Inquiry #1

Let’s play with attention!

Sincerely and courageously, in a playful and gentle manner, become curious about what you give attention to.  Where does attention “hang out”? Mostly past?  Mostly future?  Mostly what-ifs? What most often captures your attention?  Do you see patterns?  What are the predominant flavors in the thought-belief-emotion-thought-belief-emotion-thought….. cycle?  Explanation, comparison, pain, victimhood, opposition, rebelliousness, description, task listing, joy, appreciation???   

We are just exploring.  Gentle, gentle.  Where is the attention?

Play with moving the attention.  Move the attention from its habitual area of experience to something else.  What arises?  Frustration, ease, disorientation, emotion, boredom? 

How is attention related to interest, curiosity, direct experience, time, space? 

What happens with attention when the mind is surrendered in “I don’t know”?

What happens when we become attentive to, interested in and curious about “WHAT” experiences thoughts/emotions rather than the thoughts/emotions themselves?

What is the experience when one first wakes in the morning before the attention is grabbed by sensation/identity/time?

Part 2

Take the time to rest your attention on awareness. Just simply become conscious, in an attentive way, conscious of the awareness that is. The awareness that enables whatever event is occurring. That the event is occurring within the field of awareness. Awareness is happening. It is. There is no goal or method to this suggestion, this invitation. There isn’t anything for the mind to evaluate or categorize. The mind cannot hold onto awareness. Although it may try. Its more like a relaxation. Relaxing into or resting in the simplicity of being aware. If you enjoy words, you can even say to yourself, “There is awareness”. Awareness is the ground of Being. It is the ground that makes consciousness and the events of consciousness possible. With a deep, alive, profound,keen, engaged, natural attention allow consciousness to light on awareness. Not in the hopes of achieving a certain state of being, figuring something out, fulfilling a desire or perfecting a technique, but just out of an impulse that arises from an engaged vitality rather than expectation.

BE STILL

The separate sense of "me" builds itself in every moment through the process of self-referencing and believing.  What we might call egoingness.  An after-the-event movement in consciousness, fueled by belief, where the mind:  identifies, claims, describes, categorizes, compares, wants, doesn't want, refutes, agrees, blames, rejects, vilifies, champions......   The "me" has to be in motion in order to exist.  It is engaged in a constant motion of believing,  running toward or running away.  When we are "stood still", "awestruck", "at a loss for words", "took my breath away", "mind blown", in those moments there is no sense of me-ness, separateness. The center is empty.  Empty of identification.  In these moments we are at rest AS undivided Stillness, beyond the thinking, narrating mind.  In these moments of spontaneous direct encounters with experience, there is no-one claiming ownership, "This is my joy, this is my anger, this is my experience".  There is no belief.  The identification cycle of, -thought then belief then feeling then thought then belief ........- , is suspended.  The process of division is stopped, and the experience is beyond conceptualization. It is direct, unmediated and wholly intimate.

It is a futile effort to try and stop thinking/feelingness.  That effort, trying to stop the mind, literally keeps us from recognizing what is already at rest.  Because trying to stop something is in itself a movement "away from".  So the pointer, "STOP!, DON'T GO ANYWHERE" is not directed at thoughts and feelings.  The "STOP!" is directed at the believing, the identifying, the owning, the self referencing.  When the self referencing is stopped, the armor of the "me" is suspended and the heart of experience shines forth. 

Questions and curiosities:  Gentle, gentle, gentle.  An attitude of compassionate understanding goes a long way when we are becoming curious about belief and identity.

Look into the process of thoughts/feelings as they arise and the layering of afterthought, ownership or denial, upon the arising thought/feeling?   What is believed about the thought/feeling?  Does it belong to anybody as it arises, before the process of "this is my thought" and "because of this thought I believe this about the thought and about myself"? 

What sees the thoughts/feelings?  What sees the process of identifying with thoughts and feelings?   What is the space between thoughts and feelings?  The space that thoughts and feelings occur within?

Do thoughts and feelings, in and of themselves, without a layer of ensuing identification, description and belief, have any self identity?  Do they belong to anyone?  For example, can anger just be simply anger?  How is a feeling experienced prior to the "I shouldn't be angry or I should be angry"?

Is it possible, check it out for yourself, is it possible to experience reality from the orientation of --thinkingness is, feelingness is, experiencing is-- rather than the orientation of-- my thoughts, my feelings, my experience?  When does the "my" come into awareness?  Before or after the experience itself?

What is the happening, in the body, when Being is left to unfold without referencing, identifying, narrating?

In the immediacy of a moment of experience is there a "seer", an observer?  How does it happen that instantly (1/10,000 of a second) later the observer comes into being?

Diving into the here and now.

Why do we bring attention to the here and now?  Why do we bring something into consciousness, here and now?  

What is the power of NOW?  Why does every mystical tradition emphasize the present moment, the holy instant?  

Can there be any other time or place other than right now, with what is presenting here and now, to actively respond, effect change, transform?  

What is your direct experience of being present in this moment?  

What is the experience in the body when attention is given to the referencing, describing, and narrating of whatever is occurring?  What is the experience in the body when attention is given directly to whatever is occurring?  What does referencing, describing and narrating feel like in the body?  Can we be aware of bodily sensation when attention is on referencing, describing and narrating?  

Choose an experience that is currently happening in your here and now.  For example, hearing a sound.  Experience the sound through hearing the sound.  Then experience the sound through referencing, describing and narrating the sound.  

Can the sense of self be experienced without referencing thought and description?  Can the sense of self be experienced (maintained) without referencing and imagining the past/future?