Practicing with ‘Opening Unknown Time’

I took a two hours walk in the woods this morning, after having read the assigned reading and Jack’s expounding on the topic for this week.  I decided to take the expounding that I have printed with me in my pocket in case opportunity arose and I could sit some where and go through it …

Opportunity did in deed arise; one of the benches on the path in the woods was empty and inviting.  It was an hour after I have been walking and had been admiring the blue sky, the fragrant blossoms, the sound of various birds; the gentle whispering of breeze that at times was accompanied with the chorus of dry leaves moving on the ground …

I re read the expounding very slowly and decided to spend 15 minutes or so on each of the four ways of entering/practicing with the opening unknown time (non dual experiencing).

Here I will try to review what I remember on each of those practices that I attempted to engage in experience …

1.  “going      to the point of arising”:

When I was practicing this, I followed the encouragement of going to the source ( the volcano metaphor Jack used in his expounding), it seemed that the source of each instant of arising experience was another instant of arising experience … and could not go backwards to its source that I originally assumed its directionality… going back to the  source of each arising was another arising… as if inquiring into any glimpse of experience that may indicate a source (with curiosity) turned out to become another arising experience moving forward freshly arising!!!  How surprising, and yet made complete sense in some way …

2.  “Looking      for aliveness in experience, however it manifests.

As the self consciousness dropped away and the awareness become the experiencing… it seemed that as one stream of experience gave away to the next, there was a sense of knowing that the previous stream is still on going, but out of the zoom or focus of the present screen…knowledge of simultaneousness of experiences/streams was present in a peaceful harmonious manner… there was a feeling of calmness, quietness, timelessness accompanying the lucidness of knowing/ experiencing (experiencing was knowing and vice versa)

(today) experiences like cold fingers, tasting and feeling the hot tea as I was sipping it  (bodily sensations) , humming (a specific pleasant, low pitch sound in my ears, various bird sounds, distance sound of carpenters hammering … (various sounds in the external environment, as well as internal… noticing people passing by, but the gaze was still and did not pick up data by directly looking, but seeing took place via peripheral vision…   certain inner visions also showed up in the mind: various people all around the world are all doing something …

The experiences/knowing of this practice seemed as if Awareness/knowing was utilizing the faculties of this body ( eyes, ears, nose, mind, senses…), in a different way than usual, less personal story waving/ meaning giving with the ‘I’ at the center, and more expansive and free floating or generic.

3.  “The      aliveness of fundamental questions that cut through old structures.”

I struggled with this one.

-‘how can one prolong, stabilize the non-dual way of being ?

– practice , practice, practice…

-So effortful !!!… habits pull me back … yet at times with no effort it arrives!!!… how so???  Is it true that I should beg it to stay?  Would it heed my begging? Jack said appreciate it.  I do…

-Am I practicing what Rinpoche is suggesting in this practice?  I am not sure…

It feels like ordinary experience…. Inner dialogue …

4.  “The      aliveness of the momentum that fuels the stories we tell/inhabit”

I struggles with this one too…

-When I am in the story I am lost, no noticing the momentum or its aliveness …

-When I am not in the story, then it is not going… so there is no momentum, to notice its aliveness …

It seems that I can only notice the momentum of the story in the looking back at it.  Then its aliveness is in the retrospect.. !!!???