I took the stabilisers off today and took my chair out into the sunlit vines for twenty minutes sans cd. it was lovely.
as regards observing the breath, today I had a sense of watching my cat or a child sleep; just observing the uncontrolled breath come in and out, and I felt such compassion. Is such an experience appropriate to one's own breath?
I found myself hearing the words receive and let go rather than in and out, they just seemed to have less graspoid associations for me.
Is it perhaps important to find the balance between being moved to do the practice and enforcing a schedule? I am finding I am doing it at a different time each day, but I know that's easier because I work from home. It's difficult to trust it will get done the more the day moves through, but perhaps looking at that trust it will or the fear it won't get done is part of the practice?
ps. you have manifested a hatha yoga teacher who has just moved in to the gite next door. thank you.
Big established-habit payoff, last night. Alan knows that reading time doesn't start until I'm done meditating, so he started asking at about 8:00 -- "Dad, have you meditated yet?"
I took the visual image of the handles of my chest of drawers as my object of meditation. My shrine sits on top of this chest (which was my parents'). It's a nice maple-wood dresser, and it has brass drawer-pulls. As it happens, I sit just the right distance away from this chest, facing it square-on, that when my eyes cross, as they generally do, when I sit, the image of the drawer-pulls on the left and right drift toward each other, and then suddenly they snap together as my mind (or my "eye-consciousness", as Buddhist psychology would call it) decides that the two images are so like each other that they must be just one object. So I sat looking at this one drawer-pull -- which was really two drawer-pulls combined by the determination of my mind to create a coherent picture -- for twenty minutes. It had exactly the status that visualized images are supposed to have in tantric practice -- perfectly vivid, and perfectly understood to have been created by my own mind.
a gite is a special hutch that yogis live in...just kidding. it's a sort of self catering houselet, usually an ex barn or hayloft, which people rent out (and generally make lots of money out of, except our neighbour is a wonderful sculptor and it's v reasonable) so if ever you want to come to the mont ventoux and meditate in the vines with me...!
I got off to a slow start this morning, so it took me longer to hit the meditation mat than I would have liked...but I did it. 20 minutes. Woo-hoo!
I have a somewhat schizophrenic schedule. On Tuesdays & Thursdays when I teach on campus, I'm often too busy to sit in the morning before class...and then in the afternoon/evening, I'm pretty drained from teaching.
On Mon/Wed/Fri when I work from home, I have the opposite problem: it's too damn easy to be lazy & leisurely. So I need to "repair my commitment" so I have one approach for dealing with busy days & another for the lazy ones.
A cold, wet nose prods my palm. Tail thumping loud on the carpet. Cold, wet nose again. Paw pushing against my leg. Cold, wet nose a third time. "Take a break!" I say.
He goes, but the smell of fresh, damp dirt lingers. Sigh. I'm the kind of person who examines the insides of my eyelids. I'm training us both.
I have no dog wisom, only to say let him be his Doggy Self. Once he learns you're Largely Unresponsive whenever you sit on that funny cushion, he'll (mostly) give up bugging you.
Reg is to the point now that he'll lie down near/beside me when I meditate, jumping *right* up the second he sees me do a sitting bow, having learned that means "sitting's over; let's go do something."
I agree, Lorianne, though I'm reassured to hear you say it. I was trying to ignore him, and will try again in the future (but 3 COLD wet prods was altogether too much!). He'll get it eventually, he's not dumb, this dog. For a dog. ;-) That's why I said I'm trying to train us both. I'm loathe to give up this location, if I can get him to understand. Signed, Largely Unresponsive (which is funnier to me than probably warrants or than I could ever explain)
I haven't wanted to comment in the last few days. I have been sitting regularly each day but it has been in name only, or so it feels.
Some of my current stress and depression is triggered by external situations in my life at the moment, I know, and I know also that these will pass eventually.
But yes, I sat 10 minutes yesterday and today - and I had intimations of some kind of quietness for brief moments during these times. And of course I will continue.
Renewed thanks to everyone doing this and especially Dale (who was up really early this morning!)
Oh, definitely. Ten minutes to settle in is usual for me. Lama Michael surprised me once by saying that there seem to be two kinds of people, people whose clarity usually increases the longer they sit and people for whom it usually begins to decrease pretty soon, and that the latter are a lot more common. I of course had been assuming that everyone was just like me :-)
Anyway, he recommended, sensibly enough, fewer longer sessions for the latter and more frequent shorter sessions for the former.
I only just ran across this, dunno how I missed it. That aside, what a great idea.
My first meditation was... unexpectedly difficult. Silly me, I've been stomping and pushing things back, trying very hard to ignore them. The first thing that hit was an awareness of bone-deep exhaustion and discomfort; the second was the anxiety, full force. I rode it out, waiting, waiting... at the end, just before I was interrupted, it slid in the side door: the quiet. Just that, just a few seconds. It was enough.
I have a question o knowledgable ones... Short of asking my cat to strike a very soft gong, how do we know how long we are meditating? I seem to come out naturally after about 20 minutes - 10 to settle and 10 to whatever, but if I had to get to work or pick up kids I could imagine my anxiety about the time creeping in to my meditation. Are there zen sounding alarm clocks or do we just know?
Well, yesterday was another day when I didn't sit at all. I'm not berating myself too much, though, because I think the ability to be present with current crisis of overwork is both due to the practice and a practice in itself. And I did sit for 15 minutes first thing this morning (Thursday).
Either I'm too easy on myself or some of you guys are way too hard on yourselves or very high in your expectations, I think. I don't have such a concept as meditating 'in name only'. If you sit, you sit. And if it's hard and your mind's everywhere, but you keep sitting anyway, that's wonderful. Dropping into the peaceful place every day - well, I just don't think it's mostly like that. If I do that sometimes, that's wonderful. And if I don't, not for ages, well that's just how it is. The intention is the thing. And it's the intention that makes a difference, over time, not how often it feels lovely.
You can buy timers, Ruth - lots available by mail order from buddhist websites. But I think most people get to judge the time, if you sit for the same length of time every day.
Dale, is it good for your eyes, do you think, to deliberately go cross-eyed? I've been playing with closed and open eyes - as in different traditions, what difference it makes, which is 'better' for me. No conclusions yet. Interested to know how others find this.
I'd prefer to do half-hour periods and aim to get up to that in time. Do find 10 minutes sometimes not enough to settle - 15 much better.
Gosh, I must be a meditation Luddite. I don't have a fancy meditation alarm....I just sit with a digital clock on the floor, placed so it's out of eyesight, but I can move my eyes to see it.
That's how all the Zen Centers in my school do it: there's a designated person who watches the clock (and hopefully doesn't fall asleep!) It isn't nearly as distracting as you might think, once you get used to it.
Jean I love the sound of the timer. Does it have the same ring as those wonderful thousand metal Tibetan bells I have, I wonder? Can't imagine coming out to the sound of an alarm clock. Rather stay there! If I'm a bit over-enthusiastic about lovely meditations, don't forget I'm a novice with all the sickening over enthusiasm that comes with it. If my intention is in tact and serving me as it clearly is you in a few years, I will be very content!
Jean: thanks for the tip about the timer. Will investigate. And yeah, I know "in name only" doesn't apply to sitting - but that's just the way it felt yesterday! Good luck with the work load.
20 Comments:
you guys are lucky you even HAVE a bathroom....!
I took the stabilisers off today and took my chair out into the sunlit vines for twenty minutes sans cd. it was lovely.
as regards observing the breath, today I had a sense of watching my cat or a child sleep; just observing the uncontrolled breath come in and out, and I felt such compassion. Is such an experience appropriate to one's own breath?
I found myself hearing the words receive and let go rather than in and out, they just seemed to have less graspoid associations for me.
Is it perhaps important to find the balance between being moved to do the practice and enforcing a schedule? I am finding I am doing it at a different time each day, but I know that's easier because I work from home. It's difficult to trust it will get done the more the day moves through, but perhaps looking at that trust it will or the fear it won't get done is part of the practice?
ps. you have manifested a hatha yoga teacher who has just moved in to the gite next door. thank you.
Big established-habit payoff, last night. Alan knows that reading time doesn't start until I'm done meditating, so he started asking at about 8:00 -- "Dad, have you meditated yet?"
I took the visual image of the handles of my chest of drawers as my object of meditation. My shrine sits on top of this chest (which was my parents'). It's a nice maple-wood dresser, and it has brass drawer-pulls. As it happens, I sit just the right distance away from this chest, facing it square-on, that when my eyes cross, as they generally do, when I sit, the image of the drawer-pulls on the left and right drift toward each other, and then suddenly they snap together as my mind (or my "eye-consciousness", as Buddhist psychology would call it) decides that the two images are so like each other that they must be just one object. So I sat looking at this one drawer-pull -- which was really two drawer-pulls combined by the determination of my mind to create a coherent picture -- for twenty minutes. It had exactly the status that visualized images are supposed to have in tantric practice -- perfectly vivid, and perfectly understood to have been created by my own mind.
Jinx!
Such an experience is entirely appropriate to one's own breath, I think.
I love the word "graspoid"!!
What is a gite?
a gite is a special hutch that yogis live in...just kidding. it's a sort of self catering houselet, usually an ex barn or hayloft, which people rent out (and generally make lots of money out of, except our neighbour is a wonderful sculptor and it's v reasonable) so if ever you want to come to the mont ventoux and meditate in the vines with me...!
I got off to a slow start this morning, so it took me longer to hit the meditation mat than I would have liked...but I did it. 20 minutes. Woo-hoo!
I have a somewhat schizophrenic schedule. On Tuesdays & Thursdays when I teach on campus, I'm often too busy to sit in the morning before class...and then in the afternoon/evening, I'm pretty drained from teaching.
On Mon/Wed/Fri when I work from home, I have the opposite problem: it's too damn easy to be lazy & leisurely. So I need to "repair my commitment" so I have one approach for dealing with busy days & another for the lazy ones.
A cold, wet nose prods my palm. Tail thumping loud on the carpet. Cold, wet nose again. Paw pushing against my leg. Cold, wet nose a third time. "Take a break!" I say.
He goes, but the smell of fresh, damp dirt lingers. Sigh. I'm the kind of person who examines the insides of my eyelids. I'm training us both.
A hard 15 minutes this morning.
Moose, you need to do something about that dog! (maybe Lorianne has tips)
I have no dog wisom, only to say let him be his Doggy Self. Once he learns you're Largely Unresponsive whenever you sit on that funny cushion, he'll (mostly) give up bugging you.
Reg is to the point now that he'll lie down near/beside me when I meditate, jumping *right* up the second he sees me do a sitting bow, having learned that means "sitting's over; let's go do something."
I agree, Lorianne, though I'm reassured to hear you say it. I was trying to ignore him, and will try again in the future (but 3 COLD wet prods was altogether too much!). He'll get it eventually, he's not dumb, this dog. For a dog. ;-) That's why I said I'm trying to train us both. I'm loathe to give up this location, if I can get him to understand.
Signed,
Largely Unresponsive
(which is funnier to me than probably warrants or than I could ever explain)
I haven't wanted to comment in the last few days. I have been sitting regularly each day but it has been in name only, or so it feels.
Some of my current stress and depression is triggered by external situations in my life at the moment, I know, and I know also that these will pass eventually.
But yes, I sat 10 minutes yesterday and today - and I had intimations of some kind of quietness for brief moments during these times. And of course I will continue.
Renewed thanks to everyone doing this and especially Dale (who was up really early this morning!)
A very good sitting late this afternoon - quiet, calm, recollected. I find 10 minutes difficult - that is just the point where my mind normally settles down and when I feel like meditation actually begins for me. So it's hard for me to sit less than 20 minutes, and in the past I've tended to either do that or nothing at all. With the support of this group I'vé been doing shorter sittings, more regularly. And it's good, but not the same as what I feel during and after a longer period of 20-40 minutes - does anybody else share this experience?
Oh, definitely. Ten minutes to settle in is usual for me. Lama Michael surprised me once by saying that there seem to be two kinds of people, people whose clarity usually increases the longer they sit and people for whom it usually begins to decrease pretty soon, and that the latter are a lot more common. I of course had been assuming that everyone was just like me :-)
Anyway, he recommended, sensibly enough, fewer longer sessions for the latter and more frequent shorter sessions for the former.
Oops, I got that last sentence backwards. Fewer longer for the former and more shorter for the latter is what I meant. In other words, do what works.
Hi Dale,
I only just ran across this, dunno how I missed it. That aside, what a great idea.
My first meditation was... unexpectedly difficult. Silly me, I've been stomping and pushing things back, trying very hard to ignore them. The first thing that hit was an awareness of bone-deep exhaustion and discomfort; the second was the anxiety, full force. I rode it out, waiting, waiting... at the end, just before I was interrupted, it slid in the side door: the quiet. Just that, just a few seconds. It was enough.
~15 minutes today, minimum of five every day.
Thanks for this.
Hey, welcome, Moira!! So glad to see you here.
I have a question o knowledgable ones...
Short of asking my cat to strike a very soft gong, how do we know how long we are meditating? I seem to come out naturally after about 20 minutes - 10 to settle and 10 to whatever, but if I had to get to work or pick up kids I could imagine my anxiety about the time creeping in to my meditation. Are there zen sounding alarm clocks or do we just know?
I love your quiet sliding in the side door moira!
Well, yesterday was another day when I didn't sit at all. I'm not berating myself too much, though, because I think the ability to be present with current crisis of overwork is both due to the practice and a practice in itself. And I did sit for 15 minutes first thing this morning (Thursday).
Either I'm too easy on myself or some of you guys are way too hard on yourselves or very high in your expectations, I think. I don't have such a concept as meditating 'in name only'. If you sit, you sit. And if it's hard and your mind's everywhere, but you keep sitting anyway, that's wonderful. Dropping into the peaceful place every day - well, I just don't think it's mostly like that. If I do that sometimes, that's wonderful. And if I don't, not for ages, well that's just how it is. The intention is the thing. And it's the intention that makes a difference, over time, not how often it feels lovely.
You can buy timers, Ruth - lots available by mail order from buddhist websites. But I think most people get to judge the time, if you sit for the same length of time every day.
Dale, is it good for your eyes, do you think, to deliberately go cross-eyed? I've been playing with closed and open eyes - as in different traditions, what difference it makes, which is 'better' for me. No conclusions yet. Interested to know how others find this.
I'd prefer to do half-hour periods and aim to get up to that in time. Do find 10 minutes sometimes not enough to settle - 15 much better.
Gosh, I must be a meditation Luddite. I don't have a fancy meditation alarm....I just sit with a digital clock on the floor, placed so it's out of eyesight, but I can move my eyes to see it.
That's how all the Zen Centers in my school do it: there's a designated person who watches the clock (and hopefully doesn't fall asleep!) It isn't nearly as distracting as you might think, once you get used to it.
Jean I love the sound of the timer. Does it have the same ring as those wonderful thousand metal Tibetan bells I have, I wonder? Can't imagine coming out to the sound of an alarm clock. Rather stay there! If I'm a bit over-enthusiastic about lovely meditations, don't forget I'm a novice with all the sickening over enthusiasm that comes with it. If my intention is in tact and serving me as it clearly is you in a few years, I will be very content!
Jean: thanks for the tip about the timer. Will investigate. And yeah, I know "in name only" doesn't apply to sitting - but that's just the way it felt yesterday! Good luck with the work load.
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