Hello. My name is Datura. My respect and thanks to all who contribute to this wonderful resource. I hope you can help me with my problem.
I live in a rural area. My house is silent as a tomb for 23 hours a day. Yet whenever I choose to sit down to meditate or attempt an AP (no success yet, but I know I'll get there eventually) suddenly everyone and everything seems to make a deliberate effort to distract me. Sometimes it's surreal. Mostly it's just annoying.
A few days ago I started meditating and, after half an hour or so, had just managed to still my thoughts for a few minutes (quite good, for me) when a local woman turned her car onto its roof on the road outside my house, and had to be cut out of it. I've still no idea how she did that...but she wasn't hurt, thankfully.
Yesterday I had just started to meditate when the local farmer began chainsawing the hedge outside my window. He does own the hedge, to be fair, but it nearly made me jump out of my skin (not nearly enough, ironically, since that was my aim. Perhaps I should ask him to try harder next time [
]). And early this morning I woke with my consciousness split and vibrations humming in my chest, and thought the circumstances were the best yet for me to try for an OBE, when my father went to the bathroom and produced some of the most...I think I'll say "robust noises"...I've ever heard. Eventually you start to wonder whether someone's trying to tell you something. I know it's not meant to be easy (inner voice said so), but sheesh...
I'm assuming it's not just me, so my question is: what do you all do? What tricks do you use to avoid external distractions? I can distance myself from the noise of my own thoughts, given enough time...but how do you keep going when your cat is tapdancing on the piano keyboard, when your neighbour drops his anvil down the stairs, and when New Orleans jazz funerals swing by your window?
thanks for reading
peace
Datura
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