Began to visualize the rising/falling of my breath as a mound built up and crumbling away. The distractions my mind throws at me are more on point now. I imagined that I was sitting on a different pillow in the meditation hall than I was for one breath alone and having then only the rising/falling sensation – with rest of my body left behind on the other pillow. Imagined seeing some other stage of pain realizations, a high white couch, could hear other’s voices there. At the end it was very hard to focus on rise and fall (maximum 12 breaths then 9 before distraction). Overall quality of concentration not great even from the beginning many long distractions carried me away only when I realized and moved on to the next breath’s and did I actually “note” the distraction and then have a short feeling of frustration (felling like - “oh, what’s the point?”).

Earlier today I awoke at 2:30 AM, crawled out from under my mosquito net cot and went to the meditation hall. From 3 to 4 AM I had a deep meditation session – the last moments punctuated by excruciating pain in my back and legs and waiting for bell. My mental voice was faint, far away, hard to control – it was like I was watching from some steps back from all that was happening before me. No distracting shapes of light danced across my eyelids since at 3 AM the room was in total darkness. I had many powerful feelings of poignancy and nostalgia associated with memories of mornings waking up back in Chicago.

I recall now the rush of feeling that followed a particularly good session yesterday – I had a feeling of freshness and innocence – like the lightness and excitement I used to feel when I was younger.