Renewal

Ted Meissner on meditation and colon cancer, and — talking a walk in the park.

manny pacquiao in “the zone.”

Training (discipline), curiosity and mindfulness; all qualities crucial to meditation practice:

Andrew Corsello (in GQ) on Manny Pacquiao before and after the fight:

“About five hours before the fight, I asked him how he was feeling,” says Jayke Joson… “I thought maybe he didn’t hear, because he didn’t say anything. But then he said, real quiet, ‘I want to feel my training.’ I said, ‘Okay, Manny, what do you mean?’ He just smiled and said, ‘I feel curious.’ “

…Hours after Pacquiao’s twelfth-round win by technical knockout, Joson recalled Pacquiao’s words. Manny was curious. So curious, Joson realized, that even with his place in boxing history and tens of millions of dollars in the balance, Pacquiao decided to violate Roach’s fight plan. “I wanted to feel his power,” Pacquiao tells me on the plane ride. The question seems to discomfit him. Too private? His answer, spoken with lowered eyes, feels less an explanation than an admission. “I just needed to know. For myself.”

… Consider that—a boxer attempting to join his spectators in watching himself in real time, and with the same question: Is there a limit to this man’s ability?”

I’m not trying to suggest by any means that Pacquiao is Buddhist. But he does seem to have tapped into three crucial qualities deeply enough to produce a phenomenal athlete.

Read the entire article HERE.

meditation

Initial focus on breathing, but then about half doz. images of a cheese & egg quesadilla emerging, along with general agitation! Kept returning to breath; lots of thought stories about the quesadilla, and about the agitation. Built up to a peak, at which point I noticed a lot of the impatient feelings coming from shoulder and neck area. Body heated up, little ripples felt along shoulders then legs. Then it subsided, quieted, focus returned to breath.

meditation

After @ 5 min. of fidgeting, moved quickly into quiet focus on breath. The bell-like buzz started up almost immediately, and remained throughout. Little to no sense of impatience during the sit. Along with the sound of breath, and the “buzz” I noticed a rhythmic inner “metronome” keeping beat with the breath, and for awhile all the sounds I heard took on a rhythmic pulse, whether it was the windchimes outside, my dog snoring, or the pulse of blood through my foot.

Meditating from 40 min. to an hour really makes a difference in the quality of the session. As usually happens when I meditate regularly for longer periods, my dreams become quite vivid and detailed (or I just recall them better).

meditation

Tired. Dozed on and off: waking, dozing, waking dozing; upon waking, focused on breath, which seemed noisy, even as I drifted off. About 50 min. in, suddenly my breathing became very quiet, my focus sharpened and stabilized; I stayed awake and aware. In the quiet, a sustained high-pitched, bell-like zzz became apparent, and sort of filled the air – not unpleasant. After the meditation ended, the sound continued; I still hear it.

meditation

Whole body breathing; quiet focus throughout…emotions linked to vision of a room in my old house. a few thoughts, not much…the usual muscular tightness, but no judgement; toward the end, when heater stopped, physical urge to move when ripples of cold started up… that’s all.

meditation

Meditation: focusing on breath, whole body breathing, contraction, expansion. Thoughts fairly quiet, emotions too. Unhappy memory flicker; body response with small ache in chest area. A little boredom, judgement thoughts. Later, a drop in temperature. Chills on skin surface rippling (interesting); then impatience (agitation), but stuck it out to end of session.

meditation practice

Meditation: focusing on sleepiness/lethargy. Surprised to encounter heavy resistance sensation, dark, seemingly immovable, with an uncomfortable emotional component. Giving it space, it eventually fizzled, broke up, became lighter…leaving in its wake a little lower back pain and stiffness, which seemed no problem, in comparison.

This physical “wall” of resistance thing is something that comes up fairly regularly in my meditation…but only recently have I tried attending to it directly.