Day 14

Today was the last day of two weeks of meditation, and honestly I'm kind of sad. I've found the meditating to be rather relaxing and soothing, and wish I had the discipline to continue meditating. However, knowing me, because there is no real obligation to meditate anymore, I might only ever meditate once or twice a week. But anyways, as I've said, today is day 14, and as such, this will probably be the last entry I write.

Hopefully you've learned something from my two week long undertaking, because I for sure know that I have. Besides all of the technical things like sitting technique, the various health benefits of zazen, etc, I feel like I've learned a little bit more about myself. Zazen meditation is all about becoming one with yourself, clearing your mind and viewing the world as it is. In short, zazen is the path to enlightenment, and although this takes many many years to do, I felt that over the two week period, I myself became enlightened, if only a little bit. Before this two week period, I had said that my goal was to become more aware of myself and the world around me, but awareness isn't the thing that I really got out of meditating for two weeks. It was the enjoyment of meditating that I really gained. If the most important thing that I learned was awareness, then there would be no more reason to really mediate, but because what I learned was how to enjoy the meditation, there is still a reason to meditate, which is what is really important.

Yes, my goal was to become more aware, and yes over two weeks, I did gain a little awareness, but no, that's not the most important thing I gained by meditating. What was the most important thing was the experience of meditating everyday, and how it affected my life. Because of that experience, I'll probably continue meditating in the future.

Day 13

Zazen is all about clearing your mind, but not so that you're not thinking of anything. So what you're doing is thinking about not thinking. This may sound poetic, but as you might've guess, it seems almost impossible. Zazen in reality has multiple practices, each serving as stepping stones until you can think about not thinking. The first practice, called breath counting is just what the name suggests. On every inhale or exhale, or both, you count, from 1 to 10. When you get to 10, you just start over from 1, dropping any thoughts that may have entered your mind. This is a very effective practice for beginners since it gives their mind something to focus on instead of letting it wander. This is the practice I use, as my ability to concentrate isn't yet strong enough to move on the the second practice.

The second practice is called koan practice. In this practice, you use a koan, defined by the dictionary as "a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment". The purpose of this practice is to concentrate on your koan. Although it may sound simple, it's a lot harder because a koan is intangible, while breathing can be tangible. An example of a koan is, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" In reality this practice is similar to that of the first practice, except it requires greater concentration.

The third practice is called shinkantaza. It is this practice where one doesn't focus on anything. You use the strength of your concentration to remain aware of events that occur in the present. However, you dont think about any of it, you are just aware of it. You just sit like a mountain, immovable with your awareness. That is the true art of zazen, and my goal. However, I know this kind of meditation can take years to master. Because of that, as long as my awareness gets better, I'll feel that I was able to accomplish something by meditating

Day 12

Today's post will be about the health benefits from doing meditation. Several studies have been conducted on the health benefits of "mindfulness" activity (Google for more information, even I don't completely understand the definition), and meditation falls under this category. One particular neuroscientist, Dr. James Austin, reported in his book, Zen and the Brain (Austin, 1999). that meditation can actually rewire the circuitry of the brain. Another test conducted by Yale, Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows that meditation helps to increase gray matter (again, Google it, but basically its a major component of the central nervous system), slows down the deterioration of the brain due to aging, and is associated with increased cortical thickness, esp. in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right insula, and middle prefrontal cortex. These areas of the brain are associated with communication, empathy, self-observation, emotional balance, and empathy.



Other than that, these past few days of meditaton have been good for me. I'm slowly improving my awareness, and overall I feel like my meditating has improved over the past week and a half. The only thing I'm having trouble with is clearing my mind of distracting thoughts, and my breathing. I'm good at controlling my breathing, but I lose track of it when I'm counting. This is probably the reason why I feel like I'm good at focusing on my breathing, but also one of the reasons why my awareness has been lacking. After about ~8 counts, I sometimes lose track of which breath I'm on, because my mind just goes blank or a thought pops up. I then have to mentally berate myself to concentrate.

Day 11

Yesterday I accidentally fell asleep a couple of times, so today I tried to make up for that inadmissible misstep. Now I don't know whether it was because of the mindset I had going into meditation today, or if it was just because I'm getting better at it, but I found it a lot easier to multitask between concentrating on my breathing, and being aware of myself and my surroundings. I didn't go through a spiritual transformation or anything, my mind just felt a lot less excited. Before, I found that if I thought of something besides my breathing, then my mind would get all excited and ADD. I try to refocus to the meditation, but in the background my mind is just going through all of this garbage. Because of this, I usually have to just not think about anything else besides the breathing. But today, I noticed that if I thought of something, I could just let it go, and forget about it. This means that if I hear a distant car, I just hear a distant car and move on. Normally when we view things, we see something, then fixate on it. True awareness is being able to get past that fixation, letting it go and noticing things that usually aren't noticed. So being able to somewhat stop my mind from wandering and controlling it allowed me to be much more aware. I wasn't thinking about being aware, I just concentrated on my breathing, and noticed that my senses would pick up details about the space I was meditating in, and I could let these details just be details instead of distracting thoughts. Instead of analyzing and judging things, I was able, at least for today, just view them as what they were. Hopefully this means I'm one step closer to obtaining true awareness.

Day 10

Today during zazen, I accidentally fell asleep. Well, I didn't really fall asleep, more like I was drowsing. I was sitting with my eyes closed, and before I knew it, my body's weight had shifted off-center, so that I was slowly leaning backwards. But due to the sensation of falling backwards (think of the movie Inception, or sometimes when you fall of your bed, you awake just in time to catch yourself), I regained consciousness and returned my body to the correct position. Now this happening once isn't that big of a deal, in my opinion, but the thing is is that it kept on happening. Every time I woke up, a couple of minutes later I would drift back into slumber mode, and then re-awake to the feeling of falling backwards. Reflecting about it now, I've realized that there wasn't one time after the first 6-8 minutes that I was really trying to meditate. If I wasn't already asleep, I was trying to prevent myself from falling asleep. If I tried to count my breathing, I would feel my eyelids getting heavy, and I would try to keep them open, to no avail.

To try and combat this sleepiness, I tried to do some research, but found not a lot of answers. The only advice I found was that if you do find yourself falling asleep, then you might need to get up and splash cold water in your face, work up you muscles, etc. In reality, if you are really that tired, then the best advice I can give you is sleep more.

Day 9

Today's post will go over a little on why you should meditate. A quote from Kyogen Carlson pretty much sums up what I would say:

Meditation is the practice of finding the still point of balance within your own being in the midst of all kinds of conditions. Its purpose is not to escape, not to duck responsibility or involvement in daily life, but to know with certainty exactly where the center of your own being is. When we remember who we are in silence, we bring tremendous strength and insight to daily life. The perspective gained through meditation in an ordinary daily life is a key to a truly successful life. But it is also a powerful means of progressing on the spiritual path. It brings us inner peace of mind, and helps us discover how to live in harmony with everything around us; at home, at work, and even in the difficult social and political world in which we find ourselves.

~ Kyogen Carlson, the Abbot of Dharma Rain Zen Center

Here's also a Youtube video about the Dalai Lama talking about the stages of meditation, and some of the basics on the Buddhist philosophy.




Other than that, today's meditation went good. I meditate for 47 minutes (minutes matter to me when they feel like an hour). I won't go in depth because It'll just be a general repeat of what I've said in other blog posts.

Day 8

For week 2, my goal is to do zazen while being aware of myself and the space I'm meditating in. It's also to try and become more aware in my everyday life. So I think in order to reach this goal by the end of the week, I decided that I would meditate for more than 30 minutes.

Ater coming back from a Mother's Day brunch, I started meditating. For the first 20-25 minutes I was doing everything correct. Proper posture, slow and deep breathing, staying completely still, etc. I was also trying to allow myself to succumb to my senses, instead of blocking them out. This was so that I could allow myself to become aware of what was going on around me, instead of being completely absorbed by my breathing. At around the 25+ minute mark, I began to really feel numbness in my legs, but instead of ignoring it, I tried to be aware of it. I really don't know how else to describe it. All of a sudden, I felt pain in the muscles that weren't numb, and I tried to not think about it. However, every time I tried to let go of the thought that my legs were sore, the pain would just make me think about it again. I was so concerned about the pain that I wasn't being aware of what was going on around me. I had just realized this when the meditation of was over and the pain subsided from my legs. Even though I was aware of myself, and the pain that my legs were going through, I wasn't aware of my surroundings. But I think what's even more important to note is that I was allowing myself to get attached to the pain. I wasn't aware of anything else besides the pain in my legs. In order for yourself to have sense of true awareness, you can't allow yourself to fixate on anything. You have to realize that something is there, then just move on. If I'm able to take in and process my surroundings within a matter of seconds, by the end of the week, I'll feel like I accomplished my goal.