Ten minutes, and I lasted about four
Tried meditating for the first time. Set a timer for ten minutes, sat on the floor, and by minute four I had mentally reorganized my entire kitchen and drafted an email to my landlord.
Is that... normal? I don't have a religion, so I wasn't praying to anyone or repeating anything sacred, just trying to notice my breathing. Is there a version of this that doesn't belong to a particular tradition, or am I borrowing something that isn't mine?
Genuinely asking. Everyone here has been so kind about the beginner questions.
The facilitator who couldn't lie still
Confession: I hold sound baths for other people two nights a week, and until recently I could not get through one myself. Lie down, close my eyes, and immediately start answering emails in my head.
What finally helped wasn't a fancier bowl. It was permission. A friend led me through one and said at the start, 'You don't have to relax. You just have to stay.'
So I stayed. Fidgeted, planned, stayed. Somewhere in the long hum of the last bowl my jaw unclenched for what felt like the first time in weeks.
Resting without guilt is still a practice for me, not an achievement. But I'm staying.
Right palm up, left palm down
When the semazen turns, the right palm faces up to receive from heaven and the left faces down to pass it on to the earth. Nothing is kept. The whole teaching, in two hands.
I don't whirl much anymore; my knees vote no. But after the evening prayer I sit with my hands like that on my knees and breathe with a phrase a Naqshbandi friend gave me: hush dar dam, awareness in the breath. Every breath in, received. Every breath out, given away.
Ten minutes. Then the tea goes on, as always.
One breath at the door before every patient's room. In: I'm here. Out: you're not alone. Twelve rooms today, twelve breaths. Some days that's my whole practice, and it's enough.
Day nine of sitting for five minutes before I open my laptop. I'm not good at it. My mind still wanders off by second ten. But this morning I noticed I've stopped dreading the five minutes, which feels like news.