Day Eleven

Task for the day:  Pack up and go home. My last day at the center started off pretty darn amazing: at exactly 3:40 am (the time my alarm went off), I was waking from a dream. The dream: It was late at night, and I was outside sitting in a circle, observing various stars, with [...]

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Day Ten

Task for the day:  Metta meditation. Last night I had a dream regarding (un)Noble Speech – basically, the dream was me just shooting off my mouth without thinking, making embarrassing and/or unintentionally insensitive comments; and doing so when a comment really just did not need to be made in the first place.  This un-Noble Speech [...]

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Day Nine

Task for the day:  Use blind spots or gross sensations to avoid developing sankaras of aversion; use flow sensations to avoid developing sankaras of craving/clinging. Today is the last day of Noble Silence; so I’m not going to take notes today.  Instead, I’m going to try to absorb as much as I can in this [...]

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Day Eight

Task for the day:  Be equanimously aware of all sensations that occur as I move throughout the day, all day long. (Equanimity = observing sensations without reacting [i.e., no clinging, no grasping, no aversion].  Just “accepting life on life’s terms”, whatever those terms may be – even if they are not MY terms.) Wow, that [...]

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Day Seven

Task for the day:  Scan the body symmetrically head to toes, toes to head (i.e., both shoulders at the same time, then both arms, then both hands, both legs, etc…). Something shifted today – and I approached this work of meditation with true seriousness and sincerity; I let go of my desire to leave as [...]

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Day Six

Task for the day:  Practice Vipassana in two directions (head to toes, toes to head; head to toes, toes to head …) I didn’t sleep well last night (again); lots of tossing and turning.  I suspect this may come to bite me in the butt today.  We’ll see… My 5:45 am meditation today was a [...]

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Day Five

Task for the day:  Practice Vipassana in one direction (head to toes, head to toes…) As the teacher reminds us each night, I have six days left to work. (He begins every evening talk with a countdown: “You only have ## days left to work”, and then proceeds with the lesson of the evening.)  And [...]

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Night of Day Four/Wee Hours of Day Five

I had two very vivid dreams sometime between 11 pm and 3 am.  One was a very scary “Sixth Sense” kind of dream; and while the details are fuzzy and faded right now, I do remember realizing that the purpose of this dream was to teach me/show me that people can only see what they [...]

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Day Four

Two tasks for today!  Morning task: Fine-tune the mind by getting even clearer on our breath sensations; get the mind razor-sharp.  Afternoon/evening task: Learn Vipassana. I woke up this morning laughing (out loud) from a dream; it was delightful. I’ll take all of the humor and joy I can get!  I suspect I’ll need it [...]

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Day Three

Task for the day: Be aware of all sensations in the nostril area (examples: temperature, tingling, itching, tickling, as well as sensations that are present, but that can’t be specifically named…) Grr, that is what I did yesterday all on my own, intuitively! The Day Two task of following my breath was getting boring, so [...]

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