Photo courtesy of: ‘Into The Mist’ by Mikko Lagerstedt
http://www.mikkolagerstedt.com/alone
Space moves within us, and we ourselves move within space. We are always opening to space, and space is always open for us. If we understand this much about space, time manifests differently, with a more allowing rhythm, offering knowledge new points of access. We open to the ratio, to form without edge or character, and discover a rich vitality that is like living forever. We fall in love with space.
…..’Sacred Dimensions of Time and Space,’ Tarthang Tulku, p. 63
This quote by Rinpoche reminds me of an exercise we TSK students often work with. It is one of my favorites for the FEEL and ‘in-touchness’ with a Zero-point… the non-occupancy of space, the formless openness of that foundational feeling… TSK Exercise 10, ‘Space Arising’, invites us to access space saying:
“…a richness that is available to be explored: a quality or feeling linked to the quality inherent in being alive, or simply the quality of being. Within the continuum of stillness, cultivate a transparent quality, as though you were preparing the silence to receive light. As you continue with this practice, you will develop the ability to dwell within the silence in a way that allows for a light and clear awareness. It is like activating a silent witness, whose steady presence we might consider ‘nowness’.
Eventually this presence can become a ‘place’ that you can identify and enter with ease, even though it still has no specific identity or qualities. We might call it the womb of space. Some people may find it fruitful to spend long hours there, familiarizing themselves with the spacious silence it offers, deepening their contact.
As you come to know this foundational ‘place’, you can see how ordinary experience arises out of it. A sense of being becomes ‘being here’; from this arises ‘being here in time’. Presence becomes presence ‘of’ something, which is then established and felt to exist. Existence becomes ‘I am’, which is felt to be identical with the original sense of being.â€
….‘Dynamics of Time and Space’, Tarthang Tulku, p.281
For me, this cone of knowing, the FEEL of layers of meaning in the process of expanding… is what? Is an expanding, widening focal awareness, ‘space awareness’… it’s the movement of knowing… radiating outward…
David,
I love the photo and the way it invokes the presence of open space.
I think that was the kind of feeling I had when writing the final paragraph of my book, “The Flying Caterpillar“: appreciating how the openness of space invites us to be open to the opportunities that await us in time:
As a boy floating in the sun on Crystal Lake in Main, my canoe silent on the tiniest of ripples…the air still, the scent of pine… little me and the vast flat expanse of blue lake under endless blue-dome sky… I was there…
Probably why your book, your penetrating memoir, made such an impression on me as I read it… I felt I shared your space, your consciousness, your appreciation for the experience and the unknown… the silent canoe… moving on…
Just found this photo of Crystal Lake in Winter… I was always there in the Summers…but I remember the water being still and flat like this often…