Day 41

A friend of mine jokingly likes to say "I suffer from ADS - Attention Deficit SHINY!". We all recognize that distracted quality when we see it in conversation with another. And it's humbling to realize how, when all I have set is the simple task of focusing on my breathing, my mind displays full-blown Attention Deficit SHINY.

Many great ideas tonight - which was not exactly the goal. But one new development: I was in the middle of a very emotional thought. The emotion attached to the thought was unease about change. I dropped the story/thought, got interested in how the emotion felt somatically, relaxed my muscles and breathed into it.

I was wracked with involuntary shudders and a tear or two. There was no attempt to choke off either of these phenomena. There was no judgment. Just a curiosity. The moment felt like it was probably important. And soon enough it was gone, as I became distracted by the idea of making gluten-free, organic, 100-mile muesli.

Attention Deficit SHINY!

Day 40

Still at it. Despite my intention last week to return to a consistent 20 minute sit per day routine, I again missed two daily sits and made up for it with a 60 minute sit on Saturday.

When somebody first told me about meditation, one of my first rections was "What's wrong with getting lost in thought? That's where my song ideas and show ideas and work ideas all come from. Are you asking me to give that up? That sounds a lot like giving up my creative process."

It's not that traveling down the byways of your mind in search of inspiration, nostalgia, or a grocery list is wrong. Meditation is about making it a voluntary process, rather than an involuntary process. Maybe like toilet training your mind?

Tonight's sit was interesting. Very distracted, but in a lovely way. If you get caught up in a thought with a lot of emotion attached to it, the instruction is to keep the emotion and drop the story. Usually that's applied to stories that stir up anger, fear, resentment etc. Happy tonight to drop the thought but keep the feeling of joy.

Day 33

During my meditation this evening I got repeatedly distracted by re-playing something in my mind. Earlier in the evening I was texting with my friend about how meditation was supposed to train your mind in being more present, less lost in thought. And now, here I was, lost in thought about this text about not getting lost in thought.

This same friend recently bought me a jasmine plant. It has been blooming in December. Whenever a new bloom opens, there is an intense burst of sweet scent that fills the room. A new bloom opened in the middle of my sit. It was sensory and experiential and immediate.

I got carried away from the present moment with my own clever theorizing about meditation, and carried back by a simple, elegant, living gift.

Day 24

The last two sits have been during periods of extreme exhaustion. My work schedule has been such that I am often meditating just before bed, when I really would prefer to be IN bed, or on days when I have had far too little sleep the night before.

It is more difficult to keep the mind focused when I am tired. It wants to drift off, yet it seems as if it does not have the energy to really get off and running down a fantasy path.

That is all for tonight. Bed would be a good idea. I am going to a Christmas party instead.

Day 22

Yesterday's sit was qualitatively different from any other meditation session I have had in my life. Usually, I am able to remain present for a few minutes at a time, if that. Then I am off on some train of thought - career, sex, food, revenge. Yesterday I remained present for what seemed like ages. A few little thoughts attempted to take root, but I was able to quickly recognize them and gently ease myself back to focusing on breathing and noticing my body. It was an interesting experience. There was emptiness but no boredom. Graphic designers talk about the beauty of negative space. This was like a mindscape version of same.

Fortunately I have heard many times that one should not be surprised when after a breakthrough session like that you go right back to a cluttered, discursive mind again. So I was not disappointed today when that was precisely what happened in today's sit. Not TOO disappointed.

Day 20

People often say that it's essential to have a to-do system of some sort. If you don't, you're bound to remember that letter you have to mail from the office when you're at home in bed. Or remember that you need to take out the bedroom garbage when you're at work. With a to-do system, you can relax with those things, knowing they're covered & written down somewhere. You can stay present rather than obsess on them.

All of which is to say that the mind has a way of picking the least opportune moments to go down certain pathways. Today I was present in my meditation for periods of time, but I also got carried off by creative ideas for my musical. Good creative ideas. Creative ideas I was sort of unhappy to let go of and come back to the present. Creative ideas I wanted to get up and write down so I wouldn't forget.

I guess the trade off with meditation is that I am training my mind to remain present to whatever it is doing. So that when it is time to be creative, I will stay in that zone, instead of thinking about hot fudge sundaes or erotic photographs.

And for the record, the best creative idea my mind got distracted by was putting a song called "Day Job" back into the show with an earlier edition of the lyrics, and having the dancers do polyrhythmic percussive choreo that's somewhere halfway between "Stomp" and Tom Waits' pipe-clanging hijinks on "Sixteen Shells". I didn't forget.