I had forgotten the exact question for the walking around exercise, but the insights that came actually relate nicely to the original question. I asked myself, what is the space of thought, and how does it relate to my sense of ordinary space? First contacting my “ordinary” sense of space, I found it seemed to be mostly related to the geometry of vision. It arose out of the relation and triangulation of various objects and markers in my visual field. When I tried to contact the space of thought, I could not import this same sense of space to it. Instead, I noticed that the space of thought was more like the space of the body: it appeared to be related to a shifting field of presence and a feeling of non-obstruction.
I am still sitting with this; I’m feel there is more to “find” here but I’m not sure what yet.
Hi Bruce and Karen,
Bruce, I love your ordinary space observation of geometry of vision. I’ve been watching mind’s eye space too, and I notice different kinds of space, or if they aren’t really types of space, then perhaps how internal space is being created and used. I find space within space such as memories as missing sections, also as place-holders waiting to be filled by incoming formulations, or as openness in which to project what may arise from my recalling. Even dark spots where pieces are unconnected in contrast to bits and pieces that do connect. Then sometimes as if stepping back, space awareness becomes simply unavoidable and more encompassing, as if the room of my mind inexplicably expanded. There is a space of feelings that flows like liquid, there’s the space of the senses filling like expanding sails in a wind of sensations: taste expanding and billowing, smell like a cloud filling a valley, seeing nature in a revealing light tugging at the heart releasing a flow of feeling. These ‘sails’ expand into a much larger space that connects, recalls, compares, analyzes, evaluates, etc. I sense the parallel of ordinary space geometry of vision, with a space geometry of mind’s eye through ‘referring’ from point to point, object to embodied sense of me, and back out to objects, the ‘I am here’, and ‘now’ compared to ‘out there’ and ‘then’. That sense of imputed distance that I compare to watching the clouds drift by overhead.
Working with the Giant Body visualizations I get a heightened sense of space, the idea that ‘space is projecting space into space’ happens before my mind’s eye. Distance evaporates and ‘I am’ the Giant Body, AND the space of its arising.
David
Dear Bruce,
the questions you ask is meeting my experience with the walkabout (or around??) practise. Watching the arriving and leaving thoughts I was wondering what kind of space they do express or bring into being and was noticing the “shifting field of presence”, being connected with fields of emotionality and sensations. Are there really different spaces? Isn`t there space accomodationg emotion and thinking and sensation together? What is my concept about it? How is it related to my perception? My feeling was shifting between confusion and loosening up.
Karin