Diary Entry #4. Pressing Season
As I settled on my step it was understandable that there was a powerful scent of apples since there were two buckets of Tremletts Bitter ready for pressing. This apple variety is a special kind of cider apple that imparts a powerful bitter element when mixed with other varieties. It has even been known to be used in single variety ciders although I would consider this extreme.
Flying Monkeys
In my diary entry #2 I mentioned the notion of ‘crazy monkeys’ which has been described in similar ways within the meditation community today. To re-iterate this is the tendancy for the engine of the mind to run all over the place when the sitter attempts to just sit in the Zazen type of Zen meditation. Zazen is considered a core practice in Zen meditation.
What I have been finding now after a few months of sitting at my doorstep is that my ‘crazy monkey’ has become more targeted. Whist trying to still my mind and ‘do nothing’ (or not do doing if you prefer) I am getting answers to questions and ways of going forward emanating from unconscious levels rather than just random superficial things. It is still a distraction, but a more delightful one. So in a sense the crazy monkey has ascended.
A Revelation
I was excited to realise that after just sitting for 6 months that it was not like waiting for a bus. That feeling of meditation being a pointless and futile exercise where the most banal definition of ‘nothing’ is dominant. It is completely mistaken. I understand now that it is more like stepping on an escalator to who knows where, as a ‘psychonaut‘.