3 posts tagged “hiking”
I climbed up Mt. Zion again today to meditate. It was rather hot (record high 87 degrees) out but once I got up there I could take my shirt off and there was a beautiful breeze picking up for the storm moving in later this evening. Anyway I decided to do some single-pointed meditation since my mind has felt especially cluttered today and even during my meditation this morning. I had a very nice meditation up there, and didn't have to hush any bodily discomfort at all except a fly that was walking around on my chest and arms. My mind was incredibly turbulent, and I had to meditate for a bit to quiet things down, but after some time my mind became very quiet. I had forgotten how wonderful that feels - the quiet mind - and how restorative. I felt very strongly when I came out of it sometime later that I need to practice single-pointed more often, especially when I have a lot of problems. It is detrimental to my analytical skills if my mind isn't focused, especially if it is clouded by emotion.
On Wednesday I went hiking up Mt. Zion for some much needed and much missed outdoor meditation. The mountain was still rather snowy, but it was a great day for it and the hike was great fun. Bradford came with me, and we had a great conversation on attachment, loss, and the Buddhist method for dealing with it. Its difficult to deal with a loss, especially the loss of a person, but as long as you appreciate every moment there is no loss in death - only inevitable change.
Today for my Geology lab we went to Merck Forest. It's a pretty amazing place, and beautiful. I can't believe I've lived here all these years and knew nothing about those thirty miles of trails and hiking. Although it was hard to appreciate today at negative eight degrees, this spring I plan on renting one of the cabins further up in the mountains there for a weekend of meditation and hiking around. It should be great photography too. The rates are actually quite affordable, so I can't wait!
Tomorrow I don't have any classes because of the snow, or at least I'm assuming so. If you think I'm being a bit cocky scope out Vermont area code 05735 on Weather.com from midnight to five tomorrow. Fifteen inches of snow! This is a much welcome break, as I was more than overloaded with work this week. After classes this Friday my college has a week off from classes - it is one of two suicide breaks incorporated into the normal college schedule because of the high suicide-rate around here. They're not really called suicide breaks, that's just what I call them because of why they exist. We have another one in October that none of the other schools have. I'm not ever sure what to do with these randomly placed week vacations, so I'll probably just do a great deal of reading and hopefully work on my story a little bit. I also have a nice bottle of Seagram's Seven to keep me warm.
