Week 20 Day 4

Week 20 Day 4

Medi object - choiceless

Intention - to remain in the present in a strange place!

Afternoon all! Meditation today was 5 mins metta and 20 mins noting before room service. The room was quiet again and I had already noted my aversion to silence yesterday so I did not feel irritated today. I had to hard reset my phone so had not quite set the notifications correctly so the phone buzzed a few times, which caused me irritation. However I did not fix it, I just let the buzzing happen.

I felt that the room was cool and a pleasant vedana. I observed that my breath was a bit ragged as I had been blowing my nose just prior to practice as my hayfever is starting. So the air through the nostrils was not as smooth as previously, plus a little tickly. I had to blow my nose a couple of times.

As I sat in the room, I noted that I seem to be a "all-inclusive" package today at times. There were moments when no thoughts were present, except for the thoughts to myself that there were no thoughts! The "all-inclusive" was the peripheral sensations of the breath, the feeling of coolness on the skin, hands on knees, feet on floor, ringing of ears and the seeing of the occasional flashing from the television which was to the side of me. That and the medi object which was a succession of relevant thoughts where I was an observer. Each came and went. These seemed to appear when I had the thought of a key word, such as "hotel", "breakfast", "work". How these words popped into my head I am not sure. If I was not all-inclusive that usually meant I had got stuck in the content, as I no longer noticed my breathing.

There were a few noises of pleasant vedana outside the hotel - only because it broke the silence. At one point I thought someone knocked on the door so I opened my eyes momentarily. The room service came, so I stopped at that point.

So, roll on the weekend, I know it's hump day, but I'm a bit lost as I've been staring out of this window every day for the last 10 days...

Have a great day and practice today!