We are in the middle of Unit 17, and are allowing ourselves only one week for Unit 18. So we are just about at the end! Thank you everyone for staying with this. My own sense is that it has been difficult to sustain our program over so many months, which is why next year (starting in September) I will offer shorter and more focused programs.
 David’s description of his experience with TSK exercises 25 and 26 is very helpful. David, you have a very fine way of engaging the exercises, and also reporting on your experiences. I am sure others have benefited.
I want to make one observation and one suggestion about “Transcendence of Pointings.” The observation is that while it is fairly easy to see how one set of events or experiences points to the whole complex of what arises, and everything points to everything else (this is the Mind-Body-Thought Interplay), it is not so easy to include yourself in that complex. In my own experience I find I draw near to that kind of moment, and then fall back again. But of course, that is useful in itself.
The suggestion is this: see what the insights evoked by the exercises have to do with your everyday life. I am thinking especially of the examples given on p. 88 of When It Rains: failing to act on our good intentions, and finding it difficult to focus on one object or intention. When such moments come up (and they come up often each day), take a look. Is there a ‘failure’ to transcend pointings at work? Are you ‘intimate’ with your own intentions?
Jack
Jack,
You comment that next year you will be offering shorter and more focussed programs. Is this instead of continuing with the second half of the program (your email of 30 October 2006 said “I will definitely plan to continue with the second part of the study program next fall”)? Or are these shorter programs for newcomers to the program? Would the shorter programs be relevant to those of us who are currently doing this course?