I have an ongoing practice of walking to a nearby river and chanting.  Today:

Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBR)
"Om sarava tathaga padavandanam karomi" 3X
108 repetitions of the Fudo Myo O mantra
"Namu Daishi Henjo Kongo" 3X

Sitting practice:
20 minutes.  Following the Masahi practice of observing breath/noting.  Practice is getting easier.  

Begain experiencing impatience and desire to check the timer.  Shortly after impatience begain, the timer rang.  

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Phew... Lucky you!

Sept 3 2022
Went for a bike ride through the woods to St. Wolfgang.  Went into the church and did 20 minutes of meditation.

It was hot in the church. I had to do a lot of feel noticings bead of sweat on my forehead bead of sweat on my arm.

It was weird coming out of it and seeing Jesus and St. Wolfgang staring down at me.

SUNSET:
Went to the river did 108 Fudo Mantra with opening and closing.

Did the middle pillar, but with vowells instead of Hebrew god names.  (IEAOU)  I'm finding this technique super effective at getting a good body high..feeling the energy.

On my way back, stopped at a bench and did 10 minute sit.  Started doing TM style mantra meditation (Mantra "Aham")  I played with changing the mantra.  First "Evohe" which felt really different, like a spinning thunderbolt running up and down my body.  Then tried "Ehyeh".  This felt more like the default "ahem", but seemed to work better. 

Sept 6

20 minutes session today. Finally achieved doing meditation first thing in the morning!  (actually it was first thing of the work day after coffee and TV)            Also tried doing it cross legged on the floor for the first time.  actually did okay. One experience I noticed is that doing it cross legged forces you to use your core to keep your goddamn back up. Which adds a physical component of physical mindfulness, sort of like paddle boarding. I definitely want to try it again. I did become very uncomfortable, had to switch position.  went from the Zen mudra to the three fingers mudra and stretched out my back a little bit.  Very shortly after I did this and begin deciding that I was uncomfortable and I wanted the session to end,  the bell rang.  I'm very pleased that I seem to be able to do 20 minutes now without much of a problem.  Soon it will be time to do longer. 

Sept 6 2022  EVENING

​​​​​​​Meditation record 

LBRP followed by middle pillar with vowels, followed by IO EVOHE  three times 108 recitations of the  the Fudo mantra, Heart Sutra.

Then outside, did 20 minutes of mantra meditation.

My experience is that when doing mantra meditation the mantra exists in a space above my head, sort of forming an arc.


It's always very distant. This time. The mantra space grew to include my head and then continue to grow. Don't call encompass my whole body and I had a very, very intense bliss state.


I'm quite excited about this.

Also, I changed the mantra. I'm not really sure I'm supposed to do this, but I've been playing around with changing the monitor and I went with "Eheyeh" instead of "Aham" (Both mean "I Am" but "Eheyeh" is Hebrew_  It seems to work considerably better.

This transcript was generated by https://otter.ai

So you're dictating these log entries?

Some, but not all.  I've been finding it easier to speak directly into the phone.  They require a lot of rewriting, since the transcription software is not that good.  

AI ain't all its popular reputation would suggest. 

Sept 7 2022

 20 minutes seated in half lotus with cushion.  quite happy with how comfortable I am in the cross legged position. Later, it  became quite difficult. At about the 15 minute mark I shifted my position several times. became uncomfortable..wanted it  to end 
 
 I used the mantra method ...was able to extend mantra space through my entire body. The  intensity of the experience was lower than yesterday.

September 11, 2022

Two sessions today, both of them fairly difficult. second session I started with mantra to calm myself down then went to saying "Bud-dho"  with the breaths. Did not do well with Buddho went back to TM style mantra repitition.  Did fairly well.  My mind kept wandering, without noticing my mind was wandering.  I was unable to use noting, because I didn't notice my mind was wandering until I had been doing it for quite a while. 

Sept 14 2022

 Extraordinarily depressed today. Did 20 minutes in the morning first thing...that was a goal! 

Evening meditation about 630. Did Mantra the meditation was extremely pleasurable, and I felt myself retreating into it.  It felt sort of like eating a big fatty dessert. I just wanted to hide into it, and I didn't want to come out