{"id":9924,"date":"2021-03-08T12:28:16","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T20:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/?p=9924"},"modified":"2021-03-30T09:44:49","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T16:44:49","slug":"focusing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/?p=9924","title":{"rendered":"FOCUSING…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by David Filippone<\/p><\/div>\n

FOCUSING\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

For my Richard Dixey class, ‘Searcher Reaches Land’s Limits<\/em>‘, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been working with a simple little practice that goes right to the heart of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcrecognizing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the subtlety of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcKnowingness\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in experience. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a concentration exercise.<\/p>\n

PRACTICE \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 3 minutes twice a day [As I practiced it] For Consistency and strengthening the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcattending\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 skill. TAKE AN OBJECT like a candle [nice because the flame flickers with movement, helps to stabilize focus] or flower or whatever\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 concentrate on it for 3 minutes, no more [use a timer]\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 abolish all intruding thoughts\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 concentrate HARD\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 to give a clear message to mind, that this is important, and ‘I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m’ in control\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 During different sittings, I was focusing on the flower in the photo below\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 all different spots of the bouquet.<\/p>\n

After doing this for a while, see if you can recognize the fractions of seconds that are engaged in minding activities\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 ordering, labeling, categorizing, narrating. And distinguish those instants from instants of an openness that is non-ordering, not categorizing, labeling or narrating\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and stay with that open non-doing. It is quite subtle\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

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MY PRACTICE NOTES: Just seeing the flower\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 other thoughts encroach\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 narrations, sounds of whirring hard-drive, distant traffic, distracting peripheral movements\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 sudden relaxing as all things seem equal, a microsecond of equanimity\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Then, a label of something heard encroaches shutting down the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcequality\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of everything, a narrative pop-up explaining to myself what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing, realizing my concentration is distracted, I refocus on the object, noticing subtle colors\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Then, suddenly everything opens-up to a kind of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcequality\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, relaxing, smooth and uniform\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Noticing that, automatically \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, the self, separates from the object in order to notice it. And in that separation, I go from an all-things-equal flattened-space, non-thing open Being, to a controlling meaning-making, history-laden, judging entity. A juggler of ‘things’. Then, time\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s up\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 or perhaps better said\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 time resumes its flow.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcSavoring\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 that openness I realize it seems similar to that same non-conceptual experience of being struck silent by a beautiful sunrise, or sunset, or I notice the innocence of animals, or the laughter of children\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 or often the silence that comes sometimes at the end of thinking as storylines or narratives drift off. Right there, is a dynamic knowing, and a feeling of unbounded vitality. Savor that…<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOCUSING\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 For my Richard Dixey class, ‘Searcher Reaches Land’s Limits‘, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been working with a simple little practice that goes right to the heart of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcrecognizing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the subtlety of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcKnowingness\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in experience. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a concentration exercise. PRACTICE \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 3 minutes … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,81,43,195,51,115,80],"tags":[43,169,115,205],"class_list":["post-9924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-general-tsk-discussions","category-awareness","category-being","category-intimacy","category-knowledge","category-opening","category-zeroless","tag-being","tag-higher-knowing","tag-opening","tag-zero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9962,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9924\/revisions\/9962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}