Rory's Log

Daily Entry: July 25th, 2020

2020-07-25T22:41:57.000Z

Dream

I know my dream involved my niece and nephew... somehow. It also involved my new retainer, in which I somehow (physically impossibly) put my retainer in backwards and upon realizing it, fixed them, but found they were painfully tight on my teeth. I became worried that they would no longer work.

Meditation (Day 51)

Still some minor wanderings with maybe forgetting (not entirely sure, breath seems to be strongly in background and often helps bring me back), but again very strong day. Regularly getting into this intense feeling of focus. A feeling that I have explicitly wanted to control (it's something I invoked often in college, but have seen very rarely in my career).

I believe I keep finding the right posture fairly late into the session. It's possible I'm leaning a bit forward, which is irritating my lower back. My legs are less prone to falling asleep, though I've been avoiding pushing my lotus lately (knees have started acting up a bit). Got to make sure to listen to my body to avoid any long-term recovery shenanigans.

Extracurricular Stuffs

Saturday is wife's day, so my main goal is to use the downtime I have to organize my various action items I shoved into the weekend. Want to do some amount of them, but not have them take up too much of tomorrow so I can focus on some small project.

Really, though, I'd want to set myself up for success throughout the week with some 15 minutes per day. In fact, don't even want to commit too much time today/tomorrow, I don't think. Meditation has taught me the value of starting at 15 minutes per day and increasing that time allotment weekly.

Weekends have enough stuff in them that I can't really fit a large chunk of extracurricular. I'm including breaks in that "enough stuff", but breaks are important and good. There's also my weekly review and typically a large chunk of action items, of which I can maybe do a few.

So, what weekends are for, in regards to extracurricular, is maybe starting a 15-minute habit towards... something, and also working out how I fit that into the day-to-day. I can also maybe increase an already existing habit by 5 minutes.

So, then, what's a habit I want to form? I had a blogging thing going on, and really it still exists, but I'm back to thinking aloud here, because there isn't a blog I want to write right now. Once there is, I go back to devoting this time to that. Which means I've done a good job with making time for writing, I think.

One habit I want to form is to make more Anki cards out of things I want to memorize. Specifically, there's some work things I want to memorize (I keep it on the work laptop and don't have an Anki account to sync that data to, so it can include "internal-use only" items). These are coding-specific things that I keep putting off. I could also build some coding-specific cards over the weekend that are not work-related, to keep work and weekend seperate.

This maybe the "project" I want to start this weekend: 15-minutes of Anki card curation. I don't even have to add the card to my system (don't want to add too many at a time), but it should be constructed such that adding it to Anki is super fast. The general idea is to memorize the structures and I/Os of things (frameworks, APIs, etc.).

It's also not a bad idea to use some weekend time to think about a blog post I want to write. Not deciding on one maybe why I'm not writing one.

....

I'll add it to my weekly review list.

Daily Entry: July 24th, 2020

2020-07-25T01:17:23.000Z

Once again, had a dream that I tried to meditate on but lost it.... Need to practice writing it down or saying it aloud or something.

No extracurricular stuff today. But this weekend I should be back at it in some form. And next week no appointments or anything, so I should be able to make time on workdays. And the following week I have off, so we'll see what I decide to do.

Meditation (Day 50)

Today I had to put off meditation as I had an orthodontist appointment that I needed to start walking to at 0630. Set a timer during the walk and did 45 minutes of walking meditaiton, which went pretty well, but I used it to only further my resolve to make sure I meditated later.

Upon getting home, I stretched, and then joined the meditation meeting we have at work everyday. It was 25 minutes of meditation, and I continued another 20 minutes thereafter.

Some minor hiccups in regularly invoking introspective attention, but overall it was solid. If it's still like this on Sunday, I'll probably consider stage 3 mastered enough to work more on stage 4 from the beginning of the meditation and fall back to stage 3 practice when necessary.

Posture was mostly very comfortable. Was a bit worried yesterday, as I had some growing knee and back pain that lingered throughout the day, but I believe both of them were not serious pain but soreness, and I seem pretty recovered today, even after another urban hike to the orthodontist.

Will probably take it easy this weekend, though, and not run again until Tuesday (will go for some long walks, I think, though, still).

Daily Entry: July 23rd, 2020

2020-07-23T22:33:34.000Z

Because of the urban hike involved in going to my orthodontist yesterday, and the fact that I'll be doing it again tomorrow, I will not run today. My body is a bit annoyed with all the challenges I've been presenting it as it is.

Again, today I think extracurricular stuff will not happen, because I didn't get much work in yesterday due to the orthodontist appointment, and tomorrow I have another one, so got to get as much work as I can in today.

Meditation (Day 49)

Hit that solid posture again today. Decided against switching positions halfway through (though I wasn't pushing the half lotus today, so my leg didn't slowly lose feeling throughout the meditation). Though, at 5 minutes remaining there was enough pain in some problematic places, that I finished the meditation lying down, which was fine, more or less.

Got an early body scan in, but then my mind was restless for the rest so I couldn't fit another one in. However, the "focus on the breath" habit continues to become more consistent and gave me a strong feeling of focus once I settled into meditation. This feeling remained even with the constant stream of distractions.

Stage 3 mastery is something I'll be certain about fairly soon.

Daily Entry: July 22nd, 2020

2020-07-22T22:35:07.000Z

Have an orthodontist appointment that'll eat up a lot of my day today, so no extracurricular stuff, I don't think. We'll see, though. I'll keep the tag for now, and will remove it tomorrow if I don't make time for it.

Meditation (Day 48)

Hit a really solid posture for a significant chunk of today's meditation. Hit that "delicious stillness" where there's a strong desire to not move.

The "focus on the breath" thought when the mind starts to wander is cementing into a habit. Pretty amazing, actually. Several times I was also just strongly in stage 4, I'm pretty sure, where distractions were kept out of attention by continuous introspective awareness and thus only drifted in and out of awareness.

For some reason, the Lion King (the 2D one specifically) drifted in and out as a regular distraction today. "Can you feel the love tonight" was a particularly tenacious distraction. Interestingly, though song distractions are the hardest to keep away, they're the easiest to notice very quickly and kinda help keep me in the present. The tenacious frequency also sort of good practice for letting the distraction come, let it be, and let it go.

Mind felt intensely focused today for a significant chunk of the session. I managed to get two body scans in (one in the first half of the session and one in the second half). After the second one, distractions started overwhelming me, and I didn't feel I could do a third.

I wonder if the strengthening of mindfulness via full-body scans means learning to deal with a greater frequency of distractions. It seems quite possible. Yes, I'm strengthening the mind, and part of the exercise is strengthening control of the scope of attention, but it's also about just giving the mind more resources to work with. So, if control doesn't improve as fast as the power of the mind, it means I have to train more to get the new level of distractions under control.

It makes sense to me, though if that is the case it's curious that the book did not mention this....

Daily Entry: July 21st, 2020

2020-07-21T23:15:47.000Z

Dream

Had a dream that I narrated to myself upon waking up. But I went back to sleep and now it's completely gone.

How should I go about practicing recording it properly? Perhaps I should do what I do with "leaving the house". I have an item in my morning routine to "Practice leaving the house" wherein I go to pretend to put my shoes on, but before touching shoes, I stop and point at the various things I want to do before touching my shoes:

do I want/need to wear a mask?
do I want to put sunscreen on?
what else do I need to bring?

Perhaps I can lay in bed and do a similar thing? Perhaps I could use naps to practice? I already have hypnagogic meanderings that I forget by the time I end the nap. They happen much more consistently than dreams, and also I get multiple chances per nap. It's probably a good idea....

Meditation (Day 47)

Prime number, woo!

I believe I need to fix my posture again, though it's something I can find given enough time. By the end of today's meditation, I found a really solid position. I think I've gotten into the habit of leaning too far forward and curving my back too far back. Was tiring out my lower back.

Anyways, the experiment I referenced yesterday worked well today. To more consistently cultivate the habit of invoking introspective attention regularly (before forgetting the breath), I've decided to think "focus on the breath" during the pause between the out-breath and the in-breath. The goal isn't to always do this, mind you, it's to do it mindlessly.

Why?

It's something I've noticed is very useful during walking meditation. To keep track of which foot to focus on, I needed to say "right" or "left" for the foot when it was time to switch to it. This is because my usual "right" or "left" placement was when my foot landed, not when it was about to be in motion. But in motion is when you want to focus on that foot.

It took a long time to get used to this, to the point that it became a habit when not focusing on the feet to narrate the "left" and "right" while walking. This means I have something consistent to notice when I'm distracted or being mindless when I want to be mindful. But this only applies while walking.

Now, I could do some sort of "in" and "out" sort of thing, but in all honesty it's a lot of work to quiet that part even when focusing, and I don't want something as hard as "right" and "left" to overcome again, as useful as it is.

So, the goal is that when I get distracted, I hear the "focus on the breath" during that pause. It worked pretty well today, and because I'm explicitly building a goal of quieting it when actually focused, it wasn't itself distracting when the breath was a focus (though I did need to explicitly stop myself from thinking it).

I believe I did not forget the breath today because of it, and by the end of the session I was pretty solidly in stage 4 territory (keep introspective awareness continuous, and immediately notice and correct for gross distraction and strong dullness).

Extracurricular Thinking

The above thinking may become its own blog post.... I'll think about how I want to store the above writing so I can edit and play with it.

Daily Entry: July 20th, 2020

2020-07-20T23:51:22.000Z

Hectic day today. Various fires to put out where I could maybe have been of help (not sure if I was at all).

There will be no extracurricular work today, I think. I still have various morning things I skipped to do (including spaced-repetition).

Still have work to do, though.

Meditation (Day 46)

Meditation went well. Lots of fighting distractions and stuff still. Still came out of it feeling good, still having leg issues. Might go back to switching to other leg at half-way point. A bit sore from exercise yesterday, so that had new issues. Think I have an idea on how to make stage 3 more consistent. Perhaps I'll play with the idea tomorrow and report about it then.

Daily Entry: July 19th, 2020

2020-07-20T00:05:42.000Z

This time I can't remember if I had remembered my dream upon waking up. Like, feels like maybe? Not going to tag this post with "dream" though.

Meditation (Day 45)

Took my time sitting down to meditate this morning. Ended up chatting with friends and family online for a bit beforehand. The meditation went solid though. I stuck with my plan to stay in first position for 30 minutes before switching. Tomorrow I'll increase that to 31 minutes. Not feeling any damage in legs from it, and circulation came back real fast on moving, so it's likely just a pinched nerve, and not an actual loss of circulation, and the solution to that is to just sit through it and it'll slowly get better day-to-day. Still going to increase the timing slowly, because there's no real rush.

There was a bit of mind-wandering and forgetting, but overall stage 3 was solid today. Regularly invoked introspective attention and looked at my mind. Lots of songs playing in my head today, which is ironic, because for the first week of meditation I expected this to be a problem but it wasn't at all. Songs are easier to catch and typically stay in the background, though.

Ended up doing two body scans today. The second one may have been tried with too many distractions going on, but both felt like they went well. My main worry is that I might use the scan as an attempt to fight boredom or keep myself too busy to be distracted. But I don't think I'm falling into that trap. Got a lot of solid chunks of time with vivid and intense perception of the breath. Can really feel it at my nose on inhale. Got a nice chill to it. Once that feeling sets in, my breath will often be the sensation that lets me know my directed attention has wandered, which is neat.

I'm going to pretty confidently keep stage 3 unmarked as "mastered" in my weekly review today. Again, though, next week could be different, and I feel pretty comfortable dipping my toes into stage 5 training (increasing mindfulness via full-body scans).

Extracurricular Stuffs

Sunday is my day, so I should be able to make some time for something today. What that something is, I'm not sure yet. Lots of stuff to consider.

Daily Entry: July 18th, 2020

2020-07-18T23:22:15.000Z

Dream

Did dream last night. Tried out narrating it when I was awake. This did not help me remember. Need to log the narration as I'm doing it. Have journal next to bed. Might try that. Might try recording into phone.

Meditation (Day 44)

I went into the meditation with the intention to keep the same pose the entire 45 mintues, but I gave in to agitation due to worry with 16 minutes left, and reversed form. I think I'll do a "1-minute increase at a time" strategy from here. It took me 29 minutes before I gave in, so I'll do 30 minutes tomorrow. So-on and so-forth until 45 minutes.

The main thing is just getting over the worry that I might be doing permanent damage. As long as my legs feel fine the rest of the day, then a 1-minute increase is fine.

Today wasn't as easy as two days ago, but it wasn't as hard as yesterday. Forgot the breath a couple times, I think, though again the breath usually brings me back, so possibly it is still in conscious awareness, just not the focus of attention. I did eventually get a solid frequency of invoking introspective attention, and even got some vigilance in with introspective awareness.

Today was also the return of feeling the need to meditate. Like, there's this mind fog that makes me tired and slows me down, and meditation clears it right up.

Decided against trying the body-scanning mind-exercise today, though. Maybe tomorrow. I'm thinking I won't mark stage 3 as mastered this week (I decide on mastery every weekly review). But wouldn't be surprised if I marked it as mastered next week.

Again, lots of stuff improving, and I'm still feeling the positive results of meditation. Don't see me giving up on meditation any time soon, which is really cool.

Extracurricular Stuffs

So, it being a weekend, I will absolutely not do any work-related extracurriculars. Today being wife-day, I might not do any extracurriculars at all. Or rather, I have until my wife is ready to go grocery shopping, which could be any minute now.

I may just organize my projects area a bit in Notion (which is where I organize extracurricular work, e.g. I wrote the meditation blog post there).

Daily Entry: July 17th, 2020

2020-07-17T23:20:12.000Z

New tag today: extracurricular. This is better than "side-projects", which isn't something I'm doing, as-of-late. If I were to do side-projects, it'd fall in the time bucket where I fit extracurricular stuff.

Meditation (Day 43)

Another prime number, woo. So spoiled. Next one is 47, I think?

Today was very hard. Definitely forgot the breath, though it's strange because the breath is likely to remind me that my mind has wandered. Which is neat. Perhaps a sign that it has stayed in awareness? In any case, lots of fighting, and a fair bit of physically fidgeting. A stark contrast to a couple days ago where I basically sat completely still the entire session.

To be fair, I am experimenting with a variety of things, including but not limited to:

how I invoke introspective attention regularly
how I rest my neck on my shoulders
how I rest my shoulders
how I keep my back straight
how I position my legs

Further, my success with running harder has made my legs complain a lot more during meditation, and I'm not sure how seriously I should take it. Don't want to damage my knees or anything.

I don't think I have anything to worry about, though, I haven't felt any worrying pain outside the session. The pain melts right off during my 5 minutes of walking post-sit.

I might just see what happens if I maintain the pose for the duration of the sit. Let my leg fall asleep and everything. Though, at the same time, I am noticing my flexibility improve at a significant rate... maybe just wait until that plateaus and allow myself to reposition at specific intervals. Maybe every 10 minutes for now (instead of 22.5 minutes that I have allowed recently).

Though I just looked it up and maybe it's just fine? I'll try to sit still the whole time tomorrow.

See? Lots of things to play with. Though it's all improving, and the meditation is worth it, even when it's hard. I don't feel like I've lost practice even though I didn't do as well today as most of the week.

Extracurricular Stuffs

Looked over what I put together yesterday. Made some minor edits, but I think I'll need some other eyeballs on it. Which is perfect because there's a meeting in like 14 minutes.

Daily Entry: July 16th, 2020

2020-07-16T23:44:44.000Z

Since I shuffled meditation a bit, book reading has stopped (used to be something I did after making oatmeal but whilst waiting for it to expand in the hot water).

Going to need to practice my intention to read and find a consistent place for it....

Dream

I did in fact wake up and meditate this morning while laying in bed. And there was a dream I remembered. But I didn't focus on it and now... it's gone. There's some vague recollection of family. But that's it.

Meditation (Day 42)

Best number today (though, I mean, I'm not a huge fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but 42 is a fun concept).

Definitenly forgot the breath at least once. Possibly twice. The first one was getting lost in thought about a recent Twilight Zone episode. The other was getting lost in thought about how to practice Super Smash Bros. Melee.

But, other than that, really solid. Struggled to maintain stage 3 (invoking introspective attention before forgetting breath) in first half, but broke past the barrier and had some stage 4 (continuous intraspective awareness) in second half. Felt confident enough to do a body scan to increase mindfulness (stage 5).

Still feels like I've leveled up a few days ago. Don't "need" the meditation, and as such come out even sharper than I did when I "needed" it. Perhaps this feeling will become the new normal and I'll feel the need for meditation again, though now the extra value is providing plenty of drive.

Extracurricular Intention

Still playing with words here. As my extra work for the day may not always be a blog post, nor will it always be outside of work, "blog" and "side-projects" don't always feel applicable. Today, I think I can make some time for some work writing. I will try making that time between 1630 and 1700.

I also have 5 minutes left of this little writing block to look at it a bit.

Extracurricular Results

Ended up making good progress, and lengthening the 5 minutes above to 25 mintutes. No longer need to fit it into 1630.

Daily Entry: July 15th, 2020

2020-07-15T23:33:35.000Z

Somehow just plum forgot to write about my meditation yesterday....

Dream

Definitely had a dream, but have forgotten it. I'm starting to wake up with a little meditative routine, I may be able to try to summon my dream and make it my focus.... Long term goal, though. Don't even have a consistent meditative wake-up, yet.

Meditation (Day 41)

Prime number, day, woo! And it's one of those pairs, so I get to celebrate again in two days!

Anyways, today and yesterday were super solid. Like, I have mentioned, I believe, that meditation has become a lot for me how others have for caffeine. I need it in the morning to become functional. However, yesterday, and today, I didn't have that feeling. It wasn't quite the feeling I have post-meditation, but it was a solid alertness.

However, I wasn't about to use that as an excuse to not sit down and meditate, and... I think stage 3 is mastered? And stage 4 may not be far behind. I don't quite have the endurance to last the entire 45 minutes, but it's pretty close, and I think the endurance will come pretty quickly.

And my mind just feels so powerful today, and it felt really powerful yesterday. Really starting to feel in control. Though my mind does constantly wander off the cushion, it is true. And I even got distracted from diary writing right now with some work Slack and some DMs.

But I'm not lost too long and I'm noticing it pretty consistently. Constant feedback is helping me get better, even off the cushion.

Daily Entry: July 14th, 2020

2020-07-15T04:15:05.000Z

It remains to be seen if I make time for work writing today.... A lot of time being eaten up today, might want that half-hour for a little bit more work.

Dream

Dreamt that my dad was tricking me into maintaining co-ownership of the property. He was pretending to steal it from Michael unless I intervened. Upon discovering this, I tore up the contract where I was gaining ownership.

Meditation (Day 40)

Oh, wow, I forgot to talk about this! I didn't skip it or anything. It was a really solid session, too! But tomorrow's was very similar so I guess I'll talk about it tomorrow's post.

Daily Entry: July 13th, 2020

2020-07-14T04:58:56.000Z

There will be no writing today, either for work or for personal purposes. I went to a webinar instead ("A Time to Listen"). It was solid.

Dream

Again had a vivid dream that has since faded completely.

Meditation (Day 39)

Stage 3 mastery is within reach, I can feel it, and I think stage 4 will follow shortly there-after. Once the periodic check-ins are in place in a session, I find that continuous introspective awareness kicks in. Only a few things manage to steathily steal my attention away from the breath.

This morning I woke up feeling pretty awful, but had the resolve to withhold judgement on what'd I plan for the day until after meditation. Sure enough, meditation melted away the weariness clogging up my head. It's experiences like that that really confirm that meditation is doing something and it isn't just that I got used to my ADHD medication (though, to be fair, with my new schedule the ADHD medication is kicking in during meditation).

An Introduction to Meditation by a Beginner

2020-07-13T11:16:12.000Z

A lot of what I'll be talking about will be concepts from The Mind Illuminated that I have internalized and mostly put into my own words. The goal of this post is to summarize this, add in some of my experience, and give you a solid starting point for meditation.

Immediately Useful Things to Note

It's possible that you decide not to try meditation, and I think that's fine. However, there are some ideas I just found generally useful that I want to share before you decide to leave.

Your Mind is Like a Pet

When I read this concept, it brought me back to the book above. Basically, the main tenants of training have shown that positive reinforcement works way better than negative reinforcement. We've learned this pretty succinctly about pets, but we fail to apply it to humans (even ourselves).

This being said, I want to talk about frustration. Frustration is, in my experience, often the result of you realizing you did something wrong. You're frustrated for any number of reasons, but the fact of the matter is, often the exact point you get frustrated is not a useful time for your mind to get the feedback of frustration. The mind just gave you useful information: something is wrong. You want to reward that, and make your mind better at doing it sooner and sooner so that eventually you catch the incorrect thing before it even occur.

In meditation, this frustration can occur when your mind wanders and you forget to focus on the breath. This is, luckily, an easy frustration to overcome. You can work on being happy that you noticed you forgot and try to focus on the breath again. In life, there are similar frustrations where a simple altering of perspective can instead bring joy. See if you spot any of them and can make this transition.

The Six-Point Preparation Process

Motivations: why are you doing this?
Goals: what do you want to achieve this session?
Expectations: are your goals and motivations realistic? Aim for a balance between challenge and skill.
Diligence: set the intention to try for the duration of the session.
Distractions: what distractions can you expect to encounter and how do you think you can mitigate them?
Posture: you may be staying still for a good while, make sure your posture is sustainable and healthy.

This is a process for preparing for meditation, but I find it useful for many things. Even posture is often a good thing to think about when prepping to do something that'll take a while.

Dealing with a Busy Mind

Sometimes my mind is so scattered I can not hope to focus it towards a single thing. Instead of instantly trying to focus it to a point, focus it gradually. In meditation, there's this 4-step process:

Focus on the present
Focus on the body
Focus on the sensations of breath within the body
Focus on the sensation of breath at the nose

Like the six-point process, this idea can be applied elsewhere, though it needs tweaking to its context. Try defining your own 4-step process towards focusing on a given priority.

For instance, with work I've been playing with:

Focus on company (email, slack, big thinking, using the product, etc.)
Focus on team responsibilities
Focus on assigned tasks
Focus on specific assigned task

If you find you can not focus in the given space, give your mind more space to roam by going up the list. Start at the beginning if necessary.

Invoking Intent is Incredibly Invigorating

In the Mind Illuminated, each stage has an instructional intent to declare when sitting down to meditate. For example, stage 2's intention is to "appreciate the aha moment when you've realized you've forgotten the breath, and to gently-but-firmly redirect attention back to the breathe".

The argument is that this is all your conscious mind really does: declares purpose and validates outcomes. Going back to the "mind as a pet" analogy above, "you" don't do much, your mind does most everything. "You" point and the mind does, and then you can provide some additional feedback and/or veto some actions.

Meditation is, in a sense, about making the conscious intention, mind action, conscious feedback loop more efficient and effective.

Memorizing Key Details is Incredibly Valuable

Anything I read about meditation that I wanted to remember, I put into an Anki deck. Anki is a spaced-repetition app designed for efficiently memorizing things.

Memorizing things such that they're readily accessible in the appropriate context is like having a tool ready when you need it and not having to find where it is.

For meditation, I memorized:

The names of the stages (up to stage 5, stages 6-10 will be added soon)
The intent to invoke when practicing in a given stage
What mastery of a stage looks like
The definitions of subtle/gross distractions
The definitions of sublte/strong dullness
The elements and how they apply to meditation
The moments of consciousness model definition
Misc other things

Some of these things aren't helpful on the cushion, but having them all available makes the ones that are incredibly valuable. Knowing which stages I think I've mastered lets me know which stage I'm currently practicing in, which lets me know what I should intend to do, all while I'm settling into a meditation.

Some Caveats

You are not aiming to erase "negative" emotions from your life. I don't believe in negative emotions. Emotions are neutral, their application can be good or bad. My goal is to feel the appropriate emotions at the correct time and share them with the people I love (when applicable).

I do not subscribe to a phrase that is common in meditation circles: "Suffering is optional." Suffering is not optional. Pain is a weight, and you can train to carry quite a bit of it effectively. Suffering occurs when the weight overloads us. Meditation is the weight-lifting for strengthening this capability.

Further, meditation is not a cure-all. Many wonderful things started happening since I started meditation, it's true. What's not discussed is my years of therapy leading up to starting meditation, and the ADHD medication I started taking 2 weeks before meditation. That being said, the feeling I get from meditation each morning is transformative every time, and it sure feels like meditation is the cause of quite a few things that weren't quite in place before.

My Path

Meditation clicked for me immediately once my definition changed from "watching your mind go" to "Meditation is training the mind's consciousness by sustaining attention on a predetermined object and maintaining strong awareness of the present without directing your attention away from the predetermined object." You train the mind both by strengthening it and improving your control of that strength.

Meditation sustained for me because I had milestones to achieve, with clear metrics for success, and clear instructions on practice. These milestones are the 10 stages of meditation, of which I know 5:

Practice Regularly
Interrupted Attention and Overcoming Mind-Wandering
Extended Continuity of Attention and Overcoming Forgetting
Continuous Attention and Overcoming Gross Distraction and Strong Dullness
Overcoming Subtle Dullness and Increasing Mindfulness

The breakdown of meditation into concrete, achievable goals is how I managed to quickly achieve stage 1 mastery: practicing everyday and practicing for the duration of the session. I always had something to work on, and a means of knowing whether I succeeded.

Stage 2 is about appreciating those moments when you realize you're lost in thought, and this concept was an epiphany for me and the most transformative part of starting meditation (so far). So often, I am lost in thought, away from the given moment. Appreciating this realization on the cushion made me appreciate it off the cushion, and until this epiphany I had no idea just how much time and energy I spent lost in thought. It is as though I have unlocked the ability to be awake and alert the entire day.

Within a few days, I found myself at stage 3, where you invoke introspective attention before forgetting the breath to search for and acknowledge distractions before they direct your attention away. And this is where I still am. Though, for a bit I thought I was in stage 4 (make introspective awareness continuous), and even dabbled in stage 5 (increase mindfulness). In truth, you can progress to the next stages during a session before you've truly mastered the previous one, but I think I have not yet mastered stage 3 (mastery looks like "forgetting and mind wandering no longer occur, and the breath stays continuously in introspective awareness").

What I'm Getting Out of Meditation

There was an almost immediate value to meditation that has sustained itself to this day. My energy levels are consistent throughout the day, and at a pretty high place once I end my morning meditation. I get this result before I take my ADHD medication or drink some caffeine! Though, just recently I have moved meditation to after those two things for unrelated reasons. I'm actually really curious what would happen if I took out the coffee or the medication entirely, but things are in a consistently good place, so I won't mess with it for now.

Before meditation, I would often be super exhausted about two hours before bed on weekdays, and randomly exhausted for whole days on weekends (though sometimes I had energy). Now, I don't notice a difference between weekdays and weekends.

My main hypothesis for this is that the practice of meditation, specifically the mastery of stage 2 (appreciating those aha moments of having forgotten the breath), made me realize that I was lost in daydreams constantly throughout the day. My mind was often thinking about a vastly scattered amount of things, and often it was doing so intensely (furrowed brow and everything). That's mentally exhausting.

Practicing stage 2 throughout the day has significantly curbed this habit. Especially valuable was the "meditative formula" (relax and look for joy; observe, let it come, let it be, and let it go). Don't get me wrong, I still think about random things, but now I have the tools to "practice intentionality", which is something I've wanted to be able to do for a long time.

I have also been able to develop a better relationship with my mind. Appreciating the aha moment of distraction has led me to appreciate it whenever my mind lets me know when I forgot to do something I meant to do, no matter how late. It's led to my mind being much more punctual about such reminders! Which is excellent for building a time-tracking habit, which I've successfully done.

Why I've Made This

The main goal of this post is to help people who, like me, wanted to get into meditation but didn't really "get it". My first introduction to meditation was in high school. I was told to sit upright and count up to ten and back down from ten.

I tried this, I wasn't very good at it. It felt like something could be useful about it but I couldn't place it. I abandoned it.

Years and years later, I tried this app called Headspace. I went through the first 10 sessions (they were the free bits). And... I noticed some neat things, but it didn't really click why I should do it.

I ended up feeling like maybe I was getting the same thing as meditation out of running and other exercise. Maybe the many hours I manage to get away from screens and other major distractions provided a "natural meditation". Maybe that's why I "didn't get" meditation, because I was doing it already naturally.

There was some truth to this feeling, but meditation goes deeper. Meditation is training the mind, not simply letting it be free to roam. Perhaps those natural habits have given my mind a lot of free strength training, but that power was raw and scattered. Meditation tempers it. Which is exactly what my ADHD mind needs, even after a bit of medication.

Daily Entry: July 12th, 2020

2020-07-12T23:21:46.000Z

Dream

Had a very vivid dream that I almost remembered whilst waking up but it absconded.

Meditation (Day 38)

Today went really well! Increased the meditation time from 40 minutes to 45, but didn't feel the need to look at my timer near the end. I did look at it halfway through, but that was to decide to switch positions at the halfway mark instead of the 25-minute mark. My legs are still falling asleep, and whilst I'm clearly still gaining flexibility, I'll have each leg do half of the session.

Though, I have looked up stretches and exercise for the lotus position and I'll start doing this before meditation I think. Turns out my flexibility is pretty far along, but there is a ways to go, still. Possibly months.

So I'll also play with my form regularly to find a compromise between pushing it towards ideal, and making absolutely sure that I'm not hurting myself. Better to go too slow than hurt myself, as well, so I'll try to err on the side of not hurting myself.

Anyways, I really got into a solid focus by the end of the meditation. Could really feel it. It was intense, and I think I was solidly in stage 4, where gross distraction and strong dullness were kept at bay via continuous introspective awareness. Stage 3 wasn't in full mastery mode today, as I think I forgot the breath once or twice, but it was in solid form for most of the session.

I'm also really starting to appreciate the random noises I hear whilst meditating. They're reminders to verify I'm practicing, and I thank them when I notice them. Gives me a bit of meditative joy.

Blog Guidance for the Day

Ooh, new section. Instead of just reporting on what happened, let's make a bit of guidance for myself (avoiding calling it a goal). I'd like to edit and get my "Introduction to Meditation by a Beginner" in a "publishable" state today. It's not going to be good, because I don't do this. But I've been told that quantity is more important than quality, because experience will bring quality, and quantity is experience. I'd like to go for 1 thing of writing a week (won't necessarily be a blogpost each week, as there's writing to do for, say, the work wiki and stuff like that).

In any case, I'm pretty sure there's enough content in the post now, and I just need to heavily edit it. The goal today is to work on it until it's in a state that makes sense. I can do this multiple times, but the idea is that the state it's in at the end of the day is its final state. If I don't touch it today, its raw state is how I'll publish it. Which should be... understandably readable, but very rough.

No Blog Writing Today

Ended up playing a bunch of SSBM, and watching a fair amount of TV. Didn't even look at the blog.

....

I guess stick with what I said? I'll give what I've written so far a proof-read and post it. I might not have much time tomorrow, and I'm planning on devoting time I was going to devote to blog to work writing, so....

We'll see what I do, I guess. I'll probably just post it as a blog here, even.

Hmmmm....

Maybe I'll make some time tomorrow to copy it into a post here.

Welp, Went Ahead and Did the Above Right Away

Cleaned it up a tiny bit. I wanted to basically rewrite it entirely. Not happy with some bits. Maybe I'll come back to it later. Though at what point am I not a beginner anymore? Eh, figure if I haven't been practicing for a year I'm still that.

Heh, maybe my next post will be an analysis of this post.

At some point the proper blog posts should live somewhere, though.

Daily Entry: July 11th, 2020

2020-07-11T23:24:55.000Z

It's a weekend day! The first weekend day wherein I'm devoting time that would be writing here to writing in blogs. Though, I'm also trying to be better about making "wife's day" (aka Saturday)... wife's day. So we'll see how much time I devote to writing today.

The goal will still be to post something tomorrow. Or, rather, have it ready to post, but maybe I take a bit to set up the blog area.

Meditation (Day 37)

New prime number day? New prime number day! Woo.

Definitely haven't mastered stage 3. I do, in fact, still forget the breath. Also, while breath is often in awareness, I'm not so sure it's in "conscious awareness". I think there's a difference.

I do believe I'm getting better at regularly invoking introspective attention, though, which is also helping me achieve vigilant introspective awareness in some cases. So, mastery will come with time, as long as I'm digilent about practicing and improving, which currently I am.

Not even disappointed that I'm not as far along as I thought (thought I was working on stage 5 at one point). It's good to know where I am. And I'm still getting some solid effects from practicing meditation that last well after I'm off the cushion.

What I'm saying is: even if progress is slow, I don't see myself getting impatient and giving up anytime soon.

Daily Entry: July 10th, 2020

2020-07-11T00:48:13.000Z

Dream

I did remember my dream at the time.... I woke up in the middle of the night due to the dryer running. Thought I could sleep through it, but I was wrong.

The dream had a lot of content in it, but what I specifically remember is some sort of Avatar: the Last Airbender story, but there was a shape-shifter pretending to be Toph.

That's it.

Meditation (Day 36)

Played with the timing of my meditation this morning. Ate breakfast, drank latte, and took ADHD medication first. Did this mostly because I woke up late, but also that I've noticed being hungry during the sit a couple times and wondered how not having that feeling would affect things.

Overall, went fine. Still in stage 3. Forgetting the breath maybe once or twice during the sit. It slides from focus of attention to conscious awareness a lot, but that would be dealt with in stage 4. Found a pretty good posture at this point. A point on my shoulder gets a bit stiff, but that's it.

I think I'm pretty good at identifying various forms of dullness. It's the mind wandering that's the hard bit for me. Especially if I have some sort of obsession, like with work right now there's a pretty addicting task to work on. I can find myself thinking about it when it's not the time.

This sort of thing though continues to prove the value of meditation, I think. Not being able to stop thinking about a thing is a recipe for burnout, I believe. Giving it its own time and keeping it there will prove very valuable, and is in line with my goals and my theme ("practice intentionality").

Blog Progress for the Day

I will not be doing any blog stuff today. Woke up late, as mentioned, and there's a lot of work I want to do, and I'm pretty sure already not enough time today to do it. So, I'll make some more time by cutting a few things here and there.

Daily Entry: July 9th, 2020

2020-07-09T22:57:25.000Z

Meditation (Day 35)

This morning's sit was hard. Probably forgot the breath quite a few times, though about 30 minutes in things started to settle. Managed to still get to stage 4 for a bit with a bit of vigilant introspective awareness.

Still gave me that very solid awake feeling by the end.

Had a very interesting moment where I noted how my want to look at the timer was like the want to scratch an itch. "Even if I look," I told myself, "a new desire to look, just as strong as before, will show up shortly after." That worked, and I didn't look. But then, later, a strong desire to scratch an itch just under my nose started growing. I resisted, but then the desire to look at the timer came to me again. I chuckled at how similar the two feelings were. Eventually, I gave in and looked at the timer (there was a minute and a half left in the meditation).

I only meant to look at the timer, but I noticed that at the same time I scratched the itch under my nose. What a marvelous series of events. Worth the breaking of the stillness. Perhaps it'll help me stay still next time.

Blog Progress for the Day

I think all the content I want is writtend down. Tomorrow, I'll read over what I've got, maybe note some more things I want to write, and maybe start the editing process.

Sunday still looking plausible.

Something I'll look out for is being overtly critical and also trying to cram too much in. I'm not aiming for a good blog post, I'm trying to build the habits that will lead to regular blog posts, which with experience and deliberate practice could lead to quality blog posts.

At some point I'll share the posts, too, I think, but for now I'll just publish them to an area and see what happens.

Daily Entry: July 8th, 2020

2020-07-08T23:18:42.000Z

Meditation (Day 34)

I achieved a significant quieting of the mind today. My breathe slowed to the point of my needing to focus significantly to feel its sensation at my nose. Stage 3 (overcoming forgetting) is going well. I believe I never forgot the breath today, and I managed to invoke introspective attention at some key moments. When the mind got really quiet, I had some solid stage 4 (continous attention and overcoming gross distraction and strong dullness) with a good amount of continous introspective attention.

If by Sunday I have managed to never forget the breath, I'll consider stage 3 truly mastered, and start working towards stage 4 mastery (gross distraction and strong dullness no longer occurs) and playing in stage 5 (increasing mindfulness).

I own The Mind Illuminated now, and have it in my weekly review checklist to refer to relevant sections of it. Will want to read the next chapter soon, as well.

Blog Progress for the Day

Just wrote a couple sentences today. I have a couple more things to write, and then the editing process will begin. Mainly, I want to go over my experience for the first month, and the side-effects I've experienced, and how confident I am that it was meditation (not perfectly confident, but reasonably so).

Seems plausible that I can have it "published" this Sunday. Though, I may use the draft being "ready for publication" as an excuse to update how this whole blog setup works (there's a proper way to use ghost.js and how I currently do it is not it).

Daily Entry: July 7th, 2020

2020-07-07T23:08:21.000Z

Dream

I was in a hypnagogic version of the compound I lived at in Tucson. Our dog Daysha (who passed away years ago) was acting stangely, and pooping very strange-shaped things. She ended up disappearing and we couldn't find her.

Meditation (Day 33)

Resisted looking at the timer the whole meditation today. Working on my neck posture still but I think I'm close to getting it. Didn't forget the breath at all today, I don't think. Managed a good system for invoking introspective attention (whenever I swallow). After the first 20 minutes of it, it felt like I had a good amount of vigilant introspective awareness as well.

Still had a fair amount of gross distractions take attention away from the breath (though the breath never also left awareness). Had some progressive subtle dullness at moments (a tell being that my vision blurs a bit).

Blog Progress for the Day

Got a good 30 minutes of writing in. Filling it up with a lot of good stuff, I think, though I believe heavy editing of the overall structure will be in order. Perhaps it'll be ready for editing by this weekend, though? This might mean "blogpost a week" could well be possible.

We'll see.