Morning meditation:
I meditated in Michelle's room this morning instead of downstairs. There were three of us: Ellen, me, and Michelle's boombox. The last of the three, though set to CD mode and on Stop, insisted on being a distraction. Every now and then, it would go into vocal fry with random Morse-code-like rhythms, like when you're searching for a radio station. Being a patient and peaceful meditator, I could only curse the gods (mildly, because of the 30-day no cursing trial) and make silent promises to throw the thing in the nearest river after the hour was up. Getting up and turning it off would be admitting weakness, something 30-day trial meditators never do.
After my arsenal of euphemistic insults ran dry, I decided that since in today's meditation I was practicing mindfulness - being aware of the state of my body and mind - that maybe the boombox was trying to help me. A couple of times I would slip into some thoughtstream that I only planned to be aware of but not take part in, and then the boombox's interruption was welcome. A few times I even thought it was being more than naturally prescient. But towards the end of the hour, the novelty wore off. Instead of "be mindful" warnings, the thing got chattery, more like "pay attention to me, pay attention to me!"
Being mindful is easier if there's a specific thing to be mindful of. Just waiting and being mindful is for the gurus. So I tried to monitor my breathing. The inner dialogue went something like this:
"In...out...in...out...in...wow, I could really use a piece of chocolate right now. Mmm, yea...oh yea, out...(cough)...held that one in too long, in...out...has it been an hour yet? No...mustn't check yet, it'll just be embarassing how much time actually went by...OK, surrender my boredom to Buddha...no, first gotta generate some reverence. I'm reverent, I'm reverent, I'm reverent, OK, I'm reverent enough, what was I surrendering? Wait, shouldn't I be monitoring my breathing? OK, here we go again, in...out...in...out..."
And so on. Funny how the mind is jumpy, and how easily it gets bored when it can't jump around.
Weird distracting sentence that flew by at one point:
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Ms. Odessa has one torn ear."
For writing hour, I wrote a morbid little amateurish poem to help put myself in a morbid mood later on, if I ever need help.
Schizophrenia
Recently I've split into two
One of me's addicted to you
One of me begs to let go
The other can't stand the word no
Ceaselessly they fight for control
One incites, the other consoles
Each demands the seat at the wheel
Neither wants to cease to be real
<1>:
Why are you so keen to forget?
There's still sweeter deeper regret
Pain must be explored to the end
Hide it and it might never mend
Spill bitter tears and enjoy
Doesn't it feel good to destroy?
Blame yourself blame her blame the world
Envy every boy with a girl
<--1>
<2>:
You wake up a quarter to three
Take the reins start pitying me
I hide out until you are done
Take my tired body and run
Sit and clear my mind of all pain
Beg the gods to turn down the gain
Find some peace, dissolve your attack
Quit halfway, I'm gone and you're back
<--2>
<1>:
Me me me, me me me me
I am here, you'll never be free
Go ahead and think you've been cured
You are weak, I can endure
I'll be in each song in each book
Dancing in the words in the looks
You'll run out of things that distract
And when you're alone I'll be back
<--1>
<2>:
Trick myself, donate some time
See a film, find words that rhyme
Tell myself I'm doing fine
Keep busy, stifle my mind
Talk to her, borrow her smile
Feel OK, rest for a while
Slowly heal, slowly make peace
Feel your grip slightly release
<--2>
This is not a battle; a game
These two are cruel, but they're lame
Both are fake, they shrink in the light
Weak, they gum but can't bite
Pity, fear, you cowardly beasts
For months now I suckle your teets
Time's up, I'll show you the door
Love her still, possess her no more
Oof, hope I don't reread that one soon.
Showing posts with label mindfulness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mindfulness. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Day 1 of Many
Day 1 Morning Meditation:
Day 1 is always interesting, unless it's day 1 of being in a coma. At 7:30AM I was wide-awake, though my alarm was set for 8:45AM. I decided to wait for it to ring, and got another hour of fitful sleep in exchange for the return of drowsiness. I washed up and went downstairs. There, Gene was already running around with an incense stick, muttering like a monk in a movie. Ellen was tucked in under eight blankets on the couch, with a blissfully sleepy expression. We got down to business.
Note: I've meditated before, for an hour at the longest, but never regularly. Nevertheless, I've already tried the exercises/techniques described.
An important idea that I've read about concerning meditating is to avoid judgment calls. Saying things like "this meditation sucked," or "this meditation rocked," or "it was soooo hard," or "that was much easier than usual" works against you. Instead, you describe it factually and without a rating/review. Something like "I meditated." So here's how it went:
Lots of thoughts. Perhaps a total of 15 minutes of the hour was spent in conscious meditation. The rest divided up between several modes of thinking. But first about the 15:
I spent part of the time being humble and reverent to a higher power. Today it was Buddha because he's one of the milder Gods. In reverence, I tried to surrender various parts of myself to his omnivorous diet. Lust, possessiveness, laziness, inertia, pessimism, attachment, self-love, self-doubt, self-image, etc. each with its own personal array of associations. Depending on the level of suffering each one associated with, the difference in feeling after I offered it up to Buddha for chomping was more or less tangible. It's an interesting exercise, especially because it is its own remedy for disbelief. Disbelief emerged every once in a while, and when I caught it early, I tried to surrender it. Sometimes though I fell into disbelief and lounged there for a while. Disbelief sure has some quality couches for lounging.
I also spent some time trying to simply be conscious. Simply in the sense of simply-free-your-mind-Neo-and-jump-off-the-building. I watched my thoughts from a distance, only getting possessed by one every two or three seconds, and for no longer than 5 minutes at a time. I also tried to monitor my breathing. When I count breaths, I get distracted by thoughts a lot less, but I feel like that's cheating. When I don't, I end up remembering 5 minutes later that I haven't been monitoring for the last 5 minutes.
And now the distractions:
1. Narrating - my inner writer literally describes everything in complete sentences out loud in my head. He's pretty much writing a blog entry about the meditation, during the meditation.
2. Getting distracted by swarming thoughts - I may be saying in my meditation: "and now, dearest Buddha, I surrender my love for couch-warming," and suddenly I'll be daydreaming about warming couches somewhere in sunny Northern NJ. I'll wake up from the reverie eventually, but that's precisely it - eventually.
3. Thinking about what I'll write about in my writing hour - getting good ideas for writing is the strongest distraction. I start thinking the plot through, the dialogues, etc., and discipline is floating somewhere very far away, or knocking and waving at me through an opaque sound-proof window of the wrong house.
No grades. Just the facts: 2/3 days down.
We watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona yesterday. In every scene, Gene insisted on unveiling the Woody Allen in every character. Scarlett Johansson would whine about something pseudo-intellectualy sexual and Gene would yell: "That's Woody Allen!" then reach into my computer screen and rip off her mask. People would be sexually frustrated and unhappy and Gene would yell "They're Woody Allens!" and they would instantly all drop pretenses and put on an additional 60 years of whining experience. It was a mess. I don't think I heard a single word said in the movie for all of the yelling and flying masks and pretenses.
More compliments in my direction arrived yesterday:
Madelyn: yeah, you just found i was funny
Madelyn: your good at noticing obvious stuff
Day 1 is always interesting, unless it's day 1 of being in a coma. At 7:30AM I was wide-awake, though my alarm was set for 8:45AM. I decided to wait for it to ring, and got another hour of fitful sleep in exchange for the return of drowsiness. I washed up and went downstairs. There, Gene was already running around with an incense stick, muttering like a monk in a movie. Ellen was tucked in under eight blankets on the couch, with a blissfully sleepy expression. We got down to business.
Note: I've meditated before, for an hour at the longest, but never regularly. Nevertheless, I've already tried the exercises/techniques described.
An important idea that I've read about concerning meditating is to avoid judgment calls. Saying things like "this meditation sucked," or "this meditation rocked," or "it was soooo hard," or "that was much easier than usual" works against you. Instead, you describe it factually and without a rating/review. Something like "I meditated." So here's how it went:
Lots of thoughts. Perhaps a total of 15 minutes of the hour was spent in conscious meditation. The rest divided up between several modes of thinking. But first about the 15:
I spent part of the time being humble and reverent to a higher power. Today it was Buddha because he's one of the milder Gods. In reverence, I tried to surrender various parts of myself to his omnivorous diet. Lust, possessiveness, laziness, inertia, pessimism, attachment, self-love, self-doubt, self-image, etc. each with its own personal array of associations. Depending on the level of suffering each one associated with, the difference in feeling after I offered it up to Buddha for chomping was more or less tangible. It's an interesting exercise, especially because it is its own remedy for disbelief. Disbelief emerged every once in a while, and when I caught it early, I tried to surrender it. Sometimes though I fell into disbelief and lounged there for a while. Disbelief sure has some quality couches for lounging.
I also spent some time trying to simply be conscious. Simply in the sense of simply-free-your-mind-Neo-and-jump-off-the-building. I watched my thoughts from a distance, only getting possessed by one every two or three seconds, and for no longer than 5 minutes at a time. I also tried to monitor my breathing. When I count breaths, I get distracted by thoughts a lot less, but I feel like that's cheating. When I don't, I end up remembering 5 minutes later that I haven't been monitoring for the last 5 minutes.
And now the distractions:
1. Narrating - my inner writer literally describes everything in complete sentences out loud in my head. He's pretty much writing a blog entry about the meditation, during the meditation.
2. Getting distracted by swarming thoughts - I may be saying in my meditation: "and now, dearest Buddha, I surrender my love for couch-warming," and suddenly I'll be daydreaming about warming couches somewhere in sunny Northern NJ. I'll wake up from the reverie eventually, but that's precisely it - eventually.
3. Thinking about what I'll write about in my writing hour - getting good ideas for writing is the strongest distraction. I start thinking the plot through, the dialogues, etc., and discipline is floating somewhere very far away, or knocking and waving at me through an opaque sound-proof window of the wrong house.
No grades. Just the facts: 2/3 days down.
We watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona yesterday. In every scene, Gene insisted on unveiling the Woody Allen in every character. Scarlett Johansson would whine about something pseudo-intellectualy sexual and Gene would yell: "That's Woody Allen!" then reach into my computer screen and rip off her mask. People would be sexually frustrated and unhappy and Gene would yell "They're Woody Allens!" and they would instantly all drop pretenses and put on an additional 60 years of whining experience. It was a mess. I don't think I heard a single word said in the movie for all of the yelling and flying masks and pretenses.
More compliments in my direction arrived yesterday:
Madelyn: yeah, you just found i was funny
Madelyn: your good at noticing obvious stuff
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