Day 2: Body Scan Meditation

Yesterday I did the body scan meditation again. It was quite a different experience this time. First of all, I put a pillow under my head to try and alleviate the distracting lower back pain that I felt the first time. This helped.

Since I had already done this meditation once, I had a good bit of difficulty not anticipating what JKZ was going to say. I tried to just focus in on the current body part in question, but it proved to be very difficult when I knew what would be coming next. Also, I think I might have fallen asleep briefly in the middle of the session, because there is a part that I recall from the first session that I don’t remember hearing yesterday. Rather than being disappointed at this, I will take this as confirmation of the notion that meditation is a great challenge and try to be more present in the next session.

Sprinkled throughout the session, I experienced a very pleasurable physical sensation, characterized by a warm tingling in my scalp and a generalized euphoric numbness, as if something warm and slightly antiseptic was draped over my body. It reminded me of the feeling I have occasionally had after a couple of drinks, where your face feels kind of warm and numb, combined with the warm tingling sensation that travels over the top of your head when you watch someone perform an intricate task slowly and smoothly. I’m not sure if this will make sense to anyone but me, but I’ll be curious to see if this happens again.

I did not experience any of the intense visual effects in my mind’s eye this time around. I did at one point see a silhouette of what looked sort of the like the head of a rocking horse, viewed from an isometric angle, but I remember thinking that maybe I was stretching it, and it was really more of a blob of color that my mind was trying to stitch into something tangible.

Overall, my mind felt my less active than my body in this session. Looking forward to my next chance to experience this practice. My intention will be to try and make it a more balanced experience, with body and mind more unified.