Metta Meditation Reflection - Mar 27 14

Link to meditation, guided by Bhante Sujato.

Came to the meditation mentally fairly relaxed, with some concerns of day to day life waiting to be resolved and provoking some anxiety at a low level, physically there is a fair amount of pain today likely from a muscle strain, so pain but no worry, a distraction, but one that is able to be put aside during meditation, as happened during the first few moments of relaxing the body and centering the mind.

I found myself able to focus on the mantra a little more clearly today; less thoughts takings from it, though they still did come and my concentration on each mantra diminished over time, until it was re-introduced by the guidance and directed to another area.

My uncertainty with metta was deepened nearer the end as I remembered an obstructive path of thinking whereby I feel the happiness of some beings is predicated on the suffering of others, such as wasps that lay eggs in other live animals, such as carnivores, and killers for other reasons.

I realize of course that this is an incomplete train of thought and budhist texts and teachings would have an answer, an acceptance for these lives and what their happiness entails that I do not, yet.

The meditation definitely allows my mind to feel less fatigued and at the end of the meditation I feel a fuller ability to concentrate and focus. I put the contradictions I uncover aside and turn my mind to the positives of the meditation and moving into the day more ready and more peaceful than without a meditation.

Metta Meditation Reflection - Mar 26 14

Link to meditation, guided by Bhante Sujato.

Came to the meditation quite relaxed, small obstructions in the recesses of my mind as I have carried for so long: fears and worries, greed and disillusion.

The metta conflicting with letting go stays with me as before. I was able to relax the body and did not fidget or feel uncomfortable. My mind followed the mantras for a time then drifted to unconnected thoughts, those that are common to me, but at low levels of emotional response, i.e. the thoughts come but there is no escalation of feeling if they are troubling, I feel more able to let them just be thoughts and not to be inhabited unrealities, than during my life without meditation.

When asked to connect to and send loving kindness from within to without, I find no loving kindness within, no warmth or joy that doesn't feel manufactured just to perform a facsimile of what is possible.

I do know the love and kindness are there, yet I have not found a connection through metta, mostly I find my connection is with sharing time with those who I carry love for; a direct physical connection.

I don't include myself in that but do have a very strong connection to feeling I have good within me. I don't quite equate good with love, since my goodness is corrupted by wanting, whilst I want to overcome certain societal pressures to do with finances and recognition. The center of me is simply good, the layers and layers of barriers to that, partly osmotic, are protections imposed to 'fit' the world I was brought up in.

Metta Meditation Reflection - Mar 25 14

Link to meditation, guided by Bhante Sujato

Came to the meditation quite relaxed, physically some pain but not a strong hinderance, during the meditation the pain lessened as I relaxed into my posture and adjusted it through the course of the meditation.

There is a conflict set up in me by metta that puzzles and prevents connecting with loving kindness as I start each metta meditation. Elsewhere in meditation practice we are guided to let go of all wanting and in metta we are guided to wish happiness for all things. This obvious wanting, for love, to give love is unresolved unless I find guidance to connect metta meditation to all othe practice.

My choice during metta meditation therefore is to let the contradiction go and let the meditation take me where it does. Today I find I felt relaxed and more focussed and "solid" by the end of it than at the start, I have no connection to the warmth of loving kindness inside of me that the guidance asks us to notice, but I feel some peace and that is what I feel I send out to all things during the stage of metta where we wish happiness for all beings.

'Lotus' Meditation Reflection - Mar 24 14

Link to meditation, guided by Ajahn Brahm

Mostly sitting and thinking today, relaxed, some mindfulness.

'Lotus' Meditation Reflection - Mar 23 14

Link to meditation, guided by Ajahn Brahm

On coming to the meditation in a fairly calm, neutral manner, physically comfortable, the meditation progressed as far as relaxing the body and beginning to relax the mind in the present moment. Thoughts swam around, in my low-grade mindfulness they seem unbidden though I appreciate a stronger mindfulness reveals more.

Calm thoughts that come, moving the imagination and producing some creative language and exploration in thought are not the initially expected results of meditation, yet at my level are the most common shallow result. There is a deeper result which is most beneficial, which is a slow, not deep, but felt, inuring from common daily stresses. I have a little more peace, and more resilience in the sense of a quicker recovery to equilibrium from a stress event or series of thoughts, and even less tendency to fall into patterns of repetitive negative thought.

I go no deeper into the lotus, but I have a fuller appreciation of the outer petals. I sense that the deeper into the lotus we go, taken by kindness and mindfulness, the more secure we become as human beings.

"The only sane response to existence is apathy," was a thought that popped into my mind when I had drifted to remembering the new television version of Cosmos, when it attempted to show the scale of the universe, both external to our physical scale regarding the planet, solar system, universe and ever greater and the internal scale of cells, molecules, atoms and... I always wondered what all the space between the smallest level of particles is (not in the sense of it a scientific name - whatever the language used calls it at any moment). It is there that consciousness and what some human beings call God exists, I expect.

'Lotus' Meditation Reflection - Mar 20 14

Link to meditation, guided by Ajahn Brahm,

Came to the meditation reasonably relaxed, had not involved myself in many distractions prior to starting. I was able to let go of the body reasonably well and looked to relax my mental world.

I was soon lost in a variety of fairly negative thoughts that, though they didn’t descend into anxiety, were circular and largely unfounded in their stresses - thoughts of the future based on stresses of the past, worries over finances for our family that our life has not borne out and will hopefully settle and be able to be let go of in time.

The fit in this society which requires money to buy goods, for most of us, is an uncomfortable one for me, probably because of the cycle of dependency it requires, even a cycle of repression of creativity and joy, should you be earning money through ways you do not wish to continue. I have no desire to try and live without money, to be dependent on the kindness of donations as the monks who guide these meditations are. I have an admiration and respect for that life, but not a strong feeling that it is my path, one somehow missed and lost this time round. If anything I feel I may have trodden that path before in other lives (though I cannot even say I believe fully in reincarnation) perhaps with some fulfillment, perhaps with some fear.

Am I making the best of this life, am I understanding Karma, will I find contentment and see contentment in the hearts of those I love? Meditation has been beneficial most days, today I have reverted to a stressful mind, not being kind to myself or mindful of the perils I can avoid. Maybe later I will let go of the stresses, meditation seems to have helped them fall away quicker than in my life before it.

'30 Minute Meditation' Reflection - Mar 16 14

Link to meditation, guided by Ajahn Brahm.

Almost didn't do today's meditation, being a victim of my monkey mind and being distracted by all manner of things leaving me little time before leaving for a later commitment. Just time though to fit in this 30 minute meditation (a little less, in truth), it's one I like.

During the meditation I was able to relax and let go of the body significantly, left to relax my mental world, I experienced what I presume is the usual lay experience of drifting thoughts. There were some moments of peace, where I began focusing on the breath, or rather my attention settled on the breath, but thoughts popped in again and distracted. The thoughts today had less worry behind them, some were amusing, some were forgotten within moments of having them, they weren't fully the centre of my attention at any time, becoming peripheral soon after occurring.

Coming to the end of the meditation I felt relaxed, more alert and less burdened than before it, the meditation does me good in that way, and so I carry on with it, most times wondering if there will be any breakthrough to deeper layers, but having in mind that to do that sets up a situation where one can't let go, for that wondering leads to wanting.

Best to just take the meditation as it comes and for whatever it is each time, there will always be another one as long as I keep up the practice. Like focusing on each event, or each day, instead of a life, when it brings less than what it offers in total.

30 Minute Meditation Reflection - Feb 12 14

Link to meditation, guided by Ajahn Brahm.

Felt I had come to a good 'now', leaving the past and future and going inside the moment, which is infinite, as all moments are now, when they occur. I had imagery in my head at the start of meditation, echoes of previous thoughts and these gradually left, so too the pain in my side which I did not notice, perhaps letting my body go more than before. This meditation was mostly silent and empty, peaceful though not released from consciousness in the sense that I was aware of the experience, and valuing it, whereas I may look to simply experience it without judgement for true peace.