Hi Friends, I’ve been on retreat for the last week and a half and have to catch up with what been going on. I’d like to share some insights that I had in the context of TSK while away, though.
One morning while sitting I had a prolonged encounter with my inner death, very much grounded in my body. It was related to a cessation of the continuity of my ordinary identity. Here’s the TSK part, in that I could directly see the present mind bringing forward the past into the future. Another way of saying it was that it needed to reference the past in order to have the terms on which it could have a future. I stopped feeding that. Given the context – meditating with no chosen future-constructing agenda – then my staying put to see/feel/know the time-making patterns meant a cessation of the continuity. I saw that this is death.
No preferences present. Then there was awareness of the flow of change such that ‘flow’ no longer meant ‘time.’ It was a paradoxical thing – because, by sitting without preferences, and not feeding the ‘continuity’ tendencies, and sensing that death is not a relevant concept in the totality of what is, I had, at the same time, a fearless certainty that I and my loved ones will die.
I had a lot of gratitude for this experience.
Christopher.
