Vipassana Meditation Day 31

am 1hr

Eleven hours later and it pretty much picked up right from where it left off. Like the evening and night were just a pause in what’s occurring within my system, the sitting seeming more real than the drives, the conversations, the sleeping and return home, which seems something like a dream. The hugs were pretty real though. So I’m back on the cushion the next morning, the right arm going for it big time, almost immediately, shaking like crazy, a deep ache in the wrist. Left arm too when its turn came. The right arm does’t even wait for it’s turn, it’s just off as soon as it gets the chance. Step out of the way and the body and brain will start to fix itself, in unexpected ways. It may be weird and weird things will happen but there’s a sense that weird is what’s needed and that it’s all OK, nothing to be afraid of. Once the energy started moving at the base, a beast called desire arose, a vast shadow through the mind, demanding and craving satiation and attention. It wanted to run things, to guide decisions, have it’s way. Powerful but ultimately somehow… immature and baseless. It soon passed. More subtle are the more ‘innocent’ cravings for certain feelings to come, comparing to other pleasurable feelings previously. Subtle directors within: go this way, this way is good, that way is bad. No. See them all, all the movements and urges. Don’t react. Don’t force non-reaction but don’t react and there’s entry into another mode of existence. That sounds too grand. It’s just different.

Deep tightness in the neck undoing, body feels soft all over, most problems seem a mile away, not really relevant anymore. Nothing is solved but things are truly changing.

pm 1hr

The restfulness, peace and clarity of the absence of thought. Sublime bliss. This was the steadiest meditation yet, after the storms of this morning and last evening. I was expecting the same but no, a relaxed time, awareness steady throughout, even with the lapsing into dreams and back again, the switch from thinking to dreaming, a mysterious jump although not so different in basic quality. Time-based shenanigans either way. Yet the ‘times’ when it drops away, the thinking or doing, there is a quality of freedom, space, delight, ecstasy. We can only handle so much, or the organism can. Something shuts it down, or the habit of thought, of doing reestablishes, and it’s over. Yet towards the end, the ‘it’s over’ was very short as there it would be again, suddenly. This inquiry includes all that I am. I am so grateful to have found this ‘practice’. One month after finishing the 10-day course and things are really happening, shifting. Much of the initial reluctance to sit down has gone and these two hours are often a highlight of the days, steeped in some authenticity I don’t see so much of it modern life. Maybe this will bring authenticity into life.