I wondered what all the talk of ‘glow’ was about, until I realised that I had done the LOK ex.17 and not the TSK ex.17. Oh, well… I’m glad that I made the mistake because the process, and the discovery of LOK ex.17 itself, were well worth it. But now, about the exercise that we were asked to do…

1.Visualize the phosphorescent blossom until you deeply experience the inseparability of the blossom from its glow.

I haven’t seen such a cactus. I tried to imagine it, but I found it more helpful for me to visualise the moon and to experience the fact that ‘glow’ and ‘moon’ were experientially inseparable.

2.Then see how this inseparability relates to your daily experiences of ‘the object and you’. Concentrate on how the ‘you’ component might be like the ‘glow’ of the ‘object’.

It was easy to contact the sense of ‘self’ (however vague) which was opposite an everyday object (a watch sitting on my desk). I could get a sense of my ‘self’ as a glow of the object. It was very pleasant. I could, however, ‘get it’ only if I didn’t imagine distance coming in. At first ‘distance’ asserted itself habitually.

3.With a more broadly based knowing (which initially may simply mean being open-minded), consider what constitutes ‘intervening distance’ between the ‘object’ and ‘you’ and what such distance is like.

Intervening distance? Maybe I’m not getting this part, but I couldn’t find any distance if I felt myself to be the glow of the object. And that’s weird: while in conventional terms, I could designate the object as the object (‘over there’ ‘on the desk’) and i could rationally designate a ‘me’ ‘over here,’ but in actual experience I couldn’t find an intervening distance. I tried experimentally to get ordinary distance (‘here-there-and-in-between) back, and it seems that distance is dependent on my doing something thought-like to ‘distance’ a ‘me’ from the object.

Again, if I imagined a ‘between’ (a ‘measurable-style space’ between the object and me) then such a distancing move diminished my sense of ‘self-as-object’s-glow.’ Distance-making turned the self into a point of reference for the ‘there-ness’ of the object and the intimacy of the ‘glow’ was lost. It created a isolated point in space as the reference-point-self.

4.Might there be a sense in which there is no such distance, even though the series of experiences which usually constitute evidence for moving through distance can still be experienced?

This is what I meant by the weirdness: while conventional terminology could still be relevant, in experience, ‘distance’ was a very, very doubtful designation for the interaction ‘between’ my person and the object. (Which, again, says it as it isn’t, but I have to say something!!) Instead of distance there was the intimacy of a dynamic, empty unity.

I really enjoyed this exercise, because it opens a profound sense of mystery, of which I felt the self-watch-interaction to be an expression.