You can find the preceding part of this story here: https://betulerbasi.com/2020/11/27/the-first-challenge/

You would expect the second day to be easier, right? It wasn’t. It was perhaps even harder.

The day did not start easy. Yesterday, on the first day of the program, he was awake at 4 and so he obviously was at the breakfast at 5 in the morning, in time. Today, he woke up 5 minutes before 5. But barely so. His eyes closed again but then he heard the bell. It was breakfast time. He went down, rubbing his eyes all the way. Now he was scared how he would go through hours of meditation if the day started like this. He was worried.

Annoyingly, though, no one seemed sleepy, tired or even neutral. To him, everyone seemed like they were doing great.

He walked into the meditation room after the breakfast and found his spot. He sat down and waited the meditation for the day to start. He observed people in the meantime. They were still doing great and he was annoyed.

When the meditation started, however, something strange happened. He was so tired to even try to fight the thoughts that were passing his mind that he let everything flow. He had so many confusing thoughts, and some challenging ones too. But they just went in and out. This felt relaxing. He even started feeling some of the sensations they were talking about all this time. Of course, it was not perfect all day. Sometimes, he felt the urge to fight. At those times, though, he had a strategy: singing a song in the head. Shhh, you are not supposed to do that. Don’t tell anyone. But it worked.

Somehow, the dinner was calm and everyone was calm. The speech that the guide gave was calm and everyone was calm. The sleep that night was calm. All because he was calm.

[to be continued]