Time: 1:11pm
What: 25 minutes asana / 20 minutes seated practice
Focus: Fourth Foundation / Exercises 13 - 16 (Ana-)
Did a restorative practice this afternoon. Body tired and sore from a busy week of working and teaching. Listening to Joseph Goldstein talk about 'Mindfulness of Dhamma: Hindrances - Desire'.
Have been focusing internally in seated meditation practice - noting sensations in the body and mental formations as they arise. Difficult to notice thoughts without getting sucked into the current of thinking. Decided to open awareness out to include sound. Easier to watch and note the impermanence of sound. Seeing the lights dance on the floor - ever-changing. The sounds from outside, the clicking of the computer, the hum of the fridge. Without labeling (then... obviously labeling now), without getting sucked into a story about the sounds.
Had a question come up while sitting... How can something like the breath, which can seem continuous and ever-present, be understood as impermanent? This is likely the same way of thinking of a solid and permanent self. Answered my own question. In watching the breath, it is continuous and ever-present, yet it is also ever-changing. Never is the breath the same. And this change is impermanence.
Anyhoo... Reflecting complete. Girlfriend and puppy are making an exceptional amount of noise and distraction. Oy-vey!
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