Time: 8:00am
Place: Nook
Circumstances: Pre-very full day

Last week of me being a student before I head into the classroom as a teacher. Feeling a bit of anxiety arising and using my super powers to stay in the moment as much as I can and to just note the anxiety and stress arising without needing to let it spin into a story. A life's practice for sure!

Time: 6:00am
Place: The Nook
Circumstances: Before my day with the grade 5 class.

I'm not a big "first thing in the morning" meditator. I am wondering today if there is any point to practicing when I am feeling disgruntled...or if that should be my grist for the mill and allow it to be the reason why I practice metta now.

Time: 7:50am
Place: The Nook
Practice: awareness of anger

I read a piece of the section on anger (saving the rest for tonight) in T&H and thought about this during my sit and how there really wasn't much anger present right now and, yes, because of that a little bit of happiness was able to surface. Thay really knows what he is talking about, I guess.

Sometimes it seems like there is a lot of stuff to think about and observe, but rather than a check list, I think I just need to keep my eyes open (even while closed) and notice what I see. In some ways, these practices I just feel are building my vocabulary for what I may see arise and how to "minimize" it when I see it.

Noting Desire

Time: 11:30am
Place: New Little Nook
Practice: Noting desire

I really like reading about the exercises about noting desire and working with the different desires that came up. I spoke with Frank about this during one of our phone dates and in reflection now, I do feel like my practicing is growing a bit and changing.

During my sit, I started to note when the thoughts came up, I labeled them as thoughts, and then (like my mind's eye was a computer screen) minimized them for later. When another thought would come up, I started to assess whether they were desires (my foot is cold, was the thought, which I realized was the desire for greater comfort) and then that minimized. It almost felt like I was driving a car. In the main view, through the windsheild, was the present moment or what was happening. I carefully monitored my posture and my breath the way you might monitor your speed and gas levels. And when a random "thing" would jump into my windshield and obstruct my view, I removed it carefully and continued my focus on the present moment.

Oh and here is my new little nook:

Time: 8am
Place: My new mindfulness nook
Practice: Metta, loving kindness

I did it. I made a little meditation nook in my home. It took a little bit of time to figure out where it would go (small living space) but after moving a dresser in our ginormous closet to have a little space under a stairway to make a simple little altar and space for my cushion. My morning practice felt more grounded (maybe just an illusion) and felt a little like it had a home. And I do find the Metta practice super challenging...and usually, the last few times I have played with it, after a few rounds of:

"May I be well
May I be peaceful and at ease
May I be happy"

I experience the sensation of warmness in my chest that I start to associate with joy and feeling loved. I think, and I don't have a whole lot of research to back this up, that a huge portion of our suffering can be preventing by actually loving ourselves. It was a nice practice today.

Yesterday's workshop with Noah Levine was really interesting. We did a lot of walking meditation, which I really loved. We usually did the walking just around the block, and the block being Yonge and College area was full of really juicy moments for mindfulness. Les came with me to the day and we did most of our walking meditations today. Although you are definitely separate when you are doing this, and there is a certain amount of drawing inwards in a moving meditation, I still felt deeply connected to her and also to the other walking meditators in the area.

Oh and I wanted to share this!

Improv-Awakening

Had my phone date with Frank today. Other than being the tremendous inspiration that it was, it was a great time to pause and reflect on this practice and what it means in my life. We spoke a little about the dual meanings of the word "practice" and how it can mean both what you do on the cushion and what you do out in your life. I liked this idea - that I am practicing for my practice of life when I am sitting on the cushion and that everything feeds into each other.

Also spoke a little bit about the differences between suffering and pain. I had a weird kink in my shoulder today after practice and I put a hot patch thing on it to calm it down (wonder in retrospect if this was just me averting from that pain). After about an hour or two of wearing it, my skin started to really burn, so I took it off and then it seemed to get worse. Instead of making up a story about my skin burning off (I actually remembered having this thought), I stopped what I was doing and did a short seated (in my office chair) meditation. Maybe 7-10 minutes most. But I noticed the sensation of the burning and how it came and went (in pulsations) and how it really wasn't that bad, just really uncomfortable. After the sit, I washed my shoulder and it actually felt WAY better.

But I kind of just realized that meditations can happen spontaneously too. It doesn't just have to be when you schedule it in.

A New Routine

I was struggling with where to place my practice. I didn't love waking up at 5am and doing a sit right away. I felt like I was just in dreamland. I also don't love doing my sit a AYCT because then traffic gets bonkers and it takes too long to get back home to shower / get ready for school.

So this morning, I woke up at 5:30am, went to practice, came home, showered, and did my sit while my hair air-dried. Somehow combining two essential things together, makes me more likely to do them. Even if it is as silly as air-drying my hair.

I think it's all about the little things in this practice.

A Good Morning

Back in the city after Thanksgiving in Dundas. Went to AYCT for morning Mysore - felt stronger and more "with it" than normal this morning, especially after a few days off.

After I went through the sequence (and embarrassingly missed a pose...my favs too), I took my savasana and then propped myself up in the corner of the room for a shorter (15 min) sit. Worked on counting the breath today, which is actually pretty neat when you are sitting in a room full of breathing yogis. I like this routine and sometimes love taking a break from it to remember why I love it so much.

Little Idea

7:00am sit.
Awareness of Feelings
Living Room Floor

Did my sit before going in to volunteer in my grade 5 class. Decided to put my formal-practice on hold while I went away to Dundas for the Thanksgiving weekend. I knew that I wasn’t going to be going crazy on the consumption / mindlessness front, but I felt like I needed to give my Mysore and daily Mindfulness practice a little nap to come back feeling refreshed and excited about it after the long weekend.

Mindfulness on a Busy Day

Very full day and didn’t really get a chance to practice in the morning. My alarm went off late and didn’t go to mysore in the morning. Was aware of how easily this can throw off my day. When I walked to school, I used the stop lights as my bell of mindfulness, and allowed that time to ease my anxiety of being late for school (also noted the importance of leaving plenty of time for my morning walk to school so it can act as a walking meditation). Had a potluck lunch at school today and noticed my attachment to the idea of consuming foods that taste good but give little nourishment. Came home later than usual and practiced a slower eating of my dinner (Les is often calling me out on being a quick eater, something I really need to bring into my daily practice). Probably still a quick eat by normal standards, but slowing down a little.

I am worried about my mind

5:00am sit.
Awareness of Feelings
Living Room Floor

Kind of a random thought during my morning sit, but I was thinking about how great it would be to carve out a little space somewhere in my apartment for my sitting practice. A little Buddha, maybe a photo, a candle - a proper little altar for my practice to have a “home” and then I wondered if this was a way for me to not really be fully INTO this moment of my sit. You know that dialogue “Oh, I’ll really have a good time sitting once I have an altar set up” and how inaccurate this thinking is. Man, my mind is completely insane. If I were to psychoanalyze my mind as if it were an embodied human being, it would get diagnosed as utterly schizophrenic. I’m a bit worried.

My Mindless Life

Noticed another thing I do mindlessly that I need to add onto my list: going onto the internet when I am in a dull lecture. I take notes in my classes on my computer (trying to cut down on paper consumption) and as soon as my professor starts to get lost on a tangent, a one-track conversation comes up that I am not interested in, I find myself being VERY curious about what it happening on the web. I actually feel repulsed by staying in that present moment and I wonder what I am missing. I think I need to bring some attention to this one in my ongoing practice.

Feeling the Neuts

5:00am sit.
Awareness of Feelings
Living Room Floor

I felt a lot of neutral this morning. One of the good parts of practicing right after getting out of bed, is that there isn’t a whole lot happening in your head yet (I think I get why monks wake up at 4am for this practice)...other than wanting to go to sleep. Used THAT feeling as the negative feeling arising and was able to soften into that it. But once I was able to call a neutral feeling out for what it was, it became a whole lot easier to feel a bit of joy blossoming. Think that the Buddha was on to something.

Consuming Faces

Gave myself a morning treat of a practice of mindful consumption of Facebook. I turned my wireless off and read projects for the India 09 training without using Facebook as a mindless distraction from the present moment. Didn’t really have a profound impact on my morning, other than I got more done, which is always a welcome result from this practice.

Mindfulness Day

Day of Mindfulness Today: Started with a short, 20 min sit. Awareness of feelings and tracing their roots. Didn’t entirely connect with this practice and will give it another go tomorrow.

Spent a few hours in the morning with gentle house cleaning and enjoyed the quiet hum of the house. It is kind of cool to notice the refrigerator sounds, how the house above ours sounds, the noise from the street outside, and understand what the apartment sounds like without music or a podcast or conversation. That there is a conversation happening between me and the apartment without any words being said.

After the house was clean (or mostly clean), brought my awareness back to myself and reflected in a warm bath, cleaning my hair, and giving some much needed attention to my fingernails (they were getting really weird and long).

Once was clean, took a short walk of mindfulness outside around my neighborhood to absorb the fall colours. When I am not walking with any particular destination, I feel like the opportunity for being mindful arises. It’s as easy as that. I noticed the different vibration in the air with the cooler temperature freshly imported. I brought awareness to my breath and the way the air felt on my cheeks. I felt a calmness and stillness radiate through my body, that when I came home and began my reading for my classes, I was more present and able to concentrate more on my work.

Remembering Mindfulness

While I was driving, I almost forgot about the red light of mindfulness. So easy it is to forget. I sometimes which that I had a little pocket teacher that could always hang out with my and remind me of my practice. At first, I felt frustration and annoyance at having to stop driving. Then as soon as I labeled that sensation, I remembered the bell and took three long breaths and noticed what was happening around me. I saw the other cars on the street. I saw where the people were on the sidewalk. I saw the numbers counting down on the cross-walk light. Afterwards I thought how useful it would be to teach mindfulness to new drivers and how many accidents might be avoided.