3:35PM
I had a hard time falling asleep again last night. I think my body is not meant to sit idle for so many hours in a day and all that stored up energy keeps me up late at night. When my alarm went off at 6:45am, I reset it to 8:15 which is breakfast time...but after laying in bed for 15 minutes, I forced myself to get up. No sense in coming all the way here to slack off on the meditation...I have to make the most of this experience!
Each day, we have 6 meditation sessions that last about 30-40 minutes each. I honestly never knew meditation could be so grueling, but when you sit in one position for so long...you start to feel all sorts of body pain. My legs and feet get numb and fall asleep...the back hurts, the shoulders and neck gets stiff. After the first session, as I was getting up...my right leg didn't work and I actually fell forward...luckily Laura was there to catch me! :) I had been so determined to keep the posture the whole time that I didn't reposition my legs and my leg decided to punish me by trying to have me fall flat on my face.
I'm 0 for 3 right now with keeping quiet during silent time. If I can't even stay silent until 1:30pm every day, I can only imagine what I would've done if I had signed up for 21 one silent retreat in the Himalayas. Stop laughing. :) It's actually harder than it seems to stay silent...sometimes there are things you just want to say at that moment. This morning, Claire came into my room in the morning and said she was skipping a session because of a headache, so we chatted. Then I ran into Laura and she didn't realize it was already time for the next meditation...so I had to tell her. So we all broke silent time...we'll see how tomorrow goes...
I'm really craving meat and rice today. I was telling Laura and Claire about my favorite Cuban dish...vaca frita and now I can't get it out of my mind! Laura is a vegan...so she probably didn't really care much. I also told them I actually thought about bringing some beef jerky to the island, but thought better of it...lol. They definitely would've kicked me out of the program! Claire and I are already making plans for Sunday when we get to the Island of Arran to go get us some meat. I seriously need some protein...meat that is I saw someone had some boiled eggs yesterday, so I need to see if maybe they can boil me a few eggs. I befriended a girl started her refuge here this past Saturday and she's working in the kitchen...so I've got my connection and will need to see what she can do for me! :)
I had my personal interview with Lama Rinchen today and it was such a wonderful talk. I really admire and respect her...she's so wise and experienced. I have a lot more clarity of my purpose for why I came here and it brought out emotions in me that I didn't even realize were still there. This was a very personal experience, so I won't share the details on the blog. But I do want to share some advice that she gave during our sessions because this will be beneficial for everyone. I spoke about our emotions of pain, hurt, etc in my previous post and Lama Rinchen teaches us to recognize those emotions, but then "let them go". I didn't quite understand how to "let them go"...so she clarified for me and it makes more sense now. It's really that the emotion will go away on it's own. Take for example, someone makes you angry. Don't focus on the person who made you angry (I know I often do that and then it makes me more upset). Instead, focus on your emotion of anger and recognize it...and it'll eventually dissipate because there is nothing to feed that angry emotion...you aren't giving focus to the cause for your anger anymore.
She also talks about living in the moment. These meditation practices are meant to bring more calm to the mind and to also be able to accept and live in the moment. So if your mind is running wild like mine usually does during meditation, then allow it to and accept the moment for what it is. Don't get involved with your thoughts...your mind will eventually get bored and move on to something else. Also, don't have any expectations because expectations only brings disappointments. That is so true about expectations...and it's something I've been working on and something that I'll need to continue to work on.
I told Lama Rinchen about my "no thought" experience last night...and how I wasn't sure if that's what I should experience. She confirmed that was good...at that moment...I had no wants or desires. After our talk, she told me I had a good mind for meditation and that I need to continue it...that was great to hear since there have been times during this retreat where I was losing motivation with my lack of focus.
There were a couple of things that she mentioned during our talk that was interesting...the first was that in Tibetan Buddhism, the age of 36 is a difficult year...and she said I just proved it. Right before I turned 36...I was definitely struggling with some things and it was a roller coaster for awhile. It's only been recently that I've been able to move past some of those struggles. I hope this retreat and the experiences from here will help me as I move through the new challenges in my life.
The other thing is that each person only has a certain number of breaths...after that you die. So if you can learn to slow down your breathing, you can live longer...though she made a joke that with karma, you could get hit by a bus, so then the number of breaths don't matter. I told her I work out and take really quick breaths...that means I am going to die sooner. Maybe this is my excuse for no longer working out? :)
8:11PM
I had my most pleasant meditation so far since I've been here...it was at our 5pm session. That sense of clarity after my talk with Lama Rinchen really must have helped me...because as I sat there, I actually enjoyed the meditation. There was a sense of calm and there was no discomfort with my body and I actually experience a few moments of "no thoughts". For the first time, I wasn't wondering how much longer we had or fidgeting with my legs...I just sat there and enjoyed the moment and the 40 minutes actually flew by. When it was over, I had the most wonderful feeling of calm and peace...I couldn't believe it...I'd finally gotten there after the hours of pain and suffering...haha..well, it wasn't that bad, but you get my point! One of the other girls who took refuge here on Saturday also had her first pleasant experience as well...and she couldn't believe how quickly we got there. I said considering we meditate 6 times a day...it's like we've been meditating a month now if we were to do it once a day!
The 7pm one was so-so...but Lama Rinchen says there will be good days and bad days...so I'm happy to have gotten to experience this tonight!
