(The background to this report – which I fear is too long – is that I have a chronic illness, and my body is almost always in pain. Only in some meditative states do I get relief from the pain. I’ve had this for more than a decade, so it’s no big deal. But, here it has woken me, sometime after midnight, and so I am listening to the Class 1 mp3, again.)<\/p>\n
Taking up the suggestion of expanding ‘experiencing’ in some way, I lay there in the night and I wondered: “What might I expand that I don’t usually practice expanding?” Certainly, I could have expanded the senses, but I usually do that. At first I couldn’t think of anything new, something not normally offered up for expansion, and then I realized that this question itself had opened up \u00c2\u00a0‘experiencing.’\u00c2\u00a0 The curiosity about what to expand,\u00c2\u00a0a kind of silent questing for a something,\u00c2\u00a0was\u00c2\u00a0itself an expansion. How lovely!<\/p>\n
After a while, it came to me: “I can expand the sense itself of being an experiencer<\/strong>.” So, for a while I did that -\u00c2\u00a0 I actively included the ‘experiencer’ of whatever was presenting. This had a marked effect,\u00c2\u00a0 and for a while I didn’t have any words for the change. So, I just did it anyway, every-so-often noticing the new quality. Then, the phrase ‘a stopping<\/strong>‘ popped into awareness. Not a ‘stoppage,’ which would (for me, in this moment) be\u00c2\u00a0a deadening. This ‘stopping’ was a freeing up.<\/p>\n Let me invite that again, as I write to you… (I have been remembering to include the experiencer, as I write… which makes a difference to the process of writing…. ) Is it an inclusion of being the experiencer of it all? No, that’s not it. (I know because my body remains unmoved.) It’s more like… it’s an inclusion of… the ‘more-than-known<\/strong>.’ Let me check that. There’s a stopping, right? My body agrees. And, that’s an availability to the ‘more’? Yes. Where leaving out is inclusion.<\/p>\n An exercise I used to do regularly, comes to mind (from Paul Reps little ‘Zen Bones’ book), which is something like… “Wherever attention alights, there<\/em>…”\u00c2\u00a0 This ‘space’ that comes from the inclusion of the experiencer has the quality of that ‘there<\/em>.’ No longer putting the experiencer on the outside, there’s that (….), which includes availability for the ‘more than known.’ (The background to this report – which I fear is too long – is that I have a chronic illness, and my body is almost always in pain. Only in some meditative states do I get relief from the pain. … Continue reading
\nI’m checking the body’s experience of this ‘stopping.’ It’s, at the same time, an\u00c2\u00a0inclusion<\/b>….<\/p>\n
\nAmazement. Exactly this stopping reveals a spaciousness that is naturally an opening of a different kind of knowing, and, despite its silence, it’s definitely is not static. Its aliveness might be said to be a species of ‘inquiry.’\u00c2\u00a0 I also notice that it has a quality that is unique, precisely related to the entry question. Oh, how sweet is that!
\nIn the writing, new things are coming about it. But, at the time, I enjoyed lying there appreciating the ‘stopping,’ way beyond the end of the class1 mp3, in the expanded silence and intimacy of bedclothes and breathing.
\nAfter a while, I began to refine the inclusion of the experiencer. I narrowed down to being\u00c2\u00a0an experiencer of bodily pain<\/i>. With that, the relief that arose showed something more about the ‘stopping.’ The relief from resisting the pain (which I had been doing unaware) was an instance of that ‘stopping’ thing. So, it was clear that it was (and is) the stopping of taking a “position” about experiencing. (In this case, the position was: “I don’t want this.”)
\nI thought I better write this down. And now, back to… sleep, perchance to not dream, but, to quest silently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"