Getting Up at Sunrise

[rainbowvein]

Please consider taking the poll.

 

Comments encouraged from those that get up regularly at sunrise.

Edited December 17, 2013 by rainbowvein

[soaring crane]

Hey, you didn't vote!

 

I do get up with the sun when sleeping outdoors, and I like it, but I'm just too dogged tired in the morning. Although this time of year the sun doesn't rise till about 8am haha.

 

And in summer it starts dragging itself over the horizon at like 3:30... Zzzzzzzzzzz....

Edited December 17, 2013 by soaring crane

[rainbowvein]

Hey, you didn't vote!

 

Just voted.

[liminal_luke]

Back when I was in Israel doing the Jewish thing, I occasionally walked into the ultra-orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood for morning prayers with the Breslover Hasidim. They always timed the most important part of the service, the amidah, to correspond with the exact moment of sunrise. We finished the Shema, and everyone stood around a moment for two in concentrated silence. Someone with a watch waited for the exact moment of Sunrise and then, bam, we began.

 

Anyway, I think there's something to this sunrise business.

Edited December 17, 2013 by liminal_luke

[i am]

In the winter I'm always up before sunrise. Summer....not quite as bad as Soaring Crane, but the sun is up pretty early! And yeah, camping I'm up with the sun. I love being up before the sun. Once I'm up, I'm happy. But getting out of bed is hard.

 

I was in a fire lookout for a summer and it was light past 10pm, and the sun was in my windows again at 5am...

[Aeran]

God I wish. I'm lucky if I can force myself up before Midday, and even then only if I have a lecture or something else going on.

 

I'd love to be able to wake up just before dawn, meditate etc. for an hour or two, exercise, then grab breakfast and go about my day, but it never seems to work out for more than a day or two. Realistically, I usually end up practicing around mid afternoon - early evening.

[BaguaKicksAss]

A friend of mine once told me he does his qigong everyday at sunrise and that he recommends that time. So I asked him how on earth do you do that? Well he gets up at sunrise, does his hour or two of qigong, then goes back to sleep for a couple of hours . I really like his way of thinking.

[Dainin]

I seem to wake up naturally around 5:00 AM. At times I've used these hours to practice, more recently mostly just to relax and drink tea.

[Brian]

I am up before sunrise nearly every day but I rarely actually watch the sun come up. One reason is because I am usually getting ready to go to work at "sunrise" and another is because the time the sun appears over the mountains is much later than the official "sunrise" time...

 

 

I do see sunset nearly every day, though, and I am often doing qigong then as well.

[Marblehead]

It is a rare day that I am not up before sunrise. No, it has nothing to do with anything other than I go to bed early and when I'm finished being tired I wake up.

[suninmyeyes]

Used to get up 3, 4 regulary (daily) for about 10 years for meditation before getting on with the day . It was great , but now after some years of not doing it -- it seems so distant .

[baiqi]

Used to do that when I was in China: people practice early there.

I really would like to do that more, but family life makes it a little difficult.

[C T]

My routine is as odd as can be. My work finishes around 10ish at night, home usually around 11, have a shower, relax a bit with my two doggs whom i hope had missed me a bit, chat about day with partner, browse a while on the computer, then do my practice, and by the time all's done, its almost 4 or 5 in the morning, then off to bed just as the sun is about to streak the sky with hues of orange and red . Up again at around 10 am and gets on with the hectic life of being a chef... its a demanding job, so please don't take up this profession

 

It changes a bit in summer. Sometimes i can go without sleep for 24 hours or more. That's when i get to watch sunrises.

 

Friends of mine who are way more serious about their cultivation concur that the best time to start practice is around 4.30 am. When i spent a year away in a retreat centre, that was the time we had to start the morning practice which usually lasts for around 2 hours. After that it was breakfast time, and i remember that on numerous occasions my mind would drift forward to glorious breakfast even while reciting the hundred syllable mantra, or doing prostrations i would be imagining the satisfaction of seeing a bowl of steaming porridge in front of me when i should be visualising Guru Rinpoche sitting at the crown of my head.

 

 

[Mal]

Getting up at sunrise is for me an unintended side effect from practicing Ashtanga Yoga (traditionally practiced at dawn)

 

I also enjoy meditation anytime between 2~4am and then going back to sleep.

[silent thunder]

I've missed a mere handful of sunrises in the last decade.

I veritably bathe in the dawning light.

[Taomeow]

I wish sunrise was also mine... but at least I often watch the sunset over the ocean. Yesterday, incidentally, it was simply incredible. The video does not do it justice but still I'm grateful for someone actually taking it:

 

[BaguaKicksAss]

When I see the sun come up, it reminds me it is time to get to bed .

 

My favorite time to practice is in the middle of the night when most of the city is asleep.

 

Though during some seasons I get up at sunrise every morning.

 

I like to sleep in 4 hour chunks, then some practice, then some TTBs, then some more sleep...

[子泰]

I like to get up around 4 am (like to!) when it's still nice and quiet without the bustle of the city (I live in a busy city and next to a busy road), but I get up at around 5:30 to 6 in which I can start to see the sunrise, then onto my short qigong routine which begins with a short mantra about the sun (trying to keep at least that part consistent). After that it's mantra practice although it's pretty hard to concentrate at the start when I'm fantasizing about my morning coffee which is right after practice . The only times when I get to enjoy the 4 am period now is when exams take place.

Edited December 18, 2013 by dazed

[Green Tiger]

I get up and practice at 5:30. Sometimes I get to see the sun rise, but most of the time I don't.

 

There was a time when I would do standing meditation every day at sunrise, facing the sun. It reminded me of that scene from City of Angels where all the angels go out on the beach and stand in the light of the sunrise.

 

Edited December 18, 2013 by Green Tiger

[flowconduit]

I get up at sunrise which is around 11.30 am

[Nungali]

Love It ! From up here I get the most amazing view. The last few mornings have been amazing; mist and clouds like an ocean beneath me, as I look down, hills and little parts of the town below pop out of the mist, to the ESE there is a 45* slope down off the escarpment and into the valley, a bit more to the south is an old (very old) lava dome mountain (with an aboriginal man’s face on the side of it … called Nungali ) , between these two is a slash of ocean, that’s where the sun comes up at the moment.

I did this at dawn (sun at 0* on ASC) for years … but not much nowadays …

Let him greet the Sun at dawn, facing East, giving the sign of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice: “ Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising, even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy strength, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun.
“Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
“ Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Night!”

And after each of these invocations thou shalt give the sign of silence, and afterward thou shalt perform the adoration that is taught thee by thy Superior*. And then do thou compose Thyself to holy meditation.

[ Also it is better if in these adorations thou assume the God-form of Whom thou adorest, as if thou didst unite with Him in the adoration of That which is beyond Him.
Thus shalt thou ever be mindful of the Great Work which thou hast undertaken to perform, and thus shalt thou be strengthened to pursue it unto the attainment of the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness. ]

*“A ka dua, tuf ur biu, bi a kefu, du du nur ef en netaru … (through to) nebtpa ta teckt”
Followed by the English ‘transliteration’ of the obverse of the ‘Stele of Revealing’;
I am the Lord of Thebes, and I
The inspired forth-speaker of Mentu;
For me unveils the veiled sky,
The self-slain Ankh-af-na-khonsu
Whose words are truth. I invoke, I greet
Thy presence, O Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee:—
I, I adore thee!

Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
The ways of the Khabs run through
To stir me or still me!
Aum! let it fill me!

The light is mine; its rays consume
Me: I have made a secret door
Into the House of Ra and Tum,
Of Khephra and of Ahathoor.
I am thy Theban, O Mentu,
The prophet Ankh-af-na-khonsu!

By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;
By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.
Show thy star-splendour, O Nuit!
Bid me within thine House to dwell,
O winged snake of light, Hadit!
Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

[There is a version for noon, sunset and midnight as well i.e. 4 x a day ]

[joeblast]

Oh how I love the sunset.

 

Unfortunately, work spoils sunrises the vast majority of the time.

[Marblehead]

I recall my first intentional sunrise. I was fifteen years old and I and a friend decided we would stay up all night just to watch the sunrise.

 

(I don't remember everything about it but with my luck it probably rained.)

[silent thunder]

I recall my first intentional sunrise. I was fifteen years old and I and a friend decided we would stay up all night just to watch the sunrise.

 

(I don't remember everything about it but with my luck it probably rained.)

 

That triggers an awesome memory for me.

Just before my wife and I moved to NYC from Minnesota, I went camping one last time on the shore of Superior.

My last night, I stayed up to see the final sunrise from the cliffs near the campground.

I was rewarded with a spiderweb, covered in dew, glimmering like crystal in the first rays of day.

 

I haven't thought of that in years...

Thanks MH!

[Nungali]

I recall my first intentional sunrise. I was fifteen years old and I and a friend decided we would stay up all night just to watch the sunrise.

 

(I don't remember everything about it but with my luck it probably rained.)

 

reminds me of my first lets stay up all night and watch the sunrise (on LSD) ... we drove to National Park and found a good spot to watch from the top of a waterfall and waited ..... and waited ....

 

the sky started getting light .... and waited ... until someone realised; "Hey! There is the sun over there."

 

It was up ... we had been looking in the wrong direction