2011.11.12 _ 72

I have a suggestion for Wol, if I may, following up from yesterday: how about doing a 1-minute session in the morning, right after getting up? Duration is less important that continuity, and you're less likely to fall asleep in the morning (perhaps :-). Just a thought -- it is always interesting to experiment, wiggling the wires, so to speak, trying this and that (for those of us old enough that electric equipment had internal wires that could be wiggled!). For my own sitting this morning, I was happy to jump right in, starting my practice at the first breath after sitting down, instead of giving myself a few minutes to settle; I realized how unnecessarily the settling becomes, after a while, and how it can be yet another excuse for distractions. I then realized how a one-minute session can become a full practice as well. edited 16:49, 12 Nov 2011

Early, 30 minute sitting for me as well today, before errands. When in a habit, nothing could be more obvious than that to do so is a complete gift that benefits everything, but how easy to forget that feeling, or to run off of the day before's 'memory material'.

I really like this idea from Pema: I would now set it for 7:20, to give myself five minutes to go sit, five minutes to get up and jot down a few sentences in the form of a brief report, leaving 30 minutes for the sitting proper.

Making a place for 'notes' is a fantastic idea. edited 19:44, 12 Nov 2011

Meditated in the evening. Standing meditation. The thought occurred to me that what we are doing with meditation is training the right side of our brain. This was a very interesting thought, and I practiced keeping it floating around my brain for as long as it wanted to, without taking over. It still did take over a couple of times. It occurred to me that I am also training the left side of my brain to wait for its turn.

I am following the conversation about when to meditate, and where to find opportunities to do so, with interest, although I quite like the routine I am getting into, and I certainly don't plan to sacrifice any sleep to my everyday meditations. But there are some very nice ideas there. Just jumping into one minute of meditation looks good too.

::: A telluric dance
::: In the underground city
::: Of howling shadows

Lying on my side recalling the dream story
Sitting up and stretching then writing down the dream thoughts
...next dropping down into quiet darkness

a framing:

sit to the point of not going
perhaps rest in original panic :-)
:-)

Thanks for the suggestion Pema; I'll give it a try. First meditation THEN coffee.
Looking forward to Sunday morning.

Sat for ten minutes during the afternoon, on a sally through the forest near where I live, but forgot to write this note.

Was out of town yesterday, time to doubly meditate tomorrow