Benni's first time Yoga-attempt

[benni]

Dream Yoga Basic Skills: Lesson #1: Sensory Awareness Meditation Version 1: Listening to a Noisy World. Level 1 Results of Day 1 (15/8/13): I was sitting comfortably on a chair in my room. First off the only sounds that I actually consistently noticed were the sounds of cars from the road. They drive by quite frequently and are loud enough to be consciously perceived every single time. As soon as I closed my eyes the first thing I then noticed was the quiet but constant humming of my computer fan. I think that my brain just decides not to consciously perceive this because it is such a monotonous sound that never ends or changes whenever I am sitting near my (obviously switched on) computer. I soon started to hear the sound of the TV in the living room and my parents (probably talking about the TV program). It was moderately quiet so that I didn’t understand full sentences. And again: probably the same reason as the one concerning the computer fan. The TV is just switched on and as long as there is no very loud or special sound coming from it I probably wouldn’t perceive it consciously. The loudness of the computer in my room and the TV and the casual talking of my parents is approximately the same (however the TV is slightly louder than the fan at times). Then I started to hear some kids running and shouting/playing outside. At times I heard the traffic light at the nearby intersection beep and some crows carking. The next thing I started to notice was my breath. It is a very quiet pull and push of air that sounds slightly different every time I breathe in and breathe out. It also depends on whether my mouth is open or not. The sound that my nostrils produce are a little higher-pitched than the sound that my mouth produces when it’s open while breathing in and out. Since the cars were quite loud I was unable to hear my breath at all times. After a while I heard a different humming sound and I thought it must be the ceiling fan of our neighbours, but I figured out that it was just the cars somehow distorting the sound of my computer fan (haha, crazy). At this point I felt like that’s it. There was a while where I stopped noticing new sounds, BUT I went back to the so-called “cars”. I then noticed that there are big cars, small cars, motorbikes and buses. The biggest discovery was that I can’t just label this sound as “car”. There is more to it than just “car”. That’s when I thought of what a car is made of and I soon discovered something that made me happy: I started to hear many different noises in the so-called “car”. I heard the roaring and slowing of engines but also the consistent hum of engines while the cars keep their speed. Then I noticed how the car approaches (high-pitch becoming louder) and departed again (low-pitch becoming more quiet). Yet another great thing I heard were the tyres of the car driving across the tarmac. I could even hear when the car was driving across different sorts of tarmac (the tarmac changes at the intersection) and I also heard when the car encountered some bumps. At one time I had some trouble focusing, but I decided to accept those interrupting thoughts which soon made them disappear. So how did I almost dare to start right away with Level 2? I thought that Level 1 was too easy and almost decided to skip. Good on me that I didn’t! There was and still is a lot to discover “just” by listening!!! I will definitely have another hearing-session tonight and tomorrow before I proceed to Level 2. First I want to be sure that I hear everything that my ear perceives. In the second session this evening I was able to hear my breathing and the computer sound much more distinctly due to a much more quiet level of background noise (cars, kids, etc.). I was even able to tell apart the humming fan from the funny clicking/spinning sound of the processor working. The last thing I heard were cars driving on a far away street and a few occasional cars speeding along the nearby street and encountering some pretty rough bumps (probably two fixed road parts which made a very distinct bumm-bumm sound). I am planning that tomorrow I will also try to discover some new and finer sounds BUT that I will also increase my focus on the fact that my mind deliberately blanks out most of those noises before actually focusing on them and become aware of the fact that they are there all the time.