Dissertation Dathun: Day 4-7: Nowhere to run


Here I sit on day 7 of dissertation dathun.  Today has been a hard day.  I feel pretty relaxed now, but that is not what it has been like for most of the day. 

I realized that i was tightening up too much at the end of last week.  Not insisting that I meet a certain standard or quota of accomplishment, or even that I adhere to a schedule with minute-precision.  Instead I was insisting that I stay with myself and my experience every moment.  Speaking with my hostess, Joyful Garuda, she held the space for me to hear my own practice instructions for working with the mind in social meditation.  Bravery-vulnerability isn’t the act of staying open or present no matter what is occurring in your experience.  Rather it is the willingness to be open and present with whatever is occurring.  And that insisting on being present even when you cannot actually be vulnerable, you end up fleeing by hardening up.  So on Friday and Saturday, I decided to relax my hold and just go along.  Waiting to see wherever I found myself.

Then today.  Today I felt like yesterday I had lost my view of this dissertation dathun practice.  That I hadn’t come back to it a once.  That although I wasn’t clamping down, I was semi-checked out, just waiting for the next thing (whatever a ‘thing’ is) to come as the river drifts downstream.  So I wanted to return a little more to formal practice today.  Not just practicing in the morning.  I got to sit outside which I though would refresh me, which it did.  Though I didn’t realize how much I was hoping it would provide an escape from my mind and heart of the moment.  Maybe by sitting outside I could soak up some sacredness.  Sitting outside was somewhat relaxing, but no sea-changes of feeling.  Then I came inside, did some of my PT exercises and fell asleep.  When I woke up, that’s when I realized I was looking for an escape from the rut.  Reading, writing, typing, contemplating, coming back to my experience.  I felt like they all smelt of the staleness of holding.  Holding my mind and experience a certain way, the way I thought it should be held (shoulding all over myself).  I just wanted to let go of that feeling of having to hold myself a specific way, but I couldn’t.  I say let go, but really I just wanted an escape.  And when you want to escape your own mind, there’s really nowhere to go.  

So tomorrow, fresh start, always available.  Sense of humour.  Light touch.

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