Vipassana Meditation Day 33

am 1hr

A rather barren, beat up, nervy landscape within. I had awoken at 5-something, full of jealousy, my lover sat too close to another, their arms touching, one leaning their head on another’s, while I sat over the way, in some kind of partitioned area glancing across, alone, deserted.

On sitting, there’s none of the lubricating bliss, the ecstasy dried up, no well to be tapped. Still, there I was, sitting in the early morning, as I am. There’s no other me or other body so this is it, however it is. Fear pulsating, aches in the body and heart, brain sore and raw. Yet thoughts not rampant, a feeling throughout that the old tricks don’t work, and that I’m going to be sitting for an hour, and again later and again tomorrow, so there’s no scheming for alternatives or delays. To start again in the New Year, for example. That was how it used to work: I’d listen to the ‘not now’. But now it is. And again. And again.

pm 20mins

Twenty minutes, like it used to be for a year and a half. And even then I’d often chop it to 15, or lie down. Following the breath. How tricksy that is! I want to do something about it, not just follow it. When doing something about it, it’s easy to have a smooth breath, nice and elongated and relaxed. And when managing while pretending to only watch, it tends to make it go all strange, with funny little inhalations, bumpy exhalations, emotional somehow. At other times there seems to be a cleaner watching, where the breath is allowed it’s own way, and the awareness just follows it. Open the door and follow it in, open the door and follow it out. That is, when I’m not daydreaming.