It's hard for me to recall what's happened during my meditation sessions, especially if I don't write immediately afterward. Sometimes while I'm meditating I consider trying to imprint something about the session on my memory, so that I will remember it better later, but this is a non-meditative mental activity, so I mostly refrain.
I have the impression that during sleep my sense of self was coming loose, like a shell coming off of a snail or a turtle.
6am: Awoke naturally. Practiced Bentinho's "relax-for-2-to-5-seconds" exercise over and over. (This is an exercise recommended to me by Beth 11 days ago.) After a while, I drifted back to sleep.
This exercise involved relaxing mental focus for 2 to 5 seconds. It is very simple and it does result in the cessation of suffering for 2 to 5 seconds. The last time I'd tried to practice this over and over, it seemed to lose its punch. But this time it kept its punch.
8am: 80 minutes anapanasati concentration practice in bed. I was drawn to doing this, and thought I'd do it for just part of the sitting, but during the sitting I realized I could spend most of today meditating if I wanted to, and I could afford to begin with an entire session devoted to concentration. It was mostly lovely, but my mind periodically worried about whether I really wanted to spend the whole day meditating, or whether I ought to call El and ask her to do something. She seemed to have been looking forward to having more of my attention while Eric's away, and yesterday when we parted ways I discovered that we are both unscheduled today. I also worried a little about my knees.
We did end up going for a walk/jog in Ravenna Park at 1:00. Pleasant.
Noon: 40 minutes noting. Began seated with my feet on the floor (to avoid stress to the knees), then after about 25 minutes, switched very gently and gradually to walking. I experience, and noted, a lot of pleasure today. Much more pleasure than I'd ever experienced before while noting. The only unpleasant thing about the session was the anxiety I'd usually feel immediately after noting "pleasure". I had some back pain near the right scapula, which is why I eventually switched to walking, but it was hardly unpleasant at all.
Many more distinct phenomena come to my attention than I actually note with words. Especially now that, following Beth's instruction, I am trying to be quite relaxed about the noting.
Last night I read a bit from Shaila's Wisdom Wide and Deep. She seems to say that liberation cannot result from watching phenomena on the gross level of physical sensation and emotion. She seems to think that we must go deeper, even deeper than the level of rupa (so-called sub-atomic particles). How can such diverse points of view exist regarding practice? Clearly, the great Mahasi Sayadaw and his student U Pandita think that liberation can result from noting at a relatively gross level (though at least somewhat deeper than Beth has so far guided me to go).
I am learning to note "thinking" immediately after noticing that I'm thinking. Until now, I've had the following habit: notice thinking, immediately find something else to pay attention to and note that, then notice the whole habitual bundle that just occurred. This habit is just an instance of what I generally, habitually, do whenever I notice I've become lost in doing something "wrong".
5pm 30 minutes noting. Had set timer for 90 minutes, but then felt sleepiness and back pain. Napped for an hour.
11:45 pm 23 minutes noting
No comments:
Post a Comment