Day 132

I woke up to the sound of the rain hitting the window. Not knowing what the day would bring, I got up trusting that it has already been brought. My mind kept trying to project what it could be like and what sort of things I'd want to do today. But I did not indulge my mind. I asked myself periodically, "What does my body wanna do today?" It took me for a walk. It sat me in meditation. It fed me. It got me reading. It got me to write my New Year's resolutions, which I personally don't tend to do. Yet, there I was writing that I'd like to continue working on my craft, eat more vegetable-based foods, find my own dentist, learn new handiwork, create new cooking habits, and spend more time playing.

From time to time, my head would thump and I would have to stop whatever it is I'm doing and just sit and feel. What am I feeling for? I'm feeling for the aliveness, the sensations, the what it's like to be me.

My boyfriend is making a writing desk for us. With the place set up to fit the pickiest of writers, I can say that I'm ready to make this writing space work. Having finished yet another draft of my novella, I'm restructuring my system, cleansing any clogged pores from the previous month's work, and relaxing into How to Grow a Novel (Sol Stein).

The Practice 

Daily Meditation - 20 minutes
Daily Walk - 30 minutes

Reflection

I'm faithfully taking a breather when one needs to be taken. I'm trusting that the unfilled moments of the day are there to be unfilled. There's enough breathing space to know when it's time to learn something new and when to wait for a wave of effortless learning.

The writing desk is available for use. I'm using it now. It's the perfect height. As I write these words, he says, "It's the perfect height. It's getting very eerie around here." It sure is.

Day 129

Love and the Holidays

I've been busy
Too busy to write these posts
Too busy to see my family
Too busy to worry about the future
But not too busy to love now.

I've been inspired
Inspired to see the trees as they really are
Inspired to walk the muddy earth in the Arroyo
Inspired to write letters to my love.

I've been eating
Eating to enjoy the flavors
Eating to satisfy the nostalgia of the holidays
Eating without the Christmas tree
Eating without the family
Eating with my love.

I've been sleeping
Sleeping for all the days I woke up early to go to work
Sleeping to rest
Sleeping to live
Sleeping to be next to my lover.

Sweet dreams, my love!

The Practice

Daily Meditation - 20 to 30 minutes of sitting and/or walking

Reflection

Amidst restlessness and doubt, there's a background awareness that I am. I'm feeling my body from the inside out. When I lie in bed, right before I doze off, there's a deep recognition of being, a kind of Ok-ness with being. When I get moments of a strong emotion like being upset or hurt or misunderstood, the sensations happen on the surface level whilst there's a peace that underlies the extremes. There's a satisfaction with showing emotion and interacting emotionally knowing that it cannot touch the reality within. And I'm not talking about suppressing anything here. In fact, I have lost the ability to suppress this past summer. I feel it all. And by feeling it all, I've been more alive than ever. There's a depth to sensations that I haven't known before. I'm still afraid of receiving more than I can handle. But the fear is much more subdued now. More often than not, I say, "Bring it on!"

DAY 123

Looking for salvation or meaning in personal and interpersonal love is to be at a buffet and not finding anything to eat. Sitting across from my love, I'm feeling giddy and grateful knowing full well that he cannot dissolve the unease in my chest. He can't. No one can. I'm sitting here feeling it. It feels like a boulder. The longer I stay with the sensation the more fluid the rock becomes. It's a piece of clay now. The rain is coming down hard. They stopped playing Christmas songs at Starbucks. My mind is trying to find a reason for my feeling this way. It wants to attach to a solution so it could feel better, like it solved something. My body temperature fluctuates between staying warm and getting cold. I'm not wearing proper rain boots, for the reason that I don't have any. The clay turned hard again. I can't seem to sit still. I'm jumping from one activity to another. Reading, journaling, blogging, story editing, watching the rain, and still the restlessness is playing at my soul. A day or two until this month's cycle. Eckhart Tolle advices to stay alert and watch the mind. I'm watching. It's going bipolar on me.

What is that looking through my eyes?


The Practice

Sunday - 20 minute meditation

Reflection


Trusting the practice.

DAY 121

I'm officially on my Winter Break. No clue as to what this Christmas story will look like and I don't even celebrate Christmas, as I'm a Jew. Interestingly enough, I don't celebrate much of Hanukah either. It leaves New Years. As growing up, with religious holidays being nor here nor there, most people in my town in Moldova exchanged gifts on New Year's morning. That's what I always knew until I came here at eleven years old. My one favorite holiday turned into three - Hanukah, Christmas, and New Year's! I get money from my two grandmothers on Hanukah, gifts from friends and co-workers on Christmas, and heartfelt gifts from my family on New Year's. Who can ask for anything more?


The Practice

Thursday Morning - 10 minute meditation
Friday Evening - 20 minute meditation
Saturday Morning - 20 minute meditation

Reflection

My thoughts, the constant commentators of what is already happening, are kind of amusing. I'm already walking and they say, "Look, you're walking." I'm already driving my car and they say, "You're driving." They know that they're about to be out of a job and so they try to hang on with all they've got. "I can't take you to the dark forrest as often as I'd like, but I can comment on every step you make and you can listen to me until you get tired. And I know you'll get tired eventually, so I'll just wait." And I say, you can wait and I'll be right here listening to your every word.

DAY 118

Life is an improv show, nothing ever happened, we're just making up as we go along. The show arises out of nowhere and it ends at its own accord.

The Practice

Monday Evening - Live meditation with Eckhart Tolle
Tuesday Evening - 30 minute meditation
Wednesday Morning - Self-inquiry with Ganga Ji

Reflection

I listen to the sound of the water as I wash my hair. Random thoughts arise about my old friendships, my financial situation, my current relationships, and what I need to do once I get out of the shower. I place my attention on the sound of the water once more. None of the thoughts I just had have any practical value. New thoughts come in as if these are more important and should be taken slightly more seriously. Nope. They too don't hold water. I only hear the sound of the water.

I tell myself, "What if I didn't place any weight on any thought that arises while I'm taking a shower, washing my hair, and shaving my legs?" Just as an experiment, I listen to all thoughts as if they're foreign to me and I don't believe a word of what they say. There's quiet. I don't hear a thought. Then, a thought comes in and asks, "I must be doing this right because I don't hear anything." I acknowledge that that too was a thought.

I come out of the shower at first feeling invigorated and then separate and incomplete in my body. My thoughts go, "I guess that didn't go too well." But what is that feeling?  "I should've bought the holiday gifts by now," my mind explains. Something is missing, it must be the gifts. Something is missing, it must be lack of money. Something is missing, it must be because I didn't finish writing my novella. Something is missing, it must be my relationships.

Am I really incomplete? The moment I ask that question, I'm complete again. How's that possible when I don't have any of the above reasons resolved? It has nothing to do with any of that. It never did. It never will. Willingness to go there is worth a thousand thoughts. "Willingness goes beyond will." - Ganga Ji

DAY 116

In relationships, to hear the truth is a hard pill to swallow. But once the pill is swallowed, you realize that it was no more than a placebo. Hidden behind the shadow of pain is a revelation that all of our needs are a child's cry for attention. "What a treat! I'm not always wanted and I don't always want and I don't have to pretend like I am or that I do. I don't have to manipulate the situation to fit the child's needs only to hear that there's no Santa Clause anyway." There's nothing wrong with crying for it or believing in the unbelievable, as long as we know that it's the child in us, not the adult. To hear the beauty of truth is freedom from clinginess, resentment, and the inevitable misunderstanding.

To realize these needs is to be free of them. To hide from them is to be trapped. I asked for truth and truth reveals itself in many forms and not in ways that I expect. Surprisingly, the things that I never wanted to experience or feel again are blessings in disguise. They show up for us. Like a child, they say, "I'm only misbehaving so you would look at me."

The Practice

Daily meditation - 30 minutes
Saturday - Satsang with Peter Brown

Reflection

I'm realizing that it's the unacknowledged parts of ourselves that we need to see and it's these parts that keep showing up in different forms. If we're willing to experience what we don't want, whether it shows up or not no longer has the power to take us under. "We're as sick as our secrets," one of GangaJi's students once said. We can only be unhappy about the stuff that we don't see as much a part of who we are as everything else. To hear that is scary, but to truly live it is liberating.

Day 111

The past cannot survive the light of presence - Eckhart Tolle

Presented with the past
The old pain whiplashes me into presence
Breathing through it
Proves to be the only way back to reality
Feeling it through and through
Welcoming it
Cradling it
It is not but sensations coursing through the veins of human love.

Love is not gone in the light of things
It is clearer where fear wants things for itself
And in that fear is more light
I don't want to do anything about it
Between the pulsing of my heart and the thumping in my head
There's that old familiar dread
But I don't want to do anything about it.

I want to walk
Walking grounds the feet to earth
And every step is a rebirth.

The Practice

Tuesday Evening - 20 minute meditation
Wednesday Morning - 30 minute meditation

Reflection

The past is an interesting concept. I could've sworn it happened, but I have absolutely no proof of it. I might tell myself stories about it like "first this happened, then that," but without the stories it's only always just THIS. Stories are fading more and more now. And when they do tell themselves, it's hard to take them seriously.

Day 109

"It's not the freedom from. It's the freedom to." - Adyashanti

I used to think that I could be free from restlessness. It had been the restlessness that was the driving force behind most of my decisions. "I can't deal with this wretched feeling, so I will start a new writing project or get a boyfriend so that I won't ever have to feel like this again. If I could only occupy myself long enough to never have to face what it is I'm running away from. I don't know what it is, but I as sure as hell don't want to find out." When the projects fell through and I still felt restless with or without a boyfriend, the wretched feeling came back a thousand-fold.

Then, I stopped trying to fight it and briefly slipped into mild depression. Following the depression was the subtle realization that it's not the freedom from, it's the freedom to be restless to be affirmed this past Saturday by Adya. Yes, it's a feeling of dread. Yes, it's a feeling of meaninglessness. Yes, it's a feeling of helplessness. But no, it's not all there is to it. Beyond all those things is simply peace. The peace that comes with just sitting there and feeling restless and then letting it have you and then being fine with it and then seeing the beauty in the non-exceptional - that chair, that room, that effervescent feeling of restlessness.

The Practice

Friday - 15 minute meditation
Saturday - Adyashanti Intensive in San Diego
Sunday - 20 minute meditation
Monday - 15 minute meditation

Reflection

The latest koan has been, "What is this?" I'm here. But what's all that out there. There are people - sort of. There are objects - sort of. There are situations - sort of. Upon closer examination, it's all just happening and none of it is personal. I still get hurt in the impersonal, but it's like when you're kid and you continue crying minutes after the pain had gone. You do it for the drama. You do it because it's fun. You do it because you want to feel alive.

Day 105

Inspiration

Don't know when it's coming
Don't know when it's going
Both times is a surprise

Some things come easier than others
Like balancing my checkbook
Like always having food around
Hanukkah Money

Writing to fill up the blank spaces
No longer questioning the motive
My things are jouncing to spend time with me

Inspiration is spacing out with focus
Or is that creativity?
Or is that love?
Or all of the above?

The Practice

Sunday - 40 minute meditation
Monday - 15 minute meditation
Tuesday Morning - 15 minute meditation
Tuesday Evening - Byron Katie Self-Inquiry workshop
Wednesday Morning - 30 minute meditation
Wednesday Evening - Adyashanti Live
Thursday Morning - 15 minute meditation

Reflection

Sitting in meditation with a significant other is like sitting with myself. In still presence, space and time are irrelevant. The true conversation starts. I'm here. He's there. But we're both nowhere. There's no truth in wanting someone to be here with you because where else would they be? We write these stories of hide and seek to keep ourselves entertained. It's when we forget that they are just stories, we feel separated.