During meditation a few days ago, as I was watching the fire-reddened tip of the incense stick and filling my olfactory senses with that familiar smell, I noticed that my mind immediately began to go to all the things that I associate with it – being in the old room at the institute, seeing others in the community that I love, feeling high and low emotions during meditations over the years, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 My mind flipped between this and the many stresses I’m dealing with and all the things I ‘need’ to do to get rid of the stress.\u00c2\u00a0 I noticed that I could go on and on.<\/p>\n
As I usually do, I became aware that my mind was traveling and chose to rein it in, but this time with the experiment of condensing.\u00c2\u00a0 As I understood Jack’s definintion, I released everything that was superflous and returned my attention simply to the tip of the incense.\u00c2\u00a0 For what seemed like only an instant, I felt the sheer simplicity of being there, nothing but me and that red tip.\u00c2\u00a0 Then my mind took off again, partly a response to my own stress (like effects noted by Louise in her post of Nov 13) and partly perhaps mental resistance to a different way of being.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I saw that this was the ‘field communique’ that I had set up, a mindset that I’ve been accustomed to for years, with many mutually supporting references between stress and actions.\u00c2\u00a0 Of choice, I again distilled my experience to the simple exercise of me and the incense tip.\u00c2\u00a0 As I did, I noticed my physical tightness and was able to release some of it and breathe a little more easily.\u00c2\u00a0 Honestly, I could only stay there a short time; still, the taste of such simplicity brought a soft little smile to my face.\u00c2\u00a0 Tracy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During meditation a few days ago, as I was watching the fire-reddened tip of the incense stick and filling my olfactory senses with that familiar smell, I noticed that my mind immediately began to go to all the things that … Continue reading