Karin and Michael report similar experiences of openness. I want to call attention especially to Karin’s comment that there was nothing special about the moments in which she experienced more lightness, intensity, etc. That is very consistent with the focus of the exercise. Different “layers of experience” are available within every experience.
In several places in the TSK books Rinpoche writes about the Body of Knowledge. We could say that by looking away from the content of experience, we are connecting with the body of experience.
For that reason, while the flavor of the experience (more open, more intense, etc.) is important to notice, it is perhaps even more importance to get a sense of the dimensionality of experience: so much going on, at so many levels. Once we make contact with the body of experience, we are ready to start exercising it.
Finally, there will be times when you just can’t do the exercise, as Karin suggests: when you get lost in content. That’s fine. Sometimes you can do it, and that is what matters. And it those times, it is easy, isn’t it? Just very natural.
Jack