Photo: ‘Middle of the Ripple’ – Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/photos/water-surface-ripple-wave-drops-984167/
MIDDLE OF THE RIPPLE…
The practice is to just be in the middle of the ripple. Rinpoche writes:
“…the practice of starting in the center. First there is development…Eventually, something is labeled: an object… As soon as there is an identified object, the subject responds or reacts. For instance, ‘I don’t like that chair, because it hurts my back when I sit in it.’ Or, ‘I have no friends so I’m upset, I’m sad and lonely.’
Notice the story doesn’t matter that much. The story lets you explain to yourself why you are feeling the way you do, but that is a layer that is added on. IT’S THE FEELING, THE REACTION, THAT’S AT THE CENTER…I am not separate from the center, because I am having that experience…I feel and see and notice within the experience…and my identity is not separate from being in that field…Just sit there…the more you sink into it, the more it opens up…and after a while…it begins to move. It ripples outward, through the whole field. You are still in the center, but now the center is expanding…when you stay in the center of the feeling…the movement of the ripple loosens…like the ripples on the surface of a lake that gradually subside. You are in the center and of the center, and that means it’s all a little different than it was before.â€
…‘Dimensions of Mind’, Tarthang Tulku, p.181-3
Being in the middle of the ripple reminds me, among other things, of TSK exercise 26, “Transcendence of Pointingsâ€, which in a way deals with ‘read-outs’… that ordinary belief structures can be challenged, they can actually be seen as a ‘referring process’ that ultimately does not really refer to anything beyond the read-out itself. The exercise can lead to a level of experience that transcends meanings. In this exercise you explore knowing both mentally and physically. I find ‘feeling’ the senses serves to anchor the moving mind in the moment…and immediacy is the ‘point’… a pointless point… a ripple…
Here’s a link to my previous practice notes:
https://cciforum.dreamhosters.com/?p=6002
Thanks, David.
Ah, the subsiding ripples–what do they leave behind in their wake? The still surface of the pond, which was always there but now more readily noticed, in the quiet that follows the passing waves of a child’s thrown pebble. Especially if you happen to be a trout five feet below, wondering “What the heck. That’s not a snack I’m going to try.”
I’m rereading “Revelations of Mind” for a second time, after reading “Dimensions of Mind”, and I wonder if the precise use of words–“Revelations and “Dimensions”– is noteworthy. We encounter “Dimensions” more often than “Revelations” in the titles of the TSK books, and I wonder if the idea of dimensionality is already a reaching out into our lived world. Whereas “Revelations” are an invitation to peer inwards at the realms that are inherent, not yet elaborated, branching out, or an engagement with the realms in which we living our familiar lives.
But how wonderful to have both available–like the dance of electrons around the myterious nucleus.