-green flames bursting from my body.

05.09 (40 min)
Half bad concentration, several times fell into thoughts briefly, however, I didn't feel like I was "completely lost" but it was still more than just a short distraction. Often I was also aware of a stream of thoughts - the thoughtstream often feels as if it comes from an "I", which is experienced as if its the awareness itself that is the "I". There was contraction towards the third eye and then a slow expansion out into the face which I followed with my attention. Then, a restlessness and a desire to get away or out - stop the meditation. Was present with this and noticed a feeling/tension in my right ribcage. Overall though, a very high degree of acceptance of the lagging concentration and in much of the meditation I felt a subtle joy.

2nd sitting 20 min
Almost pure Metta. Spent time on my mom and dad and swept through a lot of people while saying “everyone”. Got a faint feeling in my stomach - which felt connected to my usual throat-feeling. This small feeling is somehow experienced as an important opening.

06.09 (60 min)
Ok concentration. A lot of thoughts, but often attention to them while I was thinking. High pitch tones throughout much of the meditation - experienced as pleasant. Concentration was difficult during the body scan. Not so much energy. Spent 5-10min of noting vipassana naming emotions and found it switched (Or co-existed?) very quickly from different emotions. Sometimes instantly from, for example, uncertainty to fear to anger to joy. And maybe fear of anger? Often doubts - for example about practice, development and striving. Felt strong as a dragon at the end - grounded and at the same time full of vitality. Chose to do "aom mantra" after the meditation which feels balancing.

2nd sitting 60 min
Fairly good and generally effortless concentration. Especially in the first approx. 20 minutes where I experienced a kind of inner silence, a clear and pleasant high pitch tone and a effotlessness of simply resting by the nose and the tone. Felt very awake in the first 30 minutes in quarter lotus. Switched to the couch due to pain and quickly fell into subtle dullness. I've started using an inner mantra/intention at the start and random times during the meditation: Loving // Acceptance , Awake // Attention. Felt at one point very strong "energy tensions" in the skin - there was one that pulled so strongly through my skin from the eyebrow and towards the third eye that I felt that my whole head was being pulled along.

08.09 (60 min)
Tough meditation with many emotions. Have had a clear chest discomfort most of the day, and I meditated in the afternoon today. Concentration was generally not that good - or at least not one-pointed but very wide and changing. However, often with a kind of meta-attention to this. Quickly shifted from trying to keep attention at the nose to instead feeling into the sensations at the solar plexus, chest and throat. They were for a period very uncomfortable, especially when identified thoughts and stories were associated with them. Images appeared that were unpleasant, shameful - seeing myself hurting my loved ones. I felt doubt, confusion and fear. Suddenly obvious anger. I expressed the anger with my body and some sounds and changed my position to a more stable Seiza position. Here I calmed down more and although I could still feel clear traces of the emotions, there was a greater calmness. I have this general idea that the feelings are locked up, tied up inside me and that they are not really released. That I cannot, or dare not, feel them fully. An inner image of being a dragon came and gave strength to the body. Saw a woman who wanted to choke me. I breathe fire at her but she kept coming back.