This morning’s insight practice involved noticing each thought as it appears and labelling it as a one-off, or a recursive (repeated) thought.
This will eventually lead further into associating emotions in with the thoughts etc, but to start it was just identifying which were which.
The concentration portion was so/so – no one pointedness or strong piti this time. I felt concentrated but not really “locked in” if that makes sense – I’d loose the breath count and then come back to it a few times. I felt really concentrated on the breath, but counting felt like such a burden that I gave it up…. and got pulled away somewhere else. So I guess it’s there for a reason.
In the insight portion I got super concentrated and really good at identifying when thoughts were coming up, but I kept forgetting the labeling aspect. Instead I just labelled the emotional content behind them. That seemed easier and more straight forward for me than noting whether or not it was a recurring or one-off thought. Next time I’ll try and do better with sticking to the instruction.
I really discovered today how regularly I think in images. For the most part the audio portion of my thought process was actually quite silent – but the visual portion of my thought process was making a strong showing. All the standard lights, swirly smoke, geometric patterns etc. I also sometimes see myself sitting in the room, or see the cars drive by outside on the street.
In the Q&A after the meditation someone asked about visual thinking, and the response was that the majority of people think in auditory space they typically start there while teaching this technique – and save visual thinking space for later.
I love being an anomaly.
muchas metta
Sophia
the Good Heretic 