Day Eight

This anchor brings me back from all sorts of journeys this morning - out to hold sounds, temperature, body aches, restless thoughts. The stone is like a button that lets them be. There is a softening of body and thought. I am outside today and so there is much fresh sensation but broader, deeper, more unified. Concentration seems to unify, then put things in tune. I name both letting go of other sense contact and touching of the stone.

Day Seven

I am beset by thoughts of the past. I remember Jack Kornfield saying that meditation is not a place to practice psychotherapy, yet I try to gain some insight so that I can return to concentration. Perhaps it is better to be very very firm and come back to the stone, but I am wrestling with unpleasant feelings, and have no gentle return yet. These feelings, of anger and regret have something to say and that is why they are there. I don't want them but there they are. The notion that I am not the ego seems only a notion and incomplete when dealing with feeling. I reflect that my feelings are resultant from some combination of the idea of me in contact with others. I am not separate; and so there must be a broad consideration of issues.

The stone is a refuge from entanglement, a base from which there is a freedom to move my attention about, to not be overidentified with me and my feelings. The Serenity Prayer comes to mind; what can I change about the past? What can I let go of? How do I move forward when something heavy is still carried? I experience letting go as the opposite of moving away from. In that acceptance, regrets become so many little stone monuments, some noble, some ugly, pretty when covered with grass, harmless and helpful in the cemetary of the past near my home.

Day Six

At first I notice nothing but restlessness and haze. I note that and get a little distance. It seems helpful to name it as a big cloud. I notice a frustration with noticing; and a desire to 'get back' to being busy. I name that, also. The cloud breaks up a little with acceptance, into numerous body feelings and thoughts, with which I have numerous feelings and reactions. I touch the stone. "I am not a good meditator" I think. "I will write a book on meditation" I think. Honestly, I don't know how I can have such grandiose and poor evaluations in the same head, but I do.

I touch the stone. At first, there is the touching of the stone vs all else, the thoughts, the struggles, the body. I bring more attention back to the stone, and it becomes an anchor for receiving and letting pass all of the other junk. I feel much more at rest, receptive, not struggling.

Day Five

I dedicate this day to Jim, who is on day five of a Rohatsu retreat and has not slept. Bodhi Svaha!

Today I notice the desire to read about concentration; doubt again and the desire to move to the abstract. I notice the indirect dreamlike quality of so much of my life. My mind does not seem to like this particular concentration of touching. But I know enough to practice directly. These are the qualities of the stone and of me:

-Impermanence
-Non-separateness
-Unsatisfactoriness

The stone is not permanent and yet I touch it. It is not separate and yet I touch it. My relationship to it is unsatisfactory, and yet, the tools of insight into conditioned existence are in my hand. I am grateful for that.

Day Four

Noticing how thoughts pull me. Staying with the sense of touching of the stone. Doing so, thoughts of the day interrupt me. To stay put, I rub the stone with my thumb. This leads to a dilemma in my mind about whether or not that's a legit way to stay with touching. Could be too much forcing, and in the end, I don't want another layer to struggle with, but it works for a bit. Then adding 'touching, touching' to bring me back. Noticing how that leads to a song about touching in my head, which leads through the same rhythm to a different song, which puts me in a particular place, which reminds me of an incident, which leads to feeling self-righteous about the incident and so on. Noticing that. How the voice of simple identification becomes the voice of criticism.

Touching unexpectedly leads to arm pain, lots of it. This leads to doubt today. Why the @#$% am I doing this? Time to reset the intention to concentrate for the purpose of training the mind to see what is beyond attachment.

First of all, it's just restlessness, a physical thing. This particular doubt is the energy of wanting to get away. There is a big gap when I accept that, as the doubt goes up in smoke, the smoke clears, and intentions of curiosity, perseverance, and focus remain. And there is silence.

Day Three

I hold the stone in my left hand, mostly on two fingers, with my thumb on top. I intend to concentrate on the feeling of my hand touching the stone. I seem to want my breath to be the anchor. How to gently let go of breath? I recognize the breath, note that I am breathing also, and let it be more in the background; I say 'touching, touching' with my thumb on top of the stone. Then another dilemma of thought... is touching the thumb or my fingers below? Is there too much space to touch? Should there be only one small point such as the center of my thumb? Likewise, the stone is not one point. I could never make one point small enough to be one independent point on either the stone or my thumb. The desire to control space. Where is touching? Why does my hand ache? I hear crickets and geese. There is a desire to get up, to be done. There are such struggles with time.

Day Two

After picking up the stone and ringing the bell, I thought of the pressure to write. I considered how writing might take me up and away from concentration, interfere with meditation. But then I remembered to be with whatever arises, and thoughts that are troubling will often be there. So I handled them gently and went back to the stone.

There's a tendency to go back to breathing as a center and make the stone an object of awareness seen from the base of breathing. But that's not my intention, so I stayed with the stone. 'Only this', I thought, the touching of the stone. I moved closer to the touch of the stone, away from the thought.

Am I holding the stone or is the stone being held? Just more thoughts.

First Day

Day one of concentrating on a stone. This morning I held the stone in my hand, mostly with my eyes shut. It fits well there, and I spent some time feeling the heaviness of it. It seems just about right, when I hold it, I can feel a light pressure in the muscles of my forearm, and even the tension on my elbow and shoulder. That is all sort of neutral. I spent some time looking at the stone as well; it is grey-blue, and darker than it was some months ago, I’ve held it repeatedly at different times and kept it in my pocket and I suppose it’s gotten oily. I considered washing it. It has some blotches and it has a couple of pock marks which I think are from the keys in my pocket. I also spent time wondering which was better, visual or feeling with my closed eyes. Should I even have to pick one? Not at this time, I decided.