After a week of the consistent practice of stilling your body - you should/may be able to sit still without twitching or itching for 15-30 minutes.
(if you can't do this yet my old teacher would have recommended another week of the week 1 practice shown HERE)
This week the practice is somewhat similar but with the added work of stilling our thoughts.
Our subconscious mind is what we are using when we do all those rote things that our conscious mind isn't thinking about - it never sleeps, it never rests - everything from our heart beating to our breathing to playing the piano and operating a typewriter are all subconscious processes. Our subconscious inspires us and warns us and pulls names and facts and pictures from our memory. You can see how there is great value in being able to work with your body's subconscious processes by working with your conscious ones (thoughts).
The conscious mind decides what is true for us - the subconsious just accepts - it is instinctive and the result of past reasoning and it connects us to everything - so by controlling the conscious mind - our own thoughts - we can work on controlling
(and 'control' is the wrong word here, but I am going blank on the right word - I think my subconscious memory storehouse doors are getting rusty these days - another reason I am meditating again)
our subconscious processes.
The following is the week 2 practice and I should say this part comes from an old paper I got from the YMCA camp - it has no authorship and is just a photocopy that I somehow managed to hang onto all these years.
Maybe your local YMCA has a class with a similar course, maybe not, the instructor was way out there in outer space and totally amazing. She was the only person at our Y I connected with at the time.
(I was once about to sign my daughter up for their daycare summer program when a cute little boy came up to the woman showing me around and asked him a question - I don't remember if she answered him or not - but I do remember her announcing loudly to me and the rest of the class, "his father is a lawyer that's why he asks alot of questions" -
my mind flashed ahead to my daughter's summer where this same woman would be announcing to the group - "her father is a truck mechanic that's why she has dirty fingernails".
We found another daycamp).
Week 2 Practice : select a room where you can be alone and a time when you will not be disturbed, sit erect, be comfortable but not too comfortable, sit perfectly still - start with 15 minutes and work up to a half hour (do this everyday at the same time) - clear your mind and just breathe - when a thought comes up, see it, but don't give it your focus, just let it float away from you and separate from you - work up to 30 minutes of being able to sit still and breathe without intruding thoughts (next week's exercise gets more interesting, but you have to master this one first - I shouldn't say master because of course, this is a process, but the YMCA says 'master' and I like the idea of mastering something with this practice, so we'll leave the word in here).
xo
*calm waters print by elgarbo Art
