I worried going to this one day Vipassana, so close to the last month, that I would end up with some kind of Vipassana fatigue. But in the end I had one of the most productive meditation days I can remember. For a full day I felt like I was on a true break from my self, the voice in the head, the constant craving and giving into self-referential thought.
Today, as I write this, I'm not as strong, so it's worth going over the insights that made it easier to live in a place of peace and focus.
In anapana, I surrendered to Goenka's voice telling me again and again to let go of effort, to let the dhamma do the work, and that my one job was to be aware of breath and the sensations of the breath at the nostrils. The breath began to turn like a wheel, like it did last month. For a few minutes I was so concentrated on this movement that everything evaporated and I felt myself disappear, not much but a point in a sea of white light that began to emerge.
In Vipassana, Goenka changed the instruction slightly. My one job was to observe the sensations as they were, not as I wanted them to be. That job kept up for the rest of the day was enough to shut down that default network for most of the day.
This didn't mean a day of white light. It mean a day with a lot of stress rising up. But I sat with the resistance and by the time we were ready to metta, most of it had dissipated.
Protect the dhamma and the dhamma will protect you. In the context of a day of feeling more in touch with the dhamma than I have before, this made more sense, and I hope a deeper impression on my psyche.
Goenka reminded us that Meditating twice a day is like washing the mind, and that our job is not to feel great sensations, but to build our faculties of awareness and equanimity.
Doing this will give us mastery over the moment. And in gaining mastery of the moment, we find ourselves becoming masters of life.
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Thursday, May 9, 2019
Habit House
I had a significant dream last night, after my heart opening meditation.
I was sleeping in well maintained old, somewhat dark,Victorian era, house, kind of like what my middle class grandparents might have lived in. A quite scary, Charlie Manson looking type man, showed up at my bedroom door threatening me with some kind of horrible fate (which wasn't made clear) if I didn't do something, or not do something (that also wasn't made clear). He left, indicating that I would have some indeterminate time to do this thing that I didn't even understand.
My first action was to try and lock the doors so that he couldn't get back in. But none of the doors in this house were lockable. Either they didn't have locks, or the locks were so old, the locks were more ornamental than actually working. Finally I felt I had no choice but to leave the house for the moment.
When I returned, the scary man was sitting in the foyer waiting for me. I had nowhere to live, but I knew was safer outside the house looking in.
That's as much as I remember, but as I was writing that dream in my journal this morning it hit me what a clear metaphor this was for the patterns I'm trying to change and the way I'm feeling right now about those patterns.
The locks on this house are the habits that are no longer working, and have long since lost their utility. The scary guy is basically everyone who has ever made me the object of their dis satisfaction or anger. This would represent a lot of people, not necessarily because I'm a dissatisfying person, but because dissatisfaction is most people's default mode, so as a fellow human I'm bound to end up the object of some of that. Maybe those locks once worked to keep those people with their confusing, or confused agendas out, but they don't work anymore.
I'm in a vulnerable place right now, the open space around and outside this old habit house, looking in. But it's a safer place for now.
A different kind of scary, but a better one, because outside the house, there is the possibility of help and liberation.
I was sleeping in well maintained old, somewhat dark,Victorian era, house, kind of like what my middle class grandparents might have lived in. A quite scary, Charlie Manson looking type man, showed up at my bedroom door threatening me with some kind of horrible fate (which wasn't made clear) if I didn't do something, or not do something (that also wasn't made clear). He left, indicating that I would have some indeterminate time to do this thing that I didn't even understand.
My first action was to try and lock the doors so that he couldn't get back in. But none of the doors in this house were lockable. Either they didn't have locks, or the locks were so old, the locks were more ornamental than actually working. Finally I felt I had no choice but to leave the house for the moment.
When I returned, the scary man was sitting in the foyer waiting for me. I had nowhere to live, but I knew was safer outside the house looking in.
That's as much as I remember, but as I was writing that dream in my journal this morning it hit me what a clear metaphor this was for the patterns I'm trying to change and the way I'm feeling right now about those patterns.
The locks on this house are the habits that are no longer working, and have long since lost their utility. The scary guy is basically everyone who has ever made me the object of their dis satisfaction or anger. This would represent a lot of people, not necessarily because I'm a dissatisfying person, but because dissatisfaction is most people's default mode, so as a fellow human I'm bound to end up the object of some of that. Maybe those locks once worked to keep those people with their confusing, or confused agendas out, but they don't work anymore.
I'm in a vulnerable place right now, the open space around and outside this old habit house, looking in. But it's a safer place for now.
A different kind of scary, but a better one, because outside the house, there is the possibility of help and liberation.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Writing from flow
This has been a big week. I started a mindful eating program that has me digging deep into my food cravings, and as a result, my other cravings.
The program is designed by a Psychiatrist at Brown, Judson Brewer, and listening to him on a Podcast, he says that he wrote a book in two weeks, while he was on self-guided retreat, deciding that he would only write from a state of flow.
I'm making the same vow, which means that I'm in flow right now. Finished a productive meditation where I diligently rested my awareness in the center of my chest, where the energy is contracted, hard, like a clenched fist.
I know what it's protecting, layers and layers of disappointment and heartbreak. But I don't have to protect myself anymore. I've long ago locked away any desire I once had for companionship. Or at least that's what I've told myself.
Maybe it will come back, but for the moment my heart is feeling more expansive than it has for a very long time. I'm okay. I have the courage to open that tender spot to the world. I can offer my heart like an open palm, welcoming anyone who has felt despair.
I can resist that craving for self-hatred
The program is designed by a Psychiatrist at Brown, Judson Brewer, and listening to him on a Podcast, he says that he wrote a book in two weeks, while he was on self-guided retreat, deciding that he would only write from a state of flow.
I'm making the same vow, which means that I'm in flow right now. Finished a productive meditation where I diligently rested my awareness in the center of my chest, where the energy is contracted, hard, like a clenched fist.
I know what it's protecting, layers and layers of disappointment and heartbreak. But I don't have to protect myself anymore. I've long ago locked away any desire I once had for companionship. Or at least that's what I've told myself.
Maybe it will come back, but for the moment my heart is feeling more expansive than it has for a very long time. I'm okay. I have the courage to open that tender spot to the world. I can offer my heart like an open palm, welcoming anyone who has felt despair.
I can resist that craving for self-hatred
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