By the second day, the song lyrics had faded, but in their place came darker irritations. Gradually, I started to become aware of a young man sitting just behind me and to the left. I had noticed him when he first entered the mediation hall, and had felt a flash of annoyance at the time: something about him, especially his beard, had struck me as too calculatedly dishevelled, as if he were trying to make a statement. Now his audible breathing was starting to irritate me, too. It seemed studied, unnatural, somehow theatrical. My irritation slowly intensified - a reaction that struck me as entirely reasonable and proportionate at the time. It was all beginning to feel like a personal attack. How much contempt must the bearded meditator have for me, I seethed silently, deliberately to decide to ruin the serenity of my meditation by behaving so obnoxiously? Experienced retreat-goers, it turns out, have a term for this phenomenon. The call it 'vipassana vendetta'. In the stillness tiny irritations become magnified into full-blown hate campaigns; the mind is so conditioned to attaching to storylines that it seizes upon whatever's available. Being on retreat had temporarily separated me from all the real causes of distress in my life, and so, apparently, I was inventing new ones. As I shuffled to my narrow bed that evening, I was still smarting about the loud-breathing man. I did let go of the vendetta eventually - but only because I'd fallen into an exhausted and dreamless sleep.Oliver Burkeman
About This Quote
The second day of meditation is when the real work begins and the mind is in overdrive. This is the time to let go of everything and just be in your meditation. The mind is just too restless and agitated for any type of meditation to be possible. This is when we must try our hardest to just sit and breathe, don't focus on anything or think about anything, just empty your mind completely and rest in the present moment. If you can do this for an entire day, you will be amazed at how much better you feel when you wake up the next morning.
Source: The Antidote: Happiness For People Who Cant Stand Positive Thinking
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More Quotes By Oliver Burkeman
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