September program, week 2
Reading and Exercises for Sep. 8-14
Please read Chapter two of the first TSK book. Gather any questions for our second meeting.
During this second week, do the following exercises.
The main practice this week will be essentially the same space exercise we did last week, except that we will do it in many different situations and environments, not just sitting or lying down. Here are the main instructions.
Ex. 7, Body-Mind-Thought Interplay
Explore a wide variety of typical activities and situations. These can include social interactions, entertainments, learning experiences, various sorts of work or labor, and emotional highs and lows. In each situation, notice that its overall character and nature are reflected in your own psycho-physical embodiment. Observe the complex interrelationship between sensations, ‘mind’, thoughts, emotions, and body which constitutes ‘you in that situation’. For instance, the mind receives input; it thinks thoughts; these thoughts bear an emotional dimension; and emotions are embodied in particular physical areas (the stomach, the throat, etc.). Such embodiment leads to sensations which again tie in with particular emotions, memories, thoughts, and so on. Investigate the psychological and physiological mechanisms and interactions in as much detail as you can. Such an investigation may require that you treat your own body as a ‘giant body’, traveling through it once again as a tiny observer.
For review of how to 'transparentize' body-mind, here is exercise 15.
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 . . .
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. . . .
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?
How much you practice this exercise is up to you.
