My thoughts have always drifted too hard, too quickly, for me to have ever really gotten into the practice of meditation. I recall an attempt in the darkness of my childhood family room, a no-lotus position crouch on the couch, like I might have been awaiting the dread of being chosen for a dodge ball team during gym class, no authentic mudra(s) to make, nothing to listen to nothing except the dim click of the clock in the front hall.
It is possible that my (lack of) instruction was to blame. Unrealistic expectations brought frustration, impatience or the lack of a need for calmness stunted my transcendental journeys, etc; I'm sure I could come up with a great many excuses. Unexpectedly, years of shortfalls, of convincing but ultimately futile internal monologues, gave way to something remarkable a few days ago. Beth Fury and I decided to give a podcast via the University of California, San Diego, which was a guided meditation (I tried to dig up a link, but she picked it up on her touch so I don't know how to directly link it).
This actually was new for me, and I'm not sure how much credit I can give the voice on the other end, but I found something tangible, something wonderful. Following the imperative to focus on each body part in succession, I was able to achieve a sort of chain-reaction of relaxation, an opening of each segment of my being. My thoughts still wandered into supercilious and vulgar places unrelated to emptiness, or even my current meditative practice. It didn't matter. What I was able to maintain, for nearly a half hour, was purely physical and unbroken. The guide, early on, had explained how just such a period of time as we were devoting was the restful equivalent of three hours of sleep. For some reason, I must have really integrated that into my practice, because not only did I doze off a bit towards the end (apparently missing the somewhat silly bit about visualizing yourself as a blossom with a baby inside that was you) for a few minutes, but I did indeed feel incredibly invigorated afterwards.
The sort of open tingling I was feeling was ineffable (and so I absolve myself of the duty to give a flowery description), but it has convinced me to keep on trying. After all, how else will I learn to repel the psychic assaults of enemy telepaths?
Image courtesy of We Heart It
p.s. got rained out of the bike thing on Friday. worry not; my two-wheeled liberation across the earth's skin is inevitable, and it will be blogivised.
p.s.s. shout out to Manga Bookshelf for linking to my review of Shaman Warrior Vol. 1. If you happened to like that, I imagine you'll dig her stuff too.
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