I have the flu right now; 102 fever, big headache, chills. Can’t do anything except lie down or sit on my meditation cushion. I’ve meditated four times, several hours total. Strangely, I have a lot of joy. I knew it was coming yesterday and immediately noticed lots of “me” mind talk. In one sit I strongly differentiated body as body, mind as mind and generated a lot of metta, joy and equanimity. I have steered clear of focusing my attention on the bodily sensations. However, I don’t want to sit when I.m delirious. Any recommendations?
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Take care of yourself. Hydrate! I’m impressed by anyone that can be happy whilst sick. But do get better!
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Make sure that you see a doctor and follow instructions.
By the way the following is my experience.
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Those are two satipatthana postures…
Then use the other posture, and continue to engage mindful clarity of observation. Nevermind things like anapanasati or zazen or any such.
But, that’s at least 1/4 of satipatthana…
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Boy, I empathize with you there. I’ve had the most brutal flu the past week and a half since before christmas. I had a few days where I just couldn’t meditate at all. Yesterday I felt like I got back to semi-normal practice, but still felt crummy. Interesting insight though that the ability to practice is not linear with degree of illness!
I am just getting over a crazy local flu thats been going around. I had a fever for 1 whole week, accompanied by sinus headaches, then after that cleared up, intense stomach cramps coupled with an inability to keep down food for another week.
Still have bronchitis, but the other symptoms are gone.
Can anymore meditate while delirious/disoriented? It strikes me as the same as trying to do so while intentionally inebriated. The flu is essentially an unintentional inebriation.
I am not a strong meditator though, so perhaps my suspicions are groundless.
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That’s what I was thinking but couldn’t describe it. Thank you.
My fever broke this morning but not after about 14 hours of steady level 10 headache and intense chills. The position I took during the episode was basically bare awareness of the body and the stilling of I, me and mine thoughts. Lots of dukkah in the body, not much hating it or wanting it to go away. I have gratitude that the disorientation is passed.
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