2011.11.17 _ 77

Something called mind.. dawns, and a familiar body rides along something called memory.. is that.. me? During waking hours.. body routinely disappears.. mind looks away from mind..

It gets dark.. what gets tired? Is it me? Back to the breath. Giving myself a tiny break. Little confetti gifts to something called World.. or.. Universe.. or Reality. Friendly party poppers. I can pull what seems to be this one side.. and that's OK

This morning I woke up rather early, which gave me a nice opportunity to stay in bed, and to do my practice that way, lying down, for I guess about an hour or so. Somehow the stillness of lying down feels more complete than when sitting up, or at least different. Also, no need to be vigilant in order to not doze of, since falling asleep lying bed is nothing to worry about. :-) But then, when I got up finally, I faced a dilemma: I had already spent well over half an hour on my practice, so in that sense I could easily have convinced myself to skip sitting practice. However, I know from experience how easy it is to get onto that slippery slope of counting this as also somewhat that, and so on, so I decided to keep things simple, and just sit, no matter what. I'm glad I did. It was refreshing too, with a very different quality.
And thank you, Wol, for encouraging us all, by encouraging yourself! edited 19:31, 17 Nov 2011

Meditated in the evening. Standing meditation.

Pema's comment above made me think about all the way we try to get out of meditating (and generally, trying to escape the moment we're in). The way you can try to convince yourself to skip practice, or the way you find yourself waiting for the end of the practice period. I decided to pay more attention to the ways I am doing that, and I also decided to allow myself the full allotment of time I have set aside for meditation. Too often I set the alarm/gong for meditation at exactly 10 minutes, and then need a few more more moments before I actually start, and then when the gong goes off I immediately start rounding off the meditation. Today I set it for just over 11 minutes, and when the gong went off I continued standing until its sound was completely gone. It did feel slightly more spacious, and yes, there was a lot of worming out of the meditation going on.

::: It's a turning point
::: An epiphany of truth
::: And simplicity

I find it very encouraging to hear that even the "experts" struggle against inertia and laziness!

Standing meditation followed by Tai Chi this evening. Usually the surroundings dissolve when I meditate, but tonight to no avail, the cat, the lights, the music in the background stayed with me until I was well along into my Tai Chi form... when I was done and I wondered when it all happened

Time with a dear old friend today, pouring out childhood memories and characters on the table of a quaint cafe, while a roasted veggie wrap fell apart completely, dripping all over my hands. Couldn't resist driving by the house I grew up in, just two blocks away from that of her parents... so much smaller than I remember, overgrown. I felt sad about it ... avocado trees seemed impoverished and the vibrant color cultivated by my Meme gone or at least in hiding ... but my friend said "It is just 'grovey' now."

Not very focussed
waiting for something to surface
In a dream it was a bear surfacing out of the water
It came to play with the children

attending to the punctuation
of the ordinary
that's all
one dot
.