Monday, March 16, 2015

Week 15 Day 3

Meditation object choiceless
Intention labelling and noticing pleasant vedena

Today I was hungry, not sure why as I did some stress stuffing yesterday. Anyway that slight gnawing in my belly was present in my practice. 20 mins noting on the tube. The journey seemed particularly rocky today. Tube fart! arrgh just before Northfields made me open my eyes and push my Buff scarf over my nose. Coincidentally (or not), the women next to me got out some perfume and squirted it on herself, so pleasant vedena was restored! It was very noisy so I could hardly hear or feel my breath, so I had to focus on the tube noises that abounded. The train was particularly busy as I had to be in for an early meeting. Besides feeling hungry, I observed a bit of joy joy feeling and decided to open my eyes to survey the surroundings and take in the balmy and sunny weather exuding from outside the tube train. Could it be spring coming? I focused on my hands for a bit, but no buzzing, just solidity, I also observed my aversion to the woman engulfing her seat next to me and as she operated her phone.  No seat on the second leg so read a bit of MTCB. May be I was daydreaming, but I've got to the point about equanimity and how if we are not mindful our practices can be like psychotherapy, daydreaming or self-absorbed, spiritually-rationalized, neurotic indulgence in mind noise...wow that's a crazy sentence at the end...but it is true! You can get so drawn into listening and watching everything that's going on in your head that you forget the objective of the practice. What is the objective of the practice...more happiness, more acceptance of life? Hmmm...I definitely need to think about what I want out of this practice and not just do it as a kind of intellectual massage!

In the past few months, I have definitely been less stressed and also more observant about my habits...but there is one thing that I have noticed that I have never thought about and yesterday I was doing it with a vengeance...nail biting. Now I'm not one of those who continue to bite until bleeding (sorry a bit gross) but today I was just musing and I thought, that would be a great habit to kick. I will attempt to curb my nail biting cravings...! mm now to fix that craving for food!

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