[PBR]

@Tien, your responses are helpful. Lying definitely burdens one’s mind, especially when one is conscious that one is breaking precepts.

@Lal
The above link “Right Speech – How to Avoid Accumulating Kamma.” is a good reference for me.

I realized that in most cases I could have just said “its personal” and that should have sufficed. However, my responses are muddled because of the person I was responding to and the situation I was in. In superior case, he was an elderly person and he is asking personal information in front of his sub-ordinates and my peers. It would have been blunt and rude for me to say “its personal”. In alcohol case, again I was in a social situation and one of my peer was asking in front of other colleagues.

In terms of intentions, it appears that I have an internal conflict between two values: respecting others (elders for sure; due to the culture I grew up in) vs saying absolute truth. My responses were muddled (or half-baked) because I was trying to be respectful and say the truth to the possible extent while cutting down further conversations on the subject (to avoid further [white] lies).

[PBR]

While I am not concluding this post. I am iterating few of my learnings since this post so as to benefit someone who reads this post later

I reread some of the articles on puredhamma.net. It does clarify the proper meaning of Anapanasati, and in my understanding it is essentially “taking in” of moral thoughts/actions and “discarding out” the opposite –essentially a process of purifying the mind.

I also went through some discussions on SN Goenkas methods in the forums –it was also helpful. Apart from breath meditation I was also performing body sensation scanning, and listening to discourses on discord channel and elsewhere. I can recollect that the sensation of cool-breeze-flow throughout the body happened during listening the discourses. I was at one point contemplating that the trade-off is eventually to sustain this pleasant sensation while suppressing sensual desires and anger.

While reading through the post on “1. Introduction to Buddhist Meditation” and in particular the audio discourse titled “The Hidden Suffering that We All Can Understand“. I realized that my situation was somewhat similar to what X (mentioned in the discourse) was going through. Where I was contemplating on the dilemma of sustaining pleasant sensations (niramisa sukha) and restraining/suppression of sensual desires. In case of X the dilemma was to sustain niramisa sukha or retain the joy and interests when reading novels or listening to music.

To conclude –my limited understanding so far is:
Living a moral life is the foundation layer.
The focus of Anapanasati should be about purifying mind rather than calming the mind through breathing meditation.
To sustain niramisa sukha and avoid going back to sensual desires, one needs to comprehend Annicca, Dukkha, and Anatta nature of life (which in turn helps live sustained moral life). This I understood from listening to the discourse but I don’t think I comprehend what it involves yet.

Also, I am no longer experiencing eye-tiredness or pain. However, I still do have some discomfort around eyes and head.

[PBR]

Thank you for the feedback.

Of the five hindrances to meditation, Sensual desires and Anger (short-tempered nature not directed towards anyone in particular) are in play. Sensual desires and Anger happen outside of meditation/mindfulness sessions –probably because during the sessions, I am either concentrating on breathing or body sensation scans.
I notice/observe these sensual desires as body sensations when they arise. A lot of thinking/contemplation happens at this stage only to realize that all I can do is acknowledge its existence.
Anger is noticed in my reactions (e.g., impatient responses during a phone call or in regular conversations –although not directed towards any particular person).

Body scans/mindfulness is often performed during less involved activities (e.g., waiting at a doctor’s office, sitting in a commute, etc).

Meditation/mindfulness sessions over the past two months have definitely helped me to know more about Dhamma. I am not sure at this stage on how to continue in the path with the interruptions (due to eye pain/ tiredness and hindrances mentioned above).

Some Background: My exposure to meditation is through a 10-day SN Goenka’s retreat that I underwent five years ago with an occasional review of the technique and discourses on youtube. Recently I started with the above-mentioned meditation practices, reading articles on puredhamma.net, and listening to audio/video links posted on discord channel “original buddha’s teaching”. For about two months or so, I tried to adhere to five precepts as much as possible with the exception of false speech mostly for privacy reasons.

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