Sorry justabout - I left a bit abruptly yesterday cos there was a power cut. I was in the office and had to use my mobile phone to light the way to the door to leave No internet at home at the moment, so I can only mn at work in short bursts anyway. And yes, I'm working here, dp is local and sahd to our daughter - she's 2. And our floor is always available
Morningpaper - join us! At least post with 'did 10 minutes' or 'too much mn, no 10 mins' every so often.
Louie - do I find it easy not to be distracted? Erm, no, my 10 mins last night (Yay!) went more like this:
"
X is such an idiot, how could he say that? What am I supposed to say to y? Tomorrow I'm going to ...
Oh right, breathing
Oh that's better, this is what it's supposed to be like, that bit in the book said - oh.
I'm going to write about this on mn tomorrow - OFGS!
"
Except with more random thoughts about dinner/ the weird pain I get in my back/ whatever.
I think that all this is okay, though, the important thing is to keep noticing where your mind is going, and bringing it back. According to my book , eventually you start to notice faster, so you don't get so pulled into the stream of associations/ further thought before you realise and come back to breathing. One thing it says which I found strangely liberating, is that we often confuse our selves with our thoughts. Actually your thoughts aren't real, they're just things you're thinking. You don't need to get caught up in what they say, or even in evaluating whether or not they're true. Just watch them come, and watch them go again. Maybe this is only a relief if you've been thinking the thoughts of a depressed woman, I don't know!
Rebi - it's hard, isn't it? Especially when you feel yourself bringing it all home. Your walk along the beach sounds lovely though, being outside can really help to slow things down. I'm nowhere near the sea but I love walking in the mountains.
I don't know much about meditating with mantras - is it Tibetans who do that? Or do they use mandalas? Does anyone else know?
I think that a mantra is an alternative thing to focus your attention on, so instead of focusing on the breath you could focus on the mantra. Why not experiment with it and see if it works for you, or if you prefer just focusing on the breath? Or you could use the mantra to begin and end your practice, and follow the breath in between?