Author Archives: MaryAnn Reynolds

About MaryAnn Reynolds

I practice advanced bodywork in Austin, TX, specializing in Craniosacral Biodynamics and TMJ Relief.

Witnessing the ordinary

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This morning the visitors to my guesthouse were just ordinary folks.

Attention wandering during body scan. Then remembering to  connect my breath to each part as I scan, not planning it but staying as long as needed. Five breaths for my head covers the territory. Another five for my neck, sensing and releasing tension.

And so on down my body (interrupted occasionally by Wandering Attention, a frequent visitor) and then the feet! Yes, there’s definitely a flourish of attention and delight when awareness reaches my beloved feet.

Mostly I’m just noticing what it feels like to be me, here, now. Feeling little aches and pains, little tightnesses and heavinesses.

Then realizing that  much of my body isn’t feeling aches, pains, tight, heavy. You know what? Those parts are doing okay! Functioning with ease. I like that.

Hey, I just did the old figure/ground trick, a very useful tool. Bring the okayness to the foreground and let the pain recede into the background. Yep, I can (sometimes) choose what I attend to.

And then on to whole body awareness. I say those words to myself, start with a breath, and “decide” to stick with just breathing, noticing the expansion of my physical body and my energy with each inhalation, and the rest and release that come with each exhalation. Such a nice soothing pattern, this breathing. In, out, expand, release. Repeat until the end of this life.

Mind wanders but feels lazy, not getting very excited about anything. Actually, this is kind of boring, just sitting here breathing. If I hadn’t recently woken from a full night’s sleep, I might feel sleepy. I want something to do. Something else.

A part that lives in the dark would like to experience some silence. Sure. I/we/attention notices the emptiness between thoughts, the just being. The length of each emptiness seems to become longer. Or maybe time slows.

At times, time itself seems to be suspended by some kind of hook, and then something — another breath — releases it to drop away. Some odd dream-like mechanism is moving time, like in a Terry Gilliam film. Time is moving slowly, irregularly.

Now it’s crawling, now stopping, now lurching, back to crawling. It’s the rhythm of stillness in Gabrielle Roth’s 5 Rhythms.

And then I hear the chimes, ending my session.

Today was not a big chakra day, a big energy body day, a big mind or big heart day.

Today was a day of witnessing the ordinary.

Working with a meditation teacher

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Before late 2009, I meditated for several years without a teacher, usually for 20 minutes a day. My meditation sessions were relaxing. Sometimes they were expanding. Sometimes my mind was caught up in thoughts. Sometimes I entered deep states of bliss.

After the first few months, I did not have a sense of progression. What I experienced seemed to repeat itself at random. It was all beneficial, but random. I didn’t have a sense of where I might be headed, except there was a possibility that something called “enlightenment” might be at the end of this path.

I discovered that Peg was a meditation coach late last year, which encouraged me to commit to a daily practice. It actually seemed like a no-brainer, as in, “Mary Ann, you live in a city with a Zen priest who can function as a meditation coach! You are privileged beyond your wildest dreams and cannot pass this up!”

Today Peg encouraged the sangha members to meditate for 30 minutes daily and to meet with her weekly, and before each meeting, to remind her of our full name and our current practice. She coaches a stream of people on Sunday mornings.

By current practice, she means what she has coached us to do in meditation. For some, their current practice might be to focus on their breath. My current practice is to start with a body scan and then focus on whole body awareness.

This isn’t random. Peg has experience with both spiral dynamics and meditation, a powerful combination that means she has the skill and experience to know what to prescribe.

For instance, often a meditator will take a big leap in growth over a short time and then will level off into a plateau. The plateau is necessary to integrate the big leap. Then another big leap occurs, followed by a plateau. And so on.

She knows what the big leaps and plateaus are likely to be about, and through her coaching, can identify where a meditator is on the path and prepare them for what’s ahead.

Now I have a sense of progression and a teacher I can trust. It makes a difference. I’m actually going somewhere. It’s called maturity or enlightenment. They may even be the same thing.

Working with my vata dosha

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One of my friends posted on Facebook last night that she was cooking, had an ear out for her baby, was thinking about how to improve her job prospects, wanting to finish a book she was reading, thinking about doing some yoga… Then she added that she was a pure vata Gemini.

I don’t know about being a Gemini–my daughter and granddaughter have a lot of it in their charts, but I don’t (I’m an Aquarius, also an air sign).

I do know about vata, because that’s my dosha too.

If you’re not familiar, doshas are another of those ancient Hindu bits of wisdom. Doshas are kind of like temperament, and there are three of them. Everyone has all three, but one usually predominates.

Balancing the doshas is what ayurveda is about–when our doshas are unbalanced, our health suffers. Diet, yoga, and meditation all play a role in balancing the doshas.

The other two doshas are kapha and pitta. You can google them and read all about them online. I just want to talk about vata.

People in whom vata predominates experience mental quickness and are excitable and irregular in habits. (You may have noticed that I don’t sit at the same time every day.)

Vatas are full of joy and enthusiasm when in balance. Yay!!! In stress, we respond with fear, worry, and anxiety.  😦

“Often have racing, disjointed thoughts.”

This is monkey mind on speed for people who aren’t vatas. It’s like reading unfiltered Twitter, only it’s happening in your head.

For me, at times monkey mind operates too fast to really catch anything. Then the part of me who is witnessing just waits, and eventually monkey mind slows down and gets in sync. I found this skill on my own. It’s a keeper.

It’s important for vatas to know that not everyone has this kind of monkey mind. Some people can easily turn off their internal dialogue.

If you are vata-predominant, “Meditate every day for deep relaxation.”

Okay, I can check that off my list of things to do. I’m doin’ it!

“An effort to establish a regular routine is very important for all people with a vata body type.”

Ooh, I kind of knew that was coming. So… on Monday, I will begin to sit early in the morning. And you and I shall see what difference it may make.

Inner dialogue about pleasure and pain

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Today is the first time that I sat after cooking but before eating. Just wasn’t that hungry, or rather, was hungrier for sitting than for eating.

A few moments from today’s session really stand out. I was sitting in half-lotus, ardha padmasana. My attention was on my energy body, being with the delicious vibrant hum of prana emanating.

Then my attention switched to feeling aches in my neck, hip joints, sacroiliac joints, and knees from tight muscles and residual tension from the work day.

It occurred to me that I could shift my position to relieve the pain.

An internal  voice said, “Oh, please, not yet. We’re feeling so pleasant and peaceful, sitting in this silent stillness. Moving will be a disruption. Let’s find out if we can extend these good feelings and ease the pain and sit in stillness a bit longer.”

I found I could intensify the pleasant sensations in my energy body a bit by giving them more attention to the point that the sensations of pain in my physical body were quite mild. There, but contained.

I wondered if I could overwhelm the sensations of pain with sensations of pleasure. It certainly seemed possible.

And then the sensations of pain became intense enough that another voice said, “Enough. Shift.” Guess it can work both ways.

So I shifted my position. My left leg was especially happy to stretch out straight and rotate the ankle before coming back into sukhasana.

And that was what was most remarkable about sitting today.

I want to add that when I sit, I experience much more than I can write about. A lot of it is nonverbal. It may be that the real benefit of meditation is this nonverbal “something else” that seems to be running in the background.

I also want to clarify something. These blog posts go to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. I got a comment on Facebook about a previous post about awareness that I have been pondering on.

The awareness I’m talking about isn’t necessarily being aware of anything in particular. It’s more that the act of being aware, regardless of object, is a huge surprising miracle in and of itself. It is unifying and endless and profound, and tuning into it is perhaps the most expansive experience I’ve ever had.

Falling in love with awareness

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I sat early this morning, before work. Long busy day, just now having time to post. Feeling tired, so this will be short.

Don’t remember details of this morning’s sit. Just that then, and later in the day, and even now as I think about it, I feel like I am falling in love with awareness.

It’s a subtle yet major shift in my universe, to understand that awareness is everything. From that realization, an unveiling is slowly taking place. I can’t hurry it or even describe it right now.

I can only ooh and ahh as the process unfolds.

Going to bed now. Can’t wait to sit again tomorrow.

The elephant is in my living room, but I can’t see all of it yet

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Meditated this evening, after work, errands, dinner. Feeling a little achy during session and now. Hip joints, left SI joint, adhesions in left thigh, left trapezius.

Chandler Collins, DC, says we’re moving towards him adjusting my left ilium, and that 95% of the time, it’s a permanent adjustment. It’s almost unbelievable that this end is in sight. My body has been twisted up for decades, and it’s taken over a decade to get to this point of untwisting.

I expect to feel less pain on the zafu and off.

Today’s body scan again was about releasing muscle tension, and it took some time.

During sitting, I felt drawn to my second chakra/dan tien/hara, noticing the rise and fall of my lower belly with each breath. I have an OM tattooed there. Long story, and now’s not the time to tell it.

Whole body awareness. Awareness through the whole body. Awareness with the whole body. Awareness is the whole body is awareness. Awareness is existence, is being, is experience.

Awareness seems both personal and impersonal. Personal in that it’s my body/mind, this body/mind experiencing the wonder of itself–these eyes, ears, this skin, this nervous system at work, this vastness of all that is. Impersonal in that it’s so vast, and so much is beyond my control.

Of course I’m familiar with the concept of oneness. At various times, I’ve experienced various degrees of merging. But it never occurred to me until these last several days that awareness unifies existence.

It’s still too big for me to really grok. I’m still looking at it sideways. I don’t think I’ve really seen the whole elephant yet. But I know it’s in my living room!

The elephant in the living room: awareness is everything

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Meditated after work today. I remembered something my teacher said, that technique is something people make too much of.

The important thing is to sit. It doesn’t really matter if your eyes are open or closed, or if your mouth is closed or open, or exactly where your tongue is, or what mudra your hands are in, or how you sit–in sukhasana, siddhasana, ardha padmasana, vajrasana, or in a chair leaning against the back.

Just sit. Pick a way that works well enough that you will actually do it.

And, she says, sitting still for a length of time creates pain, the kind of aches and tightness that arise for me toward the end of the session, sometimes earlier. That is part of the experience. You deal with it.

In the end it’s just another thought.

Today I sat after work. My left upper trapezius was tense and sore from stress and computer work. I spent some time attending to it, soothing it, releasing the tension, breathing into it, encouraging circulation and softening into it. It took a good half of my time.

Then there are the implications of awareness being everything. That’s a profound shift. It feels like I’ve discovered a secret, something that felt like a taboo when it first occurred to me.

Now there’s an elephant in the living room. What does it mean?

Well, here’s a start. Pat Robertson and Baby Doc Duvalier exist in my awareness. How can I think of them as other again?  My unkind thoughts about them are plainly and simply unkind thoughts in my awareness.

All I know about dealing with that is to love the person, judge the behavior. Easier said than done, sometimes.

I welcome hearing how you deal with this issue.

A happier, smarter brain

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Feels like this will be a short post. Back to work today after 3 days off. Cedar fever is gone, but I had a bit of a nosebleed this afternoon, another experience I haven’t had in years.

Fell asleep on the sofa watching a video; woke and thought it was much later. I am tired.

Sitting tonight, I spent time on breathing with each chakra and the surrounding area.

Noticed a lot of activity in my brain, around my head. I feel it with the skin of my scalp and forehead, but it’s coming from the inside. Parts of my brain are lighting up while I meditate.

There’s energy moving. There seems to be more movement on the left side.

Science confirms that meditation rewires the brain, and that’s what I think is going on. By sitting, I am allowing my brain to rewire itself in a smarter, happier way than I have ever consciously been able to achieve.

Maybe the promise of enlightenment is really an inducement to get people to just sit and rewire and become happier and smarter people. That’s still pretty good motivation!

I’ve read somewhere that meditation is the only non-drug way to change one’s emotional setpoint to be happier.

When I find studies on this topic, I’ll share them here.

Goodnight.

Thank you, readers

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I just checked my blog stats for January. I had 181 visits, not counting myself. I don’t know how many readers I actually have, but it averages out to 6 per day.

This feels gratifying, to put something out there and be met.

I want to thank each of you for reading my blog. I don’t know who you are unless you have subscribed.  I hope you check back in and leave comments.

Subscribers, many thanks. Daily readers–wow! You may be able to see changes over time that I don’t see. It’s always great to get feedback, so please feel free to comment and share your observations and whatever comes up for you.

This blog is probably not all that interesting except to those who have an interest in what other people experience in daily meditation, an interest in someone following through on a commitment for a year, and those who want to be supportive of my challenge because they know me.

If you have another reason, I’d love to know that!

The process of discovery is more wonderful than I had anticipated. I’m still committed and finding it fascinating, though certainly rough moments may occur. Great ones do occur as well!

End of the first month

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Today is the last day of my first full month of sitting daily.

I’m pleased that I actually accomplished zazen for 30 minutes every day. This may be the first time in nearly four years of meditation that I’ve sat for 31 consecutive days.

I’d heard how beneficial it is to meditate daily and wanted to investigate that personally.

Over the month, I experienced myself as a living, changing body-mind system.

I noticed I experience foreground and background inside my awareness.

I discovered that attention and awareness are not the same. Attention exists inside awareness. Attention moves from phenomenon to phenomenon–a thought, an itch, a memory, a plan, an emotion, an ache.

Awareness is everything.

A couple of days it’s been difficult to sit. I’ve been cranky and totally failed to find serenity and stillness. I can back off, look at the bigger picture of my life, and find compassion.

Because of those experiences, I’m modifying my rules. If I can’t breathe through my nose, don’t sit. And if external conditions for sitting do not bode well (i.e., noise), create better conditions or wait for change.

I often find myself sitting in a state of quiet bliss. One day that was amplified so much that I simultaneously felt like I was drunk, in love, and immersed in water, all at the same time.

My teacher says when that happens, I can take it as a sign that I’m on the right track. It’s a guest who shows up in meditation sometimes.

She also says that aches, pains, and stiffness–the physical discomfort from prolonged sitting–are part of the experience. It’s material to explore and work with.

Yes, I can give up self-punishment! Or so I hear! I look forward to knowing I’ve done that.