Comments on “The Mind Illuminated, a journal: Day 13”

This is my perception of changes due to the meditation. I may be unaware of other circumstantial influences affecting them.

I’m noticably irritable occasionally. Not drastically so, but enough for people who know me well to pick up on it. I’m not normally irritable so it’s identifiably unusual.

I’m also more attuned to pleasurable body responses than usual. My visceral sensory response to practically every ordinary interaction has cranked up a notch.

Generally, a non-conceptual, calm state of mind arises naturally while I’m out doing stuff, walking, writing, preparing food or whatever. I think this is connected to the style of meditation, but I wasn’t focusing on shi-ne meditation (which also gives rise to a non-conceptual state of mind) exclusively before I began this project, so I would have expected this to start occurring more frequently with the change in emphasis. That is, the same would have happened had I intentionally practiced only shi-ne for a month, though the quality of non-conceptual awareness seems different: calmer, quieter, somewhat less vivid and bright, with this practice so far.