"Why would I meditate" said David Lynch in his book "Catching the Big Fish", "meditation seemed boring". Why be just some bloke/bird sat in the same place for a long time not thinking, right. Who gives? I should just go watch TV, it'll make life much easier. To start with, my thoughts are endless, the position uncomfortable, my mind suddenly revealed as a million-layered stodge, chattering "should I should I should I, oh look - a bird". THEN, I start imagining that all is one, actually this is quite a nice experience, ah, how soothing, peace and quiet, then I get bloody cramp.
Even with the meditation and the years rolling by, I didn't manage to get past the cramp until last year (and I started in 2004). It's taken this long Because I picked up the practice, dropped it, picked it up, dropped it, picked it up, dropped it, and because it kept leading me on to new things. I always return to it, though. The only two consistent things in my life have been yoga and writing. I never stopped writing, it's just that its only now that I've given it the due it deserves. It's only now that I'm making it my centre, and that's a still part of the process.
This blog is one of 5. Four of those blogs are solely mine. I have often wanted to burn all four. I'm glad I didn't, because I can look back and laugh - but mostly grimace - my head off at what a bozo I was. An ernest, pissed off, maddened bozo. I can look back and see how far I've come in these years. Each blog has grown in substance. Just like with meditation, I picked them up, I dropped them, I picked them up, and I dropped them. Yeah, I'm still a bozo, but a little less of one.
One of the greatest things about doing what I want to do is that I can at times inspire people as much as I'm inspired by them, but not if this is what I am trying to do. Not if this is the aim.
What I know is this: I picked it up, I dropped it, I PICKED IT UP. If one really wants a piece of the PIE, one has to be determined to keep at it, to fall flat on ones face and then keep going.
What meditation means to me now is something very different from what it meant to me when I started. When I started it was a way of centring myself, of bringing peace from the storm, of just being able to be without all the jibberjabber, noise and sharp words. I needed it, and even if it was boring at times, perhaps most of the time, boredom was preferable to catastrophe and trauma. It's taken six years for meditation to become something other than peaceful at best to boring and painful at worst. Six years later meditation has become beautiful at times, and all the time I feel that i am rooted into a coalescing, ever-present field of energy. I have become something of a tree. I'm happy to be there, and I'm happy to be here.
I learnt a very useful exercise from Antero Alli called the "Bump Exercise", which I think can be found in his book "Angel Tech".
It's taken years to realise some of my aims; writing was the main aim. The more centred I am in my every day life, the further into the waters I can venture, the more I can bring to my writing.
Now meditation serves different purposes. It can rejuvenate me, it can inspire me, it can earth me, it can focus my imagination and focus my energy. It's not often the aim anymore, but a tool, and some times a consequence.
WORK:
The Last 13 Months Alone:
12th January 2009 - 31st March: Average, 5 hours of yoga/meditation per day.
31st March - 1st October: Weekdays, average 2 hours of y/m. W/E, average of 3-4. Per week, 4 1/2 advanced exercises.
October 2nd - January 12th: No exercises. Writing. Everyday, average 5-8 hours.
January 13th - February 18th: Y/M becomes part of writing. All the live long day.
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