Renegade Yogi

Back to Concentration

I just finished 30 minutes of concentration practice.

I had decided after my yoga retreat to focus again on concentration practice. I still don’t feel like I have “access concentration”. I need to get that before moving on.

But I am getting deeper. I feel that my meditation practice over the last week actually put up a lot more self-image than it got rid of. While I’m probably better at identifying which thoughts come from which modality, I feel less able to focus on actual experience.

For instance, when I first started practicing tonight, I was was trying to fit my breath into a very rigid idea of what it should be like. That eventually softened as I went on because I recognized it and consciously let go of it. But looking back, that idea was built during last week’s practice.

So I’m going to stay here a while. It’s important. I jumped ahead because I stopped meditating for a couple of weeks (I blame Mardi Gras), then watched a Shinzen Young video describing his teachings. I sort of forgot that I still needed to concentrate. But I’m just not ready for it yet.

Tonight’s session was a good reminder. I need to have easy access to a full commitment to one object while letting go of everything else. I did achieve that for brief spurts, but the distractions were too powerful. I feel good, though. I can’t wait till tomorrow.