I'm two weeks into this cleanse now. Last weekend I did a two day meditation workshop at the Tergar centre in Montreal. This was the closest I've ever come to a meditation retreat and I'm feeling calm, focussed, ready for six months of Tergar style practice. This is a very light, secular form of Tibetan buddhism. The basic practice involves alternating between object oriented meditation and open awareness. Mingyur Rinpoche, the leader of Tergar calls it shinay. He describes it as the gentle feeling of peace one gets just after a vigorous run, the end of the work week, or any activity that results in a moment of "phewf, now I can rest." This feeling is the seed of rest you want to feel when you do shinay.
I'm feeling calmer and lighter. I am lighter. I've lost a few pounds on this cleanse so far, and it's nice to feel so much less compelled by my addictions. I feel the urge to eat a cookie, but I don't have to struggle with that urge. I did have a sliver of apple pie on the weekend. But I was happy with a taste and didn't feel deprived when I didn't eat more. It's nice to feel in touch with a basic sense of power. A natural power, not a willed power.
Mingyur Rinpoche has a really nice framework for practice: using your resistance or suffering as support for practice. When I feel a resistance to a routine I want to instill, usually a cleaning routine, or a healthy eating routine, instead of struggling to over come it, I simply rest in my awareness of this resistance. I allow myself to become curious, to breathe, then to watch what happens to this resistance as I continue with the action I've chosen. In this way, almost any routine I'm trying to establish becomes a meditation. I've always known this, but it helps to know that there will be a community to support these small, but important observations.
