f4f3 | So my new trick for March...

Was to start going along to a meditation class. My first experience of guided meditation came at the tail end of some yoga classes I took a few years back. That's when I found out that the breathing and mind tricks I started doing when I was about five had a name (the five year old stuff is another story, mostly to do with losing the ability to breathe without consciously making myself do it. No, I never figured out what was going on there either).

Googling meditation in Glasgow revealed that we actually have two Buddhist centres here, both within a mile or so of the flat. The slightly further away one had classes starting mid-March, so I signed up, and tomorrow is the fifth of six sessions, with a day long retreat the Sunday after we finish.
I'm enjoying it, but I've not had much luck incorporating the practice into my daily life. I think this has a lot to do with work stress (closely followed by no-work stress) and I'm hoping that I'll stretch out a bit in the next three weeks or so.
The two types of meditation we've been introduced to are mindfulness of breathing, which I was already familiar with, and which is what I tended to think meditation is - concentration on your breathing to the exclusion of all else. It works for me in terms of refreshing my mind, kind of like a cool shower. I enjoy it, and I'll continue to do it.
The other was mettabhavana, or Loving-Kindness meditation, where you wish blessings firstly on yourself, then a friend, then a casual acquaintance, then someone you have problems with. This I really enjoyed. The only drawback so far has been that I'm not totally comfortable in my stance, and start getting various aches after 30-40 minutes. Despite which, I don't feel that 40 minutes is long enough for mettabhavana.

We've also used walking meditation as a way of loosening up before class - I think this is something that I'll incorporate in my dog walks, and I might make a point of meditating somewhere along the way (there's a little temple at the top of the Botanics, where I probably won't get mugged).

So I'd say this month's experiment has been a success, and something I'll keep up.

Oh, and I still have the beard.