First, I would like to introduce myself: my name is Michael Gray and before Christmas, Jack gave me permission to join this TSK On-line course. I am grateful that he made this exception and I spent the next month or so reviewing the first ten units. It felt rushed, but I developed an appreciation for the way “When It Rains” weaves together the rich and varied material of the TSK vision. I didn’t realize until today that we have moved on from Unit 9 to Unit 10, but let me make a post about DTS ex 4, part C–Looking for Sameness without Predetermination.
When I practiced the various parts of ex 4 in December, I found that I would regularily reach a point of frustration when I couldn’t track the moments, let alone discover anything between them. Telling myself that moments aren’t real in any case (that the self can only deal with easily assimilated mouthfuls–like the measured coffee spoonfuls of T.S Elliott’s Prufrock)–didn’t help me to open up that frustrating experience. What did help was when I let myself relax (“This is too frustrating, I might as well just watch my breath for awhile”) and then a feeling that my experience was alive, energetic, and unbroken would fill me and I felt that I was glimpsing something more fundamental that linear time and the unfolding of predetermined categories into which I have been conditioned to reduce all my experience.
Then this morning, I had an interesting variation on this theme. Sitting and watching my experience, I noticed that my neck was tense and I started rotating my head slowly (as in the Kum Nye exercise, “Lightning Thoughts”). Over the past ten years, I have done this exercise at least several times a month, and it has become yet another item on my To Do list for which I don’t allow enough time and the “predetermined” cycles (three in each direction) don’t nourish because I am always racing ahead in my mind. Today, quite amazingly, for the first time in many years, I found myself completely present in the sensations of the moment. There was nowhere else I had to be. It felt wonderful. And I felt I glimpsed how moments don’t have to succeed one another in a linear stream when we aren’t in a hurry to be done with the fullness of whatever is before us right now.
–Michael Gray
