Daily Entry: October 20th, 2020

Meditation (Day 138)

Prep (1140)

Got five minutes to prep so I'm just going to read through the stuff instead of trying to recite from memory.

Motivations:

  • Practice Intentionality (set specific intentions)
  • Unity of mind
  • Subduing distractions
  • Overcoming the illusion of self
  • See what next stages of meditation bring

Intentions for the day:

  • Prep posture as long as necessary, then set intention to sit completely still
  • Body-scan during the "focus on the breath throughout the body" beginning part of meditation (stage 5)
  • Body-scan when few distractions and when focus not as vivid as could be (stage 5)
  • Focus exclusively on the meditation object (stage 6)
    • usually the breath at the nose
    • also the body parts being scanned
  • Keep awareness strong so that it can stop distractions and dullness from interfering
  • Specifically be aware of posture and do not give it attention
  • Do not feed distractions with attention (even with labeling now), instead just list the ones you remember during post-meditation reflection
  • Increase scope of breath attention to more body parts to help subdue subtle distraction
  • Eyes closed today
  • Before starting to focus on meditation object, cultivate joy
  • Wordlessly return to the set intentions

Distractions to look out for:

  • Wife
  • Labeling
  • Outside
  • Cat
  • Posture
  • Body-scan
  • Timer
  • Reflection
  • Politics
  • Haunting of Bly Manor
  • Meta
  • Hypnagogy
  • Vision
  • Work
  • Planning

Post-Meditation (1350)

Busy day, fitting things in. No reflection right after sit. Nothing new to report on, either. I think that's fine. Not every day requires some thought. The practice still has value without it.

Dream

Intention (2332 the night before)

So, still falling asleep a bit late, but opslead over. Sleep hygiene should help with regaining dream retrieval, so that's main priority.

I fell like writing a larger intent should also help.

Let's go over the whole routine I do as I lay down:

Focus exclusively on the dream intents.

Reality check when (typically I check for dreaming here):

  • cat
  • food
  • water
  • journal
  • toggl
  • watch
  • conflict
  • call out

WBTS at some point in the night. Prep for WILD.

Capture thoughts in notes when wake-up at any point. Try at least one sentence before going back to sleep.

Then visualize.

Time for bed.

ChiRunning

I am running. Focusing on form. I am running in my underwear. My wife tells me I shouldn't do that, so I run naked. That's all I remember.

Wake (logged at 0735 this morning)

Almost WBTS, but decided to sleep. If I had done WBTS, would've remembered dream more. but I think I fell asleep back into that dream. Woke again at 0620, so that was probably the time to save the dream, but wrote it down at final wake up time of 0730 (after laying in bed for 10 minutes).

I still consider most of this solid. Recovery takes time and super strong habits will also take time.

Pre-nap (1351)

Fitting nap in tight place. Reset time! Nothing new, just keep drilling habits.

Post-nap (1415)

10-minute nap. Interesting insight: visualizing doesn't incubate. Might think on that in intent tonight.

Experimental (Notion Organization)

Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Today was full. Tomorrow shouldn't be as full.