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Starting Date: 6th
March 2018
I recently
completed my 30-day meditation challenge. I am familiar with more than 5 ways
of practicing meditation. And as far as possible, in this 1 month long
practice, I used one particular method i.e. observing my thoughts as they come
to my mind. The objective of this type of meditation is to become consciously
aware of one's thoughts. So, I also practiced this meditation with the same
intention. Now let me share how my 1 month long meditation practice went:
Day 1: 10 minutes
As I set the timer,
closed my eyes and began observing my thoughts, the first thoughts were about
my body posture. So, I consciously adjusted my posture, trying to have my spine
straight. Then the random thoughts began popping up. Images of few people came
up in front of my closed eyes. Behind my eyelids, I looked up towards my
forehead so that I would be able to focus on my thoughts instead of my body
parts or my soundings. Besides the people I know, I could see some places I
visited and things I did recently. I could hear a song or two playing in the
background (in my thoughts - not in reality). As some of the thoughts stayed a
bit longer, I would say to my mind, "What next?". Then a new thought
would come up. However, I felt quite positive and surprised about the fact that
I had very few thoughts during this session of 10-minute duration than I had
thought I would come across. The Timer beeped which gave me a little jerk.
Day 2: 10 minutes
So, it's the 2nd
day. I set the timer, closed my eyes and sat up straight. Like the first day, at
the beginning of the 10-minute session, my mind was being occupied by some
recent incidents and people I recently met. Then came other people and events
one after another. For some reason, my mind was occupied by more thoughts compared
to yesterday. I realized then that I was instructing myself to observe those
thoughts without being carried away. While observing the thoughts from a
distance, I happened to think of a television where my thoughts were being
displayed. A moment later, the TV showed some programmes and some scenes from
movies that I had no any idea about. I noticed very few of my bodily
sensations. Then I was having some self-talk. I was observing my thoughts
neutrally but some of them brought a bit of emotions for few seconds. Though it
was not a very deep meditation, I was below the surface - into my thoughts. So,
the beep after 10 minutes was still twitching.
Day 3: 10 minutes
It's third day of
30-day meditation. I set the timer and began observing my thoughts. With spine
straight and spontaneous breath, I observed all the random thoughts. The first
thoughts were about the people I met recently and the events that happened recently.
While observing my own thoughts, I was frequently being concerned about the
fact that I had to write about my experience after observing all those
thoughts. So, quite a few times, I was thinking "what was the previous
thought?". Getting back to observing my thoughts, I came across thoughts
of random places and people. Again, thoughts of people and events from recent
days came up. Compared to day 1 and 2, it was noisier today. However, the
density of thoughts was lower than day 2. I noticed a moment or two of bodily
sensations. In the middle of the session, the noise from the street gave a
little jolt. While for whatever reason I was trying to notice what was going on
my left and right sides of my brain alternatively, the timer beeped and it
still gave me jerk.
