Specific uses of metta bhavana

Metta bhavana is probably best for emotional turmoil, specifically with regards to guilt and anger.

That has been my personal experience at least.

There is always a danger, however, of metta bhavana becoming attachment, which would be a problem, as it is happening to me right now. I'm too attached to myself, and also to her, so I guess it is a good thing that she is not contacting me at all.

It's hard to avoid the mind clinging on: afterall it has been a year and a half of being together. The end result has been a very strong attachment to her, and this attachment is causing me to wonder half the time, "why does she suddenly treat me like I am dead?", "why this sudden lack of contact?", etc. The attachment has caused me to have an expectation, that things will be the same, when things and emotions change all the time, like clouds in the wind.

This understanding has caused me to be able to take this breakup a lot better than when I was younger, when I was similarly dumped by another girl. I guess one becomes better at managing one's emotions with sufficient practice.
:)

Zen in Water

Yesterday, I swam.

I've been learning this new method of swimming, called Total Immersion Swimming. It's actually not a new method: I've been trying to learn it since last year, but haven't really had the time to.

It starts off with the simple premise that by reconditioning your body-mind to learn simple moves all over again, you can improve the shape of your body in the water, and thus improve your speed. In addition, you do not get fit by blindly applying brute force, but by practicing your technique, and increasing your distance steadily.

So yesterday I spent the time gliding in the water. It's really weird because I was too tired to try as hard as I used to, in the weeks past.

But my stroke efficiency improved tremendously.

All I did was to just trust myself, and to focus on what I was doing. It felt really good to just glide in the water, to move, and to focus on the sensations.

It was a very calming thing to do as well, almost meditative.

The Impermanence of Metta Bhavana

On Monday, I had gone for a Vipassana "appreciation" course taught by this Malaysian Chinese monk of the Burmese tradition.

He started off by teaching us shamatha meditation, i.e. meditation methods to calm and focus the mind. We started off by using loving kindness meditation, or metta bhavana.

In metta bhavana, you first cultivate the feelings of friendliness and love towards yourself, wishing to yourself:




May I be free from enmity;


May I be free from mental suffering;


May I be free from physical suffering;


May I be happy.


Having had a very rough night the day before, this meditation was a huge relief. I finished the two hours feeling very different from the previous night, being actually able to rest and to sleep.

The following two days, I've been so busy with myself that I have not really had time to sit and meditate for more than 20 minutes at one time. Consequently I have maybe meditated for around 20 minutes in the past few days.

The effects are much more obvious today: my mind has been swimming in thoughts about the past, and basically I have lapsed a little into living with ghosts again, with the memories coming back.

It's really important for me to get a balanced mind, so I think I will spend some time to sit down and meditate again today, to get back my balance and focus again.

The past two days

The past two days, meditating has been hard.

It feels a bit like taking a dump when the stomach is not exactly clear, AND the brown bugger refuses to cooperate by clearing out: frustratingly anal, to say the least.

I believe that it has in part to do with lacking sleep: in this, I am to blame for my own predicament. Somehow I just do not sleep on time. If anything, my mind has become increasingly ill-disciplined of late, wandering where it should not go and thinking of things which it should not be thinking... In particular, when sitting in the morning, especially THIS morning, it was a constant battle bringing my attention back to the breath, back to the nose and point of focus.

I would focus on the breath, and focus for maybe two or three breaths before a thought or song will start pervading my consciousness, and then my mind will simply take that idea on a romp past the mental boundaries which I had set for myself.... before I know it, my mind is completely lost in a dream. I would then bring my focus back to the breath, and the whole process would repeat itself...

Interestingly enough, towards the end, when my mind was completely exhausted from this repeated mental exercise, my mind quite naturally fell focused on my breath. For a longer time, like maybe a full minute.

Then I started dozing off again....

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On a separate note, I think meditation potentially is a powerful tool for the mind of the successful person which I want to be. It appears to me that the most important skill to have, really, is the ability to focus, and the ability to harness your emotions and thoughts instead of letting them take you away.

For example, in stocks and investments, the investment guru Warren Buffett emphasizes on emotional discipline: it is emotional discipline that allows him to harness the folly of other investors, who might be smart otherwise, but behave stupidly like lemmings running over a cliff when their emotions get the better of them.

Personally, I've experienced for myself when doing NS that courage really isn't the absence of fear, but being able to act in spite of the fear. That's why the most powerful person is the one who, when shit hits the fan, is able to make decisions without panicking like crazy.

I still have a lot to learn and to practice.

Beginning anew

It's always so hard to start again.

Especially when you have not practiced for a long time.

Then, the mind becomes clogged up again, like a giant glass of muddy water. The only way to clarify the mind, though, is to let the mud settle, to reveal the lucid liquid.

I have decided firmly to sit every morning for an hour, and if time allows, to do the same in the evening. In the morning, I'm sitting with a friend, which helps enforce discipline and to help stick to it...

But it's so hard to do! I sat, focusing on my breath, and thought that it was already an hour. On opening my eyes, I found to my horror that it was only half an hour: still 50% to go...

It's interesting how your body reacts even before you become conscious of it. I say this, as this fact caused me to tense up subtly... and maybe a few seconds afterwards, only then did I realize I was tense, and consciously relax myself.

It's going to take some time to clear this piece of crap...