Hi All
EX 18 is I think an overlooked exercise. At least it has been for me. I think Lesley hints to the power of this exercise when she describes being like a spider wanting to hide in the web. Indeed, the self is like that spider that weaves its web of existence by adhering to a temporal order — past-present-future — linear nexus. Somewhere in the Time section, I recall Rinpoche saying that we may initially feel shocked to see how caught up and enmeshed we are in this order. …”Shockingly limited approach to life” is I think the phrase I hear.
As I did this Exercise throughout the day on and off, both formally and informally, I did have a strange sense of a different viewing angle emerge that was looking at the structure. I also had some imaginative fantasies–one is where I watched the the structure operate as if on automatic pilot–and I detached spatially from it–like I escaped through a portal and could step outside it like seeing it as a dream. That felt very strange in a way as then there was this sense of freedom from having to construct moments in reference to my self. I got a sense of how I “narrow down the vastness of Time.
I also have been in awe of hearing and noticing other people’s dialogues as tied up in this structure. Certainly it is tied to LOK EX 5 — where anxiety has a temporal structure.
RON
Hi Ron,
Powerful indeed. I as struck by your ending comment: “where anxiety has a temporal structure.” I hadn’t thought of anxiety as being temporal because the feelings and sensations are so “now,” at least for me. Thinking about it, I see that anxiety is clearly temporal. I find that I experience a lot of anxiety, especially the past few years, and that I also worry a lot about the past and future, yet re-engaging recentlly with TSK via this online course (and with tonglen through Sylvia’s adv med class), it is obvious to me where the anxiety resides — the past and future. When I sit squarely in the present, the sensations of anxiety are not there…I also see at least one root of my anxiety — not trusting the present and inner knowledge (K, cap K, Knowledge?). Trying to understand how the need (my need) to put food on the table, and all the consequent planning for future, intermingles with the less anxious present…tight but loose? a dynamic tension? avs. limp and withdrawn or overstrung…the infamous words of the Buddha about not stringing the instrument too tightly or too loosely? And, then the actualization of that seemingly undefineable middle ground.
xo, Lesley