Published: 31.12.2025
I stretched the session to 33 minutes today, adding another minute as planned. I have been increasing the duration by one minute every day since I started, and so far I have not skipped a session. I also did not fall asleep this time, which feels like a small but meaningful win.
The mind, however, was still buzzing with chatter - that part seems consistent. Because of the books I’ve been reading, I was thinking about the concept of “observing without engagement”, and that I really want to understand what it means in practice (adding this to my to-do list). One thing that really stood out today was how absurdly fast thoughts jump from one to another. At one point, I noticed myself thinking about my upcoming Delhi trip. Almost immediately, that led to a thought about carrying the board game that I’d recently enjoyed playing. From there, within seconds, I somehow landed on the market cap of the largest Indian companies. It’s wild how the brain creates these jumps. There has to be some underlying logic to these jumps, even if they appear random on the surface. Something is deciding which thought leads to the next, and it is happening far too quickly. There were many moments like this. One thought would trigger another, then another, and ten steps later I would be thinking about something completely unrelated to where it began. To anyone observing from the outside, the sequence would probably seem ridiculous. I find this phenomenon fascinating. It also raised another question for me. If I set the intention to do nothing and focus only on the breath, how does thinking even begin in the first place. There must be some initial seed thought that starts the entire cascade. I am curious about where that seed comes from. I paid more attention to physical sensations today. I could clearly feel my hips pressing into the chair, and I was aware of my back resting against the backrest. There was also noticeable tension in my neck and forehead that stayed present for most of the session. When my attention shifted to my back, I noticed a growing sense of discomfort. I adjusted my posture slightly and removed that point of contact. Almost immediately, it felt like my back could breathe again, probably because blood flow returned to the area. Sitting still for long periods really does restrict circulation to specific parts of the body. I can now understand why staying in one position is something to be concerned about.