day 2

[Terrence Brannon]

Well, I was up early and out the door for Buddhist meditation. I decided
to do my Ernest Wood concentration exercises instead of buddhist breath
watching while I was on the cushion with the Buddhist meditators.

I got along pretty good with my practice, but at some point, I felt like
I was being escorted back to Buddhist meditation by the other people in
the room, who were experienced meditators - their minds took over mine.

So, I went back to Buddhist meditation.

And then we did walking meditation and I could not think of a neat way
to turn that into a concentration exercise.

I got back from the Go club and went to sleep watching the flow of
thoughts and let that send me off to sleep.

Then when I wokeup, I did my whole concentration practice from the
beginning. I chose the word 'stone' for Exercise 3 (sending out thought
along the arrows).

Some of the neat things I conjured up:

- the Flintstones
- bonsai garden (has stones)
- skipping rocks as a kid

The amazing thing is how relaxed you get from just letting the mind run
wild like that... it truly is a machine of karmic proportions!