I am sorry that I’m only posting on this unit now, at the close of the two-week session. It’s been a busy two weeks!<\/p>\n
Although I have not worked with the exercises as much as I would have liked, I have worked with several of them fairly regularly, and I have to say: Rinpoche’s suggestion that the temporal reversals eventually may be accomplished by a special ‘knowing’ not tied to self image, remains mysterious to me. I’m not sure what he’s talking about. I did find on several occasions that a kind of “rhythm” is set up, so that switching temporal directionality almost becomes automatic. But I did not feel empowered during those times to be able to view the present from both past and future simultaneously.<\/p>\n
During a recent practice, I experimented with how I switched temporal orientation, looking this time at the present from the “vantage” of my entire past. The sense was, “This moment, on this cushion, in this room, is the culmination of all of my life.” Switching directions, I saw the present as the “past,” the seed or zero point, of the rest of my life. In both cases, taking such an encompassing perspective seemed to lend more charge and import to the present — really causing me to evaluate how I “occupied” it, how I valued it, how serious I was about the creative potential of time.<\/p>\n
Obviously, I wasn’t able to visualize my whole past at once, but I grasped a “gestalt” of it by holding a number of memories together in a single constellation. It seemed surprising and improbable to me that they all led to this spot, this moment, this situation, with me doing TSK in a house in California so far from anyone else in my family.<\/p>\n
Now, a new question arises…. Perhaps all of these things DIDN’T lead here. What then? What if there is no direct causal link after all? What if “now” is not the “sum” of then?<\/p>\n
~ Bruce<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am sorry that I’m only posting on this unit now, at the close of the two-week session. It’s been a busy two weeks! Although I have not worked with the exercises as much as I would have liked, I … Continue reading