From Scratch
My Joyful Mind book is still in one of the unopened
boxes from the move, but I decided to go on without
it for now and start meditating.
In the last three days, I could see myself going through all the previous teachings in lickety-split haste: Maintain the awareness of the preciousness of life (One of the Preliminaries), Regard dharma as dreams, Examine the nature of unborn awareness, Self-liberatie even the antidote.
I still don’t understand the significance of these teachings. They make good reading, and my mind drifts in and out of reverie as I consider them, along with occasional contemplation about existence.
Both day before yesterday as well as yesterday, my mind was mostly occupied with the chaos of trivial thought, and a battle to remain in the blissful state of calm when I arrived at it. I kept thinking about the noise of the vacuum cleaner in the corridor, the sound of a truck passing by; I wondered if I should buy myself a yoga mat, or one of those pretty runners I saw in the tiny store in Dupont… It was a lot of hollow, pretentious thought, but I decided to keep on, and let my mind do its distracted thing.
I can tell today, I am more settled into a meditative state. It is not entirely thoughtless, but I felt more relaxed and able to focus. I began with the same muddle of disparate thoughts, but alternated between calm and a whirlpool of entropic energy mixed with a quest to find silence. It was liberating in a strange way.
Still, it might be while before I find my rhythm and can sit longer and concentrate. It helps to tell yourself that the idea of meditation is not to empty your mind, but to focus without distraction on one object, like your breath, or a mantra, or a thought. The mind works by holding objects, whether it is something concrete like a tree, or an abstract idea like gravity, or a person you care about. When you close your eyes, you want to try and get to that place where you can focus your mind on that object, without the unnecessary mind chatter running in the background. (Incidentally, this is exactly what we do when we read a book or watch TV. It takes a lot of concentration to sit for hours in front of a huge screen in a theatre and watch a long film, but we do so easily, and find it immensely pleasurable because we have made a habit of it over the years and our mind is used to that activity)
The teachings in the Joyful Mind diary, served as an object I focussed my thoughts on. I realize now how much easier it is to meditate while using it as an aid. I need to find an alternative until I get around to unpacking my boxes.
In the last three days, I could see myself going through all the previous teachings in lickety-split haste: Maintain the awareness of the preciousness of life (One of the Preliminaries), Regard dharma as dreams, Examine the nature of unborn awareness, Self-liberatie even the antidote.
I still don’t understand the significance of these teachings. They make good reading, and my mind drifts in and out of reverie as I consider them, along with occasional contemplation about existence.
Both day before yesterday as well as yesterday, my mind was mostly occupied with the chaos of trivial thought, and a battle to remain in the blissful state of calm when I arrived at it. I kept thinking about the noise of the vacuum cleaner in the corridor, the sound of a truck passing by; I wondered if I should buy myself a yoga mat, or one of those pretty runners I saw in the tiny store in Dupont… It was a lot of hollow, pretentious thought, but I decided to keep on, and let my mind do its distracted thing.
I can tell today, I am more settled into a meditative state. It is not entirely thoughtless, but I felt more relaxed and able to focus. I began with the same muddle of disparate thoughts, but alternated between calm and a whirlpool of entropic energy mixed with a quest to find silence. It was liberating in a strange way.
Still, it might be while before I find my rhythm and can sit longer and concentrate. It helps to tell yourself that the idea of meditation is not to empty your mind, but to focus without distraction on one object, like your breath, or a mantra, or a thought. The mind works by holding objects, whether it is something concrete like a tree, or an abstract idea like gravity, or a person you care about. When you close your eyes, you want to try and get to that place where you can focus your mind on that object, without the unnecessary mind chatter running in the background. (Incidentally, this is exactly what we do when we read a book or watch TV. It takes a lot of concentration to sit for hours in front of a huge screen in a theatre and watch a long film, but we do so easily, and find it immensely pleasurable because we have made a habit of it over the years and our mind is used to that activity)
The teachings in the Joyful Mind diary, served as an object I focussed my thoughts on. I realize now how much easier it is to meditate while using it as an aid. I need to find an alternative until I get around to unpacking my boxes.
