Why's it so looong?

The white skeleton meditation has become rather popular on the forum. Though, for me it has seemed rather tough .. and didn't like it much, because it takes so much time and rarely do I have the time. Unless it's at the expense of sleep deprivation. Also, there's so many of these bones .. and got to work through all of them .. :(

Anyway, started with it again. Sat into the full lotus pose and started focusing through the bones, visualizing them starting glowing and emitting light. Noticed waves of heat propagating up the body, as I went from bone to bone. Listened to music while performing this.

Decided to stop at some moment, because it had become stressful for the body to maintain the pose. Started feeling really hungry too. Checked the time .. it's been 2 hours and I still have 1/3 of the bones to go. Even so, I skimmed through most of the bones in a hurry .. that is, did not do it the way it should be done. So, most likely one proper session of the white skeleton meditation would take not just a few hours but at least one full day. Can't afford that now. Have to go to bed and need to wake up early tomorrow morning, to catch transport for work.

After some time of focus, I noticed that the bones became dark blue. Similar to like when staring at a lamp for too long, then an area of sight is darkened. When I "looked" or focused away and back again, then I saw the bones still glowing.

Also noticed that some bones caused a global flash (blinded the sight of all other bones for a moment), or released pain while holding the consciousness focused on them.

Realized a couple of things, which are actually pretty obvious:

• It's not the distraction that distracts the mind, it is the mind that becomes distracted. That is, when the mind wandered, that's when I noticed those strong itchy sensations or feeling of discomfort, hunger, etc. The same with music .. it's not distracting, until the mind steps on it.
• The white skeleton meditation is not about "reaching the finish line," or getting through all the bones. It's the process that matters the most.
• It works best when each bone is kept in focus until absorption, in which case it starts emitting light on its own and the flow of energy moves the consciousness to the next bone.
• The mind's eye (seeing the bones) as well as the feedback from this meditation can be trusted a lot more than the memory of anatomy. If there's no bone or important neighbouring bones have been missed, then the bones won't heat up and won't start glowing.

It seems that for me there's still a long way to go before I can properly practice the white skeleton meditation.

Ah, right. Remembered I haven't eaten pretty much anything since breakfast.