Stream of Resilience

My running has been falling off track of late. This has much to do with temperature change. I hate running in summer heat. But also, I suspect, because I'm not clear on what my motivation is.  That always becomes more or problem once I've lost a bit of weight.  Suddenly the point of getting out there and feeling the aches and pains that I don't want to feel start looking very fuzzy.

If the goal of running isn't weight loss, then what is it? Today the only thing that got me through the 2 hr and 20 minute commitment I made was to feel that stream of resilience that starts to grow after I've been running for about twenty minutes.  Maintain this stream of energy, which feels like a real magnetic pull, is a fun goal because it makes running easier not harder.  The stream lifts me up and propels me forward. Much like it does in meditation. If I can cultivate the habit of relaxing into it while I'm running, everything will get much easier.

Or at least that's the theory.  For this to work the stream needs to have its own momentum, because if it relies on me  I'm not sure there's much hope for it.

One thing that worked today was to notice those things that took me away from the stream, the usual obsession, stories, problems I carry with me always while I run.  Instead of trying to escape them I decided to investigate them, their power, and self-perpetuating energy.  Lo, this is often the shortest path back to that clear, pure energy that makes my running a joy, or at least, a mildly pleasant experience.

The Taste of Purification

I seem to be processing a lot of insecurity this month. Doing a different job. Dealing with people who are probably more insecure than I am.

In the past my habit has been to try and find a way out of dealing with people whose insecurities only add to my own. Recently I'm trying to find ways to enjoy transcending their insecurities. But yesterday I realized on my long run that I'm still expending too much energy trying to wrestle with my own.

I don't need to wrestle.  I have the ability to deal with my insecurities mindfully and let them lessen gradually through that process. I have few doubts in this process anymore. I've experienced its rewards too many times.

The hard part for me is to stay present in my own emotional problems long enough to feel them resolve. Or maybe the better word is often enough.  I'm still having a problem cultivating the "short times, many times" approach.

So for this week my intention is to catch myself reacting or obsessing about other people's insecurities and just enjoying the process of letting that habit go.

In time, I hope, this habit will be replaced with the stream of lucid consciousness that I know is there, available to me always.

Virtual Virtual Reality

I had an intriguing meditative experience this morning.

I've been experimenting with a tweak on The Mirror exercise that I learned a few summers ago in the advanced Tergar workshop. In that exercise you look at everything in front of you as though it were a mirror, and everything you see is really only reflection. While I was doing that workshop I had a dream that I was in a car and someone gave me a virtual reality headset to pass the time. Except that when I put it on, all I saw was a virtual reality representation of the same scene I would have seen without the head gear.

This week I was sent by CBC to write about a virtual reality exhibit. With a sense now of what this actually feels like, I decided to use this in my practice.  Sit as though everything I saw and felt was a construction that could be changed in the same way I could change it if I were a virtual reality director.

I rested first in some uncomfortable emotions, some anxiety I'm feeling about my writing career, my usual concerns about Ben as he makes his teenage decisions about life. Then the ease and comfort that I now normally feel when meditate began to flow. I rested in this for a while, but then continued to apply the construct frame to that as well, forcing myself to step back a little from the positive, blissful feelings.

Suddenly I was in this somewhat unfamiliar place. A place of no thought and no feeling.  And there like a real perceptual shift.  Like everything in front of me took on a 3D quality, as though I actually was seeing it in virtual reality.

Today, I'm going to try to bring this perception into my tasks.  See if it's a thread of presence I can maintain. It felt like a real and solid equanimity. A place in me that is there for whenever I need it, and that I absolutely want to return to.