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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 22 2019 : 01:21:54 AM
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I hope it's all right to keep a weekly practice journal here. I haven't been the steadiest practitioner in the past, and could benefit from encouragement as I try to establish a routine. And I also think visitors to the site could benefit from seeing how it's done (there are practice journals in the archives, but I don't see another live one out here at present).
I read the AYP site (and forums!) from 2013 to 2016 with admiration,
and practiced for a while, but never with a stable twice-a-day habit, and always with heavy admixtures of techniques I stumbled across earlier in life, or ones I read about elsewhere, or both. AYP's advocacy for a systematic, habitual approach didn't carry much authority with me in what seemed to be necessarily a realm of adventure and self-exploration. After all, the guru was in me! I think a lot of us know the feeling.
But then, late last year, I began taking yoga classes  on a steady basis, and now I look at things differently. First, as I get some basic understanding of what happens in asana practice, I finally see how it connects to the principle that is called "self-pacing" in AYP. I had read it here but not really taken it on board until I was in a place where I had to observe it or risk physical injury.
Second, in answer to what I considered an inner call, and after a campaign of about a month using a weird mix of techniques, I got my crown chakra open toward the end of last month, for probably the third time in my life--the second at least. It is definitely not equivalent to enlightenment. It definitely felt good, and even right. But I realized that I wasn't prepared for a sudden come-down which could happen anytime, that to do the crown justice I would have to back off and approach it gradually and systematically, getting there with a sense of knowing what I was doing. Even if it took a few years. So it was time to revisit AYP.
I happened to have bought the Easy Lessons books in a store earlier in the year, and I'm going to start from the beginning. My initial idea is to review a lesson a week and not adopt a practice until I reach that lesson, but that might be too much self-pacing: six months of meditation before adding spinal breathing could be reasonable, but nearly three years without samyama? On the other hand, I've spent much of the last three years without it too... 
In any case, the beginning practice is clear: 20 minutes deep meditation twice a day and nothing else (except asana classes). And--since I've had so much going on, so recently--a watchful eye on whether I might have to reduce the time. Certainly, as I've eased into this over the last week or two, I've put off a few sessions for hours, and missed a day last week. I'm going to stay with 20 minutes for another week--and be stricter about the "nothing else"--and see whether things reach an equilibrium.
Suggestions are welcome.  Wish me luck! |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Apr 22 2019 : 03:03:00 AM
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Hi Jourdain,
Welcome
Creating a new habit can take some time, so do not be too strict. As a suggestion, if 2 times a day 20 minutes is a bit of a struggle to integrate in daily life, it is also possible to start with two times 10 or 15 minutes of DM. Do not forget to take some minutes of rest after DM. Keep it doable for yourself. Later, after a month or six weeks, you add 5 minutes to the practices....
It is a wise decision to take one step at a time.
Wishing you a smooth journey, good luck.
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1734 Posts |
Posted - Apr 22 2019 : 06:12:05 AM
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Hello Jourdain, welcome to (serious) AYP
"Da capo" sounds good. The "fine" will look after itself, all you need to do is take it one day at the time. You already know that. Sticking to the disciple takes a bit of effort at the beginning. After a while, you will be looking forward to your sitting sessions.
I will look out for your updates in this journal.
Good luck! |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Apr 29 2019 : 02:06:41 AM
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Week 1
Changes: DM to 10 minutes (down from 20)
Samyama timer: 10 weeks
Current practice: Deep meditation, 10 minutes
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/10.html
Thanks, Charliedog and Blue Raincoat   I'm grateful for your kind welcomes and gently helpful advice. I did find myself reducing practice time, after finding myself putting off several sessions until there was only 10 minutes left! It's harder to imagine a clearer message from within.
I expect most of my entries here to be short, but this one will be extra long as I explain (to myself as well) what I will be doing, both with the practice and with the journal itself.
This is intended to be completely mainstream, vanilla, unmodded AYP. I'll be doing a few things that aren't prescribed in the lessons, but that I don't think are discouraged. If I'm mistaken, please point this out to me at once, as my tendency to overreach is one of the main things I'm intending to work on, and I'm fully convinced now that there's good reason to hew to the line. I'll go into that in other weeks.
I'll be making one entry a week here. Each time, I'll review the next AYP lesson in sequence and reflect on how it bears on my experiences on the path--which might be only a few words, such as "I've never tried this," or "It takes all kinds."  I'm working mainly from the AYP: Easy Lessons for Ecstatic Living books, which sometimes have additions to the online lessons and may have minor textual differences.
Here's where self-pacing comes in, and I take it pretty far. In general, as I said last week, except for asanas learned in class, I will only adopt a practice once I've reached the lesson containing the instructions for it. By my calculations, for instance, I will reach spinal breathing pranayama this November, siddhasana next June--by which time I may be limber enough to get my foot back there!--and the first mantra enhancement two years from now. By early 2023, at the age of fifty, I'll have the tools to approach the crown again, if I then see fit; this time, hopefully, to stay. 
I am not at all under the impression that AYP requires us to wait so long. Self-pacing implies setting our own paces and adjusting as we go, and the lessons weren't even originally posted as far apart as that. To bind myself to this snail's pace in advance may seem extreme, and about this I would never suggest that someone else should do the same. I do it partly so that I don't have an excuse to look at the book (or otherwise worry about my practice) during the week, but can read, write, and adjust my practice in a single session at the weekend; but, more importantly, because of the tendency to overreach I mentioned, and because I really want to build a solid base of a steady habit while I focus on getting my everyday life working better. That's part of practice too, of course, karma yoga, and I won't be surprised if the journal ends up in that subforum instead, or even in "Yamas and Niyamas". I expect it depends on what I end up talking most about.
I'm making just two exceptions, asanas aside. Since there must be a practice, I've gone ahead and peeked at Lesson 13 for the instructions on deep meditation, the only essential element (besides resting, which I know how to do  --not that I always remember).
The other exception is samyama. When I first read Lesson 150, the surprising expression that came to mind was "this is a matter of common decency," and that is how I've considered it ever since: worth doing for its own sake. While it's introduced late in the lessons, the only prerequisites--some inner silence, and of course stability in other practices--can be met early on. If ever I have gone ten weeks without a change to my practice set, nothing weird is happening, and I have the merest smidgeon of inner silence, I will permit myself to reintroduce samyama. I'll wait a more normal period, three or four months, after making that change to make sure it's stable, because, once it is, I don't intend to ever stop again.
Turning to the first lesson, "Why This Discussion?"--why indeed? I have not joined the still-extant AYP Yahoo group and so don't know how the early discussion went, but I can guess the consequences of opening a group called 'advancedyogapractices' and then sitting back: there would have been a flood of people joining, and some beginning to volunteer their knowledge, others asking questions, maybe even an argument already taking shape.
But nearly everyone involved would have come to yoga through asana classes. The ideas of "something more" and "opening oneself up", that I found cryptic when I first read the lesson on the website in 2013, are, I dare say, intuitive to asana practitioners. A beginner can see with his or her own eyes that more is possible, as the teacher can do all sorts of things he or she can't--and perhaps can't imagine doing--and can often read the room and give tailored instructions while doing them. It's impressive. Divine? The thought does cross the mind, especially if the session closes with "namaste" and so on. Someone who progresses from this beginning, I'm sure, finds after a while that something has changed inside them, and wonders how far the process can go. I'm still new to this major aspect of yoga, and looking forward to it. |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - May 08 2019 : 12:38:49 AM
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Week 2 and part of 3
Changes: none
Samyama timer: 9 weeks
Current practice: Deep meditation, 10 minutes
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/11.html
I've been getting two sessions in every day, though on a few occasions they have still slipped by some hours. Achieving a regular schedule will be its own adventure.
Daily life is a little uneven--to be expected, I guess. I had what seemed like a brilliant idea about a yoga-like approach to managing stress in working situations, the gist of which is lying down afterwards  but early tests had me spending most of the day lying down and I can't tell yet whether it will develop into something useful. I do seem to have less stress about my job, though (though not about cleaning house!). If I keep working on this, I will post and ask people if they think it is compatible with AYP, which I've obviously been assuming.
About this week's lesson, I think I can now appreciate the stated goal and see what yoga has to do with it. The connection to religion--at least in general--is less clear to me, but that's not a problem for me. |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - May 13 2019 : 12:42:06 AM
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Remainder of week 3
Changes: none
Samyama timer: 8 weeks
Current practice: Deep meditation, 10 minutes
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/12.html
An intense few days emotionally. A chance assignment from work landed me in the same town as my uncle, whom I haven't seen since his third stroke, three months ago. His speech is unaffected (or has recovered fully), and we had the same great wide-ranging conversations as usual, but he's still retraining motor functions in his left arm and is only now working up to using a cane. He drops playing cards occasionally. Even this much progress is the result of determined and often arduous daily practice, which he sometimes has had to insist on. He never looks forward to it, but he's certain of what he wants--retraining the left side, not just training the right side to compensate for it--and knows this is the way to get there. So my uncle stays on the case.
I didn't make the connection to this week's reading, the first lesson on desire and devotion, until I sat down to write this report. It hasn't been characteristic of me to identify goals and then work toward them daily. I can think of a variety of explanations for this, but it hardly matters. I've known devotion, but not towards something thought of as attainable--merely towards things and beings I've thought of as good. It's time to shift gears, to the extent I haven't done so already, and recognize a high good as also attainable--recovery of full function in my spirit--and that the means are within my grasp.
I've kept up meditation twice daily, including while out of town, though the times have been very irregular still. |
Edited by - Jourdain on May 13 2019 05:50:32 AM |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jun 06 2019 : 12:28:23 AM
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Still in it! But I forgot my password to this forum and so when it fell out of the browser cache on my laptop, I could no longer post.  But I have a new password now, and I've written it down in a place I'll remember, so you'll be hearing from me every week again from now on.
Perhaps surprisingly, I've missed just one practice session in all this time, though a few others slipped some hours. So I feel good about that. A weird digestive illness that arrived just after my crown opening seems to have gone away. I'm having trouble getting myself to do housework, but the often stressful job is going almost uniformly smoothly. It's tied to the school year, so it ends in a week, for the time being, but I think I have saved enough to make it through the summer. More about these things later, probably.
I'm still doing a lesson a week, but I'm not going to post commentaries according to my original plan. It'd have been most helpful when I had a question, and those I should just post in the appropriate section of the forum--there are a couple of questions I've had about meditation for a long time that I'll do this with sometime soon. There's also my "work yoga" practice, which I'm still trying to define in a way I can follow and vice versa. I don't think it should interfere with AYP, but I will be curious to know what you think about that, and the practice itself. |
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Dogboy
USA
2294 Posts |
Posted - Jun 06 2019 : 12:34:27 PM
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Welcome back Jourdain
Passwords in general are a cross I bear often, luckily my AYP one is tattooed on my psyche . Are you still at 10 minuets DM? Congratulations on your discipline! If things are stable, you can start adding a few more minutes as you go.
I was amused at your Samyama timer; I agree that adding samyama soon after you've sensed inner silence is proper. I love how Yogani has designed the basic practice: (optional) asanas, SBP, DM, and then samyama. The first two properly set you up for DM and then Samyama turns all that inward flow outwards, a practice of surrender that nicely completes the session and, after your rest, sets you up for sharing the fruits of your yoga for the next half-day. It has become a physical sensation for me, thanks to ecstatic conductivity.
Other byproducts of EC: asanas have creeped into everyday activity, while waiting somewhere, or in moments where I identify a sensation in my body and investigate it with a pose. Also, practices like asanas and SBP have energy signatures and I am able to drop in easily and deeply into the mantra loop with no effort. My daily duties often interfere with a strict meditation schedule, but it is nice to know that I can access DM even if I only have 5 minutes to spare. I'm not clear about what you mean about a "work yoga" practice, but if you have limited time or space to do yoga there, rest assured your current discipline will advance you to a state where yoga opportunity suddenly appears abundant. You will also discover yoga practices can be done without others knowing you are doing them in their presence .
Keep on trucking!
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Edited by - Dogboy on Jun 06 2019 12:36:50 PM |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jun 10 2019 : 5:20:24 PM
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Thanks, Dogboy, you certainly make the case for adding asanas; I attended my first class in over a month last weekend and was reminded how good they feel and how they shift the perspective. Actually, I feel like adding everything back right now and I've done various things I'm not supposed to be doing, including an overextended frog pose (at home) that my hip joints still ache from after several days  and that kind of thing is why I'm in this subforum, of course but now I may add some (few, gentle, brief) asanas instead of samyama when the timer runs down.
That brings us to the report...
Weeks 4 through 7
Changes: none
Samyama or maybe asanas timer: 4 weeks
Current practice: 10 minutes deep meditation
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/16.html
Still practicing twice daily. Everything going smoothly at work, with the school year winding down. Preoccupied with my failure to keep up the house to my mother's standards, which I promised her instead of rent when I moved in last year. But I have longstanding blocks around housekeeping, which is part of why I moved here in the first place--to overcome them. I haven't. I accept this, but that acceptance is not getting the house clean. The next two days are make-or-break, as I leave here Thursday morning and return on Monday with my mother. We'll see how it goes--fine in the long run, I know. |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jun 19 2019 : 3:27:54 PM
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Week 8
Changes: none
Samyama timer: 3 weeks
Current practice: 10 minutes deep meditation
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/17.html
Another late report, sorry! But I've kept up the twice-daily practice. Spent a few days with my uncle as he moved out of the stroke rehabilitation place and into an apartment; completely forgot meditation the first two afternoons, but in each case managed a session before bed. Now I'm back at home, and my mother's here too for this week, which will get its own report Sunday or Monday.
I think I'll stay with my initial plan of returning to samyama at the first opportunity, but asanas will definitely be important to introduce soon. |
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SeySorciere
Seychelles
1571 Posts |
Posted - Jun 20 2019 : 01:54:42 AM
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Dear Jordain,
You are adding too many practices, way too fast. You need months, in some cases even years, to let a practice settle in, not weeks. It’s a marathon , not a sprint says Yogani.
Wishing you well
Sey
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jun 21 2019 : 10:28:07 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by SeySorciere
Dear Jordain,
You are adding too many practices, way too fast. You need months, in some cases even years, to let a practice settle in, not weeks. It’s a marathon , not a sprint says Yogani.
Wishing you well
Sey
This is exactly the kind of feedback I have been most hoping for, SeySorciere! Thank you! I'm keeping this journal in large part so that others can help me keep to a slow and steady pace. But I do hope I can bring samyama in early, like the inquirer in Lesson 269, who had also returned to just DM (and maybe SBP, it's not entirely clear) after a highly energetic excursion:
https://www.aypsite.org/269.html
The "timer" I've been posting isn't the time until I take up samyama, necessarily; it's the time until I start considering whether there's enough silence and stability (in daily life as well as practice) to start with it again.
There's also the thing I came up with that I've been calling "work yoga". I may come back and develop this idea later, but the only part of it that I'm still doing is to lie down and relax for a few minutes after doing something I find stressful I would be very surprised if this were incompatible with AYP, though I'm open to persuasion. It has crossed my mind lately, though, that even lying down is something that can be overdone, so I may start taking some of those breaks in a chair instead.
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Edited by - Jourdain on Jun 22 2019 12:58:19 AM |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jun 25 2019 : 8:09:31 PM
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Week 9
Changes: none
Samyama timer: 2 weeks
Current practice: 10 minutes deep meditation
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/18.html
Still practicing twice daily. Getting better overall at consistent timing of the afternoon session. I've been doing the morning session at irregular times, since I've been waking up at irregular times. Hoping to do something about that. In particular, there's a weekly "power yoga" class at 7 a.m. on Wednesdays on the other side of town. I'm thinking about going tomorrow, which will require getting up in the small hours, just as I do when I'm working.
Although I think it was sometimes useful, I've dropped the "work yoga" practice altogether now; I may come back to it later when I feel I understand better what's really needed. It is just possible that all that lying down may in part have been a sneaky way of stimulating kundalini; in any case, there's more prana in motion the last few days than I would consider stable, though it hasn't been uncomfortable. For this reason, as well, I'm unlikely to take up samyama right away when my "timer" runs out in two weeks.
(Thanks again to SeySorciere for a truly well-conceived warning. Maybe I have been doing too much here and there, and certainly I was considering it. In any case, I had to stop and look carefully at what I was doing and contemplating, and that was very valuable.) |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jul 02 2019 : 02:20:40 AM
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Week 10
Changes: none
Samyama timer: 1 week
Current practice: 10 minutes deep meditation
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/19.html
This was a week when I got nothing done and only left the house a few times, instead reading obsessively online about tabletop role-playing games that I enjoy reading about more than I would probably enjoy playing them. My twice-a-day practice continues consistent, but I twice resorted to practices I'm not scheduled to encounter for years yet, which palpably unbalanced the energy all over my body for days each. I don't think this was the cause of my inactivity as much as a result, or a result of the same cause.
Timer or no timer, I'm still (or again) not planning to reintroduce samyama or anything else until I'm entirely stable in my practices, energy, and daily life.
I'm thinking over what I learned from the "work yoga" thing to try to develop it into a kind of personal organization system--keeping the pause between sets of tasks, but only lying down if I'm tired. The vital step now seems to be the choice of what to do next, made consciously in what silence is available. I have a tendency to skip this step and follow the path of least resistance; thinking it over yesterday, I began to wonder if I am afraid of the silence within. There's so much of it--that's not a constant experience, but I know it's there, waiting.
I think I also know what to do about such an anxiety. A few weeks ago, on a long bus ride, I asked myself what my ishta, my spiritual ideal, was, and managed to fill a whole sheet of paper with tiny notes. There are several names and some wide-ranging concepts, but all joined in an inner connection that I feel, but that I'm not sure I can even explain. I understand now why people here are so restrained in talking about their particular ishtas, even where they still have them. It's much more peculiar to the person than the common language we necessarily use about them would suggest. I'd happily talk about mine some more, but I can see now that it would be self-indulgent. You'll just have to trust me that mine's dynamite. Anyway, silence is not nearly as disturbing when you consider that such a principle is around. It can intermediate.
I think a bit of devotion will also help with getting things done during the day. I am seeing that it doesn't have to be much. It helps that an important aspect of my ideal is about the qualities of actions. In a word, I want them to express freedom. Having spent most of last week doing the opposite, I think I will be more able to remember my ishta when I act, and more able to dare the approach. |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jul 10 2019 : 2:49:41 PM
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Week 11
Changes: none
Samyama timer: elapsed
Current practice: 10 minutes deep meditation
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/20.html
Still keeping up twice-daily practice (missed one session yesterday afternoon, which is really part of week 12). Still having some trouble getting other things done, though working for other people (my mother and uncle) helps with that. Still experiencing crown energy from time to time, no doubt resulting from previous extra practices. It's not at all troublesome, but reminds me that it's too soon to introduce any changes. |
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Dogboy
USA
2294 Posts |
Posted - Jul 11 2019 : 3:35:19 PM
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quote:
It's not at all troublesome, but reminds me that it's too soon to introduce any changes.
Inner Guru gaining confidence! |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2019 : 04:07:39 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Dogboy
Inner Guru gaining confidence!
Yep the occasional setback notwithstanding.
Week 12
Changes: none
Current practice: 10 minutes deep meditation
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/21.html
Missed several sessions this week, including two or three in a row, while I was out of town with my mother and uncle. Just got completely distracted. I also read a convincingly written book from the 1980s (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes) linking spiritual phenomena of various kinds indirectly to schizophrenia, which I may have found discouraging on some level. I'm happy to say that I seem to be building momentum again, but there's definitely no call to increase my practice if I'm having trouble maintaining it under conditions that often arise. |
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kumar ul islam
United Kingdom
791 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2019 : 12:21:38 PM
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| hi jourdain regarding your comment about the book on your last post ,i would assume that every experience could be put down to something or other ,the belief in god to a bacteria in the gut or atheism to a product of the liver and so on ,the truth lies somewhere in between are we not made up of many constituent parts many not really us or us for a while ,therefore the most important thing maybe the continual stream of thought as it ebbs and flows interacts with everything else leaving us with a sense of self even though the big reality is beyond our grasp ,the greatest experience we have is that we experience with all the nuances that come with being human . |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jul 24 2019 : 4:37:41 PM
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Belated update, with thanks to kumar ul islam for those reassuring thoughts
Week 13
Changes: none
Current practice: 10 minutes deep meditation
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/22.html
Missed four or five sessions again this week, though I was back on track by the end of it--mostly; I do seem to delay sessions for no good reason. It's hard for me to imagine that 10 minutes could be too much, but these were the same symptoms as when I started with 20. I'm going to wait and see for the time being, as I think this may pass. If after a while it hasn't, I'll drop to 8 minutes. |
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Charliedog
1625 Posts |
Posted - Jul 25 2019 : 07:57:06 AM
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Better not go below daily two times 10 minutes DM and some minutes of rest. This is the minimum time to gain the benefits...
You can ask yourself, why do I want to practice? If there is a real desire to spiritual growth, it is possible to make an appointment with yourself to make time, the same way we make time to eat, take a shower, brushing our teeth.
The trick is to make the time to do our two meditations each day so the benefits will be there. This "making the time" is a test of our desire, our devotion to the possibilities in us. It is a test that we all face every day - to do the things we want to do that require some discipline.
No one can tell you what is most important to you. Only you can know. It is entirely in your hands, always your choice. But you have an inner voice, you know. Something inside calls you to experience more, always to more. The seed wants to grow into a strong tree with beautiful, fragrant flowers blooming out all over. It must. We are all called by that evolutionary current inside us. Whatever else may be going on in our lives, the current will be there. It is not just for us, it is for everyone, and we do everyone a great service by deciding to cultivate it, first by favoring the rise of the desire, and then with practices that naturally bring out the peace and bliss residing within us. 'Yogani'
Lesson 18
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Edited by - Charliedog on Jul 25 2019 08:01:18 AM |
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Dogboy
USA
2294 Posts |
Posted - Jul 25 2019 : 7:18:41 PM
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quote:
It's hard for me to imagine that 10 minutes could be too much, but these were the same symptoms as when I started with 20. I'm going to wait and see for the time being
It’s been a while since you did 20; what are the symptoms that cause you discomfort? |
Edited by - Dogboy on Jul 25 2019 7:19:43 PM |
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jul 25 2019 : 8:09:47 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Dogboy
quote:
It's hard for me to imagine that 10 minutes could be too much, but these were the same symptoms as when I started with 20. I'm going to wait and see for the time being
It’s been a while since you did 20; what are the symptoms that cause you discomfort?
I don't know, I deduce the discomfort itself only from forgetting to meditate and a certain reluctance to start. I also keep thinking it's been ten minutes when it's only been five, more often than I did earlier, I think.
It could be nothing significant. |
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uniath
Finland
30 Posts |
Posted - Jul 26 2019 : 07:27:53 AM
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As Charliedog pointed out, the 'why' is important.
A way I use to consciously cultivate desire is to see myself already there. At times during the day, I just take a moment and focus in a direction that is something more that I currently am. Then I just let go and continue with whatever I was doing.
Most of the time, this spiritual unfolding is carried by its own momentum. But when not, this 'trick' creates a shift within. A simple tool to have more clarity of vision, when it is clouded by inner obstructions. When the destination is seen on the horizon, desire to the get there naturally comes from within.
So, if the root of the issue is lack of desire, perhaps it's just that a clearer direction is needed. And when the desire is there, I'm sure you'll find your way to cultivate that.
P.S. If the discomfort is practice-related, you can always engage in other aspects of yoga, such as service to others. Your guru within knows the way.
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1734 Posts |
Posted - Jul 26 2019 : 07:46:46 AM
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HI Jourdain
From experience, the dampening down of bhakty can be related to overload. It's a protection mechanism I have noticed at times. Something inside says "cool off or you blow up".
I'm not saying that this is necessarily what is happening here, but if you have reasons to believe you are oversensitive to practices, check out Lesson 367 - Suggestions for Over-Sensitive Meditators |
Edited by - BlueRaincoat on Jul 26 2019 08:06:40 AM |
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lalow33
USA
966 Posts |
Posted - Jul 27 2019 : 4:11:34 PM
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Hey Jourdain,
Sometimes, I get insights and post stuff, then 2 days later I realize I'm full of crap. This is one of those times.
How you open can be very different than others. What seems to be very wrong can be very right.
Even if you do the exact same practices as someone else, you will not open like them. You can ask for advice, but it may not be helpful.
How things move or open is what is called for even if seems terrible at first.
You don't have to self-pace when things become uncomfortable. When heart opens, it's open to all emotions. Some are not what you think they should be. It's uncomfortable for some, and that's cool.
Anyway, Take care. Don't listen to me!
Lori
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Jourdain
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - Jul 30 2019 : 01:08:37 AM
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Week 14
Changes: none
Current practice: 10 minutes deep meditation
Reading: https://www.aypsite.org/23.html
Thanks to Charliedog (sorry I overlooked your earlier comment), Dogboy, BlueRaincoat, Uniath, and lalow33 for your comments and support. Things went much better this week, with just one missed session, and I think I've emerged from the trough of the previous two weeks. My guess is that I just hadn't been doing much in daily life, owing to my seasonal underemployment. And that has changed in the past week, perhaps lending better context to my practice.
Several of you mentioned bhakti, and its role remains an active mystery to me. I've misplaced the page-long list of ideals I compiled a few weeks ago, which perhaps suggests that it's just as well if I don't spend too much time analyzing them or--as I had been half-seriously contemplating--organizing them in a hierarchy according to a 64-place tournament bracket. I am planning to at least dig the list out again, though. As Uniath pointed out, it's great to think of some of these things now and then, to remind ourselves why we're doing this. |
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Da capo al fine: a back-to-basics practice journal
