mnemeDifficult #meditation session today after a heavy weekend, and skipping a day yesterday. Kept flipping between chattering mind and nodding off, but never managed to catch the sweet spot in between. Managed to sit poorly and suffered some discomfort as a result, which I tried to explore productively but was tempted to give up many times. Pushed myself through the full 39 minutes I'd set, but only just. This is why I shouldn't skip days, tomorrow will almost certainly be much easier! #DailyMeds
Muninn ๐Very challenging 25 min sit today. Lesson learned: don't read loomio directly before meditating. It was an opportunity to practice (poorly and with great effort) letting go and trying to be in the present. #DailyMeds
25 min zazen today after two days off (and I was in a terrible mood most of those two days ๐ค)... real cloudy feeling sit, lots of drifting distractions in the first half and then sleepy. I need to continue to work on being mindful when I find the need to shift around. I do feel better tho after sitting! #DailyMeds
Back to 20 min zazen today, since I was feeling time pressure and also sleepiness. I could've stood 25 minutes thought. Gonna keep pushing that time, but no huge need to be aggressive about it I guess. #DailyMeds
Increased my zazen period to 25 minutes today. I do a 90 second posture adjustment bell ("wiggle bell") in the middle. I was plagued by posture adjustments during the first half - a teacher once suggested I wait 3 breaths before any change, and I moved thoughtlessly many times today - but I noticed that my obsession with having my body and gaze centered is relaxing. Well, more so the body than the gaze. #DailyMeds
20 min zazen today, evidently after I skipped for like 4 days?? Wow, didn't seem that long. Super busy monkey mind at first, then fleeting moments of one-pointed mind, then sleepiness. So it goes. But I'm definitely used to the rhythm of this now and can feel the changes as they happen instead of noticing them later. #DailyMeds #meditation
20 minutes zazen again today - yesterday I practiced at home & later went to a #meditation / discussion group on the #RadianceSutras - I felt unusally peaceful after, then lying in bed later I was suddenly able to "just decide" to relax the decades-old constant tension in my shoulders MUCH more than usual for a while. But this morning? Back to not wanting to look up posture tips for people with stiff limbs ๐
#DailyMeds
20 minutes zazen after skipping a day. Interesting to note how the particular preoccupations of monkey mind change from day to day. There are all the usual suspects, but I also find thoughts about the sangha (and integrating further therein) popping up a great deal, at least compared to daily life. #DailyMeds
20 minutes zazen this morning - fairly uneventful today other than a brief surge of emotion in response to a thought near the beginning, and noting that good posture is getting easier to settle into with practice, even with my jacked up spine :) #DailyMeds
20 min zazen at home again today, quite late in the day compared to usual, and with kids yelling downstairs. This is good, because it proves I have little problem meditating with either of those things being true.
I do see the reasoning behind meditating soon after waking - monkey mind gets revved up by day-to-day activity. #DailyMeds