Winter Death Meditation

I've been trying to spend more time outdoors in the cold.
Sometimes I just sit in my car all alone for hours.

I try to quiet my mind.
I try to quietly notice my desires,
without acting on them.

I guess some would call this meditation.

I just sit
without naming the activity.
I try to notice my experience
in terms of all of the dimensions of consciousness.

Emotions, Perceptions,
Thoughts, Body Sensations
Cravings or Aversions

Attachment/Resentment
Greed/Hatred
Clinging or Grasping /vs/ Pushing away

I try to notice these things.
I try to notice my own naming.
I try to notice the stories that play out in my consciousness.
I try to notice my own judgments as judgments.
I try to notice and own every aspect of my experience.

When it's windy, the car cools off quickly.
I feel and notice my body sensations.
I try to watch my cravings:

craving for warmth,
craving to go "home"
(whatever that means),

Sometimes I have lived in a magnificent great big house.
Sometimes I have lived in squalor and poverty.

I question "Home": where is it?
The symbol "Home"
does not seem to refer to a fixed place.

Sometimes I have not owned a home.

Sometimes I have had a bed
only from the kindness of strangers.

I notice my craving to get in a warm bed,
craving to cuddle with a warm body,
craving to go somewhere, go anywhere,
or go to work, or go get food, or go pee...

I notice my craving to just go
some place different that this place/situation!

That's for sure.
This place seems like death.
I could die out here! 

But...I can't die now.
I have too many obligations.
I have too many things I want to complete.

(there's the ego-self again)

Yeah, you wouldn't believe the thoughts that come up
during sitting practice...

Maybe I'm not supposed to be here?
Maybe the cops are going to show up.

"Hey, what you YOU doing out here?"
Sitting? What are you crazy?
What's that mean? You nuts or somethin?
Where do you live?

At this point I imagine discussing
the relativity of the "home" concept with the officer,
but that maybe this wouldn't be helpful...

It seems I have experienced this nightmare for 100 lifetimes!

What are you, stupid?
What are you, drunk?
Smoking dope? Gettin' high?
Are you a stalker? A sex offender?
A felon? A terrorist?

Let me see your license!
Let me see your papers!
Get out of the car! "

Look, see?
There's no cop.

...Just relax...

Maybe this is private property?
Maybe the park is closed?
Maybe this forest has called it a night,
and sent all the visitors home?

Its so dark and bleak.
Maybe the sun will never come back!
Maybe this is the beginning of a new ice age.

Wouldn't that be poetic justice for Al Gore
and all the "global warming" crowd!
Not that an Ice Age would be better
than an Age of Fire.

C'mon BH. Let's go.
Enough BS.
This is pointless!
I want to get out of here, NOW!

I try to watch these thoughts and cravings without acting upon them.

This is why the yogis sit on a bed of nails,
or in extreme temperatures,
or fast for many days. 

In order to "tame the monkey",
to master the mind.

Sometimes I sit by the river at night
and watch the ice flowing downstream.

It's so dark, and there is no lights.
I can hear cars in the distance.
With fresh snow, it is very quiet.
Yet, the river flows.

There is something about this scene that frightens me,
provokes a profound feeling of loneliness.

I think of all the friends I've had.
None of them are here now.
I think of all my girlfriends.
None are here now.

Maybe the world is empty?
Maybe I just dreamed this whole thing.
Maybe I am the only consciousness
in a big empty universe?

What would that be like?

Maybe I'm really in prison,
and I'm just fantasizing that I'm free?

Maybe I'm an a torture chair,
or the electric chair,
and maybe I've gone insane to escape the horror?

My mind tries to convince me
that I'm somehow going to
end up in the water and die.

I know the Susquehanna River
has taken many people.

OR-- I might get attacked by a bear, or coyotes, or robbed!
At least then I'd know I wasn't alone!

This is what I think about,
and then I relax.
and just watch my breath for a while,
relaxing more.

in
out

in
out "ahhhh"
relaxing,

in
out,
etc.

this pure consciousness
does not exist in space
and, it exists at all points in space.

Both are true,
neither is true.

In, out.

this pure consciousness -> is non-local
this pure consciousness -> is HERE-NOW
the past and the future do not exist.

in, out

this pure consciousness -> is always changing
this pure consciousness -> has always existed
this pure consciousness -> does not die.
only changes, always changing

breath is spirit
aspire means to breathe

I still have my breath.
in, out.

I am breathing
in, out.

I AM

OM,
shanti, shanti, shantihi!

Nameste to my friends this
dark, cold winter night,

You will be most happyif you always remember
to surrender to your experience,
whatever it happens to be! :)

BH

This is dedicated to my teachers,
the Venerable Edmond Cotton,
and Shakitkat Vera Duerga (Scroggins).