Hello,
The following are my notes for Unit Three. By the way, I do find allowing only one week per Unit is a bit confining. The fact that I sometimes feel pressure as the end of the period elapses probably says more about me than the amount of allotted time assigned, but never the less, more time per Unit would be helpful, in my opinion.
Best wishes,
David
TSK Ex 30 – A Subject-Object Reversal
I am consciously aware of and looking at a plate on a shelf as an object. I decide to reverse that view and become the plate. At first it’s disorienting. I am aware of the distance between us. By changing this perspective I am very much aware maintaining how tight the control is of this reversed view, for I must now imagine what I see after first seeing one way, then taking note of what I would see if I were looking at me from the perspective of the plate. From this perspective I’m aware of the distance that separates the two objects, and what I as an object looks like from across the room, and I’m aware of the periphery and background from both perspectives. I spend some time alternating or reversing these perspectives to get the feel.
I realize the plate (created by someone as an artifact) exists in my mind as a name, with properties that my mind has categorized, with a point of view that my mind has adopted, with a relationship that I have assigned because I have established my sense of self as separate and contained in here, separate from what my mind sees as out there. All these relationships and qualities of the object I call plate exist in my knowing awareness, and in that there is no distance, because all of this is made of the same mind stuff. In my mind the distance, the name, the plate, and its qualities are all imputed.
Once I see that I have been assigning qualities, relationships, value, distance, and meaning to the object, I realize there is a controller who is orchestrating this process. I don’t actually see the controller; I see the controlling activity and its results. Allowing something ‘to do’ me seems to involve a shift, a letting go of a restricted view, and as I let the thought or feeling or experience know me, I am letting go of these qualifying imputations, which expands to a more encompassing perspective. The doing seems to be the self’s domain. As soon as I understood that normally it is the self that does, it seemed easy to let go of doing and be the thoughts. In that process the presumption of distance evaporates and there is immediate opening, the self-setting suddenly becomes a view on a more open focal plane.
For instance, when I watched two birds on a branch outside my window, I shifted perspective to the birds and in doing so, the moment seemed to open wide. The experience included more than just the limited trajectory of my line of site. At first, I presumed looking with eyes, but that presupposition, the presumption of eyes and all that it entails (a self controlling the visual input as if taking up a physical position) is a specific limitation on looking that is not necessary in mental space, and when I let go of that presumptive located viewpoint, then distance dissolved – subject and object seemed to merge.
DTS Ex 1 – Conducting the Vision
As I type this I have a narrow focus on the specific letters and interdependent words, ideas, meaning to convey, and so on. Deciding to shift attention to the present moment involves an immediate opening of perspective that is inclusive. It seems awareness of the present moment, and opening to the Now is the same shift. Momentarily all is more open, a fuller experience is allowed to appear, I feel my body, the senses seem ready, and some are actively receiving openly.
For example, color seems more intense, everything seems brighter even though it’s raining. Eyes scan, near and far, not involving the controller-self in a particular aspect of any vision. There is movement by the wind in the leaves just outside, and then there is a tendency to want to focus, to rest, to consider, to hold on to the fullness of that moment, then thoughts about this exercise drift in. Then I step back again to take it all in, to carry that momentarily expanded awareness and apply it to this new moment to review what just previously happened, so that I can write down the process here, and so on.
When I observe experience in this way, watching each new moment and what it leads to, I am continuing to return to the open moment, or better said, to a more open framework or focal setting, like a prior inclusiveness that supports what appears, a kind of ground for the description, a field for appearance.
This more allowing perspective is aware of limits; the narrowing and widening of any of the particular focal settings.
Supplemental TSK Ex 34 – The Embodiment of Knowledge
At first, for a few days I visualized the energy flow as one complete rotation down the spine and returning to the top of the head, within the span of one combined exhale and inhale. I came to realize that the visualization was led by a desire to follow the controlling instruction, which I found a little confining.
Later, I settled into the exercise, which meant I slowed down the rotation and felt the movement more that visualized it. At that point the exercise opened up for me. There was a feeling of warm aliveness, but it had texture too. It was as if I felt the vitality of the physical systems and fluids flowing within me, pulsing like the music patterns I described in my notes to Unit One, Ex 24 – A Marriage of Sound and Breath. Aside from the flowing aliveness, there was a finer, almost granular energy, as if at the cellular level, a kind of electrical interaction. Now, my entire body felt charged, full, and alive.
Today, I continued to work with feeling the circulation of energy, and allowing each cycle to expand to include the entire body. I allowed the experience to expand beyond ‘me,’ the way the sense of sound allows extension beyond the physical body, but it was ‘feeling’ that extension, a moving in space without really moving. That is, there was a feeling like movement but there was nothing to move, what seemed to change or move was a sense of allowing for what would normally not be allowed, or even considered.
Hi David,
There’s a lot here to digest and reflect on. Regarding subject-object reversal, your observation that the object as we normally conceive it is made up at least in part of assigned names and a presupposed relationship seems to me very important. Subject-object reversal does not mean simply moving our identity to the position of the object. Instead, it might mean seeing the self as made up “assigned names and a presupposed relationship” to the object, which now stands at the center. Seeing it this way may help clarify exercise LOK 5, assigned the previous week.
Now, approaching the exercise at this level probably presupposes aspects of the TSK vision that we have not yet dealt with. As I have suggested before, people should do these exercises at whatever level makes sense to them; they will always be beneficial. Thus, subject-object reversal could also just mean something like “switching places.”
With regard to DTS Ex. 1, I am struck by how you refer to the shift as “momentary.” This has come up in other descriptions by various people of the effect of other exercises. This is to be expected, but I do wonder whether it makes sense to reflect back from time to time to see if there are changes going on that are not only momentary.