Today I waited until evening to sit. Waited for the band next door to end its rehearsal. Worked in my kitchen while waiting. Finally they finished. Same song as last time.

Started sitting in virasana (hero’s pose) supported by the zafu, then about halfway through switched to baddha konasana (bound angle) so that feeling could return to my feet and ankles.

My lumbar area did feel better at the end of the 30 minutes than it does when I sit in sukhasana (easy pose). In Sanskrit, sukha means ease, and dukha means suffering. I have also heard these words translated as expansion and contraction.

So when I sit, I can just switch to a different sitting posture to transform dukha into sukha!

“Whole body awareness” has morphed into awareness centered in my living, changing body-mind system. My attention wanders from the narrow (that ringing in my ears) to broad (all the sounds coming into my ears), narrow (the tingling in my ear canals), broad (darkness), narrow (the point between my eyebrows), broad (feeling vibrant), narrow (traffic noise), and so on.

Internal, external, narrow, broad, sight, sound, feeling–awareness slides through the twelve states of attention without much stickiness. These are patterns in a background of awareness.

Awareness is like the x between instances of attending. When I become conscious of it, x shifts to being an object of attention.

This is very, very sad to me. I really enjoy the x between instances of attending when I can just be in it. I feel so alive and vibrant and full of love when I’m in this state.

I miss it when it’s gone. I don’t know how to make it happen, which is probably a good thing or I might be doing it all the time!

I wonder if this is maybe a little bit what heroin addiction is like.