Activity #10 - Meditating

In the chaos of our lives we don't get to stop and just be. We want to try incorporating meditating into our daily lives to give us awareness throughout the day. The activity is to try and meditate 15-30 minutes a day for a week or so and see how it goes. Comments and thoughts on the experience.

Raj:
So, I wasn't able to meditate on Monday or Tuesday... but I started on Wednesday. Since then, I've meditated for 10-20 minutes every day except for Saturday. Here are some of the notes I jotted down after the meditation sessions
09/16
I had a pretty good meditation session... my alarm didn't go off, though... after a while, I knew the time was up... so I checked... I went about 6 minutes over... so total, I went for about 20 minutes. Lots of floating thoughts, but not stress-related worrying or anything. All just related to my life. They definitely were all over the place... well... mainly about basketball coaching, school, my general sickness, and Astha. I always end my sessions with the saying: "May all beings have peace and harmony. May all beings have love and compassion. May all beings have happiness and goodwill. May we all realize the unity. May I be able to share whatever happiness I have within me, with others..."
09/17
Today... for the first half of it... I was pretty much just thinking about the basketball practice and how I'm going to approach it. When I sat.. I didn't do anything to get me in THAT mode. So, I need to go back and do the countdown and visualization next time. But it's all good... the basketball thoughts came and went. Then I started observing the breath at the nose... and I observed that the moment my attention goes elsewhere is in between breaths.. after the exhale, but before the next inhale. That's the moment my attention leaves the breath and goes elsewhere. Knowing that, I guess I'm trying to more conscious during that moment. Final thought... it's really annoying that my cell phone alarm doesn't always work.
09/18
I didn't write.
09/19
I didn't meditate.
09/20
I meditated this morning, but I'm writing this in the evening. So, one thing I do sometimes when I meditate is at the beginning of the meditation, I will imagine myself at some spot in nature alone. Usually, it's a beach... and I hear, and see, and smell the beach. Then I take a step into the oean... symbolizing connecting with the entire existence.
So, I talked about this with Astha... now that we are partners in life... growing together... does my visualization include two people? Should it? Or is the spiritual journey an individual one?
So, twice this week.. I decided to start with a visualization... and without making a conscious decision one way or the other... both times, the visualization included both of us on that beach together.
This spiritual journey.. is one we walk together.

Astha:
Ok, finally getting to this. So I was not so successful in keeping up with the meditation. In the week that we were supposed to, I think I recall doing it 2-3 times. Prior to that I was meditating maybe a little more but have not been keeping it up. i know i have one email i wrote you after the meditation and i've pasted it below.

"hello my dear. so i'm going to email u my thoughts and we can gather them and put them on the blog. i did around 20 minutes today which is increased for me. lots of floating thoughts today. i feel like way too often i was just going through the day in my head and running a check list of my patients and stuff to do adn what i need to remember and i don't kno...a little frustrating. i opened eyes once to check time and i had 8 minutes left. i also switched positions to support my back once. i did note the rare moments that i just completely focused on the breath...it was nice. i felt the stomach going up and down with the breath, i felt the whole breath. it was peaceful. i think the bad prt about writing thoughts is that during the meditation i'm thinking of what thoughts am i thinking so i can make sure i remmeber when i write it down. so i don't kno if its hte best idea. but all in all good to stop and just breathe. i did the combination of the breaths and the gayatri mantra again."

all in all my thoughts on the meditation...its always a new process for me because i haven't really done it in the past. it takes a certain amount of discipline that i always seem to find an excuse for...in the morning, i want to sleep more, at the end of the day i'm too tired and i fall asleep during the meditation. when i do do it, it helps me stay calm. its a step back from the chaos to just be. especially right before call, i've noted that i react less to the physical/emotional stimuli that come throughout the day/night. i read your entry before i did another session once and i tried the visualization part...i pictured us by the tree with the beach in front where you proposed. it was nice. this process would be one of many things that i would like to make more routine.