am 1hr

At 5am, with the mind distracted by the thousand things of yesterday, the job related issues, the yoga class, the media I’d chosen to consume, the conversations. It’s a lot to process, at least relatively, compared to the monk’s life of the preceding ten days.

I understand better what the intense swearing is that I experienced during the course. It’s the critical mind. With so much right action taking place, doing the best I can for the most part, there is nothing or very little for it to latch onto and it is, or was, resorting to rather ridiculous outbursts in the most obscene language, at any opinion I might think, with always that hint, or much more than a hint, of criticism. 

The energy that used to make me shake sparked up again and now it is possible to halt the physical reaction without force, or just a little control or a pause, and let it occur in a new way rather than the body’s habitual seemingly-free reaction. Habitual because it had become a pattern of response and then would take over the sitting, albeit with the accompanying probably healthy releasing. So I stay still and so I do not know what will happen. Rushes of bliss from the base. Light through the head so that nothing is seen on the mind screen and nothing can be thought for those moments. Pleasure so pleasurable it’s as squirming as pain. And yet I don’t squirm, or just a little, and again the energy can move in a new way, forging new pathways in the body and connections in the brain. I am learning a new level in the importance of staying still. At this stage a lot of people would probably get into ‘freedom of expression through movement’ or something, as it seems a natural response. Maybe it has its place but I’m here to sit through. To sit through it all, no matter what.

pm 20mins

…which of course is easier said than done. Didn’t want to know this evening… headache and tired, but I did sit for 20 minutes and briefly scanned down and up. Felt much better very quickly, with delightful tingles across my scalp, still there as I write. The desire not to sit won out, and despite setting the timer for 30 minutes, I quit 10 minutes early. That’s okay – I sat.