It's been three months since I posted on this blog.
What happened?
Well I started an essay on my Vipassana retreat that I hoped to finish in a weekend, and that I'm still writing. Bliss is The New Black, frames my experience in the choice I made to binge watch the last season of Orange is The New Black, which had me taking it in on my phone up to the last minute.
I discovered on day 1 that I'd forgotten to hand in my moleskin notebook, and though I didn't write in it, I thought about writing, and I thought about narrative the whole retreat. Suffering is of course, a side effect of narrative, so there was a loopy satisfaction in considering all this.
But three months later I have a scrappy draft, but feel very far from finishing this essay, which feels more like a weight around my neck than a gift to myself or anyone else.
Begin again, in this journal, and at whatever I need to learn and let go of from this experience and this particular block.
I did, however, take this as an opportunity to re-read my blog from January:
Here's a quick list of greatest hits.
Both of my posts on one day Vipassana course
What I learned about high intensity low intensity emotions through How Emotions Are Made
My Habit House dream
In insight I had about serotonin and the right balance of hormone cocktails after reading The Obesity Code
That my struggle keeping my house clean is part of an Aversion Loop, as compared to my struggle with weight being part of a Craving Loop
Showing posts with label Vipassana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vipassana. Show all posts
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Monday, August 12, 2019
Vipassana 2
Yesterday I finished my second Vipassana at the Montebello Dhamma Suttama. Day 1 of the 10 day silent retreat was also my birthday, so I consider this experience something of a rebirthing process.
I feel stronger than I remember ever feeling. My dedication to the daily-ish 2 hour practice has really paid off. At a more experiential level, I understand that it's not about the sensations, or the peak meditative experiences, or the intellectual insights. It's about the marriage of awareness and equanimity, and through that, nurturing the identification with that joyful, equanimous wisdom that is activated when we accept the impermanence of all things.
I will write a longer essay on this particular Vipassana, this weekend while I'm in Toronto with Ben for his birthday. But the key experience I had was the recognition of how much misery is being caused by the automatic habit of self talk. I can feel this ball of craving and aversion in my throat, I can feel the connection to another ball at the level of visualization that connects the daydreams to the words. I can feel how inactive the energy centres near my ears are, as I block out the input of data from the actual world, imprisoned as I am in my narrative world.
As I toggle between the consequences of a thought stream driven mostly by a constant pulse of longing and self hating, and the rewards of quiet and stable self observation, the choice to be made is obvious. Next Vipassana that challenge will definitely be to keep noble silence with myself. To my daily practice I add the challenge of spending more time in the spacious non-narrative place, and with equanimity, building a more intuitive ease with that place. In time, making it not just a refuge, but a home.
I feel stronger than I remember ever feeling. My dedication to the daily-ish 2 hour practice has really paid off. At a more experiential level, I understand that it's not about the sensations, or the peak meditative experiences, or the intellectual insights. It's about the marriage of awareness and equanimity, and through that, nurturing the identification with that joyful, equanimous wisdom that is activated when we accept the impermanence of all things.
I will write a longer essay on this particular Vipassana, this weekend while I'm in Toronto with Ben for his birthday. But the key experience I had was the recognition of how much misery is being caused by the automatic habit of self talk. I can feel this ball of craving and aversion in my throat, I can feel the connection to another ball at the level of visualization that connects the daydreams to the words. I can feel how inactive the energy centres near my ears are, as I block out the input of data from the actual world, imprisoned as I am in my narrative world.
As I toggle between the consequences of a thought stream driven mostly by a constant pulse of longing and self hating, and the rewards of quiet and stable self observation, the choice to be made is obvious. Next Vipassana that challenge will definitely be to keep noble silence with myself. To my daily practice I add the challenge of spending more time in the spacious non-narrative place, and with equanimity, building a more intuitive ease with that place. In time, making it not just a refuge, but a home.
Sunday, June 30, 2019
The Aversion Loop
In the last two months, I've made some very significant progress stepping out of my craving loop. I'm close to being at a healthy weight. I find it easier not to escape into Netflix, or shallow web surfing. I'm having an easier time turning off work obsessions and anxiety. I'm feeling more mastery over the present than I ever have.
Then there's my house. I know I made a conscious decision not to get too worried about that while I focussed on my weight. But now I need to get serious about it. I can't live like this anymore! I don't want to live like this anymore. I cannot think of a better indicator of my liberation, to know that I am no longer caged in chaos and squalor.
There I said it out loud. Squalor. Such a horrible word. It hits me in the most vulnerable part of my heart.
It dawned on me yesterday, as I was coming out of one day Vipassana, that my weight was the consequence of a craving loop, my environment is part of an aversion loop. The goal of Vipassana, Goenka says is to liberate us from the loop of craving and aversion. Through diligent body scan we make intuitive the knowledge that all sensations are the result of mind hitting matter, that all sensations are changing because they are a result of change. Every sensation is a loop that is iterating or de-iterating. The mind's illusion is that we can fix them in some way. Make the nice sensations run forever. Make the bad sensations disappear. Never going to happen, because we die.
These craving and aversion loops that we develop in our efforts to control sensations are the root of suffering. Stop the reactivity and the weeds die first.
Yesterday I had one of the best mediation experiences. Not because I felt wonderful sensation, though I did. But because I had a profound insight about the nature of meditation and hormonal balance. I realized that what I was doing, as a I brought more equanimity into my body scan, was activating and stabilizing my serotonin, much in the same way I have been stabilizing my insulin.
Much of my life I've been running on dopamine, the craving hormone. It's also the learning hormone, but it's not the wisdom hormone. In meditation we cultivate equanimity, the serotonin starts to pump from the gut, where we have the most serotonin receptors. Combine this with metta, lovingkindness and compassion meditation and we get a nice cocktail with some oxytocin mixer. Know this, and you know joy. Wisdom comes from creating the circumstances to keep all these parts in the right balance.
One of the reasons I had a such a great meditation was that I really focussed in the morning, on the bus along Hochelaga, on my intention. To liberate myself and others. I felt that intention deep in my heart.Every time the mind wandered, I brought myself back to the why.
I can apply that to my environment. I can transcend this aversion loop and step out, forever. I made this prison. I can walk out of it.
Then there's my house. I know I made a conscious decision not to get too worried about that while I focussed on my weight. But now I need to get serious about it. I can't live like this anymore! I don't want to live like this anymore. I cannot think of a better indicator of my liberation, to know that I am no longer caged in chaos and squalor.
There I said it out loud. Squalor. Such a horrible word. It hits me in the most vulnerable part of my heart.
It dawned on me yesterday, as I was coming out of one day Vipassana, that my weight was the consequence of a craving loop, my environment is part of an aversion loop. The goal of Vipassana, Goenka says is to liberate us from the loop of craving and aversion. Through diligent body scan we make intuitive the knowledge that all sensations are the result of mind hitting matter, that all sensations are changing because they are a result of change. Every sensation is a loop that is iterating or de-iterating. The mind's illusion is that we can fix them in some way. Make the nice sensations run forever. Make the bad sensations disappear. Never going to happen, because we die.
These craving and aversion loops that we develop in our efforts to control sensations are the root of suffering. Stop the reactivity and the weeds die first.
Yesterday I had one of the best mediation experiences. Not because I felt wonderful sensation, though I did. But because I had a profound insight about the nature of meditation and hormonal balance. I realized that what I was doing, as a I brought more equanimity into my body scan, was activating and stabilizing my serotonin, much in the same way I have been stabilizing my insulin.
Much of my life I've been running on dopamine, the craving hormone. It's also the learning hormone, but it's not the wisdom hormone. In meditation we cultivate equanimity, the serotonin starts to pump from the gut, where we have the most serotonin receptors. Combine this with metta, lovingkindness and compassion meditation and we get a nice cocktail with some oxytocin mixer. Know this, and you know joy. Wisdom comes from creating the circumstances to keep all these parts in the right balance.
One of the reasons I had a such a great meditation was that I really focussed in the morning, on the bus along Hochelaga, on my intention. To liberate myself and others. I felt that intention deep in my heart.Every time the mind wandered, I brought myself back to the why.
I can apply that to my environment. I can transcend this aversion loop and step out, forever. I made this prison. I can walk out of it.
Sunday, May 19, 2019
May Vipassana
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.
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, April 28, 2019
The bough of healthy eating
Aversion and craving. This is what wipes out the sprouts that never quite make it to bough in my growth. Last week I wrote about how being in a state of high arousal can trigger some of the old habit patterns that I hold from living in ongoing trauma. But of course, being in low arousal can trigger these too. Being calm, the memories, the pain, the patterns, the sensations float up. Being bored, which is the most challenging kind of low arousal state, is what triggers the craving for drama to shake things up.
I experienced this yesterday in my one day Vipassana retreat. Of course I went into this hoping for peak meditative experiences. I had one early in Anapana, my breath became so short and shallow it became like a small circular pump at my nostrils, and breathing became more like a quiet, beating pulse than a whole body process. I became anxious, but with equanimity, I was able to see how this quick breathing could really help me in reacting to the inevitable stresses that arise when the past aversions and cravings arise.
Aware, equanimous. Goenka's sonorous voice became a one two anti-punch, as I sat with the subtle waves of pleasure and displeasure. Be aware of the sensation, respond with equanimty. Break the cycle of proliferation of aversion and craving. Old habit patterns rise up. New habit patterns take their place, and with diligence, ardent diligence, they take root.
I ate my lunch slowly, very slowly. So slowly, I couldn't imagine even finishing a small and simple lunch I had brought, in the time that I had. Not if I wanted to have time to go for a walk. If I could implant this new habit, the cravings and aversions that derail healthy, wholesome eating might have the chance of making it into a bough. But I need to be patient. Boughs don't grow overnight. I have the advantage of looking at almost seven years of data on my weight loss and gain. I've gained a little over a pound a year to where I now hover at the cusp of overweight and obese. I don't want to find myself a decade from now normalizing obesity.
But more important than that, I don't want to be driven by the hungry ghost that makes that happen. I want to be driven by the awareness and equanimity that will reverse this trend. I want to look at this graph a year from now and see a cliff, then steady ground, maybe even a valley. That can only happen if the cravings have dried up. The ghost has finally been allowed to find peace.
But I want to look at this graph seven years from now and see the evidence that this bough of healthy eating finally got the support it needed to flourish and mature.
I experienced this yesterday in my one day Vipassana retreat. Of course I went into this hoping for peak meditative experiences. I had one early in Anapana, my breath became so short and shallow it became like a small circular pump at my nostrils, and breathing became more like a quiet, beating pulse than a whole body process. I became anxious, but with equanimity, I was able to see how this quick breathing could really help me in reacting to the inevitable stresses that arise when the past aversions and cravings arise.
Aware, equanimous. Goenka's sonorous voice became a one two anti-punch, as I sat with the subtle waves of pleasure and displeasure. Be aware of the sensation, respond with equanimty. Break the cycle of proliferation of aversion and craving. Old habit patterns rise up. New habit patterns take their place, and with diligence, ardent diligence, they take root.
I ate my lunch slowly, very slowly. So slowly, I couldn't imagine even finishing a small and simple lunch I had brought, in the time that I had. Not if I wanted to have time to go for a walk. If I could implant this new habit, the cravings and aversions that derail healthy, wholesome eating might have the chance of making it into a bough. But I need to be patient. Boughs don't grow overnight. I have the advantage of looking at almost seven years of data on my weight loss and gain. I've gained a little over a pound a year to where I now hover at the cusp of overweight and obese. I don't want to find myself a decade from now normalizing obesity.
But more important than that, I don't want to be driven by the hungry ghost that makes that happen. I want to be driven by the awareness and equanimity that will reverse this trend. I want to look at this graph a year from now and see a cliff, then steady ground, maybe even a valley. That can only happen if the cravings have dried up. The ghost has finally been allowed to find peace.
But I want to look at this graph seven years from now and see the evidence that this bough of healthy eating finally got the support it needed to flourish and mature.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Anapana
I've signed up for another Vipassana course in June. In the application process it became apparent that if I was going to continue with Goenka, I was going to have to make the decision to embrace this technique fully.
I haven't. Especially at the level of anapana, noticing the breath at the nostrils. I'm a belly breather, and shifting to anapana hasn't been easy. It's like I feel this massive electrical rod going straight down from my nose to my belly every time I try it. I'm starting to realize that I'm afraid to make the permanent shift to such shallow breathing. Or even to experiment.
This weekend I devoted most of my practice to it, and tonight in group Vipassana, I had a revelation. The the awareness I need for Vipassana, and for anapana to feel more intuitive, is not in the sensation, it's in the equanimity that looks at the sensation.
I've been experimenting with non-duality, but trying to root my awareness in the sensation, because I didn't want to see the sensation as an object. This new approach roots my awareness the equanimity with which I view sensation. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one since equanimity is more stable than any sensation, which by definition is impermanent.
Walking home from meditation, everything felt right in the world for at least a few blocks. Once home, I still struggled with some of the work anxiety I've been feeling lately, but I started to feel a burgeoning confidence that whatever might happen, I had the emotional intelligence to deal with whatever comes up.
I haven't. Especially at the level of anapana, noticing the breath at the nostrils. I'm a belly breather, and shifting to anapana hasn't been easy. It's like I feel this massive electrical rod going straight down from my nose to my belly every time I try it. I'm starting to realize that I'm afraid to make the permanent shift to such shallow breathing. Or even to experiment.
This weekend I devoted most of my practice to it, and tonight in group Vipassana, I had a revelation. The the awareness I need for Vipassana, and for anapana to feel more intuitive, is not in the sensation, it's in the equanimity that looks at the sensation.
I've been experimenting with non-duality, but trying to root my awareness in the sensation, because I didn't want to see the sensation as an object. This new approach roots my awareness the equanimity with which I view sensation. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one since equanimity is more stable than any sensation, which by definition is impermanent.
Walking home from meditation, everything felt right in the world for at least a few blocks. Once home, I still struggled with some of the work anxiety I've been feeling lately, but I started to feel a burgeoning confidence that whatever might happen, I had the emotional intelligence to deal with whatever comes up.
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Sensations
Yesterday I did a one day Vipassana retreat.
How fortunate I am to have this strong sangha of meditators in this tradition that has had so much impact on the practice of meditation in North America. Almost 40 years ago S.N. Goenka visited Montreal, his first North American lecture. The community he seeded grew into this strong and resilient charity that runs a beautiful retreat center an hour outside of Montreal, and then these one day retreats in the East End of the city.
Despite the 10 day retreat I did back in September, the two hours a day that I've been doing, and the one hour group sitting that's a 10 minute walk from my apartment, yesterday I feel like I finally "got" it.
Goenka's technique attunes you to the sensations flowing through the body, and cultivates the ability to look at these constantly changing sensations with calm alertness. I also cultivates the ability to see where these sensations are rigid, giving the impression of solidity and permanence.
Developing this intuitive relationship with our sensations, in their true impermanent and continuously changing state, helps us to develop emotional and intellectual agility. We make emotions out of our sensations, and then our sensations respond to these emotions. It's how we get into these ruts. Goenka's technique effectively deconstructs our emotional patterns so that we can start again.
This morning a 2 hour meditation flew by, largely because I was focussed on just being present and directly aware of the the flow of sensations. I had some moments where my mind flew off and started working out some work problems. When I returned to my body, all I had were these weak solid little spots of sensations and it became so clear how much the overthinking of life damages our ability to just feel it.
When it become more habitual to sit quietly with sensations, face them with equanimity, and be willing to be with whatever arises--be it warm sparkly vibrations of warmth and ease, or rock solid terror--then we are truly free to live.
How fortunate I am to have this strong sangha of meditators in this tradition that has had so much impact on the practice of meditation in North America. Almost 40 years ago S.N. Goenka visited Montreal, his first North American lecture. The community he seeded grew into this strong and resilient charity that runs a beautiful retreat center an hour outside of Montreal, and then these one day retreats in the East End of the city.
Despite the 10 day retreat I did back in September, the two hours a day that I've been doing, and the one hour group sitting that's a 10 minute walk from my apartment, yesterday I feel like I finally "got" it.
Goenka's technique attunes you to the sensations flowing through the body, and cultivates the ability to look at these constantly changing sensations with calm alertness. I also cultivates the ability to see where these sensations are rigid, giving the impression of solidity and permanence.
Developing this intuitive relationship with our sensations, in their true impermanent and continuously changing state, helps us to develop emotional and intellectual agility. We make emotions out of our sensations, and then our sensations respond to these emotions. It's how we get into these ruts. Goenka's technique effectively deconstructs our emotional patterns so that we can start again.
This morning a 2 hour meditation flew by, largely because I was focussed on just being present and directly aware of the the flow of sensations. I had some moments where my mind flew off and started working out some work problems. When I returned to my body, all I had were these weak solid little spots of sensations and it became so clear how much the overthinking of life damages our ability to just feel it.
When it become more habitual to sit quietly with sensations, face them with equanimity, and be willing to be with whatever arises--be it warm sparkly vibrations of warmth and ease, or rock solid terror--then we are truly free to live.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Book
I believe it's time to write a book out of all of this.
I've been feeling a shift in my practice since I started in the Goenka sangha. This community is so strong, I know that I have such sustained support for my ongoing practice now that impossible for me to imagine it being de-railed.
The tree is strong and stable, nothing short of an ice storm will kill it.
Yesterday I had a self directed retreat. No digital devices, just sitting in my growing sense of equanimity and non-duality. Ended the day with the Sunday night weekly one hour sitting in my neighborhood.
Didn't do much writing, but scratched out a mind map in my Zap book journal. Whenever I started to feel bored, I took the time to feel the anxious edgy emptiness beneath the craving for some new thought, some new idea. If I sit with it for a bit, the anxiety passes and what I'm left with is that lake of equanimity that Mingyur Rinpoche talks about. Just quite, peaceful openness. Just the raw joy of possibility. What is on the horizon for me if I'm not longer locked into these loops of conditioned obsession and neediness?
At the end of the day, walking home from my meditation, that recurring belief and fear, that it I don't give into the craving, it will rear up stronger. And yes it will, but then it will subside like a wave that's a little higher than the others, until it is low tide again. I need to remember the other side of that cycle. I need to remember it long enough, so that the cravings can start their path towards extinction.
This morning I woke up after that wholesome day with such a strong sense of this lake. It wasn't a perfectly still meditation, but there were some moments unlike any I've ever experienced. I felt a clarity, but it was like the clarity of underwater sunlight emerging between two caverns.
Eventually it settled into visions of lakes and lotuses. But it was different.
It felt like the beginning of a new adventure.
I've been feeling a shift in my practice since I started in the Goenka sangha. This community is so strong, I know that I have such sustained support for my ongoing practice now that impossible for me to imagine it being de-railed.
The tree is strong and stable, nothing short of an ice storm will kill it.
Yesterday I had a self directed retreat. No digital devices, just sitting in my growing sense of equanimity and non-duality. Ended the day with the Sunday night weekly one hour sitting in my neighborhood.
Didn't do much writing, but scratched out a mind map in my Zap book journal. Whenever I started to feel bored, I took the time to feel the anxious edgy emptiness beneath the craving for some new thought, some new idea. If I sit with it for a bit, the anxiety passes and what I'm left with is that lake of equanimity that Mingyur Rinpoche talks about. Just quite, peaceful openness. Just the raw joy of possibility. What is on the horizon for me if I'm not longer locked into these loops of conditioned obsession and neediness?
At the end of the day, walking home from my meditation, that recurring belief and fear, that it I don't give into the craving, it will rear up stronger. And yes it will, but then it will subside like a wave that's a little higher than the others, until it is low tide again. I need to remember the other side of that cycle. I need to remember it long enough, so that the cravings can start their path towards extinction.
This morning I woke up after that wholesome day with such a strong sense of this lake. It wasn't a perfectly still meditation, but there were some moments unlike any I've ever experienced. I felt a clarity, but it was like the clarity of underwater sunlight emerging between two caverns.
Eventually it settled into visions of lakes and lotuses. But it was different.
It felt like the beginning of a new adventure.
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Post Vipassana
Two weeks ago I finished my first 10-day Vipassana retreat. I'm still writing it up. I'm still processing it.
At the risk of reducing a complex adventure into bullet points, the most profound insights I had were the high level of stress, misery, and hatred I have been living with all my life, and the power of equanimity to reduce this suffering.
Post Vipassana, I'm realizing how deeply in grip I still am to the deep cravings I've lived with all my life. I didn't experience much in the way of craving while I was in retreat, which is surprising given that I had to give up internet, reading, writing, and eating anything substantial after noon. Very little of this bothered me, perhaps because I was more than distracted enough by the habits of petty aversion and ruminative memories of anger.
I've given up meat. And for a good week when I came home, I didn't feel any strong need to watch Netflix, or binge eat.
Craving found it's way in through the Kavanaugh hearings. Like many North Americans, particularly women, I was glued to the television, as though somehow the confirmation, or shaming of Brett Kavanaugh, will wash away all the shame I experienced as a lost teenager in the era of private Catholic schools.
By yesterday I was watching, non-stop, the last season of Nashville and inhaling a bucket of pasta in cream sauce.
This morning I woke up with a bloated stomach and a headache, feeling as though every thing I had learned had been washed away. But I sat, and it suddenly hit me how intense the sense of peace and balance had become in my life as well. I was able to rest in equanimity, make a vow to correct, maybe by visiting the weekly sitting in my neighborhood, and giving up food this evening.
I've only got one episode of Nashville left.
At the risk of reducing a complex adventure into bullet points, the most profound insights I had were the high level of stress, misery, and hatred I have been living with all my life, and the power of equanimity to reduce this suffering.
Post Vipassana, I'm realizing how deeply in grip I still am to the deep cravings I've lived with all my life. I didn't experience much in the way of craving while I was in retreat, which is surprising given that I had to give up internet, reading, writing, and eating anything substantial after noon. Very little of this bothered me, perhaps because I was more than distracted enough by the habits of petty aversion and ruminative memories of anger.
I've given up meat. And for a good week when I came home, I didn't feel any strong need to watch Netflix, or binge eat.
Craving found it's way in through the Kavanaugh hearings. Like many North Americans, particularly women, I was glued to the television, as though somehow the confirmation, or shaming of Brett Kavanaugh, will wash away all the shame I experienced as a lost teenager in the era of private Catholic schools.
By yesterday I was watching, non-stop, the last season of Nashville and inhaling a bucket of pasta in cream sauce.
This morning I woke up with a bloated stomach and a headache, feeling as though every thing I had learned had been washed away. But I sat, and it suddenly hit me how intense the sense of peace and balance had become in my life as well. I was able to rest in equanimity, make a vow to correct, maybe by visiting the weekly sitting in my neighborhood, and giving up food this evening.
I've only got one episode of Nashville left.
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