3 Hour Strong Determination Sit - Results

[ardacigin]

In order to do long strong determination sits, one of the essential awareness modality one needs to develop is something called 'awareness of mental states, emotions and intentions'.

This is actually an awareness that forms extremely deeply on the 2nd path attainment.

Basically, you understand (on the experiential insight level) that as long as ANY amount of craving is present at ANY moment, it reinforces self-clinging and suffering. The only completely satisfying state is the one where craving of all forms is extinguished. Whether the state has more unpleasant sense percepts in comparison to pleasant sensations is absolutely irrelevant.

 To do a 3 hour SDS sit, you DON'T have to be a 2nd path meditator. But you need to have a momentary contact with the awareness of mental states, emotions and intentions. Here is what I mean,

In an SDS sit, eventually you are going to feel the resistance and an innate urge like:

'Oh my god. It's been 2 hour and 10 mins, when is this gonna be over? This agitation keeps building. Due to cross legged posture, my legs are in a ton of pain. If I was sitting on a chair, this would be so easy. I can't feel any joy or equanimity...Nothing works. FUCK I'm gonna stop and eat some pizza.'

Whenever this sort of mental state, intentions and urge arise, since you've developed metacognitive introspective awareness (explained here), you are going to self-correct, reduce craving (aversion in this case) which will allow you to maintain equanimity and tranquility. 

That will give you a breathing room to generate a happy mind (even if you are in a lot of pain) and from that will arise another opportunity to generate pleasurable sensations in the body (even if you are in a lot of pain). - Now this part is OPTIONAL but it will be effective to develop this habit and skill t develop equanimity further.

Inıtıally, the moment of attention to the pain will be greater than pleasure but since you are in a state of joy and strong metacognitive awareness, eventually the moment of attention to the pleasure will greatly outnumber pain.

The pain sense percepts will de-amplify and pleasure will amplify. This process, by itself, will generate even more equanimity and tranquility. Which will then generate stronger mindfulness.

All of a sudden, pain no longer bothers your and/or is absent from your conscious awareness. What remains is a reduction of craving, self-clinging and a generation of joy, happiness, pleasure, contentment, equanimity, tranquility and metacognitive awareness.

Whenever the mind goes back to the old paradigm, you revert it back to the process I've outlined above to reduce craving and self-clinging.

Then the bell rings which ends your 3 hour SDS sit.

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To be honest, this sort of technique won't be deployed unless everything becomes unbearable. Usually, this would constitute the last 15 mins of the sit. Normally, due to physical and mental pliancy, pain sensations don't even register in consciousness and is almost totally absent from your awareness.

Even if pain arises, you allow it to exist and do its thing in the background. That will also develop equanimity in another way. In fact, that is your default technique.

You can go further technically at this point. It depends on how much physical pliancy is present. That will develop deeper as you practice more. Don't worry about it. Do the best you can now and eventually, what seems impossible will be fairly doable and easy.

It is all about developing this real time awareness which prevents you to sink into depression, agony, frustraton, and lack of awareness regarding your mental states, alertness, emotions, feelings, craving and activities of the mind.

You need to stay conscious of these in each moment and allow the understanding I've outlined above to develop by itself.

Hope this helps,

Much love,

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2022 by ardacigin

[Consilience]

Love your posts Arda! Thank you for your contributions to the forum man. ?

17 hours ago, ardacigin said:

Even if pain arises, you allow it to exist and do its thing in the background. That will also develop equanimity in another way. In fact, that is your default technique.

This tends to be my default technique with SDS, but mainly because the pain eventually gets to a point where all pleasure and positive sensation production just stops functioning… All that I can do is surrender to the pain. However, what happens is my mind will go through cycles where equanimity slowly starts ramping up, eventually enough sensory clarity of the pain occurs where I begin perceiving the arising and passing nature of the momentary sensations, which seems to “unhook” the aversion - there’s no longer any sensations for the aversion to hook onto because the individual sensations are too transient for the mind to attach. Then the pain usually reaches new levels, and the cycle starts over from a new starting point both with the equanimity and the pain.
 

However, this is probably an indicator that my samatha skills are lacking… lol. And furthermore, this is unreliable. It seems rather random whether that level of mindfulness actually unfolds in an individual sds sit. On the other hand, Ive been able to perceive what shinzen calls “the taste of purification” even when surface level mindfulness seems low. I can tell any sds sit is deeply productive regardless of how much suffering is present. I believe this is only possible because of being more of an intermediate meditator, I do not think an overtly painful sds sitting would be productive for a beginner. A sufficient level of of metacognitive awareness seems necessary before sds can be productively explored. A metacognitive awareness that can skillfully ride the highs and lows of the mind, so to speak. 

Great job with the 3 hour sit!
 

The only time I attempted a 3 hour sds I wasn’t able to not move and felt like I was traveling into hell realms… lol. The only reason I was able to finish just the sitting part was I was with a meditation group. 

[herghly]

why don't you sit on a chair? I find for SDS sitting on a chair makes more sense. 

You've inspired me to practice SDS again! 

[ardacigin]

7 hours ago, herghly said:

why don't you sit on a chair? I find for SDS sitting on a chair makes more sense. 

You've inspired me to practice SDS again! 

Sit on a chair if you want to. But working with pain and unpleasant sensations is the name of the game in a SDS sit. Cross legged postures allow you to work with all types of sensations.

Let me know how your practice goes :))

[ardacigin]

On 08.01.2022 at 9:33 AM, Consilience said:

However, what happens is my mind will go through cycles where equanimity slowly starts ramping up, eventually enough sensory clarity of the pain occurs where I begin perceiving the arising and passing nature of the momentary sensations, which seems to “unhook” the aversion - there’s no longer any sensations for the aversion to hook onto because the individual sensations are too transient for the mind to attach. Then the pain usually reaches new levels, and the cycle starts over from a new starting point both with the equanimity and the pain.

Hi Ethan. Seeing the impermanence in pain and pleasure while reducing the desire for things to be different than how you are EXACTLY experiencing them right now is going to reduce self-clinging. This is the key :))

Try to connect this impermanence (which induces equanimity anyways) to your self-experience right now :)) See its impermanence and to aid you in this investigation, reduce craving and allow a clearer look at where perception originates. The understanding will develop by itself.

On 08.01.2022 at 9:33 AM, Consilience said:

The only time I attempted a 3 hour sds I wasn’t able to not move and felt like I was traveling into hell realms… lol. The only reason I was able to finish just the sitting part was I was with a meditation group. 

Inıtıally, do a 3 hour normal meditation. Feel free to move your shoulders, stretch BUT don't allow yourself to move your legs. (in a cross legged posture). That is where the bulk of suffering lies in the first place. This is still very beneficial.

Give yourself many 'relief' moments by stretching your back and arms while maintaining the posture. Then go back to heightened awareness.

When you are comfortable doing this in casual meditation, now you can do a 3 hour SDS sit. 

Much love,

Arda