Day 053 [ 01d, 04h, 37m; 053 consecutive days ]

Fifty-three days so far, so busy but been keeping it up, even when I'm sick.  I think thats one the advantages of a regular practice.  You don't just do it when you're feeling good or you have the time.  You're doing it day in and day out, whether things are going well or not and that gives you a great variety of experiences with your meditation.  When you can see that you have the ability to sit through, even when the hindrances (sensual desire, ill will, sloth & torpor, restlessness and agitation (or worry) and doubt) are really strong, they have much less of a hold on you.  And its much easier to sit.

Day 046 [ 00d, 23h, 52m; 046 consecutive days ] Taking refuge, taking retreat.

Getting close to twenty-four hours worth of meditation.  It's pretty amazing to think that its taken me a month and a half to log that many hours of meditation, but on a meditation retreate, you would have done that much in about a day and a half.  

It would take approximately three hundred days of sitting for twenty minutes to get in as many hours a day as a ten day meditation retreat.  

Thats also assuming you're comparing apples to apples.  There's definitely not the shelter sitting in everyday practice like there is on retreat.  The mind has time to quiet down and be more "pure" just for the fact that you don't have so much day to day input.  It's pretty amazing what a difference there is.  There's quite a bit of that just from day to day practice, but its just on a completely different scale while on silent retreat.  I can't wait until may.

Day 041 [ 00d, 21h, 07m; 041 consecutive days]

Still at it.  I've been mostly only doing my minimum because I've been waiting until the end of the day.  I will say though that my last few sittings have had a little more clarity of mind, just for a few moments.  The cumulative benefit of sitting every day seems to be creeping in at the edges.  Being sick the other week seemed to slow my momentum in terms of minutes on the cushion, and I'd like to ramp that back up again.  That simply means I need to get up early again and sit in the morning when I don't have other things pulling my attention away until I need to go to bed.

Day 037 [ 00d, 19h, 47m; 037 consecutive days ]

Still hangin' in there.  I've been just skating by on twenty minutes a day.  It's been difficult to muster up more time than that without making myself sleep deprived.

I did my talk tonight on meditation.  I think it went pretty well.  I think better than the last two times I've done the dharma talk.  I'll be an old pro after doing seven talks in March.

Day 033 [ 00d, 18h, 12m; 033 consecutive days ]

Been waiting until last minute again over the weekend, just doing minimum twenty minutes.