Dissertation Dathun: Days 2 & 3

Yesterday and today echoed and reawakened an insight that came to me for the first time in my initial dathun, summer of 2007: no day is all ‘good’ or all ‘bad’.  Everyday of that meditation retreat had ups and downs.  Even the most deep downs dissolved over the course of an afternoon or evening.  Even the most settled bliss dissipated into wistful discontent.  That has been the last two days.  Yesterday was a ‘good’ day.  I exerted myself, but didn’t overexert myself.  I had planned to write this entry at the end of the day but I was too tired.  And I allowed myself to be too tired.

Then last night happened.  I was up every 2 hours with pain.  Suddenly, my doubts about my ability to adhere to my intended discipline (really my intended outcome though — steadily increasing accomplishment over the course of this and subsequent weeks) emerged in the foreground.  So this morning I was up with a little more humility, a little more tiger. The morning went well, I’ve started to sync in to a morning schedule.  Breakfast, then hygiene, then practice, the several 15 minute periods of work.  Then lunch.  Then see what the rest of the day brings.



Early afternoon went well, had some good easily vulnerable conversations with my hostess.  Then I gave her the reading transmission for Sakyong Mipham’s Treatise on Enlightened Society.  That experience roused me in a way.  But not a top-heavy uncontainable blast-off energy way.  In a grounded way.  But then.  I started to feel crappy.  I decided not to do anything.  Just to rest.  Not even to sleep particularly (nor to not sleep either).  Just rest and be.  Then I started to feel kind of ill.  I couldn’t eat dinner.  I tried to go to the bathroom, but it had become clear: thoroughly constipated.  Again spirits drop.  “What am I going to do?”  I can’t function the way I planned on while I’m constipated.  I felt sick and my appetite was gone.  Point is: i’m no longer constipated, my spirits are back up.  What does it mean to practice under these circumstances?  I’m reminded of the quote by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche along the lines of thoughts go up, thoughts go down, but you just sit.  You don’t follow your thoughts up or down. 

Easier said than sat. 

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