some notes on meditation

for me, meditation goes something like this:

1) sit down, set the alarm for 30 or 45 min, arrange the feet, hit the bowl, close the eyes, start following breath.
2) thoughts/breath/thoughts/breath/&c for 20-30 minutes.
3) at some point i realize that i really, really want the alarm to go off. the strength of this desire varies. sometimes it’s so vast and unyielding that i shift around without really noticing i’m doing it and open my eyes. most of the time, though, i somehow manage to back off. it’s not clear how to describe the sensation of “backing off.” i’ve heard it called “just watching” the emotion. i have begun to associate what actually happens when i manage not to get overwhelmed with the expression “just watching,” but i think that description doesn’t communicate how to do it to someone who doesn’t already know. i haven’t come up with a better way yet, but i’m trying.

now, bear with me please as i try to hash out some observations. it seems to me that the desire for the alarm to ring is not really the desire for the alarm to ring. the desire is actually for a state in which the desire doesn’t exist. the reason i think this is the case is because when i successfully manage to “just watch” the desire, i tend to get distracted, start following some other thought thought-stream or the breath, and by the time i realize that i should be “watching” the restlessness, it is gone with no trace. and after it is gone, i feel fine continuing to meditate. this indicates to me that all i really wanted was to not want the feeling of not wanting.

this is problematic. how does such a completely self-contained emotional loop arise? well, leo pointed out to me that just because something appears self-contained, does not mean it began as self-contained. i have noticed that such recursive emotional loops appear in other parts of life, but they feel larger, and are harder to notice and contain.

maybe this is why meditation “works.” it works because we learn (on a small scale) to deal with the least deal-able emotions of all – ones that attach to nothing but themselves. in any case, as i’ve meditated more and more often, i’ve found my ability to deal with the recursive desire has increased. meditation continues to be a strange and interesting activity.

t-minus 7.5 months

first: no more caps! a few years ago, after being an internet grammar snob for years and years, i decided to stop capitalizing things. i’m still fairly anal about spelling, but putting on the internet pajamas of capslessness has been a relaxing and positive experience. the cessation of capitalization (inside joke: good track title, eh?) is like a big way of saying “i am not going to take myself so goddamn seriously.” taking oneself less seriously is generally a good idea, unless you take you self so unseriously that you can’t stop laughing whenever you pass a mirror.

two. soon i will go travel abroad. i will have no home or permanence, i will live out of a 20-30lb backpack, and interact mostly with culturally-unfamiliar strangers. this is very scary. i suspect it’s going to be good for me. more on this as i get even more worried.

three. a poem about doorknobs:

95% of them

are shiny and brass colored

One

I was one of the five lucky graduate awardees of the 2009 Bonderman Travel Fellowship [1],[2].

In short: “Bonderman Fellows will undertake international travel for eight or more months, to six or more countries in two or more major regions of the world… Each Fellowship carries a $20,000 award to be used only for extended international travel. Fellows may not conduct research, pursue an academic project, or participate in a formal program or organization.”

This blog will serve as a public journal.

I plan to start traveling between March and June of 2010.   My very preliminary idea is to medite, hike, and drum my way through Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East.  Suggestions of crazy places to go are quite welcome!