Self directed retreat Day 2

Slept well last night. For the first time in a while. Body scan slows down the thoughts, which increases the conditions for sleep. Listening to YMR sleep meditation instructions establishes the view. Also wonderful to wake and listen the gong on YMR waking instructions. I really feel like I'm in retreat. 

Meditation on the 3rd thought (dreamlike nature of samsara)

Essentially this is a contemplation of the reality that there is suffering.  But in directly contemplating the suffering, there is an untangling, and ideally recognition of the causes of the suffering being painful habits built on delusions. 

It's though our friends have been chasing us around in tiger costumes, and they might as well be tigers, because we are traumatized and will see tigers even when we know they aren't really tigers. 

The only way out is to gently let the trauma loosen. Recognize the feeling of recognizing reality and relax in that regularly enough that it starts to become it own habit energy.  That is the wisdom body.  The habit energy that develops from recognizing truth. 

The Four Thoughts

Another Saturday of meditation and fasting.   I started the day with a reading of Tsoknyi Rinpoche's  writing on the four thoughts that turn the mind. Of course I have read about and contemplated these thoughts before, but..

"...repeating a teaching is not just for your conceptual mind. Once your conceptual mind understands, you think you understand. But that kind of understanding is not enough because repetition is for your mind's emotional understanding." 

The dharma needs to become a stronger, wider, less rickety wheel if it is to become an intuitive, protective and nurturing set of emotions that make sense of our constantly changing affect.  

I had a glimpse of this earlier in the week after discovering some Goenka guided meditations on my Insight Timer.  Goenka points out a number of times that equanimity arises from the understanding of impermanence.  It's not enough to know conceptually that we are impermanent.  When we make intuitive the understanding of impermanence, we  have the insight born of all the four thoughts: that life is a precious opportunity, that is is indeed impermanent, that suffering has causes, and that suffering is not worth the effort of all the habits we have to maintain to perpetuate it for ourselves and others. 

During my two hour meditation I took my time with each thought, taking the time to rest in the emotional consequences of each.   I felt gratitude, equanimity, bliss, and a deep sadness for everyone still as hooked on suffering as I am. 

This morning I brought those thoughts into my meditation and finished with a strong clear connection with absolute well being, vast infinite and always here. 

The weekly quote from Tergar was the insight that I started the year with.

I am committed.  My job now is to document these changes.