365 Inspirations—363: Everything Changes

"When you are observing the truth, it is bound to change. It keeps constantly changing, and yet you are aware of it. This is Vipassana."—SN Goenka

It's DAY FOUR of the course. It's Vipassana Day! For three days I've been focusing on the awareness of my breath—for three whole days! But now I will start Vipassana. I will start to move my attention from head to toe and observe my natural sensations. This post is a repost AND it has been prescheduled, but I think it applies to what I will be experiencing today. Change will be in the forecast for sure! 

I feel I'm in a groove now. That doesn't mean it's easy, this observing the self. It's not easy to keep my attention inward on my breath and sensations at all times. The mind still wants to take over. The mind wants to pull me in this direction or that direction. What a monkey mind we carry. It keeps jumping from this branch to that branch. It never settles down. We keep filling it up. If we are bored, we find something to entertain it with.

But I'm in a groove now. I see what is happening. I am witnessing it. That's it. I'm watching. As I simply watch, or simply observe, I see that everything changes. Every moment changes.

There is nothing we can hold on to in this big, wide world....NOTHING. Instead of that being a scary thing, it is actually very freeing. There is a deep peace that comes from this.

Are you scared of change?

365 Inspirations—349: Hibernation

"It's thought that hibernation was once a shared characteristic among all mammals, and then we humans lost the ability to hibernate—but it still might be in our genes."—Steven Swoap

Lately the idea of hibernation sounds very appealing to me. Animals go off into dens and caves in the winter to sit out the cold and store body fat in unfavorable weather conditions and this makes sense.

I also feel I'm picking up on this hibernation vibe. I feel a sluggishness that won't leave me alone.

There are so many things to do, yet I do none of them.

I'm content to get under a big piles of blankets with a book and get lost in another story.

Maybe I'm tired of my own story.

Currently I'm reading a 19th century Russian novel called The Golovlovs by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. I would have never chosen this book from a bookstore, but it showed up one day on my kitchen counter and I've been reading and reading and can't put it down.

A yoga student brought it along to read on our yoga retreat to Sedona and was going to just leave it at the hotel, but my husband decided to put it in his suitcase on the rare chance that we might read it.

At the time, the story did not appeal to me. After all, it's about a family who gets caught in a vicious cycle of greed, self pity, loss, sorrow and boredom. Who wants to read a book like that?

Yet, the book is beautifully written and the characters come to life on the page. It's very easy to get quickly swept up in the story and there is a reason for it.

It's about the human condition—about our upbringings and foibles and how hard it is to break out of engrained patterns, but how freeing it feels when one is finally able to do so.

Underneath all the heaviness of this book is deep-seated love and beauty.

And I'm allowing myself to just be with this book and my own condition, which is slow-moving and sloth-like.

I read a little, then I fall asleep, I read a little more, than I fall asleep again. Sometimes I bring snacks into my hibernation den. I bring tea and mandarin oranges. Sometimes I even bring chocolates...

My vacation from the college has begun. Maybe that's part of it.

I seem to be able to muster up the energy to go out and meet friends, but when I'm home, it's back to my den.

And I'm loving it....for now.

Do you ever feel like you go into hibernation in the winter?