First Entry

This is actually my first journal entry, I wrote it on paper and never added it to the blog:

I found it a bit funny that meditation was requested in class considering I had just tried it the day before. Having this been my second time meditating, I continued to listen to my mind ramble. I focus on my breath, which makes me realize that I breath from natural habit, but I can choose not to breath. Also, I can breath in many different ways. I am always thinking of something. I noticed after meditating, physical movement feels different; forced, awkward, irregular.

In class

Meditating in class today was a nice reminder of what meditating does for the mind. I admit I am most definitely slacking in the completive journal now that finals are approaching. Even though the experience was short, it was a nice change of the normal meditation, and it was also nice to be given time to meditate. Having the teachers voice guide the meditation was also interesting, I know most people probably think it was 'lame' but if you give it the effort it is worth it. I liked the concept of taking energy from the earth into by body through the feet. The concept of being 'containers' for air and breath, being connected to the earth; it was a nice topic to put on the mind while meditating.

In the Darkness

It had been a while since I last meditated, too long really, with the semester starting to close, I've simply had other things on my mind. Part of it is because I don't have any good places to really meditate, it's too cold. Eventually I forced myself to finally meditate. I found a quite place in my house after hours, turned off all the lights, and in the darkness I sat and meditated for 15 minutes. Meditating in darkness is a bit different than doing it outside in my usual places. I usually like looking at my surroundings randomly during my sessions. But now it was darkness, it was all quiet. I kept my focus on my breathing and on my posture, I tried more specifically to not think about anything, but to just exist. After the meditation I decided that it was time to lay down and I wanted to see if it was easy to fall asleep after meditating. (I normally have some insomnia problems) -Turns out that sleeping on an open mind doesn't help. Too bad.

Getting Shady

When I went home for Fall break I decided to visit the meadow down by my creek that I spent so much time at my freshman summer of 2007. I spent my entire summer down there clearing out weeds and brush, making room for a fire pit and place to spend time with friends, which I did frequently. It became a place I liked to call "Shady Grove," and it became my "special place." After that summer, with no one to maintain Shady Grove, the weeds grew back and the area became the meadow that it used to be, it was no longer the Shady Grove I knew so well. Every time I come back home for a visit, I always go down there to see it. When I visited it this Fall Break I decided that it would be the perfect place to meditate. I headed over to my favorite reflecting spot, a group of large roots that hung over the creak like a nature-made hammock, it really is quite a beautiful place to be. I sat there for 20 minutes and meditated. As I meditated I realized how much this place meant to me. The natural setting is so soothing, I felt as if I could have sat there for ever. For one, I've always found natural settings to be peaceful. I have also found meditation to be incredibly relaxing. When I put the both of them together I got a great experience, it was wonderful. Too bad that cold weather is going to start limiting my location for meditation.

Clarity

This week I decided to change my location a little bit. I moved to a location that was similar, and provided a nice and quite environment with nature elements, but was a good transition of scenery. It is almost strange to think that the location can matter so much if the majority of the time is spent with my eyes closed. It really shows me how much self-awareness we have, every noise, movement, touch, can be 'felt' even if you can't see it. This time as I meditated I did a good job of clearing my mind from thoughts, compared to previous times I felt that, while I was clearing out my mind, I still ended up focusing on something specifically and deeply. Today it turned out that I was able to focus solely on my breathing (at least for a while), and it really was a good turn out. Why do we have to be thinking of something all the time anyways. Can you compare the idea of sleep to the brain? Our physical bodies need to rest everyday for about 8 hours, how much time do we give our mind for rest, does it rest with our body when we sleep or does it work on making dreams?

Huh, sometimes I think I'm talking crazy...

Anywho, I want to continue to say that meditation has been a very worthwhile experience, I hope to keep doing it, and I encourage anyone else to try it. And not just 'try,' but to actually 'do'.

Uhg, I hate my writing style.

Going back

This week’s meditation starting moving in good steps; before I went to meditate I knew that I had a lot of work I needed to do, both that night and for the rest of the week. I was starting to get frustrated and stressed out, and eventually I said, “I just need to go meditate.” This is interesting because I feel that most other people who are giving meditation a try find it hard to meditate because they don’t have time to do it, they are too busy. But I think that is exactly what meditation can be good for. Clear your thoughts, take your mind off of your tasks that you need to do and just focus, clear your mind out. After meditation I find myself thinking more clearly, I can keep my naturally ADD mind on a single topic instead of having to constantly go through episodes where I think about 10 things at once, which will most likely give you a headache. As I meditated today I reflected on many things, I cleaned out the ‘trash can’ of my mind. As I meditate I continue to remind myself of things that I used to love to do so much. I went back to my summer after freshman year of GC, and I remembered how much I loved to go down to the tree-filled creek by my Illinois farmhouse. Shady Groove is what I called it, and I remember how peaceful it was down there. I remembered how much I love to get on rooftops. I remembered how nice it is to lie down in the grass. I remembered that frustration and stress is something that you create for yourself, and you can just as easily get rid of it. So meditation is continuing to be an enriching experience for me, I look forward to doing it again next week.

Revisiting

This week for my meditation I decided to revisit my last meditation location because I was happy with the results from the previous experience. This session started off very well, I'm beginning to fall into the state of relaxation faster and faster each time. I feel that it is becoming pretty obvious that the more you do it, and the more effort you put into it, the better it will be each time. I thought many thoughts, classes, friends, nature, bicycles, SST. The mind is a like a library of millions of free flying thoughts, thoughts which fly randomly in a pattern. I eventually started concentration on beauty. What is beauty? What do I think of when I think of beauty? What do others think of? There are many different kinds of beauty in the world. A person can be described as beautiful, and a mountain can be described as beautiful. However, those are two different kinds of beauty, they describe different things, they define different realities.
After a while I started to think about relationships, relationships I have with the people I know, and relationships that other people have with others. No relationship is the same, a relationship holds an incredulous number of elements that will never be able to be put into words of description, relationships are beautiful.
I left my meditation slightly early this week. I left this meditation with many questions, questions that I wanted to be answered. In a sense it almost troubled me. I thought about how we overcome troubles as I rode my bike back to my room. Again it was peaceful.