Sunday, February 15, 2004

I sat on a park bench for an hour this morning and meditated.  The temp was hovering at about zero.  I was dressed warmly, but the air slowly scalded my face and legs.  I had a very tough time with meditation this morning, not so much because of the cold but because I was really wide awake.  My brain kept throwing to-do lists at me and after a while started throwing plots for great sci-fi short stories at me.  The plot of one was of a guy who gets ahold of a biofeedback device.  A simple little thermometer that clips on to the end of his finger and tells him his skin temperature.  After a few weeks of experimenting he finds he can warm his fingers with his mind and do things like heat one finger up to 150 degrees while the one next to it is 50 degrees.  He eventually takes it to far and cooks one of his fingers until his knuckle pops like a microwaved egg. One trick to meditation is not to be frustrated when you find yourself wandering, but to just say, "oh, here I am again in science fiction land" and go back to watching the breath.  I then realized it's kind of like wind-surfing where you are cruising along for a while and then you fall off.  You gotta recognize the falls as part of the game and get back on.  Going back to the breath is like getting back on the board. 7:29:58 PM    comment []