•
only one more day of meditation practice, then a final celebratory banquet. i’m finishing up exit interviews with my students today and feeling the loss of the program already. it will all be over soon. i’m both happy about this from being tired and sad to see it dissolve. but it will be nice to get a full night sleep for a change and eat with a fork.
If you're new here, thanks for visiting! Please subscribe to my RSS feed and consider visiting my design-related blog and my personal blog.
•
this last week has been really different, more energy and more vivid trains of thought. i’m not sure that’s a bad thing particularly but it’s different. partly it’s just reality, i’m having to relate to my impending move back to california, job contract details, shipping boxes of my things, and packing. partly it’s just the way my mind works, planning and fantasizing about how things are going to go. wasting the present moment away imagining a future one.
i’m also thinking more and more about the fruition of all this meditation. how does it work exactly? what is it doing? it’s hard for me to tell while i’m here, the progression over a month is subtle. but as soon as i’m back in the real world i’m sure it will be a sharp contrast.
i am noticing though, in this last week, that even with all of the excitement about upcoming changes there’s some amount of exertion possible that steadies my mind. without the stimulus, it settles out of boredom. but with the stimulus, i can still settle it if i apply myself. hard to describe what that exertion is though, in words. feels like exertion, even though that word usually for me evokes the idea of musculature and physicality. but there’s some sort of mental exertion going on and i can then stay in the present moment in spite of the excitement. but without the exertion, my mind spins off into fantasy land and day dreams about this and that.
•
wow, will this retreat ever end?!
it just goes on and on and on. each day just like the last. it’s amazing people get so soft and raw doing the same simple thing day after day. what is it about just watching your breath that causes so much to come up for people? I guess watching the breath is really just staying present in the moment - and things just come up. but we normally fill the space so we don’t have to deal with them.
•
the trees outside the shrine room are starting to bloom, and some tulips have come up in the front lawn. it’s rainy and dreary and cold though. one more week to go in this retreat, but mostly we’re on autopilot. i’m preparing a talk for tomorrow evening about two chants that we do each day.
•
my practice just keeps getting deeper and more subtle, though the level of detail that i can see in my mind ebbs and flows. i’m hoping to settle more this week, but later in the week we’ll start doing contemplation practice and that tends to stir up the mind.
contemplation meditation is when one holds an idea or a thought intentionally to gain insight about it. we all do this all the time, we’re just usually contemplating what’s for lunch or something like that. here we’ll be contemplating other topics, especially ones which may evoke fear and sadness for us, like death and addiction and aggression.
usually holding a mental object tends to enervate the mental consciousness and cause more storylines and distractions, and emotions. so we do that practice later in the month retreat after we’ve built a lot of stability and strength of mind first, then we can hold a thought without being captured by the secondary thoughts and emotions that will come up.
•
had the day off today, after finishing the week with more repetitous long days of practice. went to town to buy a couple things and get a lunch that doesn’t come in a little bowl with chopsticks.
i feel deeply settled, though my mind still has a subtle elation or tension that seems to fuel trains of thought. i’m excited to spend the next week in more, longer sessions to see how subtle and settled my mind can go. we’re definitely into a routine now, everyone has a sense of how we do things and how the forms of the dathun program work, so it’s getting more and more boring. boredom seems to be a key part of the recipe of this program. it allows further settling to see more subtle aspects of one’s mind, that excitement or entertainment would mask.
•
gave a short talk this morning on eating practice, in particular about crispness in our forms and that mindfulness doesn’t mean going slowly particularly. i feel especially tender after giving the talk, and wishing that i could see everyone. missing you all.
•
just out of some deep silence practice, which was wonderful. i’m continuing to settle more and more and that presence of mind is staying with me increasingly out of the meditation hall and into small, ordinary activities. and it just feels good to breathe. each breath feels relaxed and open, without any sense of urgency or tension particularly. perhaps that’s what i’m feeling, just a deep release of subtle tension and i’m noticing more as my chest moves with each breath. this part of the retreat we’re trying to get more into a routine and just settle, to see how deep we can go in our stability and how much vivid perception arises. then next week we’ll open the meditation practice more and include contemplations. that will stir up the stability, but the ultimate point of all this practice is not the stability - it’s to use the stability and clarity to generate insight into the nature of mind and the patterns of mind. so back i go now to build more stability and clarity.
•
when i tell people i’m going for a month long meditation retreat, i usually get a blank stare. it’s hard to imagine what that is like. some ask me if it’s just sitting blissed out for a long time, or say “that must be very relaxing”. it is relaxing in a certain sort of way, but it’s also amazing what happens when you just sit still for awhile. you usually get a lot of emotions surfacing that have been just waiting for a gap to come up.
so being here and sitting for a month is quite a tramatic experience for most people, very emotional. it’s more like self-psychotherapy perhaps than anything else. sometimes the mind is quiet and content, but often it is telling stories and postulating and reviewing memories and regrets or imagining future expectations and hopes and fears. so far, after one week, i’ve mostly been relating to feelings of sadness, longing, anger, fear, anxiety, irritation, curiosity, and doubt. “hello old friends, please stay for awhile” i’m trying to say to them. through complete familiarity with their nature, they say, one is no longer at their mercy. but damn it’s painful and difficult to sit with those feelings day after day.
today i’m starting to notice more cool boredom as well, which means i’m settling even more. this is a meditation slang term that we use to refer to boredom that is not hot, anxious boredom. aggitation is often what comes up for me when i’m bored, i just want to get up and go do something or relate to some project i have cooking. cool boredom is where you feel bored and the situation is very ordinary, not exciting or entertaining in any way, but you relax with that. it can feel like you’re taking a dip in a cool stream when you relax with it. but it’s very interesting to explore these types of boredom, to contemplate what it is about boredom that would be threatening in any way to us - why does hot boredom feel so uncomfortable?
•
it snowed a few centimeters recently but almost all of it melted. this morning included my first walk outside since the retreat started, and small, gentle snow flakes were falling as i walked down by the bridge and river. it is so very peaceful here, especially as my mind settles down and feels more peace in general.
sitting monkey is place where