My first meditation session on this new course, I had a few thoughts about work, a clump of cat hair moved like a
scorpion and caused a quick thrill of fear and I kept wondering if I had
my eyelids and eye focus correct. Aside from a few moments of
impatience, the eight minutes flew by.
Now I face the challenge to do it every day this week. I hope to record my experiences here as I go.
As part of my journey, I have decided to work through a Tibetan-based meditation course from arobuddhism.org. The course itself comes from aromeditation.org. I plan to track my progress as I go.
What led me to pursue this course emerged out of a combination of events. First, I resolved to improve my distress tolerance skills. Second, I read some very interesting ideas about Dzogchen. That evolved out of reading this article (http://meaningness.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/effing-the-ineffable/).
The idea of enjoying whatever arises, good, bad or ugly fully, completely and releasing attachment as I go appeals to me. That may completely misrepresent the Aro Buddhist system, and, if so, I will clarify my understanding as I go.
My first meditation session took eight minutes (my choice). My posture stayed fairly erect and and relaxed. And my posture also occupied the majority of my thoughts.
Day two produced a different effect. I set my timer for eight minutes again. (Once I develop a consistent habit, then I will look at adding time)
I started running through future, possible conversations. I caught myself, relaxed my tongue, and went back to listening. This happened several times. I started noting my tongue would tighten up to almost clenched. I relaxed it whenever that happened, and suddenly the timer went off.
The time flew by. I ended feeling soft, calm and easy. I quite like the feeling.
Day three, though exhausted, I still meditated. I didn't get to it until midnight, rather than around 17:00. I felt burning and tension in my lower thoracic back which I found distracting. And my tongue kept clenching up from the root toward the tip. I noticed a correlation between the tongue tension and rehearsing conversations.
I held day three's imaginary conversations with an Aro buddhist teacher in Montana, Alexander Berzin and the local Winnipeg Rinpoche. I explained to the teacher why I wanted to study with him, argued with Alexander Berzin about something he said in a recording I listened to four years ago, and asked the local Rinpoche to let me join his classes.
I kept catching myself early in the conversations and returned my attention to my neck, posture and the darkness of my eyelids. Eventually, I switched to composing VBA code for migration scheduling. I redirected my attention back to now and then the timer went off.
I felt more awake than when I started this third session. I also felt more solidly within my body.
On day four I didn't get to my meditation session until almost 1:00 am. The tension in my tongue-root seems to recur as a theme. My seated posture felt nice and solid in all other respects. And no burning in the thoracic region this time.
I caught myself in the middle of an imaginary conversation with the Kansas members of my team. They had challenged my wife's integrity. I had responded that "if she said the sky was green with purple polka dots, I would assume some unusual atmospheric phenomenon had occurred."
Once I recovered my awareness, I found my attention on my breathing. My sinuses had swollen and clogged nearly closed. I had to breathe at a glacial pace to maintain my breathing. Even so, I found myself more and more relaxed and calm.
The timer surprised me when it went off. I felt aware, relaxed and calm. I like how this affects me so far.
Day five I resisted until I got into the bedroom. Then I simply set my zafu on my zabuton, settled onto the cushion and started the timer.
Of course, the tongue-root tension re-appeared. And my clogged sinuses required very slow deep breathing again.
Because of my slow breathing, I found it easy to bring my concentration back to my breathing. Most of my focus stayed on my breath anyway.
Right at the beginning I felt some very demanding, sharp itches on my face. I struggled to ignore them, and eventually they disappeared.
At the end, I felt the usual calm and centred feeling.
Day six I forgot to note my start time. My sinuses had improved and I had comfortable posture.
I drifted early into deciding where I would use for my memory palace. I settled on my high school. I even started planning the layout of what I would put where. I finally redirected my attention back to now at that point.
Next, I felt a strong, sharp itch in my ankle. I left it alone and it faded after a minute or so.
I slipped into a shameful event from my youth on the farm. That triggered memories of my theories inward and outward forms of meditation versus trance respectively. I wondered if the Tibetan Buddhist drills and skills cover the same ideas.
Overall, I had long thinking periods before I returned to now. I did end feeling very calm and solid.
Day seven I missed my session. I worked nearly 21 straight hours through to after 6:00 am the next day and then crashed hard.
