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
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, July 14, 2019
Getting unstuck
My brain does not want me to be liberated.
In the last week, I've been doing more open awareness in my meditation, both in formal and informal practice. I noticed yesterday that I feel panicked when I'm just being. It is my mental habit to be predicting or ruminating. Who knows what will happen if I were just to be? This uncertainty is painful to me, so the mind and body contracts, hoping to pull me back into this comforting pattern of worrying and re-visiting.
To get out of this pattern, I have to make a conscious decision to surf the anxiety when it rises up. To be curious about it, and in that moment of curiosity to expand. This is a radical decision, to stop worrying and remembering. To just be in the present moment. To trust in awareness.
That leap of faith is the only way to be truly free. But it has to actually lead to liberation. If the awareness, the groundlessness is the destination, the liberation, then the leap cannot fail. It's a virtuous loop.
We have to get comfortable skiing in fresh snow.
In the last week, I've been doing more open awareness in my meditation, both in formal and informal practice. I noticed yesterday that I feel panicked when I'm just being. It is my mental habit to be predicting or ruminating. Who knows what will happen if I were just to be? This uncertainty is painful to me, so the mind and body contracts, hoping to pull me back into this comforting pattern of worrying and re-visiting.
To get out of this pattern, I have to make a conscious decision to surf the anxiety when it rises up. To be curious about it, and in that moment of curiosity to expand. This is a radical decision, to stop worrying and remembering. To just be in the present moment. To trust in awareness.
That leap of faith is the only way to be truly free. But it has to actually lead to liberation. If the awareness, the groundlessness is the destination, the liberation, then the leap cannot fail. It's a virtuous loop.
We have to get comfortable skiing in fresh snow.
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Discarding
I have tried so many ways to free myself from the chaos and squalor of my living environment. I have tried the bit by bit, which I now think of as calories in, calories out. I get to a certain point, but my psyche simply iterates me back to despair.
I tried the Kondo method once before, but I think I stopped at paper, and possibly misinterpreted it as something I was supposed to complete in a weekend. I'm going to do a serious discarding and I'm going to do it all. I'm going to give myself the same six months that I've given myself with my weight. My weight is on track now. I know that intermittent fasting is going to bring down my insulin levels and that I will never have a weight problem again. I know that as deeply as I know that I will never smoke again.
It's a good time to make a permanent change in my environment. I have a lot of faith in the possibility of absolute change.
When I was envisioning the kind of home I wanted, what I saw was a home that supported absolute well-being. It was simple and uncluttered. There is a sense of spaciousness and peace. The possessions are few but meaningful. There is peace, and love, and a feeling of liberation from all the demands of modern life. It is a refuge.
To get there I need to discard. I need to go into a deep period of discarding everything that I don't love.
I tried the Kondo method once before, but I think I stopped at paper, and possibly misinterpreted it as something I was supposed to complete in a weekend. I'm going to do a serious discarding and I'm going to do it all. I'm going to give myself the same six months that I've given myself with my weight. My weight is on track now. I know that intermittent fasting is going to bring down my insulin levels and that I will never have a weight problem again. I know that as deeply as I know that I will never smoke again.
It's a good time to make a permanent change in my environment. I have a lot of faith in the possibility of absolute change.
When I was envisioning the kind of home I wanted, what I saw was a home that supported absolute well-being. It was simple and uncluttered. There is a sense of spaciousness and peace. The possessions are few but meaningful. There is peace, and love, and a feeling of liberation from all the demands of modern life. It is a refuge.
To get there I need to discard. I need to go into a deep period of discarding everything that I don't love.
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.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Fast-- Day 5
I'm going to end this fast tomorrow.
It's been a great experiment. I've lost a surprising amount of weight. I've been able to work well with a clear mind. But I'm still hungry! Not ravenous, but I'm tired of it.
I haven't had the upsurge in energy that everyone claims, although I feel quite stable, and that's nice. This may be because I'd already switched to a low carb healthy fat diet a couple of weeks before, so already had that keytone rush experience (which I remember mostly as insomnia!)
I have a couple of meetings tomorrow and I want to feel sharp, so I plan to transition very slowly. I also plan to continue intermittent fasting so that I can continue to lose weight and get closer to what is considered healthy.
Feeling pretty healthy now though, and I didn't have to run a 10K for it.
It's been a great experiment. I've lost a surprising amount of weight. I've been able to work well with a clear mind. But I'm still hungry! Not ravenous, but I'm tired of it.
I haven't had the upsurge in energy that everyone claims, although I feel quite stable, and that's nice. This may be because I'd already switched to a low carb healthy fat diet a couple of weeks before, so already had that keytone rush experience (which I remember mostly as insomnia!)
I have a couple of meetings tomorrow and I want to feel sharp, so I plan to transition very slowly. I also plan to continue intermittent fasting so that I can continue to lose weight and get closer to what is considered healthy.
Feeling pretty healthy now though, and I didn't have to run a 10K for it.
Fast--Day 4
Hoped I'd wake up on day 4 feeling magically free of hunger, like everyone says you do.
In my case, everyone is wrong. I'm hungry. Not ravenous, but in a dull ache kind of way. The kind of hunger you feel around 11 a.m. I'm feeling at 6 a.m.
But other than that I'm feeling aware. Like I'm waking up from a dream in which I was ravenously hungry, but it was something of a delusion.
An hour later after coffee and a litre of water, I feel better. Not hungry, light and relaxed. Feeling ready to grow.
I looked in the mirror after brushing my teeth and said to myself "you're never going to be fat again." It felt like a fact. It was a fact.
Later in the day I had coffee with my brother. We had a quite emotional conversation about my mother, but I felt very even keeled.
In my case, everyone is wrong. I'm hungry. Not ravenous, but in a dull ache kind of way. The kind of hunger you feel around 11 a.m. I'm feeling at 6 a.m.
But other than that I'm feeling aware. Like I'm waking up from a dream in which I was ravenously hungry, but it was something of a delusion.
An hour later after coffee and a litre of water, I feel better. Not hungry, light and relaxed. Feeling ready to grow.
I looked in the mirror after brushing my teeth and said to myself "you're never going to be fat again." It felt like a fact. It was a fact.
Later in the day I had coffee with my brother. We had a quite emotional conversation about my mother, but I felt very even keeled.
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