Abiding in Thought and Marriage of Sound and Breath have both been favourite practices for many years. Practising them today was very much a homecoming.
With Marriage of Sound and Breath my thought train is simply ‘Breathe’, ‘Breathe’, ‘In’, ‘Out’. The mind quiets, but it still insists on doing something, even if that that something is only counting, or noting. Sound and breath meld together – I breathe in the sound of the clock, I breathe out the sound of the rain. I breathe in sound, I breathe out sound. It’s a label, I am still labelling, but at least I recognise that I am labelling. At times the sound becomes me, and I become the sound. Is this truly what is meant by a ‘marriage of sound and breath’, or should awareness remain apart from this melding?
Abiding in Thought – there is a profound deepening of the ‘felt experience’, an inner quiet, yet with intensity. In contrast, as I observe thoughts arise they seem to have lost the intensity of their ‘pulling power’. Within this, thought process seems much more ‘interesting’ than thought content. Content rather seems almost to dissolve at this depth. Perspective changes, and things which had been so concerning me no longer seem important. There is only the thought itself.