In this experiment I challenge Pascal’s claim that the human being cannot sit quietly in a room alone.

For seven days, I’m going to meditate for increasingly long periods, sometimes employing the tradition of aditthana, which means staying perfectly still throughout any discomfort that arises.

Day 1 is Monday, August 19. Day 7 is Sunday August 25.

Here are the planned sits:

Day One – 60 mins, no intentional movement (aditthana)Day Two – 90 mins, minimal movementDay Three – 75 mins, no intentional movementDay Four – two hours, minimal movement (using a recorded guided practice from Shinzen Young)Day Five – 90 mins, no intentional movementDay Six – two hours, minimal movementDay Seven – 3 hours, no intentional movement (if possible)

I’ll report after each sit how it went and what I learned.

What I’m interested in finding out:

Can I actually do the long sits at the end of the week? I have no idea.How the increasing tranquility and increasing discomfort/restlessness that tend to come with long sittings interactWhat else happens when I sit for long periods during a regular workweek

If you have a meditation practice and want to experiment with longer sittings, I’d love to hear how it goes for you in the comments. Don’t hurt yourself though!

The Daily Log

Day 1

60 Minute meditation — no intentional movement

So sixty minutes isn’t an especially long sit for me these days, but I normally allow myself to adjust my posture, shift and resettle, and scratch itches most of the time.

Today I didn’t, I just sat.

For some reason I was quite tired this morning. I’m usually well awake and alert by the time I get to the cushion, but I didn’t get the greatest sleep last night, and so I was groggy. Standard doctrine is to work with whatever is present, so I did. Throughout the hour I tried a number of different techniques — noting, choiceless awareness, breath concentration — to try to figure out what practice was best suited for my dull state.

I never reached the point of actually falling asleep, I just calmly worked with the fatigue and dullness the best I could. Gradually some concentration developed, and mental talk quieted a bit. I didn’t voluntarily move during the session, and I could see the benefit in this — in those moments when I had the impulse to move but instead just became aware of the body’s current position, I felt a whiff of equanimity come on. I guess when you move the body, you train the mind to subtly reject its position, and expect relief from this. When you refrain, you train the mind to accept it. I could feel the wisdom in that as I sat.

I also decided to keep the timer visible during the sit, and did peek a number of times because the grogginess made me wonder what I was in for exactly. I peeked with 49 minutes remaining, 27, 14, and 6 minutes. I’m not sure whether I should or shouldn’t do this for future sits. I think it’s better to have it visible, because then at least I know where I’m at. I will try to peek less often though. But there’s something unsettling about having no idea if the timer is seconds from going off, or if you’ve got another 35 minutes, and the longer the sessions are the more likely that is to be a factor.

So far so good, although I hope I’m less tired tomorrow.

Day 2

90 minute meditation, minimal movement

No grogginess today, which was great. I woke up with some significant anxiety, however, which I sometimes do. I just sat with it and it quickly fell into the background and then faded to almost nothing.

By the end of the session I was experiencing many of the interesting effects of long sittings:

There was some decent concentration (a.k.a. samadhi, a.k.a. indistractibility) which is always a pleasant and calming quality. There was a lot of equanimity, even with the butt-soreness, and the physical remnants of the anxiety. Mental talk slowed quite a bit, which always has the effect of apparently magnifying the peaceful neighborhood sounds of birds chirping and leaves blowing. My visual field (behind my closed eyes) had brightened and become easy to pay attention to, which is an interesting side effect of concentration. There was also some disidentification with the body, which sounds alarming but it’s a good thing — essentially it’s what happens when you start to recognize that your experience of your own body is only a parade of changing sensations, not fundamentally different from external sensations such as sound and light. The awareness of all this remains, however, you aren’t caught up in the mental model of “I am a meditator noticing all this.”

Now — the session was supposed to one with “minimal movement” but I did encounter an issue I hadn’t thought of: the need to go to the bathroom. So I went, and practiced the monastic tradition of continuing the meditation technique throughout the process. I don’t think this trip downstairs was hugely disruptive to the flow of the practice, and I don’t think it’s good for the body to hold it in. I will try to go before each long session, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. I wonder if this will come into play on Sunday’s three-hour session. There is a reason movies as long as Titanic often have intermissions.

Getting up to use the facilities (at about the halfway mark) did give my butt a break from the persistent pressure, so I don’t know how it will fare for an uninterrupted 90 minutes. Tomorrow is 75 minutes, with strong determination, so I’m sure I’ll get a clue.

Day 3

75 minutes, no voluntary movement

Today was a little rough, even though it was shorter than yesterday. Concentration did not come easily, and I wasn’t in a great mood.

Mood is an unpredictable thing, and sometimes a bad one is present when it’s time to meditate. So that’s not unusual or necessarily problematic. You work with what’s there.

But a low mood often amplifies physical discomfort, and one form of discomfort I experienced today was being too warm. I sit upstairs in an attic-like space, and it was cool this morning but I didn’t open the windows. So it was slightly stuffy. Expecting it to be cool, I made the fatal mistake of not removing my hoodie before settling in. After that, I had made a vow to not move, so it was too late.

It wasn’t hot by any means, just slightly warm. I kept experiencing recurring urges, many dozens of them, to shed my hoodie. This is something I would have done without a second thought in any other sitting. But I couldn’t. So I had to work with the discomfort of a steamy torso, because my attention kept getting drawn there. I tried to allow and study this discomfort, the attachment to the slightly-improved circumstance of not having that layer.

Several times I noticed that I was wishing the session would end, which rarely happens in my hope practice. I’ve had that experience many times on retreat, when you’re sitting with others and it’s perfectly silent and you feel some social pressure not to even swallow. Everyone who’s ever gone on retreat knows the feeling of sitting there, completely fed up, dying to hear that bell. I wasn’t quite dying but I sure was happy to hear the gong.

The whole experience illuminated the value of this project. Being slightly too warm is a kind of discomfort I would have normally just alleviated — what’s the harm in removing the hoodie and carrying on? Well, maybe none, but there is value in working voluntarily with the discomfort, and the aditthana vow is what enabled that. Despite the difficulty of the session, I know I got some very productive work in that would not have been achievable under normal circumstances.

Tomorrow is two hours, but I have the luxury of my teacher guiding me, which makes things easier and somehow more comfortable. Sunday’s mega-sit looms in the distance.

Day 4

2 hours, minimal movement, with audio guidance

Today’s sit was a completely different story. I began by listening to a 2-hour pre-recorded home-retreat program from Shinzen Young. He conducts home-based retreats, which students can listen to live, or listen to the recording later. (This is called the Home Practice Program).

Anyway, I practiced with the guidance for the first… 40 minutes? (I didn’t look at the timer today) then turned it off because I wanted to practice a different technique. I was able to settle in and generate some pretty strong samadhi. I hadn’t experienced anything quite as strong since my last residential retreat, last June.

I did move and shift a fair bit, more to kindly bring circulation to the numb parts than as a direct response to discomfort. Two hours of strong determination would have been a lot more challenging, but probably even more fruitful.

Tomorrow is 90 minutes of adhittana practice, which I’m looking forward to. I want to practice straightforward breath concentration practice, which I seldom do.

Day 5

90 minutes, no voluntary movement

Another relatively easy and fruitful session. I did compromise my “no movement” vow very early on, rationalizing it because it was so early into the session. About 5 minutes in, I had an idea for an article, and toyed with the idea of letting it go. This is something I’m sure many people who both meditate and write struggle with. Good ideas are notorious for striking in the middle of a shower, or a 5-mile run, where you have no hope of capturing it without counting on your memory. While meditating, you do have a choice — interrupt this session to jot down the idea, or use this as an opportunity to let go, trusting that you will have enough ideas later, even though this one may be lost forever.

I decided to jot it down, knowing that I would still be sitting 85 minutes without moving. And I did. I’m not sure it was the wrong decision. (Now that I think of it my original plan was to tack 5 minutes to the end of the session to bring it back up to 90 but I forgot.)

Anyway, the session felt like a good one. By the end, butt-numbness was quite strong, and I did my best to fully let it go. However some part of me kept thinking, “Do I know I am not harming by body by ignoring this discomfort?” And even though I was pretty sure it was safe to ignore, and have felt the same thing many times with no ill effects, some part of me could not quite let go into it. It was quite interesting internally, to be releasing, releasing, allowing the sensations to come and go, the familiar precursor feelings to tranquility lapping at the edges of my awareness. I was completely okay with the intensity of the discomfort, but I was just a little too hesitant to let go into tranquility (or passadhi).

This brings up an interesting point about our evolutionary heritage. We’re programmed to see pain as something to get away from — if it hurts to do X, stop doing X. If you feel pain when you go to Y place, get away from Y place. Same thing the other way with pleasure. This algorithm is crude, however. There are times when it makes sense to release our resentment for pain, and to renounce pleasure. Our difficulty in doing that is why we harm ourselves with consumer debt, poor eating habits, drugs, destructive relationships, procrastination and so on. We do have a rational faculty that potentially allows us to determine if this is likely to be one of those circumstances. And if you deem it is, then you have the option of renouncing the tempting thing, or opening to the unpleasant thing, for your own betterment or the betterment of someone else. Part of mindfulness is developing those particular skills.

Having got up from my sitting with no ill effects, I now know my butt wasn’t in any real danger, so if I experience that level of soreness again in the next sitting I will go ahead and let myself settle fully to it. But it is fascinating to watch the mind contending with unpleasantness — it’s so habituated to go “get away, get away!” But it is possible to relax that reflex to the point where you can actually know pain with absolutely no suffering, which is what happens when you completely let go of aversion. The ability to cultivate equanimity in the presence of strong displeasure (or temptation) is an incredible human capacity and it is such a fascinating experience to have.

Day 6

2 hours, minimal movement

Today the cumulative effects of all that meditation became quite obvious. I was very equanimous with all the discomfort I experienced throughout this session, and I experienced a certain brightness to my outlook that I associate with being on retreat. I feel closer to other human beings, less afraid of the future, and willing to experience the future in whatever form it comes.

This effect on outlook is a little different than being in a good mood, although I am in a good mood too.

The session went smoothly. I can tell my body is adjusting to the longer sittings… it takes longer for discomfort to arise. Towards the end of the sitting, I wanted to see if I could completely let go of resistance to the discomfort. I looked for the most intense point of sensation in the area where my body was pressing on the cushion, but I couldn’t quite release it all. There was a small bit of flickering unease with it, which wasn’t difficult to be with but clearly there wasn’t perfect equanimity. This is such interesting territory.

Day 7

Sunday I felt even more mindful and equanimous than Saturday. However, I had a lot of trouble sleeping Saturday night — I attended a pot-luck event and my food choices left me wired (chocolate too late in the day :().

The result of this was that I didn’t begin my sit until mid-morning, and then time became an issue — three hours is a lot of time to do anything, and I didn’t like the idea of it being afternoon before I finished my morning routine. I was feeling really equanimous and peaceful and was eager to use my day, so I decided I’d sit for two hours and see if I wanted to continue. In total I went about 2:19, although I had to get up to go to the bathroom during that time.

So I didn’t sit for the length of Titanic, but I learned what I wanted to learn, and definitely improved my practice, in a lasting way I think. By the end of the week I was much better at attending to the less interesting and less pleasant parts of my sessions. I became more patient with sub-optimal mind states — like anyone, I prefer to meditate when I’m really well rested, and not experiencing difficult emotions. But this experiment taught me that I had little ways of avoiding sitting when I wasn’t very sharp or enthusiastic. For example, I’d cut a session a little shorter when I was tired or felt kind of blah, creating a pattern of never really being mindful of those states.

The sessions really did take a lot of time. Two hours is a big time investment for anything, but it sure did a lot for me in a short time over my usual 40-60 minute sessions. I also found that for the most part, strong determination sitting seems to amplify the benefits of a given period of practice, because you end up bringing mindfulness into some more elusive corners of physical and emotional experience.

I want to keep the momentum going, although I don’t need to spend quite as much time. I’m going to sit for 75 minutes on the mornings I can — that extra 15 minutes makes a big difference, and do strong determination sometimes. I’d love to have a two-hour sit every weekend.

Well, it was a worthy experiment, all told. One day I’ll do a three-hour sit, when it’s less like a circus sideshow feat and more like the next logical step in my practice.

***

Photo by Sam Austin

This is an experiment in daily sitting meditation. See the original post here. It is similar to my first experiment but my intention is different. In the first experiment, I just wanted to see what would happen. Poke, prod, play with meditation a little, and see what came of it. I learned a lot, but it did not become a habit.

That was over a year ago, and I’ve reached a point in my like where I fully understand the importance of daily meditation in my life. The goal this time is not just to see what happens, but to create a strong daily habit of formal sitting meditation.

The experiment is 40 days, starting Friday May 28, 2010, after which I should be well habituated to daily meditation. Preceding that forty days will be a test week in which I just try the habit on casually to see what sorts of snags I’m going to encounter during the proper experiment.

Meditation sessions will be 30 or 45 minutes.

The Progress Log

Tuesday, May 25

Well test week is underway, and results are, uh, inconclusive.

I started off with three straight sessions in three days, though none of them quite hit my 30-minute minimum mark. Privacy has been the main issue, as I’m living in hostels that don’t offer quiet space where I won’t be disturbed. But I have been using the privacy problem as an excuse for shortening and pushing back my sessions.

The last two days I didn’t do more than just sit for a few minutes, with no real intention of staying with the breath for 30-45 mins.

However, the sessions I did have have had a considerable effect on my mood and clarity of mind. My internal dialogue has quietened (is that a word?) significantly since I began. I’ve been more grateful, more comfortable with myself, and much less reactive. I’ve been more productive, more present, and generally unworried about the future. Namely, writing has been easier. I’ve felt a bit “against the ropes” since I left Canada when it comes to my writing. While I’m on the move I often don’t give myself enough time or privacy to get my blogging done, and it’s really had an impact on my mindset when it comes to writing. Now I feel like I am ready to take it on, with a renewed, clearer mind. But meditation will be an essential component.

I’m taking this lovely rash of happiness as a powerful hint that I’m on the right track, and that this experiment is very important.

But I will need to do it differently than I’ve been doing it. I don’t want to carve out a specific time for meditation, because every day is different on the road and I think I’ll end up missing it more than hitting it. But doing it early in the day seems to be key.

So the first resolution to come out of my test week is:

Other than breakfast and showering, do not undertake any other activities voluntarily until the meditation session has been completed. This means meditation will be my only goal for the day, each day, until I complete it. Then I can do whatever I want.

This also means I must get my meditation done before I indulge in my daily coffee ritual. I’ve noticed that the effects of caffeine are not the meditation-dealbreaker I previously made them out to be — I can still meditate when I’m buzzing out on my flat white. But I’m no longer allowing it beforehand.

Of course, I’ll probably encounter situations (7am busrides come to mind) in which it will be impossible or needlessly difficult to adhere to this new rule. So if I break it for whatever reason, it is important that I practise Integrity in the Moment of Choice. This means if I have missed my planned, before-everything morning session, I will hold myself to the original intention of the experiment, and just do it in the afternoon. In the past I have been guilty of using a botched commitment to excuse me from my responsibility for the whole day. If I never forget my intention of meditating every day, then in those moments when I am tempted to get away with missing it, I’ll plunk myself down right then and there.

Here’s Steve Pavlina:

Integrity in the moment of choice means you must revisit your original intention and apply it to the situation at hand, a situation you probably did not foresee. What’s most important is not that you follow the letter of the original intention but rather the spirit of it.

That’s the key. Unexpected scenarios always come up in these experiments, and I can’t always have a go-to policy in place for all of them. That’s when I need to keep m original intention in mind and let it tell me the right thing to do, rather than saying “Whoops, I screwed up… this is a write-off until tomorrow.

I still haven’t had my session today, but I will make sure I do. 30 minutes, good or bad.

Friday, May 28

Today is the first day of the proper 40-day trial.

I began the day with a couple of crumpets, then headed down to the beach to find a meditation spot at about 7:50. When I sat, the sun was obscured by a thin swath of cloud, and it was quite comfortable.

But about ten minutes into it, the clouds passed and I felt the naked sun cooking me. Direct sunlight is a dealbreaker for my concentration; I can’t sit there openly and presently when my face is on fire. A shaded, private spot proved difficult to find. All the candidate spots were in the grass, soaked from the rain last night. So I wandered a bit up the path, hoping to find a spot, but there was nothing going.

So I went for a coffee, as I often do when I’m not sure what to do. Then suddenly I was in the middle of my day, and the town (I am in the beachside hub of Byron Bay today) was buzzing. It was getting hot, and I was getting a bit cranky from the crowds and from dehydration.

Finally, I remembered that the only other guest in my dorm was due to check out at 10am, so the room would be mine for a few hours. By that time I’d had two coffees and an irritable few hours, so conditions were not ideal. But I remembered my motto: “Put in the time, good, bad, or ugly,” and sat. I was a bit drowsy from caffiene burn-out and still cranky. My mind wandered a lot, and I began to fall asleep a few times. It was not a particularly pleasant half-hour, and I wanted to quit many times during it, but I did get through it.

Finding a decent meditation spot has been my greatest challenge so far. It needs to be private (as in not right beside the sidewalk — outside of the range of audible conversations from passers-by) and it needs to be out of the sun, and I need to have confidence that I won’t get bitten by crabs or pecked at by shorebirds while I am sitting there with my eyes closed. I will go earlier tomorrow and sit right on the sand. If I’m there by 7am, the sun shouldn’t be very intense.

Clearly I should have not done anything else in the morning until I did my meditation. That’s when I’m most alert and my mind is the least talkative.

Tuesday, June 1

Five for five so far.

I’ve had the rare fortune of having my dorm all to myself for the past four days, so I’ve always had a private place to go. I’ve been getting my session done before I get wrapped up in anything else. But today I didn’t for some reason. I just went about my day, planning to meditate later. When I finally brought myself to the cushion, it was 5:30 pm. The session was a bit odd — I was a bit tired so I found it easy to keep with the breath and not get lost in thought, but I started drifting into half-sleep. Morning is definitely the best time, because there is the least risk of drowsiness, which is my worst hindrance other than not being able to find a private place to do it.

I did consider skipping it today, without even trying, because I was already drifting off reading my book before starting my session. I came that close to breaking my streak, not because I wasn’t up to putting in the 30 minutes, but because I was afraid of meditating in a drowsy state. From experience, it can be awful… reminiscent of trying to pay attention to boring class presentations when you’re on no sleep. The friction between trying to be conscious while your body wants the precise opposite is not pleasant, and I really thought about avoiding the possibility altogether by skipping it. But I stuck with the “good bad or ugly” motto, and I made it.

But the session wasn’t as bad as I thought, though it didn’t feel nearly as fruitful as my morning sessions. Important lesson learned. Do it early.

Thursday, June 3

I just cut my session short, for the first time since my 40 days started. I am having the exact same experience I had yesterday.

Like yesterday, I waited until evening to meditate. I could have done it in the morning on both days, without much difficulty, but I dodged it, reasoning that I had all day. I think the deciding factor both times was my very strong desire to indulge in my coffee ritual without anything in the way. I feel a rush of freedom when i decide to put off meditation until later in the day.

My reasoning was that, unless I’m outright falling asleep, my meditation is still totally doable without being painful, and at six pm, I’m not yet drifting off to sleep — so it’s as good a time as any.

But clearly it’s not. My mind is full of thought at that time, and I want to do other things. I am much more dull, and I’ve got caffeine (and today alcohol as well) in my system. I don’t feel stable, and my intention to stay with the breath is much much weaker. I could have sat for the thirty minutes, but I knew the intention wasn’t really there and I would just be putting in the time out of obligation.

My session yesterday was pretty fruitless, I was not sleeping, but still “sinking” as they call it: awake but unfocused and dull. Same thig was happening today, and halfway through, I pulled the plug. I deliberately violated my “put in the time, good, bad or ugly” mantra today because I wanted to jump on my journal right away and document the consequences of avoiding meditation in the morning while they were still fresh.

This also means I must place extra importance on getting my meditation done before anything else. It’s a little more difficult suddenly, because I’m in an unfamiliar city again (Brisbane) and the closest spot I know I can count on is a fifteen-minute train and two ten-minute walks away (not in that order.)

But tomorrow morning I will go straight there, and do my meditation on the grassy south bank of the Brisbane river while the city wakes. And then I can go for my coffee if I want.

Saturday, June 5

Third day in a row that I have cut my session short. The “finding a spot” problem remains. Every morning I take the train out to South Bank, but there just isn’t a lot of greenspace there, and I always find myself too close to the traffic to do anything but battle my thoughts about people’s conversations and ibises pecking at me.

I know that is in violation of my “30 minutes, good, bad or ugly” motto, but I think it’s because I know I can do better.

The solution just struck me, and it’s quite obvious: go to a different park. One with enough open spaces that I can sit uninterrupted for my half-hour. Duh. I’ll try the botanic gardens first.

Fear certainly has something to do with it. I am afraid of unfruitful sessions — the ones where I just sit there and never manage to actually observe anything — where I’m in the river, instead of sitting by its bank. Not that there’s anything wrong with unruly sessions; I guess I just fear being frustrated. I fear not wanting to sit down again. I fear this becoming a chore.

Thinking about it now, I don’t think those things are going to happen.

Tuesday, June 8

Sunday and Monday went well. I found a bigger park, and that’s all it took.

Today wasn’t so smooth though. I had a rotten sleep, due to having moved into an 8-bed dorm in a party hostel. I won’t rant about the (literally) dozens of interruptions to my sleep, but it did have meditation-hampering consequences. I didn’t get properly to sleep until 3am, so I lingered in bed until almost 9 (unheard of for me) and was still not well-rested.

So meditating first thing was going to be awful. I put it off, got started on my online work, with the intent of doing it after a light lunch. I did, and found a big field to meditate in, but about ten minutes into it, a rugby team descended on the entire park and it was no longer a safe (let alone peaceful) place to meditate. It was already mid afternoon and I had more work to do, so I just sat quietly and watched for the remainder of my session, but it was not formal meditation.

No big deal. I am eager for a good rest tonight. I have ear plugs this time.

I have also noticed a pleasant side-effect to meditating. Immediately after my session, I do feel more aware, and the world seems quieter and more agreeable. But occasionally, an even more intense stillness will just hit me later on in the day, hours after I’ve meditated. It seems to come out of nowhere. It’s happened twice now.

Thursday, June 10

Well I finally missed a day.

I got a poor sleep again, so I pushed my meditation to mid-day again. And my morning at the library wasn’t very productive so I felt a need to get back to work. I sat in the same park where the rugby took place the other day, and this time a maintenance crew showed up to dump soil everywhere. So I hopped on the train to have lunch and meditate in a different park, and there was live music setting up there, so I decided just to go back to the library and get to work.

My decision that work was more important by that point is an interesting one. When you decide to install a new habit, it’s tempting to think that you are so bent on doing it that it should trump everything else in your life. But of course it can’t. I wanted to get ahead in my writing by a day, more than I wanted to get my meditation session done that day. Theoretically, it only would have delayed my work by 45 minutes, but I think I was afraid of being anxious to get started, or maybe that I wouldn’t be as determined to get work done if I delayed any longer.

Anyway, it’s a bit revealing.

Friday, June 25

Ok. I have not fallen off the wagon, I’ve stepped off. I haven’t had a full-length session since I was in Brisbane over two weeks ago.

Despite my intention to sit for 30 minutes, good bad or ugly, in practice it’s clear I don’t want to sit down if it’s likely to be bad or ugly, and often that’s the case. I’ve had too many frustrating sessions in a row now. The main hindrance is still finding a disturbance-free meditation spot — which often involves a long walk (or even a train ride) to a park. It’s feeling like too big of a lump in my day right now, particularly because the spots I pick seem to always seem to attract frisbee players, families with screaming toddlers, and ibises that peck at my feet in their endless search for hot chips.

Rain has also been a big factor. I can never find a reliable place inside the hostel, and if it has rained or is raining, I can never find a suitable outside spot. If the elements do co-operate and I find a sittable patch of grass, a rugby game breaks out around me, as per Murphy’s Law.

My time away is now very limited and I just don’t feel like it’s worth continuing this frustrating ritual at the moment. I have only sat down twice this week, and it’s clear my intention is just not there.

Therefore, I am putting this experiment on hold until I am home (which is only three days from now), and there I will always have a quiet room to do it in.

In the mean time, I have been meditating informally a lot more. Sitting mindfully for a few extra minutes here or there, walking on the beach while I just watch and listen, and practicing nonjudgment while I people-watch. This has proved a valuable habit, and it’s at least as important as my sitting sessions.

I’ll report when I get home.

September 6, 2010

Whoops! Dropped the ball here. No updates for two months.

I decided in Brisbane, back in June to put daily formal meditation on the backburner. The process of finding an appropriate meditation spot every day was frankly such a pain in the ass that it was detracting too much from my dwindling travel time. It just didn’t seem as important as enjoying myself.

Life did not become stable as soon as I got home. I’ve been staying with family since, and job-searching, and only now do I have a place of my own.

But for now I will keep formal meditation on the backburner. There will be a time in my life when it feels important enough for me to do, but for right now I’m doing just fine with active mindfulness and the odd sitting session.

So experiment 7 is officially terminated, and I will do a 40 day trial again sometime in the future.

-David

Original blog post: Raptitude Experiment No. 1 — Sharpening the Mind

This experiment was announced April 6, 2009. It commenced on schedule on April 7, 2009.

Objective

To observe regular sitting meditation’s effect on my moods, stress levels, and capacity for mindfulness.

Method

I will meditate for a minimum of twenty minutes, daily, for 30 days. I’ll begin with recorded guided meditation for the first week, then choose a non-guided method for the remainder of the experiment.

Observations

Day 1

Used a recorded guided meditation, entitled “Breath Meditation.”

I was quite physically uncomfortable during most of the session.

Just before it I did several chinups, which might have been a mistake.  Sitting on the floor on two small cushions, my back was quite stiff throughout the session.  Not unbearable, but uncomfortable, and there were a few instances where I felt an intention to quit the session early.  But I didn’t.

I also felt two other forms of discomfort.  The first was hunger.  I had not eaten in a while, and had that ’empty bag’ feeling in my stomach.  This was the least intrusive form of physical discomfort I experienced, I know how to observe hunger pangs without attachment.

Much worse was a strange disorientation I felt.  It felt very much to me like I feel when I drink too much coffee.  With my eyes closed, my head was swimming and I felt slightly nauseous.  In fact, caffeine may have actually been what caused it.  I did drink too much coffee this morning, and felt the same feeling earlier.  I will cut it down or eliminate it tomorrow and see what the difference feels like.

In about the middle of the session, I lost touch with my sense of how my body was oriented.  One moment it felt like my head was leaning left, and the next it felt like I was leaning right.  I had a hard time believing I was vertical.

The voice on the CD advised me to open my eyes for a moment if I felt distracted, and return my attention to the breath.  I did, and was surprised to find myself perfectly upright, not bent like I had felt with my eyes closed.

I lost track of my breathing constantly, as expected.  The CD advised me (as have many books and other meditation resources) to keep the breath natural and uncontrived, and breathe to a natural depth and pace.  But I was struck with how unhealthy-feeling my ‘natural’ breath was.  It came in fairly shallow inhalations, and short, quick exhalations.  I felt out of shape and kind of fat.

Several times during the meditation, I wanted it to be over, to relieve the array of physical discomforts I was experiencing.  But I dutifully returned my attention to my breath for the rest of the session.

When the meditation ended, I opened my eyes, and the first thing I noticed was that I need to vacuum.  But I also noticed a familiar sense of clarity and stillness, despite my sore back and swimming head.  I am pleased I did not abort the session, and as I type this I feel quite balanced and deliberate.

Day 2

I’m trying not to judge today’s session, since I figure each one is a learning experience, but ‘poor’ is the world that comes to mind.  I began with the guided breath meditation recording again, and shortly after beginning I decided I would rather not listen to it again.  The voice comes on every few minutes with more instructions and I find it quite distracting and sometimes startling, particularly since I’ve heard it once before and I know when the voice is on its way in a minute or two.

So I sat without the recording.   As has happened in the past, I became indecisive about where to put my attention.  I kept it on the breath for a while, but arbitrarily switched to sounds around me, my still-stiff back, and the tingly feeling of my bodily tissues.  Once again I was disturbed at how unhealthy my breathing felt.

My back stiffness was worse today.  I realized it was not from yesterday’s chinups but from sitting in an office chair all day.  I’ve been doing office work all day every day this week (often I spend time in the field) plus I spend a few hours writing and working on my blog when I get home.

I began to doze off a few times.

Overall I got the sense that I am not adequately taking care of myself.  Too much time in front of the computer, not quite enough sleep, and my exercise routine has become spotty at best this past few weeks.  I will sort out these issues on the coming long weekend.  Volleyball tonight, dinner with friends tomorrow, a serious kettlebell workout on Friday.

After ending the meditation I feel only a hint of the stillness I felt yesterday.  I did not cultivate my attention very well at all this session, but it left me with an important clue about my physical state.  I’ll take this lesson to heart.

Days 3 & 4

Both days I did the same meditation, and both times I felt much more relaxed and receptive. I sat on the couch this time, instead of on my unforgiving floor. I decided to begin by observing the arising sensations in my body. Aches, pressures, pains, tension, the warmth of my tissues and my breathing. I was not so strict with where my attention went, and it helped me to stay present. I set up a mindfulness gong to go off every five minutes, using this online Mindfulness Bell. It kept returning my attention to the moment, though it didn’t wander much. I was encouraged, and I can see great potential in doing this for three or four minutes, several times a day, in addition to my regular 20 minute session. Tomorrow (Day 5) I will select a method arbitrarily from Meditation: the Complete Guide .

Day 5

Well, I have settled on my method: traditional vipassana meditation.

As prescribed by Meditation: the Complete Guide :

1. Sit in a comfortable posture, spine erect, and relaxed.
2. Examine the body for feelings of tension that your current posture may cause. See if you can allow the tension to subside, if not, adjust the posture until it can be maintained with minimal tension.
3. Allow thoughts to arise, and watch them without identification.

Though I did get caught up, several times, in my meandering trains of thought, for most of it I was able to observe them objectively. There is a distinct difference between watching my thoughts and being my thoughts, and I spent some time doing both. While I was able to simply observe, I was struck with the ghastly and schizophrenic nature of some of my thoughts. Often they resembled the desperate cries of someone who wanted badly to be heard and understood.

There were a few moments of clarity where I was able to hold my whole body as well as my thoughts, in unattached awareness. In those moments I did not feel like I was any more related to my body than I was the sounds I was hearing. I am excited to explore this method further.

Day 6

Another session of vipassana meditation. Today was a little more disjointed. Again, my method was a little too ambiguous. I was attempting to observe all of my bodily sensations and thoughts at the same time, and ended up thinking of my thoughts and bodily sensations much of the time without realizing. I see great potential in this type of practice though, and will continue with it for the rest of the experiment. I will peruse a few online vipassana how-to’s tomorrow before my session so I can be more decisive about where specifically to direct my attention.

Day 7

My first missed day.  For shame!  I left it too late, and by the time I was done my new post, I was too droopy-eyed to meditate.  Lesson learned: do it when you are awake.

Day 8

An unfocused, frustrating session.  More indecision and doubt about methods again.  I just don’t know where to put my damn attention.  There is just such a broad variety of techniques, and each seems to present itself as the way to do it.  Some literature says to “Observe bodily sensations as they arise,” but my body has about four hundred sensations at once.  What am I looking at?  How did I ever do this comfortably before?   Very common is, “observe the breath.” Some say to observe it at the tip of the nostrils, others say observe a point on the abdomen above the navel, others say to focus on the rising and falling sensation.  The rising and falling of what? Sometimes I know the answer to that.  Right now I don’t.

I came to the mat with fear today, and it consumed me the whole time.  The most persistent thought I had today was “I don’t want this.  I don’t want to look at my breath, I don’t want to observe the feeling of not wanting to look at my breath.  I don’t want to witness a point above my navel.  I don’t care.” Certainly not a new one, but I had not yet experienced it with today’s level of intensity.

I think that this is the juncture where most people up and say “Meditation is just not for me.  I can’t do it, or at least I don’t want to.”  I felt that today, and hard.  But I don’t trust those thoughts.  This is the juncture where I get intrigued.  I want to unravel this.

I think the positive experiences I’d had before must have all happened while I was just experimenting freely, without the self-imposed structure I tried to enforce today.  In previous meditation sessions, I would try something, and after a while, begin to feel clarity and lightness.  My thoughts would settle.  But other times that did not happen.  I certainly never stayed with any one technique for very long.

I seem to have this intense aversion to trusting a particular book or website.  Why would there be so many different techniques, with such specific instructions if one is just as good as the other?  With most of them I just feel so overwhelmingly uncomfortable or bored.  I want to examine the discomfort and boredom, see where they’re coming from, but if I examine them, then I’ve lost sight of my breath or whatever the hell else I’m not supposed to lose sight of, with my method du jour.

This turned into a rant.  Good.  I need to get these thoughts out.  I was just going to post something short and vague here; I didn’t want to explore these feelings openly.  But I’m glad I did.  I feel growth.  Tomorrow, I will choose another method, and see what happens.  Even if I end up posting twenty-two more rants like this, I will have discovered quite a bit.

Days 9 & 10

Ok, total change of style, and it’s much better.  I realized that I do not feel confident in written instructions for the traditional meditative practices.  There is too much I feel I ‘m assuming.  I will take a class some day to learn these methods.

I’ve taken a free-form approach.  I do not concentrate on any one phenomenon.  I just sit and watch.  I watch my body, to see what it’s doing.  I watch the texture of the sensations of my body, the texture of the sounds around me, the air around me, the texture of my thoughts.  I just kind of feel them out.  When I notice I’m thinking, I look at the thought.

Most importantly, I’m not trying to do anything.  Not active concentration.  Far easier and calmer.  I make no effort to keep my gaze in one place, both visually and mentally.  I look around the room if I want, but usually I don’t feel a desire to.  Whatever my orientation is, it’s enough; no modifications necessary.  If I feel I need to change something, I look at that need and see what happens to it.

The other major change I’ve made is that I split the sessions into two 10-minute periods.  I like this better; there was certainly some substantial mental resistance to the prospect of a longer session.  I can renew my settled state twice as often, and it makes it much easier to be mindful for the rest of my activities.

This I like.

Days 11-14

Ah, things are cruising now.  I’ve found a great groove, and I’m experiencing some very positive secondary effects.  My apartment is markedly cleaner, I’m more productive, I’m neglecting fewer things.  And I’m happier.  I’ve not felt a need for daily updates because I am no longer trying new methods, or encountering new problems.

In the beginning of the experiment I became quite confused and agitated with my inability to follow a traditional technique.  I am not comfortable with written or prerecorded instruction.  For me to delve openheartedly into vipassana, zazen, or any other traditional method, I need a teacher.  A flesh-and-blood presence, at first, to show me. I will enroll in a retreat, or a local meditation class, when I choose to take that path.  But for now I’m striking out on me own, and it seems to be paying off

The technique I’ve settled on is quite simple.  Twice a day I sit, in a chair, for ten minutes.  I begin by resting my attention on my hands.  Not in the tactile sensation of their exterior surface, but on the tingling ‘aliveness’ within them.  This is something I learned in an Eckhart Tolle book, as a suggestion for bringing your attention back to the present.

Once I sense that aliveness feeling, and lose any image of what my hands look like, I spread that same ‘feeling tone’ to the rest of my body.  Once I’m able to ‘rest’ on this feeling, I let my attention wander to the outside world, or at least what I can see of it.  I just observe the spectacle of my living room, without comment, and I find my mind is much less verbose than usual.

Thoughts do arise, but I notice them right away, and slip back into watching mode.

When the ten minutes is up, I stand consciously and go about my business.  Mindfulness in my actions just comes naturally after that.  The mind doesn’t run away as often.  A little stillness goes a long way.

I will post a full update for my next post, which will explain my findings at the half-way point of this experiment.

Day 21

As you may have noticed, I’ve stopped the daily updates.  The experiment is still going strong, I just don’t have much new information to report on a daily basis.  I’m happy with my practice now; it suits my current lifestyle and level of mental skill.  I described this practice and its effects in my Day 15 post.

I now find it much easier to be mindful when I’m not meditating, and I’ve discovered a potent new mental skill that I will share with you in detail once the experiment concludes.

So far I’m very pleased with the results of this experiment, and I feel like I’ve made irreversible progress towards my goal of living with acceptance and equanimity.

Day 28

Nearing the end, and I see where this is heading.  I’ll save my specific findings for the blog post I will make on Wednesday (Day 30), but I’ll let you know that this experiment has not at all turned out like I had pictured, but I’m thrilled with the results.  Something great is on the horizon.  I’ll explain soon.

Day 30

It’s all over!  And I learned a lot.  Thanks for following my experiment.

Conclusions

My conclusions are posted here.