Vipassana Meditation Feb 27
Following the breath. While with the breath the craze of thought is readily apparent. Upper back and neck arching back. Hands tight, fingers rods. Jaw stiff, jutting. Lips contorting. Feet flexed. Breath steady. The sense of a continuous self is tenuous, a series of moments of attention bundled into a chain of me-ness.
Vipassana Meditation Feb 18
Coming back to the cushion after nine days I wonder where I’ve been. Awareness is more consistent during the days but its nothing like when sitting still. Back to the cushion, back to sensation after so much distraction. Delaying tactics. Delaying what I don’t and can’t know of, but think I do. Certainly sensation. Gross sensation as they say. And that means pain. And there’s a response to it that can be seen and understood and so pain isn’t what we think. And the pains themselves, forever subtly changing, even if in their intensity it will seemingly last forever. In listening there is shifting, movement, aliveness.
Such deep aches! I’ve been living with this, going about my days, weeks, months, years, carrying so much within the organism. It’s incredible really that the body and mind can do such a good storage job. Hold it and lock it down with thought. And yet there’s really no need. No one wants it, this task, heavy heavy task. It does a very good job but entirely unnecessarily. Just that we were taught this way, how it’s been done. In sitting still I am finding out simply and clearly what is needed and what is not.
Vipassana Meditation Feb 9
The pain takes me to the edge of what I can stand, the edge of myself even. I suspect this is what karma really is: the actions of the past are right here, embedded within us, locked in as stuckness, as ache, stiffness, tension. What goes around comes around, or maybe never left. We cannot get away with anything. But give it space and dare to feel and pay attention, in an atmosphere of awareness and equanimity and it starts to change, unfold, disperse. This is a right action, a karma undoer. You can’t will a pain to disperse, that’s furthering the same action that got you in this situation in the first place, but you can listen, feel, see, and the purity of that attention determines the rate of change. I just made that rate bit up; it’s not clear to me, but it does seem more instant in more complete awareness and slower in partial attention. Take a simple pain in my jaw. If I’m off somewhere else, thinking about last or this evening. In daily life I might not even notice it. In sitting, the experience is of pain, a bother, nothing much. Hone in on it, and allow it to have an expression, reveal itself and it grows and grows in severity. Keeping calm, watching, it gets so strong, overwhelming almost and then *!* it’s over. No pain. I suspect without the watcher experiencing it’s over in a flash, but in this dualistic game this is how it’s playing out.
Vipassana Meditation Feb 7
Needing less sleep. For so long, I have demanded more sleep. ‘If only I had enough sleep, things would be so much better.’ Now it seems I don’t need so much but this puts me up against the old demand for more. The irrational demand for more sleep is basically terrified, escapism, wanting comfort, more comfort. If I’m not sleeping, what shall I do?
Awake at 0430 as if it was 0830, I sat for an hour, body still unwinding all sorts of tensions and aches. Now into the shoulders. Deep tinges and holdings there, into the neck. This is where I stopped before xmas, and haven’t really got back to it in the depth of the muscles there. And my face is still contorting, jaws, cheeks, lips, even the gums have an ache in them. It seems we dont want to carry this around, and previously I was only vaguley aware that I was doing so: ‘Oh, that old ache in the upper back, it’s nothing, it’s normal, I’ll live with it.’ You can’t get away with it with a meditation practice. But practice is not real life, they say. Yes it is. You are not different in practice than elsewhere. It’s certainly not an escape; quite the opposite.
Vipassana Meditation 6 Feb
Equisite agony, pleasure riddled with pain, bursts of ecstasy, the poor body wracked with aches, the face stiff from society. Staying with the breath, staying with the breath, and in the staying, the one staying getting cleansed, observing more truly. All the while appreciating the realness of it, the simplicity of sitting still and listening, breathing, watching, feeling. I really appreciate this in a world of incessant action with such value and emphasis on doing. It’s so very overrated.
Incredibly centred and energetic throughout the day, completing work tasks with ease, mind clear. And for the first time I was looking forward to returning to the cushion this evening, to resume this ‘work’, despite the agonies of this morning. The feelings are real and I want more of this genuine experience. To come out of suffering, what more is there to do? A rather peaceful session this eveing, drowsy in the middle of it, body not moving very much. Some facial changes, into the mouth and lips where there’s often a deep soreness. Otherwise, staying close to sensation and breath, explosions in stillness.
Vipassana Meditation 5 Feb
It’s easy to think that the watcher is the ‘real me’, my ‘true self’, pure, and that feelings and thoughts are ‘not me’. What gives the game away is the conflict in this situation, the friction between me and what’s going on. How could there be a friction if it was pure watching? No, the watcher, full of ‘should’, likes and dislikes and is subtly distancing itself from sensation and preferring something else, or approving. Today’s agitation turned out to be resistance and dislike to a feeling of nausea Previously I would spend the day fleeing from something, not really sure what, resorting to agitated escape, muddled. Now that I am not who I thought I was, not the pure and true self, even if there is such a thing, and seeing that I am the same as sensation neutralises it.
Vipassana Meditation 4 Feb
It seems it’s more about the body than the mind at the moment. I really did not expect such strong bodywork in this practice. Not bodywork in that I am manipulating the body or energy in some way but bodywork as in the body is working something out. Left alone in an hour of silence, not doing anything outwardly, no movement, it seems to take the opportunity to unwind. This is taking the form or shaking, rotation, juddering, tensing and releasing, swinging, clenching, expressions. Bringing awareness into the head and face set the right arm off immediately, a deep ache at the wrist, arm shaking faster than I can shake it. The lower jaw jutted out. The head shook, mouth slackjaw, the torso rotated in circles until I thought I was going to be sick, the head rotated, the shoulders arched forward, the legs, buttocks tensed, the feet flexed and released. Not all of these simultaneously, but sometimes so. All the while maintaining some kind of equanimity, and sometimes thoughts remembering or planning. Nothing too unusual in the mind and very cathartic in the body.
Vipassana Meditation 31 Jan 2013
The mind naturally goes back over the day when it has the chance, while sitting, or when lying in bed before sleep. If there is no current concern, there is more space for the day to re-live or relieve itself and of some order to come. The no-current-concern state can come by simply being aware of the breath for a while. In meditation the approach and attitude seems to be far more important than the content. If the approach is right, the content changes on it’s own. If the focus is on content, without an equanimous approach, the content wins out and gets twisted up and gets to continue its reactionary and habitual pattern.
Vipassana Meditation 30 Jan 2013
It’s very simple, listen to each part of the body. It’s not simple because of what the body has been through, what the mind has been through, and suddenly the body is being listened to and the mind is learning how to listen. It’s very simple, each sensation is happening right now. It’s not simple because the brain has ideas about each sensation and decides to like it or dislike it. We are encouraged in this response – like; dislike – so much so that it seems a natural response, healthy even. It’s very simple, you don’t have to do that, to respond in any form of judgement. It’s not simple because even though we don’t have to, the habit of doing, of judging, subtle or not, is ingrained. It’s very simple, habit can be seen within this quieter time, and has chance to understand itself and even to retire. I am a habit and I’ve been given permission to retire. It’s not simple because the brain and nervous system is the most complex structure in the known universe. It’s simple, it has its own intelligence.
Vipassana Meditation Day 45
am 20 mins
Thought slips away and the mind is left as a sensation receiver. So what’s going on? A fizzing in the heart area, sugary nervous sensation at the solar plexus, tightening of the belly. This is feary. In the receiving is there any reaction, subtle or gross? What am I doing with these sensations? Can I allow full expression and can there be a total listening to it?
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Very short evening sit while vegetables roasted.
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It’s our staff week from tomorrow for one week. I will make some notes, but am going computer free until next Wednesday. Included in the programme are two half hour sits per day and the whole week will be centred on inquiry, questioning, listening. Thanks for reading so far, and happy sitting!
Vipassana Meditation Day 42
am 20 mins
Feeling fear, in the heart, a fizzy tingle, then down into the solar plexus, and in the belly a tightening. Is that all fear is? Is that what I have been trying to avoid all this time, mere sensations? Added to the sensations are layers of thought of ‘what could happen’, and ‘better to avoid that whatever you do’. The thought seems more powerful than the sensation but it seems a bit tricksy, insubstantial, and certainly inaccurate in its projections. To project it has to use imagery from the past, twisted to pretend to be the future. It’s a scam and I’m onto it.
pm 20 mins
It was asked: Must we go through all this – the practice, the struggle, the reactions? This is the tradition, to try to do something about our predicament, to respond to conditioning with a conditioned approach. Is even calling it a predicament a traditional response? Could very well be. Yet there I sit, two times a day. I don’t know if I’m practising or being traditional, probably I am, yet I am providing an environment where these questions can be asked and answered in reality rather than as a mental theory. And at times, no, there is no practice and there is nothing traditional about it. Within a traditional practice there can be revolution.
Regardless, my body has changed. My back s stronger, I can sit straight with ease, my muscles are softer yet no weaker, and the lines on my face are smoother. My mind is clearer, less chaotic, less reactive. These are all positives that come regardless of the ‘must we sit, must we practice?’ questions.
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.
Vipassana Meditation Day 32 – The Caretaker
am 1hr
The usual ten minutes or so of thinking through things, behind which there’s a settling down. I don’t remember too much about this stage, what the thoughts were and the mini battles that go on with shoulds and shouldn’ts, because what came later kind of wiped the slate clean and was overwhelmingly intense. So after ten minutes, vipassana begun, moving down through the body. Right arm shaking, into the wrist, arm above my head at one stage. Moving steadily down, deep aches and tension in the lower neck and shoulders. The blind spots of the back of the pelvis can now be felt. The tingles and strongly pleasurable feelings around the loins and perineum. Into the legs, sciatica pretty much cleared up, some tightness in the inner thighs up to the groins. The calves are quite blind, and shins and ankles. Feet arches, still a lot going on there, tightening as I pass by. On the way back up I feel like a caretaker, checking in on each part, and it’s clear that I can be a rather grumpy one, cursorily checking in, then slamming the door on the area and moving on begrudgingly. Not slamming the door because I don’t like what I see but because there’s a feeling that there’s so much to do: go to get on. Seeing these things, aspects of the observer, in this setting means they don’t have to stay like that, and after that the observation was much lighter, spiralling around the torso, rising up, and by this stage, there’s movement everywhere, from the pelvis up. Energy rising up through the spine, and shoulders hunching like they’ve never hunched before, reaching deep into the big muscles of the upper back and neck, head forward, head back, to one side, the other, no systemised stretching but a free-form movement unter my gaze, whatever I am. It’s surprisingly, pleasurable to touch so deep, painful, yet I’m not reacting, okay with all to happen in the thick of it. The arm has another go, the legs tense and release, breathing shallow and fast, rushes of energy up from the loins, washing through the brain. All this is exhausting and enlivening at the same time. I feel I need deep rest yet I am due to care for the chickens soon, then in the office. Such is the life of a householder-monk. After lunch I had an hour’s deep sleep.
pm 1hr
Again a steady evening sit. No shakes! Strong sensations in legs towards the end, tight aches. Early on, thinking about something and then: ‘oi, you’re not supposed to be thinking’. This ‘oi’ has been there since the 90s since I first read things about meditation. The idea of it stuck and there’s part that manages my mind like that, sitting or not. For years, a bit of a bully. In this, though, anything non-equanimous attitude is very apparent, so although the ‘oi’ stopped the thought, the thinking said, no, actually something was being worked out here. The compromise solution was to think about it later. Maybe thinking sessions are needed too, to go over things purposely, those things that need thought. Thinking about things of the day subsided if not ceased and body awareness began, cycles of thought coming every now and then. Overall, feeling quite content to be sat. I noticed an agitation in observation, an impatience, making attention unable to be complete on an area, flitting about. There’s a lot of flitting. I’ve been trained in it. TV is flitting about, as are people, as is my attention. In the crucible of sitting still, these flits can be understood.
Falling Awake 