6:40 am Awoke with usual feeling of dread. Applied strong effort to meditate while still lying down. Thought, "Maybe I can power myself into A&P." It seemed that I did, but the effort required to stay there seemed greater than the effort required to sit up. So I sat up!
6:50 am 20 minutes seated noting. Dread didn't evaporate immediately, but seemed to stick around: "anguish", "clinging", "fear", "aversion". When I noted "thinking" it seemed to trigger a cycle of anguish, clinging, fear, and aversion. This was a new, slightly more clear seeing into the tense tangle of emotion that appears when I note "thinking". This tangle included craving ... craving to reach freedom. I couldn't see what I was clinging to but it seemed heavy and dense and I wanted to let go.
I thought of something other than meditating that I wanted to get up and do, but the draw to do it was very weak and not tempting. I thought, "perhaps the reason I don't have much trouble meditating every day is that I can see clearly that I am between a rock and a hard place, that there is no other way out of my daily suffering."
7:40 am 70 minutes seated noting. I fairly quickly got into a state where I was so, so content to be meditating. This lasted the entire time. In fact, I was clinging to the act of meditating: the thought of quitting was followed by a contracting and clinging. I could see phenomena clearly. There were remarkable combinations of sadness and pleasure. It seemed that I was slowly but surely penetrating phenomena more deeply. I craved (and noted) deeper insight. Notes included sadness, sleepiness, craving, rocking (my body has been rocking non-rhythmically during meditation for a few weeks), expanding (in-breath), pulsing, tension, hearing, tingling, clinging. I was interrupted a couple of times and welcomed the interruptions as opportunities to observe my mind outside of formal meditation (but while the mind was still somewhat agile). Eric came in the room and we conversed about his progress preparing today's event. I remembered I'd turned the sound off on my phone and reached to turn it on.
9:15 Sat for another 30 minutes. Similar. At one point, chose to extend my legs (to relieve my knees). So much resistance, so much sadness and anguish as I moved the legs! Each inch brought a new wave of anguish (sadness, contraction, craving) and the leg jerked as I needed to make a new intention and a new effort for the next inch. As in previous sit, interesting mixes of sadness, pleasure, and even a hint of joy (at doing what I want to do). Perhaps throughout the sit, but certainly at the end during/after moving the legs, strong contraction in the right torso/throat. Some spaciousness appeared when I directed attention there. The sadness upon moving: to what extent is it related to the fear of taking action in the wide world? Psychotherapy has given me the sense that fear of taking action is rooted in the fear of separation from mother. My intuition is that all of these things are tied together. Seeing into these things is wonderful.
Did 7-hour Seattle Night & Day Street Scramble race with Zarina. No strong enjoyment nor strong suffering. I just did it. Once or twice I did a tiny bit of noting and saw that it created a more vivid experience; by contrast I could see that when I wasn't noting my experience was flat and schmeared together by story and mood. But it took too much effort to note while also navigating and interacting with Zarina.
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