I’ve always had trouble with the ‘condensing’ exercise, but something Jack said on the conference call clicked, then visualizing the candle, and I recognized condensing in my experience. I didn’t seem to understand what the instructions meant to condense or distill experience to its essential aspects until I associated it to the experience last week that I described as being fully present and feeling deeply intimate while: “sitting on the porch surrounded by color; the cave of maples caving in, slowly crumbling, dropping lemon-yellow leaves …“, and so on.
Today, I’m sitting in the same spot looking out upon the same colorful, crumbling palette, but this moment though similar is different, the TV is on in the other room, the sun isn’t shining as bright as it was the other day, my mind is busy thinking as I’m comparing the present with the past, and with associated value judgments as to what was better about the original experience, and so on.
For this experiment, I realize ‘condensing’ is a matter of unclenching, letting go of what is not essential to the present moment, relaxing into it, as if isometrically releasing any residual body tension, exhaling all sense of self, and calming down mental activity while instantaneously ceasing connecting names and running commentary. I’ve done this many times, it’s quite familiar. This ‘condensing‘ seems to momentarily eliminate all activities that separate me from being fully present to the bright colors around me and feeling of intimate fullness. I notice feeling tones of happiness and a childlike fascination, even surprise, looking at the movement of colors, and a flow of emotional tones of exquisite delicacy, and a stillness that seems primal.
David
