I have only managed to work on a few of the parts of this practice, as I like to try each 2-3 times, to ‘get into’ it more deeply before moving on.<\/p>\n
When I watch carefully, words and sense perceptions seem to arise within me from an inner energy spark, a kind of restless inner tension which can’t allow me to ‘just be’. This energy seems to generate the ‘chattering mind’ that I live with most of my life. The moment that awareness is present, the ‘little mind’ (manus in yoga terms) seems to\u00c2\u00a0take this presentation and\u00c2\u00a0start to manipulate it. If I perceive something ‘not known’, there seems to be an instant need to fit it into a pre-existing pattern. In this, I am so like my cat. She seems to live by patterns of behaviour -\u00c2\u00a0both hers and mine. She knows the ‘this is dinner time’ pattern, the ‘now we are going to bed’ pattern, the ‘now I have to go into the kitchen because Gaynor is going out’ pattern, etc, and is quite happy as long as the pattern is followed. Anything new\u00c2\u00a0upsets her and makes her fearful. If my mind also acts like that, perhaps it’s for the same reason as for her – it seems to be a self-protection and security mechanism to make me feel that the world is familiar and understood. Of course, that then removes the magic and excitement of truly new experience for me.<\/p>\n
In moving from one thought sequence to another, I find that one of these sequences\u00c2\u00a0seems to peter out\u00c2\u00a0most often\u00c2\u00a0when it is ‘out-competed’ for energy by another more exciting one entering my awareness. I seem to be constantly ‘storytelling’ to myself, perhaps as a form of reassurance. So many of these sequences, for me at least, seem to be triggered by memory.<\/p>\n
Part C of this exercise talks about not knowing how to proceed. This instantly reminded me of the practice – DTS 23: Choosing the Unknown<\/strong>, which Tom Morse introduced to us\u00c2\u00a0when he took a retreat here a few years ago. I find the concept of ‘not knowing’ marvelously liberating, possibly because the demand of my previous work life as a manager was that I was always expected to ‘know’. Within DTS 23, I love the idea of actually choosing<\/em> not to know, choosing<\/em> to ‘dwell in the unknown’. As DTS 4C says, sameness seems to be\u00c2\u00a0everywhere I look. It seems that, for me, the critical thing is to\u00c2\u00a0be able to observe that sameness without allowing it\u00c2\u00a0inevitably to predetermine how I choose to be or to act, to allow space for the unknown\u00c2\u00a0-\u00c2\u00a0for me, usually more easily accepted conceptually than applied in practice.<\/p>\n Gaynor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have only managed to work on a few of the parts of this practice, as I like to try each 2-3 times, to ‘get into’ it more deeply before moving on. When I watch carefully, words and sense perceptions … Continue reading