One Hour Of Full Lotus Strong Determination Sit Challenge.

[Youssef]

Greetings!

I've been an intermediate meditator for a duration of a full year and quit afterwards due to lacking the sufficient motivation and will power to solidify my practice. Recently, I noticed vividly how my refrain of meditating has impacted my life and how I'm obligated to keep my meditation habit a regular practice that should not be interrupted or abandoned for other types of activities and decided to resurrect my Strong Determination training to recharge my will-power and concentration. In the current week, I was able to invest dozens of minutes into practicing, and ambitiously, I managed to train well enough to achieve 90 minutes of constant stillness and pain endurance which shifted my perspective towards some intriguing concepts that I intend to investigate further. I noticed that my only frontier is pain and temptation, therefore my practice wasn't in need of being lengthened as I have sufficient patience to sit for a gratifying amount of hours. Instead of increasing my practice's duration, I oriented my goal towards enduring more pain and resisting more tempting thoughts, which I believe to be the foundation of SDS's effectivity. Sitting in full lotus is apparently capable of providing the discomforting environment required for increasing my pain tolerance and mindfulness of thought so I made the decision of building up my momentum towards 1H of SD sit in the full-lotus posture, hopefully I may attain something cultivating. Currently I'm capable of enduring 30-40 minutes of SDS in the half lotus pose which is not quite bewildering.

A major obstacle that I started to confront lately is stress. Stress is gradually building up in my lower-body region which hinders my ability to progress quickly in my practice, so I decided to take frequent cold showers and devote thirty minutes of my daily time for performing physical exercises that target my leg muscles, I believe that exercising will be a decent solution for this issue as it accelerates blood back to my thigh muscles and aids in producing more endorphins which overcome stress over time.

With an indestructible will-power and the never-ending motivation obtained by reading the achievements of my fellow meditators on actualized.org, I intend to strengthen my prefrontal-cortex sufficiently to become capable of enduring at least an hour of full lotus SDS.

 

In this challenge,

• I intend to: invest time and effort into expanding my momentum and increasing my equanimity daily by subjecting my body to dozens of painful hours.
• I intend to: perform physical exercises daily to minimize the effects of stress on my practice and to never tolerate them.
• I intend to: remain disciplined and never neglect my goal.
• I intend to: broaden my self comprehension and attain insights regarding the concept of self-control and where it originates. 
• I intend to: stick to my journal and write down any remarkable improvements coherently until my objective is reached.

 

I believe that my decision of writing-down this thread was thoughtful, I expect that investing time on sharing my thoughts, experiences and intentions on this forum will empower my motivation to complete the challenge. Flexing online with a public-journal might seem counterproductive as it slightly heightens my ego and pride, but neither are my main concern. I currently have an ambition of increasing my ability to remain disciplined under the most tragic circumstances which requires the desire of establishing the practice and the need of attaining the rewarding results. Once my objective is attained, I'll put everything that reinforces my ego aside, including this particular thread.

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2017 by Youssef

[Youssef]

I performed a one hour SD sit upon a plastic chair in the crossed-legged posture. The chair's space is insufficient to allow me to sit broadly so my legs were partially elevated and my knees were leaning against the chair's two sides. The physical contact between my skin and the chair has given rise to various sensations that urge me to cease sitting and readjust my position and my ankle bones were pressed against the chair's external surface, leading to additional pain being experienced. This session was arduous but not as harsh compared to sitting on the half-lotus pose. 

Eventually, I was motivated to proceed subjecting myself to pain in an attempt to increase my equanimity. I twisted my left leg and inserted it underneath my right one while surfing through the internet for 46 minutes. I noticed that I was able to remain concentrated on whatever I read or write during the process of sitting as if pain wasn't rather troubling. I performed another similar session later-on in the half lotus posture. Most of my body was entirely static except for my eyes and two palms. I managed to remain seated for 40~ minutes without attempting to avoid the pain I confronted. My total SDS time today is 147~ minutes;

 

My self-control has increased in momentum remarkably. I was able to do what I desire to do after the alleged session, my attachment to my lust has contracted drastically as well as my need to escape what I'm experiencing and replace it with a fantasy in my imagination. While remaining idle, I was fully aware of my breath's occurrence and was able to control it unintentionally. I haven't progressed significantly, but a small gradual change is enough to gratify me. I'll try to stay committed to my practice for the rest of the day either by performing a third sit while browsing my social medias or by isolating myself in my room before sleeping. A 1 hour SDS in the full-lotus posture seems hellish in the current time, I hope to keep building up my will-power until I'm capable of breaking this objective. 

[Youssef]

My equanimity and pain-endurance have gotten a significant boost. I managed to perform a SDS in the half-lotus posture for a duration of 40-45 minutes with ease, which indicates that I'm progressing quickly. Yesterday, a thirty-minutes session in the alleged pose was extremely challenging and I'm delighted to know that I'm extending my boundaries gradually. I'm capable of enduring ten minutes of SDS in full-lotus at the current time, implying that full-lotus is four times more strenuous compared to the half-lotus sit which motivates me to keep progressing further. 

So far, I have invested 7~ hours of my time on training in the last three days with an average daily meditation span near 2.4h. I'll try to keep my practice consistent and devote a particular time amidst the day for meditation instead of sitting in a phase when my mind is unresistant, I suppose that'd aid in increasing my adherence towards my commitment.

There was prominent pain in my prefrontal cortex area recently, I concluded that it's either due to stress or that brain-region is building more neurons, maintaining perpetual control of my body is obviously exhausting. I'll head off to my bed with the ambition that my stillness will keep increasing in quality.