ekañ-ca jeyya attānaṁ, sa ve saṅgāmajuttamo

 Yo sahassaṁ sahassena saṅgāme mānuse jine,

One may conquer a thousand men a thousand times in a battle,

ekañ-ca jeyya attānaṁ, sa ve saṅgāmajuttamo.

but having conquered one’s own self, one would surely be supreme in battle.

(source)

Today I meditated on the 6 elements, and I had a positive deep meditation that my restlessness took me out of some.

I sent Shams these links:

Wildmind

Free Buddhist Audio

I'm trying so hard not to send him links.

We talked about it. The six elements are earth, water, fire, air, space and consciousness. Earth comes into, is inside of me, flows out of me, it's not me, it's not mine. Same for all them. I see fire as energy. I tend to drift in consciousness to buddha-nature. 

I learned this practice on Triratna ordination retreats, and there's a handoff to a sadhana practice. A sadhana practice is a visualization of a bodhisattva. 

I didn't get ordained, but I gave myself a sadhana practice, Buddhanasati. 

One time I did the 6 element after a retreat, at home, and it kind of freaked me out. Someone suggested I only do the practice on retreat. But I've really gained a lot of confidence doing the anapanasati practice, and I gave myself a sadhana practice, so there's a handoff that wasn't present in the past, so I do the 6 element practice. 

At the moment, and it's oddly always changing, I do the brahma viharas 4 days, anapanasati 4 days, 6 element 2 days, Buddhanasati 2 days. It's a 12 day cycle through. My second sit every day is just sitting. And any subsequent sittings are just sitting. I try to meditate 2 hours every day, but I'm pretty sure my average is below that amount. I do go over sometimes, but I'm more under than over. 

I've also done the 32 body parts meditation. You take your body apart, you can put it back together. I watched the lead through and explanations, but I never did it on retreat, so I just tried it for variety, in the end I felt I was doing OK with 6 element practice. 

I've also done corpse meditation. I went to a Bodies Exhibit event organized by Tricycle, and there were talks and such, and then we meditated in front of the rubberized sliced up Chinese prisoners on display. They say not to do that one too much either, Sangharakshita did it a few times, and that was enough, but he went to charnel grounds where they were burning bodies in India. We don't really have charnel grounds in New York City. There's also the sky burial, where you put a body on the top of a mountain and birds pick it apart, and eat it. 

Anyway, I am fond of the 6 element meditation because one time, after lots of meditation in the shrine room at Aryaloka I walked out and I was looking at a tree. I felt like I was the wind in the tree, I was the tree, the water in it, the energy in it, the space, the consciousness.

At the time I thought not to brag about what I considered a crazy experience, it's derealization, you're not perceiving yourself in the normal way. I didn't really feel close enough to anyone to talk about it. I realize now I made some good friendships, but there was something lacking in depth of those friendships. They were nice, they were cordial, they attempted to be positive, but I was sort of reserved. I try very hard to get to know people and in the car ride and back from the retreat, I really talk a lot with people. Nagabodhi said he experienced me almost as like a different person on the car ride.

Vajramatti was my closest friend, we were going to go visit Sangharakshita, and then he changed his mind, he didn't want to do that. That sort of ends my story with Triratna.