Sacred space

[Bill W]

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

My coffee addiction is still under control. Unfortunately, I had some sugar today but I gave in for social purposes (family).

Two things here.

1. I think I am having a moment where I am supposed to realise how much I am abusing caffeine right now. Between glancing at your post here and a thread on health section about caffeine just moments ago I'm meant to have a powerful realisation just how dysfunctional I am with my nutrition and fluid intake at the moment. I have fallen into the trap of replacing one addiction with another because I haven't done the inner work well enough. I need to know this. Well I knew it but repressed it and buried it. 

2. On a more light hearted note it made me laugh about your reasoning for sugar today. I am in the midst of an actual damaging sugar addiction involving secret eating and hiding of sugar foods from others it's really bad. I have a worse excuse to share using your terminology and adding some humour..... unfortunately I have had some (shit load) of sugar today but I gave in for comfort purposes ?

[tsuki]

17 hours ago, Bill W said:

2. On a more light hearted note it made me laugh about your reasoning for sugar today. I am in the midst of an actual damaging sugar addiction involving secret eating and hiding of sugar foods from others it's really bad. I have a worse excuse to share using your terminology and adding some humour..... unfortunately I have had some (shit load) of sugar today but I gave in for comfort purposes ?

I was semi-serious about this reasoning. I don't consume sugar regularly, if I have cravings I usually go for cashews with dried cranberry or cocoa bars. My only sugar source is from sweetened yogurt and I may be cutting them too once I get free of my coffee addiction. Meetings with my family are a different thing though, my mother does not seem to understand why I refuse sweets and will just 'leave them here if I change my mind'. I used to be much more strict about this and would literally throw them into the trash bin, but this only made people resentful lol.

Did you figure out why you need to comfort yourself though? What is the need that the sweets are supposed to stand in for?

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #6

Today I woke up without neck pain and well-rested despite the fact that I was sleeping during the day and I was half-awake during the night. I had two dreams today. One was a recurring theme, in which I suddenly remember that I'm still in college and I wasn't attending any classes so I will have to repeat the year. I woke up to shake free off this feeling and centered myself in the present moment immediately. Waking up from dreams consciously is not something I do too often though. I used to do that all the time when I was a child, but I gradually lost my lucid dreaming abilities as I grew older.

I recognized that the second dream was a reconfigured version of a dream I had in the past. It was also about attending classes, but this time, the whole class was not attending them. As a middle schooler I was asked to talk to the teacher, but he was never available for whatever reason. In this version of the dream, he was in the class and it turned out that he was an unexpectedly cool guy and the lessons went on normally. In the other version of the dream, I had to fight him as if he was a boss in a videogame. Still, during today's dream I remembered the last one and waited anxiously for the confrontation just to feel relieved when there was none.

After waking up, I did not feel the clarity and peace I was looking for, so I sat down to meditate and discovered that I'm still subliminally anxious about the dreams. Their theme is unusual because I never skipped any classes and was considered a good student. This anxiety was not a conditioned response to getting into trouble for being a slacker, but the fear of being a slacker was what pushed me to be a good student. I investigated the first dream during my meditation and my intuition led me to my childhood memory where my father would 'coach' me to study. He used to tell me that if I won't study, I will work on a parking lot and open the barrier for my classmates when we get older. I was not able to answer why would I not want that as a child, but it seemed to have dispelled the morning "anxiety".

Me and my wife had a walk to the forest and I could write a whole book about what was happening in my body if I remembered any of it. At some point I realized that I do in fact have a headache that slowly developed into a huge pain in the ass (not literally lol). I usually choose to feel the pain to not forget that my body is telling me to chill, but this time I chose to take a pill. I took my wife on a date and we had a tasty pizza and focaccia.

Generally speaking, I feel much more relaxed ever since I chose to focus on the breath and much happier.
My life is reorganized in such a way that I get a clear mind during my meditation practice. Not an easy task, but a worthwhile one.

[Bill W]

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

Did you figure out why you need to comfort yourself though? What is the need that the sweets are supposed to stand in for?

Still trying to figure that out. From a simple psychological view (although somewhat physiological perhaps as well), I keep coming back to thinking that I am putting short-term gratification ahead of longer term aspirations. But that sounds obvious and not especially insightful. 

Bigger picture thinking right now is that I am short on courage to change because even though I like to think I have faith, I don't. I'm not very non-dual so I see God or the Higher Power as external to me, but that I also have a Higher Self. I'm lacking in faith. I'm clinging to my own way of doing things pretty much. It's like I've got my foot in the door of surrendering to God, but I'm not quite willing to jump in. It's hurting me that this is the case. I'm working on it. 

[tsuki]

@Bill W

[Bill W]

@tsuki Yes that's good thanks. Power of Habit. Great book. I read it before I identified as an addict. He makes some very positive comments about AA in that book. I think he is of the opinion that AA is the most successful habit changing organisation/system ever. 

Edited September 8, 2019 by Bill W

[tsuki]

@Bill W @Bill W

Ahhh... AA. I should have known better. Thank you! ?

[tsuki]

 

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #7

A whole week! ???

Yesterday we had a fight that was fueled by my wife's hunger and my will to be above this pettiness. I wanted to keep taking the blows until she gets over it, but it only served to annoy me past my limits of sanity. Fear, fear, fear. It made me realize that I have an open wound that needs healing and it is supported by my absolute contempt towards dishonesty and lying. While I can stomach some pettiness from strangers, having that in an intimate relationship is just soul-crushing. Especially when I can just look at her face and know that something is off. Pfft!

This week I am working morning shifts, so I had to minimize my morning routine to bare essentials. I meditated for 15 minutes at work and an hour in the evening. During the day, I had one experience when it seemed like the mind finally gave in, but it was fueled again by subconscious stimuli when I started to be more active. During the evening meditation sessions, I had two strange experiences. The first one is when I had a sip of salvia tea that I found to be extermely stimulating. This stimulation went on to my meditation sit and got amplified by my neighbors quarrel (they fight A LOT). It spilled from my taste to sight and it slowly started illuminating my visual field with, hmm... yellow sparks? lightnings? I ended up waking myself up in response to fear.

The second experience was when I found myself to be lured into closing my eyes and the blackness of my eyelids started to, hmm... close onto itself??? Its like the blackness turned inside out (?) while my eyes were being pressed down my eye sockets. I surrendered to the fear and kept being sucked in until I decided that it was a distraction (makyo) and woke up.

During the meditation, I realized that the practice I'm doing is building the habit of surrendering my tension, giving the mind up. When I sit in stillness, I am able to observe the mind on a deeper, more subconscious level and work on it from that angle. Thoughts (imaginary sounds) are no longer as ample as in my regular state, but they are blurred and seemingly random. It's like the ocean of awareness is turbulent on this scale and I am observing the moment when seeds of thoughts emerge and release them. Even though the meditation itself is peaceful, it is also busy (buzz-y). However, the clarity of my regular awareness after a session is unparalleled.

Coffee addiction is still under control, it seems like the physiological effects are starting to wear off.
I had minimal headache in the morning and was only mildly sleepy during the time I usually have my coffee break.

Edited September 9, 2019 by tsuki

[tsuki]

Aaaaand... I strained my neck during stretching today. Great!

[Bill W]

2 hours ago, tsuki said:

Aaaaand... I strained my neck during stretching today. Great!

As we say in the UK.... don't be a pain in the neck!

Not sure if that saying is universal ?

[tsuki]

This picture is so awesome.

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #8

The monkey mind is maddening. Please kill me. Too much forum, too little silence.
Lesson learned. The music is off for a reason, the forum needs to be off for the same reason.

I meditated in the forest today, about 20 minutes total. Still no coffee.

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #9

The neck pain is getting better, it's a great practice to surrender to fear/pain while stretching it.
When I strained it, I was really afraid of dying hahaha. This fear is literally what restrains my mobility. I'll have to experiment with it.
Still no coffee, I'm not even missing it. The energy is through the roof. I wonder whether it leads to awakening or not. It is reminiscent of the shimmer.
I just can't keep being silent, I wonder whether it's because of my diet, coffee, the forest walks, meditation?

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKWt6FPXyxI

 

 

[tsuki]

Fasting is how you meditate with your gut.

[Bill W]

14 hours ago, tsuki said:

Fasting is how you meditate with your gut.

Man I love this. Love it. You have a habit of providing me with gold just when I need it. Trust me you are doing some great work. This forum has gone from just curious browsing for me to a place that's holding me at the moment. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Bill W

[tsuki]

10 hours ago, Bill W said:

Man I love this. Love it. You have a habit of providing me with gold just when I need it. Trust me you are doing some great work. This forum has gone from just curious browsing for me to a place that's holding me at the moment. 

Yeah, I knew that this one is good when it came up yesterday morning.
Welcome aboard the ship of fools!

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #11

My wife had an ultrasound examination yesterday and I decided to fast along with her to test the waters. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it a lot! I woke up energetic and after a light breakfast we went on a walk to the nearby forest. I felt strongly connected with my body and entered a semi-mystical experience where I saw the whole world as one existence of many forms, some of which pass through 'my body'. The usual notion of the material me that is bound by flesh vanished and I became the shape-shifting world itself. On the other end my mind dissolved into the collective understanding that is visible in culture, internet, etc, so 'I' became nothing that mediates between Earth-body and human collective mind. The experience was ecstatic. To my wife's horror it woke a 5-year old me and I embarked on a journey through the forest, off the tracks. Somebody told the forest that the autumn is coming and it shed the leaves to uncover its insides. It was very beautiful and even though I was barely after breakfast, the mere idea of fasting made me feel energetic and hyper-vigilant.

The other, parallel, perception was the one of creation. I work as a technologist that manifests ideas in steel, and the tool shop that I work in felt as my cybernetic body. I felt like a giant cyborg, mecha pilot, and my vehicle was the world of technology itself. I remembered the insight I had few months back that we, humans, are artisans of death. We kill things so thoroughly, that they do not dare living for themselves and create order out of that. That is why 'purity' of raw materials is so important for technological purposes. 'Purity' is the measure of how dead something is.

During the day, I was shocked to notice just how much of my life is occupied by food and how difficult it is to do something that is not related to it. Just like I'm starving my mind of meaning and do things thoughtlessly, starving my gut allowed me to notice the beauty of the world to a greater extent. Sustenance is an important part of the everyday's business and letting go of that is a huge relief. I will be fasting in the future, maybe one day in a week?

This gut-mind equivalence has led me understand that there is just one 'life force' that is driving the world of everyday affairs. Meditation is the process in which we consciously resist, or rather - surrender, that force and keep our stillness. This actually increases intelligence that is rapt by the currents of everyday life and lets us perceive it on a deeper level. I wonder what is the equivalent of meditation for the heart and what is the expression of life force in that center. Is it just attachment? No idea for now.

Coffee detox seems to be over and I can comfortably wake up with no cravings or headaches. I will keep track of this addiction to avoid slipping back.
Apart from fasting, I meditated for just about 15 minutes late in the night and kept breathing consciously throughout the day.

Edited September 14, 2019 by tsuki

[tsuki]

Sinking the mind in the breath: day #12

I feel like I've gone astray.
I have not meditated for the whole hour two days in a row and sinking the mind fell down from the top of the priority list.

This week, I'm working late shifts, so I will push harder from the morning. This is when meditation is the most effective.
I need to figure out a way of meditating when I work morning shifts. The mind runs rampant during sleep and messes up my wakefulness.

I am very conscious of just how every single thing the body does is aimed at survival. There is no rest during life, the only refuge is meditation.

Still no coffee.

Edited September 16, 2019 by tsuki