#7.3.2018

March 7, 2018 - Day 261

14 minutes and 37 minutes at bedtime

Allow me to explain the unusual duration record for 7th of March 2018. This explaining requires a little background. Like a backstory. Sigh. You see, I meditate on my bed. I share a very large bed in a small room in Bombay. There are 3 persons who share this large bed. Me and my two children. Three single beds have been put together to create this large single sharing-bed.

A few months back, I figured that meditating in the morning has one disadvantage. One cannot go on meditating endlessly in a morning session. There are things to be done for the working day. The opportunity to meditate forever doesn’t exist so much in the morning as it does at bedtime. At bedtime, I know that I don’t have to stick to those 37 minutes. In fact, I haven’t. I have moved from 35 to 36 to 37 minutes in the past few weeks.

The issue with nightly meditation which I am facing is somewhat peculiar to my circumstances. Last night and the night before that, my daughter turned in her sleep while I was still sitting upright in meditation. She has now touched me unknowingly two nights in a row. This does not help meditation. It instantly undoes the distance I have travelled inwards.

Last night, I kept waiting for my son to settle down. Although he is in his teens, I am habituated to respond to his movements. Unlike the bus passing the window, I find it difficult to not pay attention to my children’s movements. My son’s movements in the room last night were enough for me to snap out of an attempted first meditation after the first 14 minutes.

Right now, I am writing this blog in a perfectly empty room with earplugs on. I just want to get my mind into the habit of believing that as long as I have earplugs, it means that I have disassociated myself from my immediate environment. I have a feeling I am going to need this to make any sort of progress, within the bedtime session of meditation. Of course, I still don’t have a solution for the accidental touch by a child fast asleep.

Did my breath pause last night ? Yes, it did. Do I mind meditating for a total of about 50 minutes ? Nah ! Extra time is good for me. I regret not being able to detach at will, prior to meditation. This inability to shut the world off for something I am committed to, disappointments me. My precious sessions cannot be spent struggling with undoing the present conscious.