Further Meditations on Meditation

I am now five weeks into my six week class on 'Meditation and The Brain' and with only one more class to go things are kind of wnding down a little when perhaps they should be winding up. Last night we had to do this horrible mediation practice in the class.....I found it really unpleasant.

We had to split up into pairs and each person had to spend a few minutes trying to locate their inner self 'their I'. After this each pair had to sit facing each other and look directly into the other persons eyes. The look had to be constant with no looking away or closing your eyes other than to blink. One person then had to ask the other "Who are you" and the partner had to respond by talking about who they are. The idea was to say whatever came into your mind and to be uncensored. This continued for around 15 minutes, one person talking and the other person could say nothing, they just had to act as a mirror keeping total eye contact with the other person. When time was up you swapped roles. We spent about an hour doing this!!!!!

If you think this is easy then I suggest you give it a try. It is very very unpleasant and very very hard to do. Keep in mind that this class isn't a retreat or a meditation workshop, these are classmates that are very likely to see each other again in other classes. I was very uncomfortable with the whole thing.