After reading class 1 on my “learn meditation page” of choice, I decided to go ahead and incorporate the exercise in my own way.
Fresh from the resolve, and eager to get going, I hunkered down that night for my five minutes before bed. I looked at the time, set my intention for five minutes and settled down to the first of the first steps. Breathe in and out at least 7 times. I don’t really know how many times I actually did so, I was concentrating on breathing in the life force and love, and breathing out my frustrations and negativity. I noticed a slight tendency to hyper ventilate and adjusted my in breath to less long. Which then meant I had to shorten my out breath as I did not have enough air in me to breathe out. Sigh! Then, of course, there was the noise. The trucks rolling past on the highway, the last of the neighbours hunkering down for the nights, and finishing up in their kitchens, and a host of other noises that I normally do not notice.
Aha! I am supposed to notice them, and let them go, so I did. I did not think there was any reduction to the noise level, but my breath calmed down, and the tightness in my chest softened. And all of a sudden I thought, “That would be five minutes” and my eyes popped open. Feeling a little “hmm… need to learn a bit more”, I looked at the time, and what do you know? Exactly five minutes! So I must be doing something right!
I had the heaviest, deepest sleep that night for a long time. My limbs felt heavy, and even in my sleep I was aware of a heaviness. Let us not forget the dreams! The dreams were vivid, and scary and adventurous. I had trouble waking up in the morning…
So my morning was rushed and chores grabbed me before I could settle down and meditate. But I got that bit done before that 7:20 am hit its mark and the need to madly rush out into the day manifested.
All through the day I felt removed. I had a standard 21st Century muddle of a day mixed with work, friends, family and chores, with its attendant pulls, pushes and drags. But I did not feel like those things quite touched me. Not that I was unemotional, but it felt like the emotions were an outer part of me, and hence something that I observed and let go, rather than get gripped by them. It was a wonderful, liberating feeling.
I think I am going to love this. I think I am going to be able to carry this on.
Have you joined us on the Bodhi Circle yet?
PS: this morning, during the time I meditated, I did not notice any back ground noise at all. It was still. Quiet. Interesting. Time for Class 2.
bodhimoments 
Comments on: "First Impressions: The Circle Begins" (4)
Like the picture aurora borealis; gives me a sense of oneness with the vast empire of nature. Morning’s 7 minutes meditation yesterday and today was a bit different. Yesterday the picture that came to my mind was more of nature vast mountains and water, today the picture was more like circle of energy flowing between myself and people I meet.
I must add here, I generally got to certain kind of meditative state- when my mind stops bothering in a short time and would generally indulge in some spontaneous mental pictures that come up from apparently nowhere but I guess emotions guide those pictures.
Thanks. I guess, with practise, my mind will also recede quickly when I meditate.
I was interested to read about the pictures you evoke/invoke.
from previous day the pictures were-. russian dolls -one coming out of another and then bigger doll chasing after the smaller ones and finally my head became a russian doll that was leading the pack. ..It may appear silly to read like that.. but the point is each of these scenes are loaded with emotions and background senses. I am not any expert in meditation and these pictures may be considered trivial in some school of meditation,something to be ignored -not indulged in, however I tend to put some value to these and as they become some thing to be felt in my head and the whole process is some how, is a kind of showing direction or expression within myself and giving strength in some form -but I am aware they themselves can become distraction. So about some clue to how they are being evoked/ invoked-firstly mind gets settled-I am not being bothered,second mind start acting as a light house focussing on emotions that are down and dark,my head today was acting like a heavy-weight sitting on a black spot of emotion that was making me weak and finally the picture came out a person was bouncing colored balls against the floor and running and passing new colored balls to others who start bouncing in turn and so on-in that sense mind did not think and make up that picture it just came as an expression after some negative emotion being made null.
Thank you Pattern1 for sharing