"never leave home without Betty & Pansy"!

Time: 8:08am
What: 25 minutes asana / 20 minutes seated practice
Focus: Third Foundation / Exercises 9 - 12 (Ana-)

Specifically bringing attention to mental formations seems to have brought me back to "the beginning". To that struggle with thinking and judgment. Whirls of thoughts arise (as usual) and I bring my awareness to them with a hint of judgment (somehow... but not on purpose... if that makes any sense at all). The thinking is evasive like trying to grab a wet bar of soap or a fish. Slippery and falling out of the grasp of attention.

During asana practice, it felt as though the mind was in more than one place at a time: the breath, the pose, the feeling, and somewhere in the fuzzy background was a continuous reel of thoughts.

Reflected on the mind as a sense organ... Sense organ and sense object meet to create sense consciousness. In the case of the mind, what would be considered the sense object? Is mind consciousness the awareness of thoughts? And/or the thoughts themselves?

Anyhoo... Good morning!

Paused in between asana practice and seated practice to write down some thoughts. Stories from the Noah Levine workshop. Intentions or ideas for classes. Song titles for class playlist. Had to cut seated meditation short (not on purpose, I swear) so that I could make it to work on time. I thought it might be a good way of 'handling' the repetitive nature of thinking. If I write the idea/story/inspiration down before sitting, then I don't have to go over it and over it in an attempt to remember. I can let it go.

Did it work?

I didn't think about any of things I wrote down once.

I thought about other things (ha ha).