31/10/2016

The morning meditation hectic. Very chaotic and very hard to stay with the breath for more than one or two breathes in a row. Really this was just a continuation of the previous nights sleep. Hectic, interrupted and distracted.
A few 5-7 minute sessions later in the day were a bit better but that may have been because I had been on a very long (4 hour) bike ride. Blasted out all the cortisol.

                                             ______________________________

1/11/2016

This morning's session was calmer but emotional. I did however find that even when I was distracted with thinking, when I came back to the breath I had a the sense that at least a part of my mind had been following the breath all along. I know this stage from previous periods of regular meditation. That sense of being able to hold the breath even when something else is happening will deepen over time till I become able to hold both the breath and the distraction together in my mind at the same time.
The thoughts were very emotional though. Lots of frustration with my ex partner. Lots of internal 'speeches' justifying my feelings and actions. As of yet I haven't got to the stage that I am trying to get to, where I can be aware of the emotions arising and watch them from one remove. I can be aware of them at the end of each distraction and I can examine my thoughts and why and how they arise subsequently but not during. They possess me too strongly at the moment. That's what I am aiming for as I see it described in the meditation texts and talks I am immersing myself in. It is likely that the ability mentioned above to hold the breath in mind regardless of whatever other distractions are happening is the key to the second ability - to observe the arrival and dissipation of emotions and observe the reactions in real time, not subsequently. As my ability to hold the breath in mind at all times even when part of my mind is elsewhere develops and deepens, that facility is probably the key to move to more detached observation of my emotional loops and ruts.

And the way to develop and deepen the first facility is easier. Simply keep sitting as regularly and as often as possible. The second facility will unfold from the first.

May all beings everywhere be happy and free.

Day seven, no alcohol.

First meditation sessions for months. Feeling quite inspired (but then I always do at the beginning). This time however I think I have more momentum having given up the alcohol.

I feel like I need to do a kind of meditation commando course. Hitting the mat when ever I have a spare 5 minutes or 20; five, ten times a day.

Reading
Pema Chodron: When Things Fall Apart
Ayya Khema: Being Nobody, Going Nowhere.

Impermanence - unsatisfactoriness - nonself