A few reflections on my personal practice, in anticipation of the review day on Sunday:<\/p>\n
-\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Observing the ppf structure of my thoughts and thought processes, I note how pre-occupied these tend to be with anticipations of the future. Yet even these thought processes seem\u00c2\u00a0tinged with the impact of\u00c2\u00a0past memories and of conditioning. After all, it is this conditioning which has built up my self-identity, an identity which co-exists with\u00c2\u00a0ongoing labeling. I note that the only really ‘present-focused’ thoughts\/images in my mind seem to be those\u00c2\u00a0arising as sense impressions, ones in which I am responding to external material stimuli rather than generating internal reflections. \u00c2\u00a0I am more located ‘in the present\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (to the extent that there is such a thing) when I am ‘walking around’, i.e. in Exercise 18B<\/strong>, interacting with\u00c2\u00a0a material world, than when I sit in a formal meditative practice i.e. in Exercise 18A<\/strong>. Once I ‘sit’, the plans, anticipatory thoughts, memories of past events – and the emotions -\u00c2\u00a0just spill out. I try generating \u00e2\u20ac\u2122what if\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 scenarios, but, even here, my musings are predicated on memory. Everything I conceive has \u00e2\u20ac\u02dchappended\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n -\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t envision how my thoughts and images, however much I may open them, can ever be entirely free of the samskara<\/i>s of conditioning. My very \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccharacter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 is formed by these. Without these, every experience becomes entirely new, with no structure whatever extant. While this\u00c2\u00a0is wonderful in theory, it seems to me a completely impractical way to function and interact with a material world. Some labeling, in this linear time context, is inevitable<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0 – \u00c2\u00a0Exercise 19<\/strong> – As I sit practising, my cat sits with me. I interact lovingly, almost instinctively, with him, in what is almost our own little purely \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpresent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 world. Yet even this apparently spontaneous interaction is tinged with elements of the past and future. My consciousness holds memory of his past frail health, and anticipation of his\u00c2\u00a0 inevitable death some time in the future, making our present interaction all the more precious for me<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0-\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Exercise 20<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c my initial reversals from future backward or from past forward have a very structured reality, a very ego-centred form, full of substance. As I gradually move away from this to a more \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcknowing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 quality, this structuring drops away, leaving only a continuum, a\u00c2\u00a0flow of time,\u00c2\u00a0a perennially moving present contained within it, impossible to pinpoint within objective time<\/p>\n -\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 When I read a work of fiction, what temporal continuum do I enter? Am I in a fantasy state, an ‘unreal’ world? An alternative temporal structure? \u00c2\u00a0– Yet if my personal reality is only what I perceive, then this current perception, this \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfantasy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 world (based on memories of\u00c2\u00a0chapters already\u00c2\u00a0read, anticipations of\u00c2\u00a0where the story is heading) is as real a ppf continuum as any other, \u00c2\u00a0more \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcobjective\u00e2\u20ac\u2122,\u00c2\u00a0 part of my perceptual world<\/p>\n -\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Exercise 21<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as I practise, I hear my husband playing the piano in the next room. Reflecting on the music, am I in the present? Even my hearing of the music is past. Letting the music flow over me, drinking it in, feels like the present. Yet\u00c2\u00a0his playing of the music itself is already part of the past when I hear it. In the time that it has taken to travel between rooms, register in my hearing and perceiving brain, it is already gone. Am I always therefore living in the past? In yogic discussion I often hear said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The only moment that you really have is the present moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. But do I even have this?<\/p>\n -\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Exercise 22<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really sure how to practise this exercise. How do I enter a moment? Through thought\/image? What is this moment that I can enter into the future of it? There seems not to be one ppf structure. Many pasts lead to a present moment, and it flows out into multiple futures, different futures for each aspect or to each entity involved in its occurrence<\/p>\n I hope your discussions tomorrow are valuable for everyone participating. I hope that I may be able to hear them via podcast later this week.<\/p>\n Gaynor<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few reflections on my personal practice, in anticipation of the review day on Sunday: -\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Observing the ppf structure of my thoughts and thought processes, I note how pre-occupied these tend to be with anticipations of the future. Yet … Continue reading