Hi everyone,
Our TSK reading for this unit includes discussion of our normal tendency to relate to the spaciousness of the sky as a boundary, an enclosing spherical surface.
I am presently on holiday (vacation) in the Middle East and yesterday was crossing the expanses of the Jordanian desert. Contemplating the vastness of the sky in this context, as well as of the desert I was passing through, seemed to open up even that small personal ‘me’ to space, enabling ‘me’ to be expanded by its presence. In a place like this, the sky just “is”, it is expansionary, not a ‘boundary’, or a ‘container’.
Being in such an environment makes it easier for me to understand the concept of ‘nested space’. It is an ‘allowing’ space. We seem to spend so much of our time in a deliberately limited space, attempting to ‘lock space down’. Yet, seeing the vastness of the desert sky and observing the timeless way of life of the bedouin who live here, even if only from the confines of a bus, seems to illustrate to me just how space could ‘nest’ in so many ways in my consciousness, increasing its allowing, accommodating quality as it does so.
Gaynor
Gaynor — Your comments really clicked with me: I hadn’t realized that I was putting boundaries on space, but I am. I am going to return to expanding and condensing to play with space in those ways. Enjoy the rest of your vacation!
Lesley
Incredible, Gaynor. Your comments clicked with me — the boundaries I put on space itself!
Enjoy your vacation.
Last week, I went to Bodies: The Exhibit (it’s in Seattle for a few months — http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/); gave me a new appreciation of visualizing the details of the body. Allowed me to see the spaciousness.
Lesley
I really appreciated your post, Gaynor; thank you. I’ve had similar experiences recently of the sky as more than a boundary or container — as an openness that is ‘also’ at the heart of my body and mind. Although I haven’t done the Mountain Retreat exercise, I felt I had an inkling of Rinpoche is describing when he says that space itself can be nourishing.
Years ago, I used to have a practice that I spontaneously did, especially when I was out walking in the wilderness: I would say, “The sky is my skull,” and would notice almost immediately a sense of expansiveness and openness that seemed to spread through my body, relaxing and centering it.
About nested spaces: Yesterday, doing the Giant Body exercises, I spontaneously came to an experience of the layers of nested spaces and activity going on in me, from the atomic level to the organic body to the sense of being positioned in a room, with other layers in between. I didn’t have to construct this, as I often do: it was simply there, all unfolding together without interference. It seemed quite miraculous to me. Magical.
Best wishes,
Bruce