Log for Nov 6th- woke up after around 8 hours of sleep, a little bit before alarm, still felt a little tired, got out from bed and made 2 basic suryanamaskar to try to be more alert
- did some alternate nostril breathing, but it wasn't easy, one of the nostril was partially blocked
- did 1 hour of meditation, 30min following the breath counting to 10, other 30min doing body scan; concentration was worse than yesterday
- went to tai chi class, had to focus more on learning technique, so I couldn't practice much in the proper way (relaxed and focused)
- when reading texts on DhO and KFD, they seemed more confusing than inspiring
- am feeling quite mindful today, body feels heavier, and I have been taking special care of my posture
- felt many urges to procrastinate, resisted some, others not, what matters is that I actually did a reasonable amount of work
- mindfulness felt a littttle bit weaker in the afternoon
- went to diamond way
- expected some energy rising in body, not so much, but in the end the energy practices were not so intense today
- I should note that I indeed started just noticing sensations in the bus since mentioned in
this post, usually I keep an open awareness, informal practice
Log for Nov 7th- didn't meditate in the morning, went to sleep late and had to sleep more, and had to go to work earlier, maybe I should have anyway, I procrastinated a little in the morning, wasting the time I gained by coming earlier
- remembered dream, made me have an night release
- today I noticed some signs of stress, but I worked a lot to be fair
- I feel nice, almost like everything is alright
- since yesterday I actually am enjoying my job, I think that's a HUGE step forward for me
- usual weekly meeting didn't happen, I didn't know my boss wasn't here, I was a little tired and didn't try to be much productive for the rest of the day
Log for Nov 8th- I remembered having some dreams, but don't remember them now
- since yesterday I didn't do any formal meditation, I decided to meditate more and spent the morning home
- some suryanamaskar to "warm up"
- 30min following the breath counting 1..10, concentration wasn't so good, in the end it was quite bad
- followed by 30min body scan
- 20min slow walking meditation
- 20min normal speed walking meditation
- while walking I would pay attention to the senses as much as I could, concentration was still weak
- 1 hour trying to concentrate and go to first jhana, didn't work, concentration overall was a bit worse than normal, I did feel some
piti, but it was hard to take it as an object, when ending the meditation, I had some feeling I hit equanimity, but I'm not sure
- one thing that contributed to a worse concentration was browsing the web for a while (less than a hour) before going to meditate
- another thing that might have made it worse was that I drank some vitamin c drink (emergenc) and my stomach felt irritated, this didn't seem to affect me much though
- after all that meditation, I laid down some minutes in corpse pose and then defeated pose, usually I don't do this, but it came very naturally to me and was very restorative
- I think I probably have not perfected my posture, I do feel some lower back pain after all, but at least my legs don't go numb anymore unless when there is some obvious reason for it(something blocking circulation)
Log for Nov 9th- meditated for one hour, 30min counting following the breath, 30min body scan
- concentration was terrible, lustful thoughts a lot of the time
Log for 10th- woke up early and went to usher for a football game
- couldn't be so mindful during most of the day, I was exposed to sunlight all the time in the ushering, and it was kind of uncomfortable and hard to pay attention.
- felt a little weird (in a good way) after so much sun, I think this must be the "tanning high" some talk about
- when going back home by bus, saw a man in front of me that seemed high(marijuana perhaps?), he attempted to lit a cigarette twice inside the bus, I was able to stop him the first time, but not the second, he was kicked out of the bus by the driver; Later in the night I remembered how disoriented he was, how he was trying to get home and didn't even understand why he couldn't smoke on the bus because he was so high, I cried a little because of his misery, later I was reading some zen stories and other things and cried a little other times, for some reason it was really easy to cry, but it wasn't a sorrowful crying and each time I cried it did not last long
Log for 11th- tried to meditate 30/30 as usual, concentration was terrible and I stopped early due to a pinched nerve in the leg
- for some reason my awareness of my mental state and other things was higher than usual, it varied a bit during the day
- at some point I was laying down paying attention to the belly, and when I exhaled my belly would become really hot, my intestines felt a little uncomfortable so I stopped that
- found it a little hard to go to sleep due to low energetic phenomena firing in the body
Log for 12th (today)- 30/30 as usual, concentration was not so good, but better than yesterday
- did not feel so good today, was more lazy, procrastinated more, I think I started losing momentum, tomorrow will be different I promise haha (starting now!)