Day Two: Fifteen minute solo
Yowser. That was difficult.
My first difficulty was actually getting around to the meditation. I put it off quite a bit this morning, and it was more than an hour after I got up that I got around to it.
Just before I was about to start, I wanted to find a countdown timer application on my Mac that I’d downloaded the other day1 for timing my meditations. While looking for it, I noticed a funky piece of software that I’d downloaded months ago, but not properly played with, so I fired that up, and before you know it I was playing with an autocue and video recording suite2. For no readily apparent reason. I mean, it’s not like I need to do anything with it now. It’s just cool to play with. And a good distraction.
You see, this is why I’m trying to meditate.
Anyway, I forced myself to close down the funky distraction, find the timer application, and get on with it. Eventually.
The mediation itself was a simple one. Seated meditation, focusing on a single point. We used a candle in the class; that was logistically difficult for me this morning (although I’ll set things up for it soon) so I used what I had to hand, which was a bottle of polish which had a handy arrow on the button on the top.
And then, for around fifteen minutes, I proceeded to get every distracting thought in the world. I had to clean the fish tank; I must remember to call Kavey back; distracting memories from childhood — the works.
I tried bringing the focus back on the arrow every time, but I probably had to catch myself and reset my brain several hundred times.
When I did manage to focus for any length of time, I found something slightly surprising — I’m still very tired. I went from gadfly mind to nodding off almost instantly, without passing through much focus on the way.
If you’d asked me before the meditation, I’d have said I felt quite refreshed and awake. Now I’m not so sure.
So there you go. Maybe not an auspicious beginning, but, as they say, things can only get better…
1 I’m using Minuteur, from phg-home.com.
2 Videocue Pro, from Vara.