Vipassana Meditation Day 20

am 1hr

Awake at 4, ready to go. Body weight is back to normal after losing some during the course, so I’m eating less in the evening, meaning I’m waking up naturally early. So I sat in the dark, Wild Berry incense cone delicious from the bathroom, C asleep nearby, in the pre-dawn approaching winter solstice time. Some birds began to call near the end but then were silent. The slow movement through the body, going down, up, halfway back down before time for metta. Some arm shaking, and each body part tightening as I moved by, connecting along the way. Quiet mind, nowhere else to be, life unfolding probably exactly as it should.

pm 1hr

Buzzing on Pizza Express breadsticks. Yeah they are like a drug to me. Drug sticks placed on the edge of the salad and they defy you to ignore them. Energised sitting, a kind of agitation about nothing. That’s what sugar/white flour in a baked combo does – puts me on edge from the inside, stimulated from within. Heart a bit faster, blood a bit higher, brain a bit speedier. Yes, a bit like the old speed. All this movement and there’s the body, sat still. That is until the vipassana started after 20 mins of something like breath awareness. (Rather, thought free time randomness). After a down then up, the head bowed forward and the neck tight at the back. And then the lips again, tighter and tighter, strange expressions I cannot pull. I say ‘again’ because it’s happened before, but each time is new, different, sensation and phenomenon observed. No needles this time but extreme tension in the lips and mouth in general, expressions held long. I move away but realise there is nowhere to go and moving only prolongs the painful wierdness. So I come back close, so near, and things shift into a different configuration, slowly, slowly changing expression, until finally they are released. Later I try to pull the expressions as a test or comparison, but it’s a pale imitation and without any tension. On the start of lovingkindness, I come back to upright, recovering, head aching dead centre, from the pizza express dope. On resuming activity, the frenetic browsing activity beforehand is no longer important.