Okay, this morning I didn't. But I returned to London late last night and woke up too late to both meditate and walk the last couple of miles to work, which I'm trying to do every day. So I walked, on the grounds that I could sit this evening. But I find it much harder to get to it after work than to do it before anything else in the morning. I hope this is not the slippery slope.
No, definitely not the slippery slope. Nice to have you back Jean.
Did the practice this morning. Not the easiest of times right now workwise. I am approaching a crossroad when I can see I will have to decide whether or not to end my current contract and take a step into the unknown with nothing to go to (yet). Am hoping this practice will help with both clarity and courage, but I had the feeling today that it might actually be making me even madder than I normally am (!)- I feel very hyper at the moment.
I don't know much (anything!) about chanting, but can it actually be more energising than calming? Perhaps you need to think about what kind of practice will serve you best right now? And all the very best with the decision facing you.
:-) I always think it's dangerous to look for direct & predictable correspondences between spiritual practice and pyschological balance or well-being. (Not that that stops me, of course.) We can always see such correspondences, lots of them, lots of mutally contradictory ones in fact, but I think that's just because both things are so complex and so irregularly shaped that they lend themselves to being extrapolated into connecting patterns. So when I'm in a happy frame of mind I can easily see how my practice is making me calmer and wiser and when I'm in an unhappy frame of mind I can just as easily see how it's making me more anxious and ditzy.
I both agree and disagree with Dale above. I do experience a simple, mechanistic relationship between practice and mood/behavioural tendencies. eg when I sit every day I make far fewer typing errors. But also a much deeper, ineffable relationship.
I actually do a bit of each - chanting and meditating - in each session. I think the hyper-ness is probably a combination of too much caffeine, trying to do 12 different things at the same time, and a strong sense of imminent change ....
Yeah, I see some of those relationships too, Jean, and I do think they're real, at least some of them. The reason I think it's dangerous to make much of the connections, though, is that sometimes the psychological benefits vanish for a while, and if I'm connecting the two too closely my impulse will be to think "oh -- the meditation isn't working any more." (closely followed by "well, if it's not going to do me any good, there's not much point in keeping up with it.")
I'm told that the Dalai Lama says that you shouldn't try to assess the effectiveness of a meditation practice over any shorter period than six months -- there's so much inevitable fluctuation in these things that over a shorter period the natural swings are likely to be more apparent than any stable progress.
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Okay, this morning I didn't. But I returned to London late last night and woke up too late to both meditate and walk the last couple of miles to work, which I'm trying to do every day. So I walked, on the grounds that I could sit this evening. But I find it much harder to get to it after work than to do it before anything else in the morning. I hope this is not the slippery slope.
Nah. Just do it first thing after work... which ought to be right around now? (I'm one of those people who always gets time zones muddled.)
I sat last night at the sangha. Remind me to tell you about Bob the Practice Opportunity sometime.
No, definitely not the slippery slope. Nice to have you back Jean.
Did the practice this morning. Not the easiest of times right now workwise. I am approaching a crossroad when I can see I will have to decide whether or not to end my current contract and take a step into the unknown with nothing to go to (yet). Am hoping this practice will help with both clarity and courage, but I had the feeling today that it might actually be making me even madder than I normally am (!)- I feel very hyper at the moment.
I don't know much (anything!) about chanting, but can it actually be more energising than calming? Perhaps you need to think about what kind of practice will serve you best right now? And all the very best with the decision facing you.
:-) I always think it's dangerous to look for direct & predictable correspondences between spiritual practice and pyschological balance or well-being. (Not that that stops me, of course.) We can always see such correspondences, lots of them, lots of mutally contradictory ones in fact, but I think that's just because both things are so complex and so irregularly shaped that they lend themselves to being extrapolated into connecting patterns. So when I'm in a happy frame of mind I can easily see how my practice is making me calmer and wiser and when I'm in an unhappy frame of mind I can just as easily see how it's making me more anxious and ditzy.
Have you sat yet, chèr Jean?
I mean chèe Jean?
(I'm also getting overexcited by learning the html for accents and umlauts. Don't mind me.)
Drat. I mean chère Jean?
Cher Dale, no, I'm still at work. I will, though.
I both agree and disagree with Dale above. I do experience a simple, mechanistic relationship between practice and mood/behavioural tendencies. eg when I sit every day I make far fewer typing errors. But also a much deeper, ineffable relationship.
I actually do a bit of each - chanting and meditating - in each session. I think the hyper-ness is probably a combination of too much caffeine, trying to do 12 different things at the same time, and a strong sense of imminent change ....
Yeah, I see some of those relationships too, Jean, and I do think they're real, at least some of them. The reason I think it's dangerous to make much of the connections, though, is that sometimes the psychological benefits vanish for a while, and if I'm connecting the two too closely my impulse will be to think "oh -- the meditation isn't working any more." (closely followed by "well, if it's not going to do me any good, there's not much point in keeping up with it.")
I'm told that the Dalai Lama says that you shouldn't try to assess the effectiveness of a meditation practice over any shorter period than six months -- there's so much inevitable fluctuation in these things that over a shorter period the natural swings are likely to be more apparent than any stable progress.
(sorry to be a nag :->)
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