Author: Saskatoon Insight Meditation Community

Today I had the chance to practice with a group, and certainly appreciated the group support in my practice. I didn’t get much sleep the past few nights so the first half of the sitting period I noticed definite drowsiness and sleepiness, without falling asleep outright. Trying to bring my awareness to my present moment experience and my thoughts was like trying to walk through deep, thick mud. By the time the bell rang for the end of the sit, I was surprised at how fast the sitting period went, but I suppose that the passage of time is so much different when I’m caught up in thinking mind.
I’m still grateful I took the time to practice, despite my sleepiness. I reflected on how different I felt after the end of the sitting period, and how the practice of meditation is truly a practice of transformation, although I can’t explain the mystery behind how this happens.
A habit I’ve been catching myself doing lately is getting caught up in busyness before I leave my house to go to work or on an errand. I find the energy of being rushed and trying to get as much done as possible carries over into the next activity, and I don’t have much space to slow down and breathe. Today I managed to catch myself doing this yet again, and thought that perhaps I could do something differently. With a whole five minutes left before I had to leave the house, I sat down in the living room and watched the sunrise out the window. Of course, it was barely a few seconds before my mind was off making up stories about what I saw and my plans for the day, but it definitely left a different energy than trying to finish errands around the house.

Hello everyone, It is my pleasure to introduce the Saskatoon Insight Meditation Community to the 28-Day Meditation Challenge 2015. I blogged once before for the challenge in 2012, but this is my first time representing my sangha, and I’m very excited to be a part of this wonderful event!

You can read more about our community on our profile, but I can briefly let you know that we are a community of practitioners in the Vispassana (Insight) meditation tradition of Spirit Rock and Insight Meditation Society (IMS), located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. It was the wonderful idea of our teacher, Jeanne Corrigal, that we recruit some bloggers on behalf of the sangha to join the challenge: myself, Andrea G, Carol, and Rod. It is our hope that we can encourage our fellow sangha members, and our sangha members all over the country and the world, to begin a regular or daily meditation practice, or deepen their practice. Therefore, we are offering our service to the community in the hopes of perhaps starting a yearly tradition that will continue into the future.

I will admit myself (and I know my fellow bloggers have expressed similar thoughts) that I am a bit nervous to be blogging and representing my sangha and putting my thoughts out there for the world to see! But I hope that by sharing from the heart my experience of my practice, including its challenges and successes, that I can offer others a glimpse into what a regular practice looks like in a lay setting.

I wish good luck to my fellow bloggers and my fellow challenge participants!

– Andrea D