Cessation #1 Journal
Transcribed (with some editing) from Twitter
This is a journal of a particularly significant year of my meditation journey - crossposted from Twitter. I apologize for the Buddhist terms I use and don’t fully explain here - but I think you can follow the gist of it even without background knowledge. I’ve included links here and there to help a bit.
What is a cessation?
A cessation is an occurrence that some traditions in Buddhism take to be very, very important, and some traditions simply don’t discuss at all. Effectively what happens is that you briefly (or usually briefly) lose consciousness in a way that is not quite the same as sleep, blacking out, or other ways we typically check-out of consciousness. Some very experienced meditators can go into cessation for hours or even days at a time. There has been some cool science recently about this.
Why this is important is that there seems to be some way in which a cessation allows your mind to do some constructive re-wiring - people aren’t quite the same after having one. Some traditions consider cessation to be an essential gateway to enlightenment. I couldn’t tell you either way, but I can say that the cessation changed me for the better - although there’s been some growing pains. But that’s for another journal.
Notes about my practice that year:
Throughout most of 2022 I aimed to do 45 minutes of sitting meditation daily, in addition to 30 minutes walking meditation 4-5 days per week. I was not always successful in this goal, but I was reasonably consistent, and always always always meditated at least once daily, even if just ten minutes in bed before sleep, or over a lunch break. I also got in longer sits here and there, but not much longer than 1hr.
My primary practices were open awareness and vipassana noting, with some soft jhana practice. I played around with a lot of different valuable techniques in 2022, but went back to these three over and over. Meeting the present moment as it is and non-expectation were guiding concepts for my sits throughout the year.
At the time I hadn’t had the chance to do any retreats (although I did multiple 1 hour sits in one day in a sort of informal personal retreat one time, and that was helpful) and I had sat with teachers in person but not had any 1 on 1 instruction. My main connection with Sangha was through peers online.
Journal:
January 18, 2022
About me: learned meditation from books, have quite a few years experience sitting zazen. Recently learned about the samatha jhanas and vipassana jhanas and am trying to attain them.
Note that my knowledge of jhana maps comes primarily from Daniel M. Ingram's writings, which I understand to be somewhat unorthodox. I'm supplementing this with other readings, but if what I'm talking about doesn't match what you know about the jhanas, that is probably why.
Current progress on vipassana jhanas is easy to summarize: absolutely cannot begin to perceive the beginning or end of individual sensations. Everything bleeds into eachother. Never realized there was another way to perceive things. But I feel I have a better grasp on no-self+suffering.
Current progress on (soft) samatha jhanas is more encouraging. Can easily reach and maintain the 1st. On a good night can reach up to the 3rd. Working on understanding and solidifying 2nd and 3rd.
It feels very much like I've opened up a whole new mental arena to explore, and I've noticed there are a lot of subtle things about attention that I was in fact not attending to previously.
It's like I had a certain understanding of what meditation should feel like, and what everyday concentration should feel like, and I wasn't poking about to try to find out how I could do it differently. Now I am.
Probably won't write much about what the jhanas feel like, because you can get that elsewhere. But I will note anything that I'm surprised or particularly excited about.
For example: I am LOVING the 3rd samatha jhana when I can reach it. It's incredibly calm and once I'm in that space I find I can meditate much longer without feeling much restlessness. It's refreshing because it's particularly far from my baseline emotional state (anxious).
February 1, 2022
Breakthrough today: started with some insight practice, followed by concentration practice when I realized I was starting to fall asleep. More insight practice after I reached the third samatha jhana: and all my sensate experience took on a flickering quality. Been aiming for this.
I was expecting it to be a bit slippery but it was a very strong and consistent phenomenon after it started. Must get some sleep now but I'm feeling energized. Is this Something? It's probably at least progress of some sort.
February 2, 2022
Tried a different method to get to the first samatha jhana yesterday and I ended up with a much stronger, more all-encompassing experience. Was maybe not actually in the jhana before this? Am expecting to have a lot of similar situations since I have no teacher (except texts) atm.
I was basically trying to "make" the jhana happen before, but now I'm just concentrating on the correct sensations and the jhana arises by itself. The trick being more in not shutting it down rather than pushing to sustain it.
I think what this is emphasizing to me is the importance of using multiple sources of knowledge and experimenting to find out what's working for me, and to find what different sorts of things I can accomplish.
February 9, 2022
I think I've entered the A&P phase of Vipassana. Thoughts are faster, time feels slower, like I can do more things in a span of time. In meditating I'm getting a lot of sensory phenomena happening that I wasn't before. Lights and a floating feeling and zaps up my spine.
How I'm meditating: noticing each sensation/thought, trying to notice when each starts and stops. Trying to recognize which thoughts feel like "self" or like they come from "me" and acknowledging that they're just another experience. Trying to notice what I cling to or push away.
Pretty psyched that I'm at this point but I know it's a very long road from here.
February 13, 2022
Probably still in A&P but I had an interesting experience meditating. An internal sense started to arise of how "self" was limiting my sensate experience. With eyes open, made an attempt to "pull" my visual sphere within my sense of self.
I had some success and my sensate experience became suddenly extremely full and vibrant, painfully so, but I wasn't able to hold onto it very long. I think I might have got a taste of what "formations" are? I had a sense that each sensation had extra dimensions to it.
As a side note, this "pulling into self" is normally opposite from the idea of no-self, but I suspect they have the same culmination. I'm rejecting an imposed boundary either way.
February 16, 2022
Ok actually I think that experience was my A&P event and now I'm in the Crap stages. Specifically I had a strong Fear thing and right now I think I'm in Disgust. No obviously discernible Dissolution or Misery stages but a lot of the Crap stages can be subtle apparently.
"Crap stages" are the official terminology for this part of the insight process by the way. You don't have to look it up, just take my word for it.
February 23, 2022
I hit Equanimity last week, or at least I think I did because I'm feeling chill and also there is very little that feels exciting happening in my practice right now. However, today I had another brush with nonduality on my commute home.
In my last one, in A&P, I felt that I was "pulling" my sensory field inside my concept of self. It was effortful and a bit harsh. Today I had the sense that myself was expanding peacefully to encompass my sensory field - and then the self fell away, at least somewhat.
The experience was very full and vibrant. I've had a hard time grasping the idea of Buddhist "emptiness" because everything is very "full" for me whenever i get closer to what seems like nonduality. everything's very joyful.
So I'm feeling pretty good today. Additionally: my ability to enter and hold samatha jhanas seems to have kicked up a notch lately. I also think I might be getting the hang of the 4th one. will write more when I feel more certain.
June 29, 2022
Day 30 of serious meditation practice: "I feel so 'tuned-in' to my everyday experience, wow!!"
Day 100: I am IN the world. moreso every day. WORLD WORLD WORLD. where does it end?”
Still haven't hit first path, so among other things I'm trying to loop back and get a more clear understanding of each of the insight nanas (as per Daniel Ingram's map).
Mind & Body first. I have a pretty strong feel now for how thoughts about past/future/concepts operate differently from thoughts that connect with and process physical sensations, and to a lesser extent how the latter is split up into bare sensory components and meaning-making.
Cause and effect next. One thought leads to the next which leads to the next. Pretty easy to grasp conceptually. The more I meditate, the more clear this process is and the more mechanical and automatic it appears. Less volitional. (the act of observation still feels volitional)
Three Characteristics. Always trying to keep these in mind. Unsatisfactoriness has been highlighted lately, and it's easier to identify distinctly which mental process carry or risk dukkha and which do not.
Arising and Passing Away. Not 100% certain how this insight knowledge is differentiated from insight on impermanence in 3 characteristics stage, apart from the unusual experiences reported by people in this stage.
Perhaps A&P insight is characterized by an ability to perceive a gestalt of impermanent processes winking rapidly in and out of existence, rather than simply observing one process at a time doing so.
I have a strong sense that the primary thing holding me back from a "big" experience of no-self, a cessation, a path moment, etc is a lack of ability to "let go", so I've been exploring that while sitting. Finding where my tensions are and relaxing or letting go of them.
August 5, 2022
You think your thoughts come from "you". Wrong! They come from everything, all the time. You won't see your thoughts clearly if you always replace their origin with "you".
August 14, 2022
What prompted the above tweet is a powerful no-self experience I had that day, the first one I've really had since I started serious meditation practice about six months ago. Seems like a significant milestone, going to write out some impressions.
Firstly worth mentioning that I've had a lot of small experiential insights into no-self along the way, and some interesting experiences meditating of different cognitive systems slowing down or stopping. Enough to make me content with progress but nothing very dramatic.
But on the morning of August 5th I first had a moment where I had a thought, which I could trace back a few causal steps to previous thoughts, and understood that it went back and back and back. Simultaneously, I saw how I had been inventing "self" as origin for something originless.
Or rather, something that has origin in everything going back forever; in Buddhist terms: something dependently originated, something empty. And this direct, deep level sort of observation and understanding lead to about 10-15 seconds of a remarkable experience.
I was in walking meditation at the time, and suddenly all of my motion and small decisions (stopping at an intersection etc) felt completely, utterly effortless. No one was "doing" them, they were just happening - and yet there wasn't any feeling of being out of control.
Firstly there was no one who could have been in control in the first place, but also all of the rational, prudent sort of processes that might keep one from walking out in front of a car, for example, were observably still happening. By themselves.
There was an accompanying, extremely pleasant, feeling of abundant energy and freedom, and a very high degree of fine-grained clarity around mental processes.
After about 10 seconds of this experience it started to fade, and by about 15 seconds it was gone entirely. I've tried to reinstate the experience using the same thought process, even knowing these things usually don't work that way, and have had no luck.
That's fine though, it will come back another time, in another way, and maybe eventually something like it might stick around long term.
September 10, 2022
Oh hey, had a weird experience meditating last night. I was doing rapid noting and I got very concentrated (for me), and it was kind of like my brain had an earthquake. Is this, uh, bad? More details in thread.
After a few minutes of noting there was this vibration that filled up my whole perceptual field. Didn't feel physical in my body, it was like if my brain was a film camera, all sensory input and thoughts was the picture in the lens, and the whole thing was being shaken violently.
It was startling, but not unpleasant once I got used to it, and I was able to continue noting through it for a while. Lasted 15-20 seconds, seemed like it might have continued longer if I had maintained concentration better. Afterwards there was a pleasant physical buzz.
I used to do a lot of noting but had switched to more exclusive concentration practice because it was clearly an area of weakness. Last night was my first time really applying those improved concentration skills back to the noting practice.
Anyone with experience / warnings about this kind of thing? I'm aware of general concerns around noting practice and may switch to something else if I start having very negative effects, but I was hoping someone might have experienced this specifically.
I got several good responses to this question on Twitter. I’d summarize by saying that what I experienced wasn’t necessarily “bad”, but that it’s good to stay in touch with how you’re feeling and to “even out” narrowly focused noting practice with more open awareness practices. I do that a lot, and also use mettā (lovingkindness) practice when my vipassana is getting a bit too intense for me.
One helpful link was to a page on Buddhist Geeks.
September 16, 2022
The incident above (re: "brain earthquake") does seem to have precipitated, or at least preceded, a more permanent shift in experience. although it's a bit subtle. Will try to describe it.
General impression is that I'm getting a more "bare" type of experience. Less conceptual overlay by default. Feels like I'm getting more detail on everything, both spatially and temporally. More moments, more data within each moment.
Positives: easier to observe thought processes. Thought space feels "clear." More equanimity, less tanha. A feeling of flowyness because things are being "let go". More flexibility to handle surprises. (Maybe) improved focus for reading/listening/watching longform content.
Negatives: general feeling of anxiety - awareness of constant change is unnerving Thoughts are also flowing faster and with fewer inhibitions, which means they sometimes go off the rails in negative ways. Not compulsively though, easy enough to redirect.
(I've found my imagination to be particularly unhelpful around horror-related content right now - movie trailers and etc. normally these are no issue.)
Feeling good about where I'm at right now but trying to be gentle with myself in meditating to let some of these changes settle. Want to do more mettā, more energy work, more embodied stuff for a while before I jump back in with vipassana. Hopefully can even out the anxiety a bit.
November 23, 2022
Anxiety has settled down and now I am on to Feelings mode. Was very angry for a couple of weeks and now I have the sads. Interesting because historically my usual range of emotion was between Neutral and Anxious/Excited without much else.
Whereas recently these feelings have been regular and very much strongly felt in the body. Have even been a bit weepy here and there which is SUPER weird. Most of the time it's not actually unpleasant which is also interesting. Main challenge is to not judge myself when angry.
I'm back doing a lot of vipassana and have made progress(?) there, it's easy for me to quickly get into very flowy states now - states where it feels like I'm both focused yet uninhibited, with a lot of energy. The visual field will have lots of weird blending/morphing happening.
Think something is starting to click from the "everything is conscious of/by itself" perspective, but hard to describe. It's like I noticed part of my thought process trying to "track" moments post-hoc and acknowledged that that's not necessary, and that noticing is percolating.
Struggling more than usual with bringing mindful awareness to day-to-day activities, but trying not to push or worry too much about it. All the feelings are a bit distracting/sticky right now but I think they'll be less so over time.
November 30, 2022
Guess who had a CESSATION finally???
[Disco cat gif]
December 1, 2022
So Tuesday night, to the best of my ability to judge, I had a cessation for the first time. First, prior to the cessation, there was a moment of awareness of mental processes ceasing. Kind of like a rapid drop into deep, thoughtless meditational clarity.
Then there was something like a record skip. Not an experience of nothingness, just a missing moment, a small discontinuity. That was the cessation itself. Afterwards, a general sense of "booting up" again, though unfortunately no clear impression of anything like the 12 links.
While booting up there was a high fidelity bubbling afterglow radiating out from my chest for maybe about a minute or so, and a longer lasting deep equanimity. Pleasurable though not intensely so, more saliently a powerfully combined clarity, openness, and imperturbability.
To be clear, there was also a repetitive internal voice arising that couldn't stop saying "THAT WAS THE THING". Lol. I had a minimal sense or self at the time so I didn't feel a strong ownership of the voice but it sure was there.
Something I think was likely a big factor in the timing of this for me was the state of openness and trust I was already in. I had just had a conversation with my partner where I had been really vulnerable and was given all the time and attention I needed. Felt amazing.
After the conversation I did a brief open awareness meditation, where I also reflected on the gratefulness and openness I was feeling, and got ready for bed. A few minutes after my head hit the pillow (I take a lot longer than that to fall asleep) and the cessation happened.
December 2, 2022
Post cessation there are a few things that stand out.
1. Emotions manifest as pronounced and very specifically located physical sensations in the body. So much that it's difficult right now to distinguish between emotional and physical, though maybe no distinction necessary.
2. I am acutely and immediately aware of when I'm being manipulative or disingenuous, and for what reason. This is going to take some time to get used to. Definitely feel like I could re-repress this stuff if I felt like it, but I don't. Equanimity very important here I think.
3. Higher baseline state of clarity and flow. Not much mental noise, not distracted as easily, more effortlessly aware. Sort of like I'm 20 minutes into a good meditation session at all times, even though not consciously doing any meditation. Pretty cool, feels good.
Will have to wait to see how much of this sticks around and how much ends up being a temporary afterglow, but I'm hopeful about it.
That’s it for now! Of course I’m posting this in July 2023, so there’s more to say. Subscribe if you’d like to keep up to date?