Week 24 Day 3

Medi object choiceless awareness
Intention to observe raw sensations and try to spot thoughts arising.

Morning all! Today I got up early to meditate before heading off to play golf. I did 30 minutes in total 5 minutes metta 25 minutes noting.

5 minutes metta, I managed to hold the sensation of loving kindness for a couple of minutes ahain but there were conflicting thoughts in my mind.

Noting - I noticed that the room was quite warm. I started with noting the breath and hearing sounds and noting the warmth on my hands and knees and a coolness beneath my feet. I could feel a light breeze around my legs. I immediately had some thought trains and some were triggered by a word or image in my head. Some other were random thoughts.

The first thought I had was of Liz Usher's dogs I think it was because she had recounted an incident with dogs and rabbits! The others were not so clear but towards end I did notice some golfing images. Still can't spot the start of them.

About 10 minutes into noting I felt that the meditation  became effortless so that I could hear sounds, feel my knees  and sense my breathing all at once. I was trying also to explore the sense of heat I was feeling around my body particularly on my arms. This became quite unpleasant and I felt uncomfortable. This feeling of heat remained until the end of the practice.

I tried to sense the raw sensation first and then I would categorise it or recognise it as a particular labelled sensation. I could hear the clicking in the background which I identified as heating sounds from the radiator to the right, I noted the warmth in my knees and hands. I noticed the ache in my back but it was not too prevalent today.

I had to cough about 15 minutes in and had to drink some water. Yesterday I started to cough when leaving a voicemail so I had to hang up and redial!  Towards the end I was listening out for the bell - my problem is that sometimes I wake up too early and then fall asleep again and then can't get up at my prescribed time so get up a bit late. Problems of a night owl.

My mind would focus on the thoughts and then when a physical sensation came about my focus would move to the itch whilst the thought was still in the background. In the meantime in the periphery the ringing of my ears, the feeling of my hands and feet, the breathing were all present.

Hope that you have a great day and practice!