7:30 am One hour seated whispered noting. Attention was good and I felt fairly "locked in" as I had in the middle of the night. A lot of craving (to be more present). Sadness after noting "thinking". Is this equanimity? A&P? Pulsing, rocking, expanding, hearing ... Nothing much unpleasant except the frequent craving.
10 am 20 minutes seated mouthed noting on the bus. I realized I didn't care if people saw me mouthing the words on the bus. It was a very solid meditation session. Tone similar to last night & this morning.
Just after I started meditating, I heard sound from the headphones on the person next to me, then watched as fear, rage, judgement, constriction, and suffering ensued. An extremely familiar chain of events that I have experienced at least 10,000 times in my life. Except this time, the final elements in the chain did not appear: frustration, shame, helplessness, despair, because I realized that the initial chain was out of my control. I calmly inserted earplugs to interrupt the suffering.
The first 2 hours I spent at work, I did things other than the main thing I'd planned to do: working on a manuscript that is almost ready to submit. They were mostly non-work things. I felt "bad" about this. Then once I began working on the manuscript, I was happy, and I enjoyed it. The transition was not difficult.
1pm 30 minutes anapanasati concentration practice. I chose to do this practice to see if I could avoid the end-of-sitting anguish I'd been experiencing. I did, partially. The practice was pleasant; it was easy to settle down and go deep. I tried relaxing and using minimal effort. A couple of times it felt like I fell asleep briefly, then awoke into an even deeper concentration state.
7:45 pm I got a nice 15-minute back massage from James at the airport massage bar. Tried noting a bit during the massage, but it seemed to diminish the pleasure. It seems that the pleasure relied upon some subtle story-telling and some kind of shifting of concentration.
9pm 30 minutes seated noting on plane. Between the massage and getting on the plane, I had gotten into a very down, irritable mood, and I had RLS symptoms in my legs. So eventually I quit and tried to zone out by reading the airplane magazine.
No comments:
Post a Comment