Some of the things I notice when I do tong-len…

• It works with projections. Whatever I see over there - and especially shadow material - I find right here. I find in myself the suffering I more easily see in others. And I also find right here the causes of suffering, confusion and all its expressions.
• I see all of that as not or less personal. I see that it is shared, it is a part of human life. I also see that it is all an object, content of experience, coming and going on its own.
• There is a shift from a sense of I-Other split to a sense of us. We are all in the same boat here. We all experience confusion and its many effects.
• In the taking in of suffering and giving of clarity, there is a shift from confusion to clarity. I gradually get familiar with and come to trust that shift. I know, deeply, that it is possible. This helps me remember in daily life, and invite it in.
• There is an opening of the heart towards others and myself. A shift into kindness. Holding us all, including my own human self, in kindness.
• There is a shift into a sense of nurturing fullness, and out of reactiveness.
• There is a shift into a more receptive view, and out of rigidity.
• There is a release of identification with content, and an easier shift into finding myself as Big Mind/Heart. I see content as shared and coming and going on its, and there is less of a sense of a separate I.
• There is a shift into more engagement in daily life. There is a release from fear. Less sense of separation. A shift into kindness. And all of this is naturally expressed in engagement.

Why do precepts practice? I can find three reasons for myself.

First, in a conventional sense, following moral guidelines makes it easier for ourselves and others. It creates a more humane and civilized society, reducing suffering and freeing up energy for more than just survival. At an individual level, it keeps us out of trouble in the world and with ourselves.

Then, it mimics what happens when what we are awakens to itself, and functions through a relatively healthy and mature human self. This helps reorganize our human self, and also prepare the ground for that shift.

Finally, it helps us notice when we are not aligned with the precepts, and inquire into why. It helps us see where we attach to stories as true and some of the dynamics around it. What do I hope to get out of clinging to this story? What actually happens? Who would I be without it? Is there validity in its reversals?

Spiritual practice is a process of reinventing the wheel, in two ways.

First, because insights and practices tends to come up that duplicates those of different traditions, whether we are aware of those traditions or not. It is, after all, the same dynamics and patterns we are working with. The same dynamics and patterns of healing and awakening. Of knots, beliefs, wounds, and mechanisms of samsara.

Then, more importantly, we are reinventing the wheel because the insights and practices has to become real here, whether they appear to come up here first, or out there first (as a pointer/practice from a tradition or teacher).

So either way, spiritual practice is a process of reinventing the wheel. Each time, it is a wheel, similar to any other wheel. And each time, it is a fresh wheel, slightly different from any other wheel. After all, any experience is unique and different, even if a thought tells us its content is very similar to something that happened before. God never repeat itself.

Here is a simple way to work with projections as it happens in daily life, which I sometimes find useful.

I notice something, often in others, and I can ask myself what it is to clarify it for myself. It can be anything: a mood, attitude, quality, emotion, story.

And then I ask myself, somebody is [...], is it me?

Somebody is… [bored, angry, jittery, interested, afraid, oblivious, frustrated, distressed, insightful, ignorant, resourceful, lazy, rigid, exited, joyful.] Is it me?

It helps me see that I am the one experiencing it, here and now. It helps me own it, if we want to use that language.

And it helps me see that all I know is that I experience it. I may have it as a question about someone else, something they may or may not agree with if I ask them, but all I know for sure is that I am experiencing it right now.

It also helps me see my tendency to sometimes tell myself, somebody is …., it can’t be me, so it must be someone else. And then ask myself this question and see if I can find it.

Finally, it may be helpful to see that this can show up in two ways. First, as who I am, as this human self, I can find it in myself. I can own it. And this is the practical, everyday way of taking it. Then, as what I am, as awakeness, it is just happening. It is living its own life, on its own schedule, as anything else. It is just happening on its own. This is the practice side of it.

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It is interesting to notice some of the many ways different practices support each other. Here are a small taste, as a skeleton list. As usual, these are all questions, not to be taken very seriously.

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It is common in Zen to say that shikantaza - just sitting, choiceless awareness - is not practice.

We are not practicing in preparation for anything, or to get somewhere. Shikantaza itself is the real thing. It is what we are noticing itself.

It is awakeness noticing itself. This timeless now within, to and as which everything happens.

In that sense, shikantaza is not a practice.

Yet there is also a practice element in shikantaza, which shows up in two ways.

First, it is the practice of shifting into what we are noticing itself.

Attention is absorbed on the inside of thoughts, it is noticed, and there is a shift back into just sitting. This practice happens on the cushion, often several times during a sitting period.

And this practice on the cushion is also a practice for daily life. We practice shifting into what we are noticing itself on the cushion, and then bring it into daily life.

I have enjoyed exploring sense fields for a little while now, and appreciate how simple and practical it is. A great tool for exploring some of the basics such as what arises in each sense field, how thoughts and the other sense fields combine to create appearances, and the dynamics that makes these appearances seem very real and substantial.

As always, what I write here are questions rather than statements, even if the question marks may be missing.

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A good post from Vince about taking responsibility.

A few things coming up for me, as usual in a quick skeleton version:

First, in a very practical sense, a few of the things we can take responsibility for:

• Inviting in healing, maturing and development of this human self. Exploring who we are.
• How we relate to what is happening, in the wider world and for our human self.
• The long-term & far-reaching social/ecological effects of the actions of this human self. (By noticing feedback, and learning about sustainability and socially responsible choices.)
• Noticing what we are.

Then some of the dynamics behind it:

• When we take ourselves to be an I with an Other, there is automatically a sense of lack, of being a victim of the wider world, and of neediness.
• The more we embrace the evolving wholeness of who we are, as a human being, the less sense of lack, being a victim, and of neediness. (The less projections.)
• Even then, as long as there is that basic sense of an I with an Other, there will continue to be a sense of something missing, and at least traces of being a victim and neediness.

Some practical ways of working with it:

• Notice when I am not taking responsibility by its signs, which are the signs of projections in general: Blame. Judgment. Escape. Reactiveness. Tension. Stress.
• Take responsibility for fully allowing experience. (Release identification out of resistance, running/pushing away)
• Take responsibility for my stories, investigate, find clarity.

And finally, what appears as victim mode and neediness is really just confusion. And what appears as responsibility (when it is not an imitation, acting from a “should”) comes from simple clarity.

A sometimes useful tool in embracing our wholeness as who we are, and discovering what we are, is to fake it.

We can visualize ourselves as someone mature and awakened, whomever that may be for us. Our teacher. Buddha. Christ. A dream figure. In this way, we connect with the qualities we see in these, and find them in ourselves. We invite these qualities to come alive, see them in someone else, and then find them right here, in ourselves and our own life.

In daily life, we can imagine how a mature and/or awakened person would respond, and then imitate it. If I was such as person, how would I act?

Most practices are done in an approximate way, at least in the beginning. We do approximate shikantaza. Approximate stability practice. Here too, we fake it, do it as best as we can, until it falls more into place.

And in noticing what we are, we can use practices such as headless experiments and the Big Mind process to get a taste of it. Even if it feels fake at first, it is a pointer to the real thing. It helps us reorganize within it at our human level, and it guides us in noticing it more clearly.

Faking it is a great tool, especially when we are clear that we are faking it, until it falls more into place.

Another dimension of practice is whether we emphasize the universal or the specific.

Do we emphasize the universal, that which is valid for everyone at any time? I tend to gravitate towards these tools, such as The Work, headless experiments and the Big Mind process.

Or do we emphasize that which is specific to where someone is in the process of discovering who they are as a human self, or what they are as that which experience happens within, to and as?

There are benefits and drawbacks to each.

If we emphasize the universal, it has the obvious benefits of being inclusive, accessible, and offering pointers and tools we can use at any point in the process of discovering who and what we are. It helps us see that we all are in the same boat. It makes it relatively simple for us.

The drawback is that people sometimes needs pointers and tools specific to where they are, it may be easy to think we are somewhere in the process we are not (mistaking a glimpse for a stable noticing, or unity for nondual), and there can be a lack of differentiation and clarity about the dynamics of the process as it unfolds over time.

If we emphasize that which is specific to where people are, it has the obvious benefit of being tailored (if skillfully done), it helps people see where they are in the overall process, and it can help differentiate the different states and stages.

The drawbacks include ignoring or overlooking the universal, getting caught up in maps, and getting caught up in competitiveness.

In practice, of course, both are usually included. If we emphasize the universal, it is usually presented in a way tailored to and specific to where someone is, and a good teacher will know from experience what is helpful. If we emphasize the specific, it is often placed in the context of the universal, in terms of what is universally valid for anyone and any time, and the universality of how the process unfolds over time.

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Yet another dimension of practice is exploring on the inside and outside of stories.

Again, if we over-simplify, we can find benefits and drawbacks for each.

Working on the inside of stories tends to help who we are directly. It helps reorganize the stories it uses to navigate in the world, and also the stories it uses for exploring who and what it really is. But if this is all we do, it can also just reinforce the tendency to identify with stories, to go to stories for the ultimate answers, and to - inadvertently - confuse the map with the terrain.

Working on the outside of stories helps us see thoughts as thoughts, see what arises in each sense field here and now, and how thoughts combine with them to create gestalts, and much more. It gives us an immediate insight into what we are, and what is going on, which is outside of thought. Of course, the exploration is guided by thought, and later reflected in thought, but the exploration itself is outside of thought. (At least discursive thought, and as we get more familiar with it, outside the layers of thought that creates a sense of continuity and extent, and I with an Other.)

Together, we can find that our exploration within thought - of maps, guidelines for life and practice, finding the truth in reversals of our habitual stories and so on - helps our human self, and also in guiding our practice outside of thought. Our explorations outside of thought helps us see thoughts as thoughts, with relative truth only, each one a question more than a statement, and with value only as temporary guides for our human self. And this exploration outside of stories also helps us notice what we are, which in turn reorganizes our human self, and relieves it of the burden of taking itself as the end station of what it really is, and having an I with an Other.

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We can practice alone or with others.

If we stay with just one or the other, we miss out of something.

If we only practice on our own, we miss out of the support from others on the same or a similar path. We miss out of the inspiration and course corrections offered by a community of fellow explorers.

If we only practice with others, we miss out on checking out how this works when we are on our own. Am I dependent on the community to practice and to bring it into my life? How does it look when I am on my own, and in other situations?

Yet if we do both, we can benefit from the best of each. We get the moral and informational support from a group of fellow practitioners. And we get to test it out on our own, alone, in different settings.

Our explorations can be self- or other-powered at the different levels of who and what we are.

If we stay exclusively self-powered, it may fuel arrogance and a belief in having to do it all ourselves. And we don’t notice all the ways it is already other-powered. All practices happening here has infinite causes, stretching back to the beginning of time and the far reaches of space.

If we stay exclusively other powered, we don’t make it our own. We don’t get to experience how it is to do the work ourselves, and walk the path through our own efforts.

Tempered by each other, we can benefit from the best of each. We get to make it our own, through our own efforts, and we get to benefit from what is given to us, as a kick-start or a glimpse of what is possible.

For instance, at the physical level, we can benefit from other power through massage and different healing modalities. And we can do our own work through exercise, diet, yoga and so on.

And in terms of awakening, we can benefit from shaktipat, an energy transmission (diksha and much else) that initiate and fuel an awakening process. And we get to make it our own through exploring the new terrain that opens up for us, or if it was a glimpse, it is then a reminder of what is possible if we do our own work.

There is probably no end to the dimensions of practice that can be explored this way. Another one is the dimension of inner and outer teacher.

Again, when stuck in one of the other, the drawbacks of each tends to surface.

If we rely exclusively on an inner teacher, we can easily lose our way. We don’t benefit from the advice and experience of someone who is familiar with the terrain from their own explorations.

If we rely exclusively on an outer teacher, it too easily stays abstract for us. It can stay at the word level. Or even when we do our own practice, we may not fully trust our own experience. We always check it with what we have heard or read.

When tempered by each other, we can benefit from the guidance of an outer teacher, and we can also make it our own through our own experience. We may even discover something outside of the familiarity of any particular teacher.

Another important dimension of practice is who and what we are. Do we practice to help who we are, this human self? Or do we practice to notice what we are?

Again, if we are stuck in one or the other, the drawbacks of each tends to come to the foreground.

If we only focus on who we are, this human self, we can work on it until we die and never find complete satisfaction. There will always be a sense of something missing. We never get to see what we really are, and we know, somewhere, that we are missing out of that.

If we only focus on what we are, discovering ourselves as Big Mind, we can too easily ignore who we are. The wounds of our human self may stay around and wreak havoc with its life in the world, and even with the project of discovering what we are. We may also end up discouraged, feeling we are wasting our time on something that is not working for us.

Yet, tempered by each other, we can see each in a more realistic perspective.

We find that exploring who we are offers a new sense of wholeness to our human self, a wider embrace of all of what it is, and a richer life in the world. At the same time, we know it won’t give us any ultimate answers or satisfaction.

Exploring what we are becomes something we do for its own sake, not for any imagined benefit in our human life. When I look, what do I find? Am I content of experience, specifically this human self? Am I that which this content happens within, to and as?

And in terms of tools, it may be helpful to emphasize those that work on both areas. The ones that makes it easier to be this human self in the world, and also invites what we are to notice itself.

Some tools work about equally at both areas, including The Work, the Big Mind process, and allowing/being with experience.

Others work mainly at the what question, although helps who we are as well, such as headless experiments and exploring sense fields.

Stability practice makes it easier to do any of the other practices, and also any activity in daily life.

And some practices at the who level not only helps who we are directly, but often also makes it easier to do any of the other practices, such as psychological and relationship work, and physical exercise.

Of the many dimensions of practice, goal orientation and exploration orientation is one of the most obvious one. Do we have a particular goal in mind? Or do we practice to explore the terrain?

If we are stuck in either goal orientation or exploration orientation, the drawbacks of each tends to come up to the foreground.

The goal orientation becomes future orientation, competitiveness, arrogance, missing out of what is here now. We don’t see that everything we take to be out there, in the future or in others, is right here now.

Similarly, the exploration orientation easily becomes a lazy and aimless wandering.

But tempered by each other, we find that goal orientation offers a sense of direction and focus, and also measuring sticks. And exploration orientation offers a sense of adventure, receptivity, not knowing, exploring new parts of the terrain, enjoying the here and now, finding here and now what we may otherwise see out there - in the future, past, others.

I have caught one of the popular germs going around these days, so have had an opportunity to explore how to work with the symptoms. (In this case of bronchitis.)

My main exploration has been in finding the strongest symptoms (headache, chest pain, fuzzy/muddled mind, fatigue, persistent cough), explore it in the sensation field, and notice what it is made of. Is it solid? Awareness itself? Nothing taking the form of something?

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Any tool is fair game, as long as it works and seems appropriate to the situation.

Many nondual folks are familiar with contemplative prayer, visualizations, heart prayer, Christ meditation and similar forms on prayer where a receptivity to and invitation in of the soul level is the main emphasis, possibly shifting into realized selflessness in glimpses or more thoroughly.

The more common forms of prayer, those where we ask about something specific, also have their place. They are a part of any comprehensive toolbox. They can be used as in Buddhism, to ask for awakening for the benefit of all beings. This sets a clear intention, which in turn helps reorganize and align our human self with this path and may even have effects beyond that.

And of course, prayers for the health and well-being of ourselves and others have their place. Again, they help realign ourselves with that intention. And it opens our heart. It opens for a sincere well-wishing for ourselves and others. And both of those spill over into our actions.

As with visualizations, these forms of prayer may (or may not) have an effect beyond how it works on us, in how the world shows up on its own.

In either case, the effect it has on us is more than enough reason to sometimes engage in them.

They set a clear intention for ourselves. They help realign us with that intention. They open our heart. They open for sincere well-wishing for ourselves and others.

And sometimes, especially in extreme situations, they may be comforting if that is what we need.

(And if not, if we are invited into being wholeheartedly with what is coming up and we use these forms of prayers as an escape, they - and anything else we do to try to escape - are likely to not work.)

For a few years in my life, there was what I came to call “instant karma”. I would go into judgment about someone, fueling a sense of being right and a separate I, and then, days, hours or often minutes later, I would find myself in the same position as the one I had judged, sometimes in a quite literal way. It was a great way of learning, and very humbling.

It is always true that I am what I see in others, but it is not always so easy to notice. It may happen in a quite different form and area of life. So when it happens in a more literal way, it is harder to overlook. (That more literal form can be experienced as another flavor of synchronicity.)

Over the last year or so, I have had some stories going about people making noise during sitting practice, especially since I am used to the relative quietness of the Zen zendo, and have been going to more adveita type groups who tend to be less strict in their meditation instructions. (In Zen, sitting still and not making a sound is a pretty standard guideline, and the monitor will often remind folks if they don’t follow it, sometimes by a loud shout.)

So yesterday, when I finally did a mini sesshin (Zen retreat), I found myself as the by far most noisy one. I have brewed on a germ for several days, and the main symptom is a persistent and unstoppable dry cough. I coughed and swallowed incessantly, and on top of it all had a very growly stomach at times. (The swallowing and talkative stomach from sucking on Fisherman’s Friends to alleviate the couching.)

I found myself in the exact role I had judged others for being in, and was helpless in changing it. All I could do was to find some peace with it, and allow it to work on me. To wear down old habits, soften me, to wear down and expand my identity as someone who is quiet and follows strict zendo guidelines. To feel it, take it in.

It also helped me take another look at noisy folks in the zendo. For seasoned practitioners, it either doesn’t matter or is actually a benefit. Any sound just become part of what is happening, and I also find that sharp sounds, such as a cough, helps me stay alert and awake. And if it is annoying, that too becomes part of the practice. It is just part of what is arising.

Or we can take a closer look at it. What happens when there is an experience of being annoyed? What happens if I resist the experience, try to push it away? What happens if I fully allow it, as it is? And what is annoyance? Where do I find it? Do I find it outside of a sensation and a story about that sensation? If annoyance is part of the content of experience, coming and going as any other content of experience, what it is that does not come and go? And what am I?

But for beginners, it may be different. For them, it may just be distracting.

I only worked with koans for a short time, and was pretty slow, but here are just a few things I noticed about them in general.

To put it roughly, koans work from the absolute and the relative sides, with Big Mind and our human self, and how Big Mind/Heart can be expressed through our human self.

Each koan has a different emphasis and focus, similar to a prism filtering light so we can explore the different aspects of it more closely. And each koan has a specific and unique resolution, which becomes obvious when it is seen, and something to work with in terms of bringing it into daily life.

Koans invite what we are to notice itself. After a while, thoughts tend to exhaust themselves, inviting in a release of identification from thoughts. And the resolution to the koan can often only be found from the Big Mind/Heart side, from shifting into and finding ourselves as Big Mind/Heart.

They invite in specific insights into what and who we are, through emphasizing specific aspects of Big Mind/Heart and how it can be expressed through our human self.

And they invite us to explore, through our daily life and in specific ways, how what we are can be expressed through who we are. (When I worked with koans, my daily life was often infused with the koan, there was no separation between working on it on the cushion or through daily life. And as it clarified, there was a curiosity about how to express it, live it, in daily life.)

This is one of the many things about Zen I appreciate. It is very much focused on what we are noticing itself. But it is no less focused on how it is lived through this human life, in a healthy, mature, thorough and skillful way.

This is another of those topics that seem so simple and childish on the surface, but goes to the core of our life and who or what we take ourselves to be. (I seem to specialize in those…!)

Any story is a tool. One that helps our human self orient and function in the world, or as a guide to awakening. And as any other tool, it has no value beyond the practical.

It is easy to see when we look at physical tools, like a hammer, or nails. We see that they have a purely practical function. They help us in daily life. And they have no value beyond that. If they didn’t help us, we wouldn’t use them or even bring attention to them.

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I normally sleep very well, and if I don’t get enough sleep it is usually by choice, because something else seems more interesting or important. But there are times when I have trouble falling asleep as well. (Although that too is usually self-afflicted, through not having questioned beliefs coming up for me, resisting experience, lack of physical activity, and so on.)

So here is a list of what I find helpful, which includes some of the excellent conventional advice on the subject.

While in bed.

• Use ear plugs. Even if it is quiet, I find this helps finding even more stillness, auditory and of the mind.
• Bring attention to sensations of the body, either the whole or one particular area. In a relaxed way, allow the mind to be interested in the sensations of the body, gently bringing it back when it lives its own life and temporarily goes somewhere else.
• Allow thoughts to come and go on their own, as guests, living their own life. No need to go on the inside of them. No need to fuel them. This becomes easier with practice, including different forms of formal stability and insight practices. (Stability of attention, which helps quiet the mind. And the insight of seeing a thought as just a thought.)
• Allow experience, whatever it may be. Can I be with what I am experiencing right now? Invite in a full allowing of the experience, in a wholehearted, heartfelt way, whatever the content of experience happens to be. This one can be especially helpful if there is some discomfort or stress.
• Explore the sense fields. Bring attention to what appears in each sense field, one at a time.
• Find enjoyment in just lying in bed relaxing for a while. This gives many of the same benefits as sleep anyway.
• If sleep doesn’t come in a while, find some enjoyable or useful use of the time. Inquire into beliefs. Do different forms of stability or insight practices. Listen do an audio book or a talk.
• I used to do this one, but haven’t in a while: Right after going to bed, go through the day’s events, as watching a movie, in segments starting with the most recent ones, w/out going into evaluations (from neutrality). This helps the mind process the ordinary stuff and feel more complete with it. Neutrality is the key here. (No need to fuel evaluations, what I could have done differently, and so on.)

During the day before going to bed.

• Create a quiet, clean, comfortable sleeping environment.
• Physical exercise. Engage in enough vigorous physical activity - not too close to bedtime - to get that nice, relaxed physical tiredness feel. This one works very well for me. (Sex works great too.)
• Take a nap during the day. If we easily fall asleep while taking a nap, but not at bedtime, it can help us notice some of the differences. Is it easier to fall asleep if I don’t have much expectations about it? How can I bring that to my night?
• Eat well. Eat nurturing meals of whole and less processed foods, and not too close to bedtime. I find that processed foods, especially those with additives and sugars, does funny things with my body that makes it more difficult to fall asleep. (Or sometimes gives a comatose like sleep which doesn’t feel that nurturing.) I also usually have my main meal in the early afternoon, when the body needs the energy, and a lighter meal in the evening when it doesn’t.
• Some time before bedtime, eat smaller amounts of food that is sleep inducing, such as fish. Drink herbal teas that does the same, such as chamomile.
• Slow down activities before bedtime, both physical and mental. Avoid movies and news that gets the mind going.
• Do something nurturing before going to sleep. Nurturing conversations, nurturing company (including an animal), a good book, nice cup of (non-caffeine) tea, some relaxing yoga, receive a brief massage. (Breema is great, either giving or receiving a brief bodywork session, or Self-Breema.)

During the day, if I am tired or exhausted.

• During the day, if you feel tired from lack of sleep, notice how you relate to the tiredness or exhaustion. Is it a problem? An enemy? Something you want to go away? What happens if you fully allow the experience? Befriend it? In what ways does it help you? Does it invite in relaxation, stillness, calmness? How does it support you? (I find this one very helpful as well, especially when I use my Breema principles in relating to exhaustion.)
• Inquire into stressful beliefs, especially those who may keep me awake at night, and find what is already more true for me. (The stress comes from holding onto stories that, somewhere, I know are not true, and also from their friction with reality.) This includes stories about sleep itself. I have to get a good nights sleep. I won’t function without enough sleep. And so on. Is it true?
• Exploring tiredness and exhaustion through the sense fields. Notice how thoughts combine with the others to create gestalts. Explore what tiredness or sleepiness is. What is it, in my own immediate experience? Is it just a sensation combined with a thought? When I see that, the gestalt falls away and only sensation remains. My body still needs and will benefit from sleep, but my identity is not caught up in the exhaustion.
• Explore the difference between who and what we are, through for instance headless experiments. This one can also be especially useful during the day, if we feel tired or exhausted. As that which this human self, its tiredness, and all content of experience happens within, I am clear, awake, untouched by it. I find myself with one foot in awakeness, and one foot in this human self, which may or may not be tired.

And finally, as any tool, these only work if we actually use them. If you don’t, see that you choose to stay awake, and explore how to find peace with it, or even enjoyment in it. (As I often do.)

So we can do simple practical things during the day or before bedtime, such as exercise, nurturing meals, slowing down, eating some sleep inducing foods later in the day, having a quiet, comfortable sleep environment.

We can do things while in bed, such as allowing experience, avoid fueling stories, see thoughts as thoughts, bringing attention to the sensations of the body, exploring the sense fields, and so on.

We can make use of the time if we don’t fall asleep, such as reading a good book, doing the practices mentioned above, inquire into stressful beliefs, and so on.

And if we get tired or exhausted during the day, we can explore our relationship with these symptoms. What happens if I resist them? If I allow them? How do they support me?

When there is still a sense of a separate I, and the content of experience gets very quiet, for instance in sitting practice, it can seem pretty boring. Not much is happening. It feels sort of dry. It is not very juicy.

So the tendency then, coming from pure innocence, is to go to a thought for juice. If it is not there in what is happening, I can at least find it in the inside of a thought.

And the shift is to just stay with it. Allow it. Be curious about the dryness. Invite in peace with it.

After a while, we may notice that we are this awakeness that not much is happening within, and that is actually quite juicy. There is an aliveness there. Presence. It is enough in itself, without a lot of excitement happening in the content.

Our identification shifts from taking ourselves as a part of content of awareness, which can be pretty boring when the content is quiet, to that which this content happens within, to and as, and the quitet joy and bliss in just noticing what we already are.

They should sit still. (Folks at CSS retreats, and also at the David Waldman satsang this morning.)

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The practice emerging for me now is noticing content of awareness as awareness itself.

It can be done formally, through for instance exploring the sense fields, and also informally, throughout the day.

When I explore the sense fields, I select one, notice what arises there, and find a curiosity about what it is made of. Is it awakeness itself? Anything else? After doing this for a while, I explore the gestalts the same way, the gestalts formed by a thought combining with the other sense fields to create the appearance of an emotion, sleepiness, a sense of a separate I, or anything else.

In daily life, I usually bring attention to what appear most real, dense and substantial, and in the same way ask myself what is it made of? Awakeness? Anything else?

It is interesting how even a sense of a separate I can be noticed as awakeness itself in this way. It is there, yet recognized in immediate awareness as nothing other than awakeness itself.

I am reminded of how useful visualizations as a tool can be.

I use it to invite my human self to reorganize and realign with a specific intention, and most often it is something quite simple, such as waking up at a specific time. When I go to bed the night before, I visualize waking and getting up at a specific time, refreshed and clear, allowing myself to feel it and make it come alive for me as I visualize, and it works well most days.

Other times, it could be to invite my human self to realign with particular practices, such as doing sitting practice more regularly, physical exercise, or an adjustment of diet. Or it could be to invite in a more open heart, deepening of the human self, or even awakening.

In each case, the visualization - when felt and alive - seems to help my human self reorganize with an intention, and it seems to lower the threshold for it actually happening.

Of course, everything else stays the same. I still set the alarm clock, I put whatever I want to do on my list for the day, I create a situation that makes it more likely for me to do it, I may ask for help and support in doing it (maybe just having my partner remind me), or anything else that seems helpful.

It is interesting to see how dream themes come up in the days before and after a dream. I noticed yesterday, the day after the Himalaya dream, a pattern that I only later connected with the dream.

For a few days, I had purposely gone into stressful thoughts to take them to inquiry, and also gone into unpleasant emotions so I could fully allow them and be with them., and noticed I had gotten a little stuck in that mode. So I decided to do some heart centered practices to lift it up a little, including the practices of rejoicing in other’s happiness, and prayer for the happiness and awakening of all beings, that I know from the Tibetan tradition.

I then realized that this mirrors exactly the dream. I purposely went down into the abyss, into the stressful thoughts and unpleasant emotions. And then climbed up to the top of the plateau again using a rope ladder, guided by a Tibetan teacher. Or as it happened that day, climbed up using a simple made-made device, the practices, and guided by Tibetan teachings.

All the conventional ways of looking at archetypes (the Jungian ones) are of course valid and useful. Looking at them in an evolutionary/biological perspective, arising in stories of all types, shared among people from different cultures, and so on.

But there is also a way of exploring them as they arise here now, and this one has been alive for me since I started working with the sense fields, noticing each sense field for itself, and then how thoughts combine with the four others to create gestalts.

When the fields are each seen for itself, the thoughts component of archetypes becomes very clear and distinct. I see that the archetype is a gestalt, arising here now, and I also see (some of) the different components of the thought, and how and why it has the effects it has as a gestalt, when it appears solid and real.

And as with any other gestalt, when it is seen in this way, simply, clearly, there are no hooks in it anymore. The hooks are there only when I get absorbed into the gestalt, when it appears solid, real, substantial, when I don’t see it as a combination of simple sense fields.

As we get familiar with working with hangups in different ways, there is naturally an excitement when one shows up, especially when it is strong and juicy.

There is an excitement because we know ways to work with it, and we know there is gold in in it - in the content of the hangup and in exploring the dynamics around it.

Even if none of our old ways of working with it work anymore, as usually happens at some point, there is gold there too. We get to see our beliefs around it, such as I know, I want it to go away, I want to find gold within it, and so on.

Since none of our ways of working with it work anymore, and that is the whole point, we just have to allow these to wear off over time. Working with it is the intro class, and this is the intermediate one.

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What are some of the benefits of following the chains back to their initial segments?

For myself, I notice that it helps me get more familiar with and befriend who I am, as a human being. It helps me discover what is going on at my human level.

Said another way, it helps me find and embrace my wholeness as a human being, to find peace with it, to work with rather than against what is there.

It helps me see that it is all pure innocence. No need to fight it, resist it, want it to go away. Just seeing it clearly is enough.

It helps me see what is already more true for me, in who and what I am.

I find that when there is a sense of being a separate I, there is fear behind just about any emotion, motivation, desire and action. I find that behind that fear is love, filtered through my circle of us. I find that behind the sense of a separate I, and everything that comes with it, is a belief in the story of a separate I, and stories that flesh this identity out.