Again I am up and around before the 4am gong to rouse us
from sleep and I walk into a bracing wind as I cross the open lawn towards and
around the pagoda. Its multi coloured lights are already on providing a bright
focus in the darkness of early morning.
I walk down the road to the centre’s entrance and then feel my way
around the garden in the dark before heading to the meditation hall early to
try and get a head start in calming my mind.
I enjoy these mornings of solitude, they feel important to me. It seems strange given that we do not talk
and during the day the numbers of people you see seems far fewer than the 70 or
so here. Yet despite this I still find a need for the isolation and peace that
comes with my early starts.
While the discourses remain elusive with more about impermanence and those Kalapas rearing their head again, something seems to have come together with the meditation; what I feel is nowhere near as intense as that first experience two days ago but I do feel as if I am ‘in my body’ more and do not seem to be so affected by the build-up of sensations that has frustrated previously. I still have to ‘reset’ a few times in the hour and a lot of concentration seems to be required but there is definitely progress. After the morning session I felt very relaxed - that feeling you get after a long but rewarding run - and an unprovoked desire to laugh out loud for reasons I can not work out and in the afternoon I manage to spend an hour sitting immobile even though I was willing the session to end towards the end.
It all goes wrong in the evening. My mind is all over the place and I think of it as having a box of frogs in my head. I give up after thirty minutes and leave.
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