meditation

i did what i had originally thought would be a very difficult thing to do. i meditated for nearly 2 hours. i usually call yoga my meditation with movement. yoga focuses on the the breath, inhaling and exhaling, while simultaneously stretching, reaching, extending and balancing the body with focus and concentration. meditation, i realized is very much like yoga, only the movements and asanas i love, are replaced with other "movements"--my thoughts. i used to think i had an aversion to stillness, but, as i learned on sunday, my aversion is not from stillness, but rather, learning to acknowledge (and with time, accept) even the most particularly annoying aspects about myself.

on sunday, my friends and i joined others with an interest in meditation at hwagyesa temple where we participated in three 30-minute sitting meditation sessions interspersed with two 10-minute walking meditation sessions. i thought a lot. and instead of berating myself for thinking, i shifted my focus every time back to my breath. i thought about the annoyance of the mosquito that was biting me while i was meditating. i thought about how i could hear the man next to me falling asleep. i thought about how much cooler my body became once i was seated in one position. i wondered, more than once, when the session would be over. i thought about food.

my breakthrough thought: i realized that if i tell myself that i have nowhere else to be and nothing else to do but be here, i can relax a lot MORE in the here. so that's what i did. whenever i felt the nervous anticipatory energy of wanting to know what came next...i settled more consciously in the now. it was difficult. it was a lot of work. and ultimately, it wonderfully freeing.