#guess I need longer chanting sessions to keep training that endurance

[aerial-jace]

Advice from an on-again and off-again Buddhist if you're trying to get into this, whether as a secular, Buddhist or other kind of practice: build up a mantra recitation practice to train endurance before trying to train concentration with bare attention or mindfulness of breath. Focusing on chanting and the sounds of your own voice is way easier and while it will not help your attention with the breath it will help you keep still longer and longer on the cushion. It doesn't really matter what you recite, whether it's "om mani padme hum", "namo amituofo", or even a secular affirmation or a Christian prayer, just get one and stick with it.

30 minute guided meditation sessions absolutely kill me. I probably should have foreseen my failure coming from doing 15 minute very daydreamy sessions but in my defense I'm only following instructions from a course billing itself as aimed at absolute beginners.

[ecotone99]

[FN] Intro to Lightning Spell

“Come on, we’re almost there,” Ferdinand turned around, cheering for his classmates to catch up.

Their small class of intermediate tier of the amateur group of students had woken up at dawn this morning for one of their lessons: they would be learning to control the power of lightning, for a beginner.

With his strong build, Ferdinand effortlessly endured the climb up the mountains, which resided not far from the Elite Magic Academy. This morning, the students rode on a wagon to the mountain base. After that, they climbed up a trail by feet, for a few hours. When the sun had finally gone up to turn the sky from shimmering gold to roaring blue, the group reached the stopping destination. They received orders to relax for a bit.

“Oh my goat, I can’t feel my feet!” somebody whined.

Pretty much everybody sat on the rocky ledge to recharge their bodies, and having a light snack and drink to regain energy. After all, a tired magician without their mental and physical energy could make mistakes, especially for these beginners. The instructor needed a rest as well. Though he did motioned his hand to slice a chunk of a boulder, and telekinetically moved it to a stable spot, and then sat on the makeshift chair. Some kid groaned that was not fair, but the teacher just chuckled, replying that they would get to learn how to do geometric magic later on in their academic life, which have practical uses even for things like dividing a cake evenly.

When they seemed all well-rested, the instructor got up and hollered everyone to get up. Then, he opened a bag and handed everyone an amulet, warning everyone to wear the jewelry at all times, until the end of the day as instructed. The amulet was crafted from some shiny metal with graving, with a leather cord instead of the usual metal cord. The instructor explained that the amulet had been used by many years in the academy, and the accessory was enchanted to repel lightning, natural or magic, from the wearer, should the bolts be misaimed, or misfired.

“You did great learning fireballs last week,” the teacher encouraged the students before diving into today’s lessons. “This will be the hardest lesson for everyone’s elemental magic. Most of you will fail initially, some of you will take longer to master than others, but don’t worry, just ask any older magicians you know, most of them will say lightning was their hardest beginner magic. The view here is beautiful! --from years of experience. Anyways, don’t be too hard on yourself if this lightning thing is giving you difficulty. Ultimately, don’t lose your concentration! I will also need you to keep your necklace on at all times, even if you’re taking a break. We will camp here for two nights, for a total of three days for you to practice. After the daily lessons, you will get breaks in the evening, when the day is over, so we won’t be doing this all day.” Without skipping a beat, the instructor laid out the training plan, with a minor digress to admire the view.

Then, the instructor looked away for a bit, and made a crushing motion with one hand, as if a wet towel was being squeezed. A boulder nearby was reduced to a pile of almost equal looking shape, and almost equal sized but small rocks. The expert had got the pile under control so that the rocks didn’t avalanched or rolled all over the place.

“All of you should know how to levitate by now. I want you to get in a pair, and have one person levitate just a small pile of rocks a good couple steps by the ledge, but not too far, obviously.” As before, the expert moved a small pile of rock to whatever length away from the edge of the rock, and placed the rocks down to exactly what the instruction meant by “not too far”.

Other students quickly got in pairs to set up the training session, Ferdinand found himself paired with an unintimidating boy named Nebul, who looked a little more than average but not as strong as Ferdinand. “Well, this should be easy as fireballs. Let’s get this started,” Ferdinand cockily cheered to himself, and casually started moving piles of rocks at a faster pace than Nebul. Nebul kept his silence.

Once the instructor noticed the groups finished their preparations, the students received the last instructions to get them started. “One of you will levitate a rock a few hundred feet away, beyond the edge of this cliff. Then, the other will practice your lightning spell on that rock. I want you to rotate after each other throughout the day. Time flies here in the wilderness when you don’t have a clock or something with you. When I say stop, everybody stops, and we’ll go for breaks or whatever emergencies or announcements I will make. Now get zapping!”

“This shouldn’t be hard, I hope your levitating skill won’t slow me down,” Ferdinand confidently commented, directed at his training partner.

“Hmm, sure,” Nebul hummed unassumingly, and casually lifted up a rock and hurled it a good hundred feet away.

Ferdinand chanted a spell, aiming his amateur wand at the rock, and the sky seemed to conjure a small bolt of lightning without the need of developing a dense cloud formations. The two watched as the bolt came down in a blink of an eye, but the lightning missed. Ferdinand yelled out a loud “What!?” in confusion.

Nebul retrieved the rock, and quickly examined. Normally if a lightning was at appropriately hot temperature, the rock would change shape and have evidence of being struck: This rock had no mark that Ferdinand had stuck it.

“My turn,” Nebul lightly tossed the rock at Ferdinand, who quickly caught the rock with his mind. Ferdinand levitated the rock hundred feet from the ledge. Nebul exhaled deeply and chanted his spell, a lightning bolt stronger than Ferdinand’s came down, and struck the rock hard. The rock sank a little as the levitator felt the impact and almost lost control of it. The rock was going through physical and chemical changes as the temperature cooled.

When Ferdinand got the rock on his hand, he examined the rock, being transformed from a small palm sized rock that you can break someone’s window with, to a rock with change in color, a prominent lightning line on the shape, and some protrusion from the rock being heated from the blast and then cooling down. The instructor came to take a look, and so did other students. The instructor confirmed the characteristics of an accurate hit on the rock. Ferdinand just scoffed this as his lucky first try.

“I’m gonna try again,” Ferdinand haughtily protested after seeing his lightning practice partner’s success. Normally, Ferdinand was the star sorcerer in his class, being the first one to master whenever they have new spells to learn.

The two resumed rotating back and forth, with Nebul continuously hitting with perfect accuracy, while Ferdinand stuck at zero percent. By lunch time, other students seemed to be getting gradually better, some lacking control here and there, and Ferdinand hadn’t change in his mark. He was getting angry, that even seeing other average and mediocre students in his class getting some lightning strikes before he even got one.

“I don’t understand, how is this harder than making Fireball? Or Piercing Ice?” He drank from his bottle while complaining to Nebul. “Someone like you who’s always third to fifth in class somehow got Lightning before everyone? I mean even Detri, the constantly last-in-class, got a couple lightning strikes too!”

Nebul nonchalantly replied, looking at his food, “I guess maybe lighting mastery runs in my family. I don’t know about others. You should try being calm first, because you can’t cast a spell when you’re frustrated.”

“I didn’t ask you to be my mom, I’ll be angry if I want!” the angry man replied, and was about to combust Nebul’s food in frustration, but his spell lacked concentration. Instead, he just reheated Nebul’s food and then the heat stopped.

“Aw, thanks, it was cooling fast up in this mountain,” Nebul replied, smirking. Ferdinand grumbled, and wolfed down his food really quick in frustration, remaining quiet for the rest of the lunch break.

After lunch break, they would have a couple hours to resume practice until dinner break, which meant these were the last training hours for today, and they have like two more days left. Nebul and Ferdinand took turns levitating and attempting to zap rocks again, with not much difference from earlier of the day. Nebul maintained his continuous streak of zapping rocks at hundred percent accuracy, meanwhile Ferdinand got close a few times, but still a fat zero. Although it seemed like he took Nebul’s comment, and concentrated his casting in a much calmer way than the morning drill. Time seemed to fly by, and training for the day was over.

Ferdinand was disappointed, as he had made zero progress. He reluctantly sat down and grabbed his dinner from his bag, and ate it while looking at the cliff. The night sky was a brilliant display of near-full moon and stars tonight. Tomorrow, or in a few days, the moon would surely get full. Seeing that he was basically last in his class to land a successful lightning bolt, he became disappointed and unmotivated. He forced himself to finish his meal to replenish his energies, and then went back to his tent. Nebul, and several others, who noticed him, felt a bit of sympathy for him, but went back to their own tent silently. The night continued on, until every students went to bed into their tent. Ferdinand seemed to have a hard time falling asleep on his first night class camping, as he was constantly tossing and turning inside his tent, shuffling the sheets loud enough for Ferdinand, and several other students, to hear. Even though animals like owls cooed through the night, crickets chirped their love songs, and various bugs buzzed, the sleeplessness of the former star student stirred for a good while, until Ferdinand had fallen asleep, or what everyone had thought.

Eventually, night time flowed into dawn, and then another new day for magical training. The instructor was surprised to see Ferdinand woken up before everyone, and approached to talk to the lagging student.

“Morning!” Silence. “You doing alright?” The instructor asked, but received nothing.

Feeling the silence, and seeing the stoic face on Ferdinand, the instructor continued, “Sometimes, magic is just difficult like that. I had a brilliant student good couple years ago, she was the top of my class that year, but she was always lagging on ice spells. Ice needles, Glacier Shield, Arctic Wall, you name it. She would get frustrated and would melt her terrible ice spells with a huge fire spell. After she graduated, she went on to become a leader in healing magic. Basically, there were no casualties in her team. Now she’s a highly sought after mercenary with hefty price.”

The instructor patted him on the back, and cheered him on, then left to attend other students. Though that aloneness did not last long, as more students get out of their tents and get ready for the day. Nebul was one of the almost-to-last group of people to wake up. As the two sat across each other, they ate breakfast quietly, as if they can both sense each other wanting to comment on this unusual situation. Nebul wanted to console the class star, but he wasn’t sure what to say that won’t agitate Ferdinand. Not that he was the angry type, he just carried a certain pride on him. Ferdinand, on the other hand, just wanted to somehow magically learn how to control a simple Lightning spell.

None of them wanted to speak, but Detri, the infamous last-in-class, chimed in cheerfully, as if her reputation did not affect her. “I heard you were a little upset about not landing a lightning strike, but even I got a few hits? I might be learning spells a bit slower than the entire class, but that doesn’t stop me from liking magic you know?” She paused, taking a sip from her juice.

“Go on,” Ferdinand broke the silence, looked at the young, energetic, optimistic girl.

“Maybe you’re wondering what I am doing here. How dare the last in class trying to cheer up the first in class. My mom always told me that magic is also an art! Not everyone looks at a painting the same. Not everyone draws the same way on paper, and not everyone uses magic the same. I am sure you will get a Lighting to hit before we finish this camping trip, you might just need to tweak the way you paint this spell.” She sounded way too happy at this hour in the morning, but Ferdinand mentally noted her point. Then, she waved goodbye, as she was being called by her practice partner for another day of Lightning strike.

Ferdinand looked at Nebul, wondering if he would say anything as well. The gifted lightning student shook his head, and just chuckled for a quick blurb. “I’ll make sure to levitate rocks as fast as I can for you to zap today.” He finished his breakfast, and quickly got up and moved toward the practice zone.

“Don’t slow me down,” Ferdinand hissed, and began levitating the first rock for his classmate to zap. The two continued the second day of taking turn zapping rocks mid-air. As the morning went on, occasionally they would hear other groups erupted into a couple seconds of joyous cheers. On the other hand, this group’s dynamic was still the same, with Nebul hitting all the time and Ferdinand still missing. The two probably have flung like hundreds of rocks from the last two days, although this process was getting tiring. As they alternate zapping and levitating hundreds of rocks, eventually they reached day two’s lunch time, when the instructor hollered out for everyone to take a short break.

“Just one more!” Ferdinand roared at Nebul, who reluctantly floated another rock off the cliff to be zapped. The frustrated student powerfully moved his hand, and then struck the stone directly. The rock split apart from the impact, and dropped a couple feet before Nebul brought the pieces back to the cliff for examination. Ferdinand practically snatched the rock pieces to examine, as his eyes seemed to glimmer for a few seconds from the excitement of actually landing a single hit. Then, he returned to his unsatisfied expression, tossed the rock to the side, and went on to lunch break.

“What’s wrong? You landed a hit!” Nebul broke his usual silence, and approached his practice partner.

Ferdinand was silent for a bit, and then replied with a “Nothing.”

The two continued eating lunch, with not much of a word between them. Nebul was confused a bit because he thought Ferdinand would be excited over finally landing a hit. Ferdinand, on the other hand, was dealing with his conflicting emotion of not being a star sorcerer for class.

Suddenly, the instructor made an announcement that everyone had been doing great and making progress. Ferdinand could detect a few pairs of eyes moving toward him, and the instructor wasn’t even done with the announcement yet. Then, the instructor made a point that they had one day left before they return to the Elite Magic Academy tomorrow, as there’s the rest of today time’s left, plus tomorrow morning up until lunch. The expert added that if the students were comfortable with their lightning skills, they can try increasing intensity of the spell, or the speed, or practicing maintaining accuracy. Then, the announcement also noted the end of lunch and they should finish eating and get back to practicing.

After a few short rounds of rotating zapping, Nebul suddenly commented with an idea, “If it makes you feel better, I can levitate a couple more rocks at once for you to zap.”

“You sure? That would take away your practices,” Ferdinand paused for a few seconds before replying.

“I am pretty sure I don’t need more practices,” Nebul smiled, and gestured his hands to levitate five rocks at once.

Ferdinand tried again, motioning and chanting for each lightning strike. Bolt number one missed the rock by a distance. Bolt number two hit it spot on, and Nebul quickly retrieved it by motioning his other hand to inspect it. Bolt number three and four hit successfully, but bolt number five and six missed until it was number seven. Nebul retrieved them all, and remarked that Ferdinand’s accuracy now looked like almost fifty-fifty. Then, the two continued for the rest of the evening. Detri seemed to notice later in the evening, and started cheering here and there whenever Ferdinand landed a hit. He was getting annoyed by this, as he was being put on a spotlight after his day one of failure. This feeling wasn’t the same as casting a spell successfully the first time he had learned them. This was a different kind of annoyance. Part of him wanted to tell Detri to stop, but the encouragement also felt good, he needed it.

As the night drew close and dinner time came, Nebul can’t help but make a comment as he ate his lunch. “I don’t mean to sounds like I’m observing you, but I’m beginning to wonder if your magic runs on confidence instead of something else. What if this whole entire time we’ve been in classes together, your success in learning spells right away built your confidence, and that energy carried over every time you learned the next new spell?” He paused to chew and swallow a bite of his food.

Ferdinand didn’t respond, but took a drink of his beverage.

“Lightning spells run a little differently, and I think ice spells run differently too. You might had been able to cast ice spells from confidence alone, but a calm cool-headed approach would amplify the ice spells effect. Lightning spells on the other hand, is about controlling randomness. There’s a chance you miss, and there’s a chance you will hit. There’s a chance the bolt will go left, or go right, or go in a different direction. What my parents had taught me is to reduce the randomness. You kind of guide the bolt to go one way by making the other options difficult for the bolt to go, or move it like putting your hand under the rain to make the raindrops gather and form a collective flow,” Nebul explained, and shared his method of conducting lightning spells.

Detri popped out of nowhere and added her comment, “Ooh, Oh! That’s like my mom teaching me to move my hands like im painting on a canvas. Sometimes if the paint drips to somewhere you don’t want, you can put your paint brush to stop it!”

Both Ferdinand and Nebul turned their head, and Nebul was startled. “Isn’t it dinner time? Why are you here?”

“I already finished my dinner because I wasn’t talking and eating,” Detri jokingly jabbed back at Nebul.

“And, why are you here?...” Nebul added, reminding Detri that she hadn’t respond to this question.

“I’m here to look at the stars tonight. My tent is a little loud over there, and my practice partner wanted to spend time with the loud group instead.

“Oh, are you into astrology? Astronomy? Both?” Nebul replied back to her, and then they both chattered away about what funky things the stars looked like, using their fingers to draw a temporary illuminating spell that light up the sky.

As the two chattered away about the starry sky, imagination, and carefree attitude, Ferdinand pondered about the things they have said. Maybe they were right about him, about the way he had approached to magic. He had been utilizing a brute force approach to magic, making things out of thin air not from an artistic point of view or a calm mindset. Suddenly, Ferdinand spoke. “I am sorry.”

The other two people stopped and turned their heads to listen.

“I am sorry that I have been rude to both of you, about you’re last in class, and about you’re not the top three.” Ferdinand abruptly apologized, changing the mood of the star-gazing classmates. Before they could answer, he continued, “I don’t know why you’re here to cheer me up and to support me on this lightning spell, but thank you. I really appreciate the talks earlier, and yesterday.”

“I just enjoy seeing people happy with magic,” Detri responded with a wide grin on her face, looking at Ferdinand.

Nebul was silent a bit before he answered, “Eh, I thought you needed some help leaning lightning spell. And plus, I am surprised you got down really fast from not casting it successfully first time. Had you never failed a spell before?”

Ferdinand was embarrassed, he felt like his life was being observed and exposed today. “Uh… Not really. I have what you might say the best magic combination from my parents and their lineages.” He fumbled for an answer.

“Well, it looked like lightning spells weren’t passed down to you,” Nebul replied, grinning. “Don’t be afraid to ask me for help next time we have a lightning class.” He joked, and put away his dinner that he had finished eating.

“Thanks… for the offer,” Ferdinand replied, taken back by Nebuls generous gestures.

After enjoying the night time for a while, the three went back to their tents, with Ferdinand going to bed earlier than the other two, saying he needed to prepare for last day of practice. The night continued on, with crickets chirping, stars shining, and wind passing by. By next morning, everyone was up and ready for doing the same thing again, but better.

“You ready for today?” Nebul asked Ferdinand casually.

“I hope so! I better leave today with better accuracy,” he replied, with a renewed energy and enthusiasm.

The two began practicing again. This time, Nebul levitated seven rocks instead of five for Ferdinand to practice. The rocks lined up in the air, waiting to be struck. Ferdinand guided his hands, and lightning bolts came running down from the cloudy sky. He looked at the sky with a change of assurance in himself, and then watched as the spell executed. Nebul motioned the rocks back to his hands, and showed them to Ferdinand.

The young magician observed Nebul’s hands, and found seven lightning struck rocks. He could hit all the rocks finally, but they still had a couple more hours of practices. The two continued on for hours, with Nebul casually levitating rocks in groups of seven, and Ferdinand zapping down every single one of them. The two had an unusual air of suspense between them, but also a bit of excitement and encouragement.

When lunch time came, the instructor was making announcement about how everyone was doing great, but that their time up was up in the mountains. Everyone would have to pack their tents and belongings, and trek down to the academy before night fall. There were some sighs and groans, but there were excitements about going back to the comfort of the academy.

Detri appeared from nowhere again and jumped in. “You did great today, Ferdinand! We saw you finally getting those zaps!”

Ferdinand rejoiced with Detri, as he felt confident again. “Thank you, both of you! Though I can’t say the next class I would fail this badly again!” He laughed, Detri laughed, and Nebul let out a small chuckled. The three excused themselves to pack their belongings. Then, they met up again as the instructor accounted for everyone before heading back.

“I can’t wait to sleep on my bed instead of a tent!” Detri humored, and moved faster than everyone else besides the instructor, as they all made their way down the mountains and back to the Elite Magic Academy.

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