Sitting In Stillness...

Finally meditated again this afternoon.

I've been wanting to meditate for over a week now.  But my altar and my cushions were all covered in a thick layer of dust.  (How's that for a metaphor?)  And it's been hard to find the time this week to clean everything and get it all ready to be used again.  But today I had plenty of time, and there was nothing I wanted to do more.  So I took it all apart, cleaned everything until it was looking like new, and then set it all back up.

It felt so good to be sitting there again, counting my breaths.  A little strange, only because it's been so long, but also so intimately comfortable and familiar, because I've spent so much of my life that way now at this point.  Kind of like putting on your favorite old pair of jeans after not wearing them for a couple of years.

I've decided to do things a little differently this time around; we'll see how it goes.  In the past, I've set aside a certain amount of time for meditating - 15 minutes, 20, 30, an hour, whatever - and used a timer to tell me when that set time period is up.  I actually have a special meditation timer just for that purpose.  When the chimes sound, it's time to stop meditating.  But I've decided not to do that this time.  Somehow, it just feels too rigid and boxed-in.

Instead, I've decided to just meditate until I feel the desire to stop.  Maybe sometimes I'll stop after a certain number of breaths.  Maybe sometimes I'll stop when my back can't take it anymore, and the pain gets too intense.  Maybe sometimes I'll stop when I get distracted and lose focus.  Maybe sometimes I'll stop when I just feel the time is right to stop.  Who knows?  The point is, that each meditation will be unique, and each experience will be dictated more by the feeling of the flow of Tao within me, than by whatever my brain decides is the most appropriate time to put on the clock.

Still, I'm curious to know how much time I spend meditating in each session.  So, I'm still using my meditation clock.  But now, instead of an alarm counting down, it's a timer, counting up.

Once I'd settled into position and gotten into a rhythm of counting my breaths, and begun to relax, it was just like riding a biker.  It felt like I've been doing it my whole life.  There was nothing that seemed to indicate that it had actually been almost a year since I'd last meditated.  And it just felt so good.  And so right.  So peaceful and serene.  So calm and quiet.  So empty and relaxed.  I knew I'd missed these feelings, but it took being there again to really bring home to me just how much I'd missed them.

I stopped after 181 breaths.  Seemed like a nice, prime number.  Also felt like I'd about hit my physical limit; my back was starting to hurt pretty bad on every inhalation.  When my eyes had adjusted to the light again, I checked the clock, and found I had been sitting there in stillness for just over half an hour.  Double the amount of time I used to spend in a typical session.  And basically effortless compared to the half-hour sessions I used to do, where I would have to push myself to get through it, always waiting for those chimes to sound, always wondering how long it had been so far, always "surely my half hour must be up by now!"  But this time, without that predetermined finish line to push towards, there was nothing for me to do but simply let go, and relax, and breathe, and be still.

I can't wait to do it again tomorrow.