September program
First Meeting
Our first video meeting will be Saturday, September Sep. 7, 2pm San Francisco time. I'll send email invitations to those of you who have registered. At the meeting we will discuss our experience--success and difficulties--during the preceding week of doing the space exercises below. The meeting could last an hour and a half.
Our first meeting will be Saturday, Sep. 7, 2pm San Francisco time.
This is also 2pm in Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Portland, Reno, and Tucson
3pm in Denver, and Costa Rica
4pm in Austin,
5pm in Niagara Falls
11pm in Paris
and 7am Sunday in Sydney,
Reading and Exercises for Sep. 3-7
Please read Chapter one of the first TSK book. Gather any questions for our first meeting.
During this first week, do the following exercises.
TSK exercise 15, adapted
As you sit [or lie] in a relaxed position, directing your awareness off into the distance, breathe in the open space before you. . . . Let the breath be very relaxed. . . .
Draw in relaxed breaths through both nose and mouth so that this space gradually pervades every level of physical organization. . . . It merges with the major organs of the body . . . With the various layers of tissue throughout the body . . . With the blood and lymph . . . Even the ligaments and bones. . . .
When you exhale, consider that your 'breath' is merging with the sky. . . . Becoming indistinguishable from the sky. . . . .
As well as every cell of your body let the space which is entering you pervade your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, judgments, and memories. . . .
Allow all defining boundaries and partitions to be permeable to this rich and vital space. . . .
Be sensitive to a positive, healthy energy flowing through your consciousness, reflecting the clarity of space. . . .
Just relax and let everything be open and light . . .
See if—in conjunction with your breathing—the space above, before, behind, and to each side of you can enter every part of your body and thoughts. . . . Give it some time to open completely. . .
When you exhale, allow this 'space' to return to the outer space through every pore of your body. There is a complete commingling. . . .no effort is necessary . . . .
Let the pervasion by 'space' be so complete that it includes your locatedness, your subtle sense of position in regard to both the surrounding space and 'the world' and to your locating past and anticipated future. . . .
Everything is pervaded by space. . . .
Surrender all positions—including the 'here' that you occupy, as well as the surrounding spatiotemporal environment that contains you and your aspirations. . . .
This is not a matter of negating [or ignoring] anything. Simply notice these subtle structuring factors and allow the liberating quality of space to grace them with its touch . . . .
For a prerecorded version of this exercise, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m00zmlMmhiY
What happened during the exercise? Write something in a journal.
Did you feel or experience any deeper kind of space? Not just a kind of emptiness?
Did you feel your body or your sense of self 'open up'? Become more transparent or permeable? More spacious?
Did anything happen to your usual sense of being located?
Mandala Gardens, p. 47
Imagine that you are completely empty, that inner space is free and unoccupied.
Imagine that gradually and gently the heart begins to open, like a little bud of light expanding in space.
How much you practice these exercises is up to you.
Once in a while you could do the following exercise, perhaps while walking:
p. 275, TSK:
Exercise 34 The Embodiment of Knowledge
A. Let your body be internally very light and unclouded.
Visualize an intensely alive, gentle, and loving energy--
like a very warm nectar. Let this energy flow down the
length of your spine. At the bottom of its descent and
as it begins to curve forward the energy becomes still
warmer and more alive. Then allow it to curve forward
and upward inside the front of your body, and let it rise
to the point above and between your eyes. Finally, allow
the energy to flow to the back of the head to the area two
inches below the occipital region of the skull; then let
the energy proceed downward again.
Continue this circulation, but with an initial emphasis
on feeling the energy in a very gentle but attentive manner. Feeling is more important here than watching (visualizing) it.
