Today, I worked 14.5 hours, got home at 11:15, had dinner, spent a bit of time chatting with Valerie, and then sat down to do my daily meditation. I was exhausted going into it. I was a little nervous that I might fall asleep. But that was not the case. Rather than falling asleep, I found that fatigue had not done much to quiet the “monkey brain.” Rather, it seemed to make it even more active and more willing to go run after fleeting ideas.
Although my fatigue made me a little more sluggish in roping in the wandering thoughts, I did manage to take note of each of the side excursions before bringing my focus back to my breath and my mental focal point (2 inches in front of the bridge of my nose). I noted how this focal point changed each time I began to wander. Even though my eyes were closed, I could feel my eyes adjusting focus to different locations around me. I saw no rhyme or reason to the locations. I learned to use this as a signal to get my focus back on breath and focal point. During the fleeting moments that I did have control over my focus, I noticed that there seemed to be a gradient in the field of black in front of me—with lighter hues pointing not toward brighter lighting, but the location of background sounds. This would then become another tangent as I started to explore what this might mean.
Interestingly, the biggest single distraction I experienced this evening was a continuous pull to examine the experience of meditation rather than simply experiencing it. I will need to work on noting experiences and distractions and then immediately letting them go for later reflection. I did manage briefly to muster the control to silence dialog for nearly 20 seconds—but this was fleeting. Something else to continue trying to develop.
Tomorrow, I think I will do 12 minutes again with a more rested mind.
Leave a Reply