Meditations

Hey ya!

This topic is not about meditating in its first meaning, it's about discussing with self.

I find this process to be fruitful, and we all can record some of these here so everyone can share their opinions or just discuss them with themselves.

I'm going to start with mine:

Today I woke up at 7 am. I slept yesterday at 5 am, and I'm trying to fix my sleep routine. So, with all these ups and downs, I thought this: Animals delay their sleep only when they're in a dangerous situation as far as I know (and preys are always in danger actually). But we do it almost every day arbitrarily. Even though we share similar hormonal/neural mechanisms with others, we choose to disobey. Does this mean we're under stress since using light in nights is common? Or are we addicted to some of our activities so we can't stop them and go to sleep? Maybe we have the ambition to surpass our daily limits? Or we're living an unbalanced life, obviously, and this creates so much stress that we're unable to sleep regularly, just like an animal in high danger. Or maybe animals actually delay on a regular base too and we think it's their routine.

This will be all for now.

I actually have had a lot of sleep problems, due to having nightmares and such. Relatively recently I was finally given a medication to help that. I have finally been sleeping well for the first time in 20 years.

Because of that, I don't force myself to go to bed or wake up at a certain hour (I have that luxury only because I'm unable to work). But the reason I've brought all this up is because I agree that I don't think we humans were meant to restrict our amount of sleep, except if we were in danger, as you mentioned. My experience of not having a job and being able to sleep when I want has opened my eyes (no pun intended) to the idea that simply sleeping when we need it is one of the things that modern society has taken away from us. Sleep deprivation leads to stress, depression, etc.

I don't have a solution to this, but maybe some day we'll figure out a way for people to get the sleep they need and still fulfill their responsibilities.

There is a good guided meditation that helps falling asleep without thinking a lot:

Jody Whitley Guided Sleep Meditation

This one works quite well for me. I was also surprised to wake up much more fresh and relaxed in the morning.

Thank you both for your contributions, sorry for I've just seen it now. Let's add some more to my thoughts: Because I'm unemployed, I've been able to rearrange my whole sleeping pattern. Now I get up between 7 and 8 am and go to bed between 11 pm and 12 am. I also started to exercise yoga, not in a meditational way - just some stretches and poses. It awakens the body and helps with my joint problems. I feel more energetic and less depressive, yet I couldn't start to operate better in my daily tasks. I'm in an identity crisis, which brings us to my next meditation:

It is really interesting to experience that even the most basic form of love (parental love) consists of some structural contents. No parent can love their child in the same way they love the other. Strength of the bond is really high in both of them, but they take their basis from many different things when you leave the parenthood thing away. It's only natural, of course, but I was inclined to think that parents only love because they're parents. But it's also about compassion, the resemblance of self, reactions, expectations and etc. because different children need different types of emotional supports, and it builds the child-parent relationship in many differing ways. So I guess many of us will always be judging their parents regardless of their good behaviours, and many of our parents will judge our actions regardless of how good people we are. Sometimes the best thing you can give to another won't do any good for them, and you'll feel unqualified, and it'll feel much worse if that person is close to you. Remember, you don't need to be compatible completely to stay close. No two people are completely compatible. Just try to stay aware of your ability to hurt others and keep a cool head.

Yep, it was a note for myself.

Hi Namara,

Thanks. I find that very interesting. I think we can change a lot to the better and also gain in happiness when we try and practice such awareness.

Let me share with you some notes I took from a recent talk with a tibetan buddhist monk. It is a great recipe for enhancing peace of mind and also our surroundings:

On reacting with awareness and compassionate action:

"When we see negative actions we should first try to prevent them. To help get a positive outcome in the environment we find ourselves in. if we can’t we need to make sure our mind does not get disturbed and we increase the negative emotions in us. when we prevent it we should do so with a compassionate and kind heart."

And on equanimity:

"When we don’t have the ability to change it we need to at least look at it like an illusion or a dream as we can’t do anything anyway. Because if we can’t avoid getting involved with our emotions we have double hardship. It is not only not beneficial for future happiness, but it also makes us unhappy now. But if we have the power and ability to do something about it, we should totally do it. If not, we should not worry. we should not grasp at it as real in a sense of i am right and they are wrong. it would make it difficult to do something about the situation. to look at it as not real might also free us to change the situation."

I'm really sorry to miss replies here, I don't check here frequently and it's my fault. Luckily enough, though, what I want to say today also might make a good response for you, Ambert (Now I subscribed the topic, I won't lose touch anymore.) (Oh, looks like I didn't miss for a long time! Great.)

But first of all, I believe looking at the situation completely like it is from a dream will create a distance so much that it might make even the compassion unnecessary. It feels unnatural to me. We should feel but with a clear mind, so we continue to look for better ways of helping in the incidents to come.

On Unwelcome Feelings

This entry of mine is dedicated to my thoughts on unwelcome feelings. I will invite you to think with me and correct me once more.

What are the unwelcome feelings? They are the feelings that we consider to be painful for the feeler or the receiver of its outcomes, such as sadness, anxiety/fear, anger. I take shame, guilt and hate as their upper-level outcomes.

What do these feelings have in common? I believe that their causes are either one of the two things:

1. Loss of something that feels good
2. Presence of something that feels bad

So if we believe that we should be in control of the situation and somehow this right is taken from us, we become angry.
If we profoundly believe that we don’t have any control over the situation, we become sad.
If we feel like we have some control over the situation, but don’t know its extent, which means there’re odds of us making mistakes or succeed, we become anxious.

Thus, those feelings are really intricate with each other and it’s easy for them to be converted from one to another or even feel three of them simultaneously. I won’t go into much detail here or try to exemplify, since this topic is for random deep thoughts during the day.

Obviously, any of us should be wary while dealing with the two causes I have described above. But I believe being aware of the root causes of our emotional reactions might change our interactions slowly for the better. Every one of them is natural, and trying to repress your emotions absolutely will have negative outcomes on your mental health. The key is to understand them, not to repress them.

I’ll discuss this with some of my friends, and update the topic if need be.

PS: I don't want this topic to be "Jedi Perspectives when there isn't one or even when there is", I thought of it like a free for all topic that every one of us can join with random thoughts. So, please do not hesitate to write here when/if you have something to share even if it has nothing to do with previous entries.

On Wellbeing

For the last few weeks, despite finding myself to be in a constant fight with myself because of my unemployment and being clueless about my next move on my career, I’m in some kind of peace.

There have been some fruitful changes in my life. Nowadays, I’m doing what I do for myself, my own good (to be honest, thanks to my father working non-stop to look after our family and not poking me with questions about my next job, and this is a luxury most don’t have, I appreciate this very thankfully). I’ve become a vegan more than 2 months ago now, it eases my mind to some point because most of the times I avoid being the reason for the bad conditions of animals. (I said ‘most of the times’ since even the phone screens might not be vegan.) I’ve been sleeping regularly and doing exercises regularly which modified recently to meet the needs of my back with scoliosis for a month now. It’s a first in my life, sleeping regularly by my own choice and not because of employment or studentship (actually, there are many times that I’d been to work with 2 hours of sleep). And I’m here, at this temple, slowly progressing my IP (well, maybe too slow to be seen by others but it’s really happening ).

Recently, I’ve been thinking about things like “What changed in me, why am I in peace despite being unemployed for almost a year, how did I manage to do the things I do today? It’s a first in my 27 years life and what if all gets lost again?”

Well, I believe, what made this possible is the isolation I’ve been in because of the COVID-19. I also deleted my 2 or 3 years old Instagram account, didn’t have one for 4 months and created an account again just to follow 50 of my friends, and now I don’t have the app on my phone because it takes my time. Without a society to compare myself, I have always thought that I wouldn’t know my place in the universe. Well, it is true at some point. But what if the comparison is in charge, telling you what to do?

Until this period of my life, I had always wanted to exercise because I wanted to look fit. I have always been skinny, and some of my friends made fun of it – they didn’t mean to bully me, but they kinda did it without knowing. I wanted to become a muscular figure, walk around with confidence and etc., but it didn’t work. After one and a half month of a gym membership, it felt like it drained me completely with such small gains. It wasn’t for me. And whenever I tried to do workouts at home, I felt exhausted and there were no rewards. Today, I do exercises for my own good, I know that most moves I do won’t change my body to a thicker one, but I don’t want to have back pains anymore and since I usually do mild exercises, I feel energetic (this was the first reason for me to start continue this time, actually).

All of my life, I had slept so I could listen to the teacher well and pass the exams, or so I could do my job well and don’t get fired. They are not good motivators. Today, I sleep because if I sleep enough I wake up rested and feel less depressed, and don’t feel like I’m stupid more than I really am (not trying to tell that I’m stupid, but we are all in some sense).

So, it looks like I have been carrying some burdens all along. Constant social stimulations are a thing to be handled with care. If you take too much, it hurts your ‘back’ just like carrying 20 ltr of water in drum by hand. You need to find out the right weight that benefits your mind before you develop scoliosis as I did. But what happens when I’m employed and not able to spend so much time on caring for myself? Will I ever be or feel ready as I seek? These questions are just sitting there, waiting for their turn to be answered.