I sat paying attention to the background feeling for a whole meditation session. The result was that the “foreground” feelings could not only change in a free-flowing way – free of any resisting evaluations or biased assessments – but the foreground feelings (e- [meaning: ‘out’] motions) could unfold deeper and deeper levels around the issue associated with them.
I had some conflict with a client this week and the feelings around this presented during the exercise. First there was some resentment, then some hurt, the tears and, with the naming of the successive levels, a settling in, a quietening, as though it was happy now that it had been heard and felt. All this happened spontaneously, with flow, largely because I kept checking in with the background feeling and its changes. I certainly didn’t sit down with an intention to ‘work through’ anything. And the background seemed to change with each new shift of the foreground emotions.
My conscious will was – most of the time – directed toward the background “feel.” It seemed that contacting the background feeling contributed naturally to the understanding of what was ‘under’ or ‘behind’ each successive level of the foreground emotional changes. Secondly, keeping the background in sight seemed to contribute to this understanding by being sensed as an OVERALL FEEL of the situation. The background feel seemed to be in touch wth ‘the more than I could have known’ if I had only been preoccupied with the foreground. Is this what Rinpoche means when he says, “Continued practice can contact the intuitive internal mind, bringing greater clarity and calm.†I certainly did get more clarity and calm about a very painful situation.
It looks to me like this exercise is very similar to Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing work.
Whoops! Forgot to sign my name to this post about the unfolding of the process once the ‘background’ was contacted: Christopher.