I think, therefore I exercise

One of the blogs I follow, The Seekers Dungeon, posted this exercise (I’ve taken some editing liberties):

Simply sit still with your spine as straight as possible.  Close your eyes and slowly count backwards from 10 to 1 while following your breath.  After you reach 1, continue to watch your breath.  You will notice thoughts coming and going but try not to be bothered by them, just keep coming back to the breath. If you are like 99% of the population,  after sometime you will have forgotten that you are meditating at all as you become lost in thought on some specific matter.  tell us about the thought that you got lost in.  What is the story behind it?  The person behind it?  The emotion behind it.

After you are finished writing, don’t hit publish right away.  Take your post as a continuation of your meditation and breathe through it.  Is every word correct?  Are you clear in what you are trying to say? When you feel that you’ve completely fleshed out your ideas then hit publish, sit back, and relax.  Good job!

I thought this was so cool and I was excited to try it.  When I did, I wasn’t in front of a computer, but just a small sheet of paper. It took me several tries to do it in what I thought was the spirit of the exercise, but I did, and these are my notes:

A thought that was just kind of hovering was about having enough breath to count backwards from 10. I thought about the speed of my exhale and I was visualizing my lungs deflate and expel oxygen. Can I make it to 10?

I pictured a grey cylindrical tank with oxygen getting low. What does it look like inside?

The tank is sitting on a diving boat in a cove in St. Maartin. There’s choppy water and rough wind. I could smell the ocean and see netting on the ship.

And that was it. That was the idea I had and fleshed out. Upon reflection, I realize how much my thoughts are dominated and filled in with visual details. Is that true of other people as well?

I invite you to try this exercise, just to see what happens!  When you do, please give a link in this post so we can see what you come up with! As with all meditation, I don’t think there’s a wrong way to do it, just maybe a way to find out something interesting.