Exploring Tibetan Meditation

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.