Month: November 2017

I become more convinced that I live in a collective consciousness.    I live in a world that my awareness has shaped and my reality is the result of the shared consciousness with other humans.    My immediate culture and the family I have come from have had the greatest impact on the shape of my world.    I continue to choose experiences that shape that world, moving into other realms that differ from my previous ones.

It is so apparent that advertising shapes and conditions my mind.   That is what makes it effective and successful.    Choosing experiences apart from advertising is one way of not living in a world of expectations shaped by ads.

All the rest is the same.   There is a consciousness that connects me with the rest of the hive, and it is shaped by what experiences humans choose.    My challenge is to recognize this connection with the vast consciousness and develop my own independent awareness.

Experience flows in to insight and insight shapes my actions.   I don’t think I can ever be completely disconnected from the collective consciousness, but I can shape the way in which I funnel my experiences into my own consciousness.

I have this notion that “want” is something other than “desire”.    When I say that I want something it feels different inside of me than if I say that I desire it.  However, I am still working it out.

For me to desire something is to feel the energy of attraction.    It is a  feeling response.   There is actually no decision involved except the decision to experience.   For me, desire is what I feel when I see anything around me that I choose to experience.    It happens when I drop boundaries, when I choose to allow something to possess me.  My heart opens to a flower, a person, a sound and they become part of the world that I feel.

Desire is a statement of attraction.   I am involved only in as much as I am being very aware, open on more than a cursory level.

For me, if I want I am more actively involved.     My ego is front and center. My focus is on me and my role .   My self is part of the action and the experience is not neutral.    The choice is not to experience something as it is but to pursue it and make it part of me.    I am not attentive to making me part of it.    I am very aware of me and my edges, and I want to bring it inside those edges.    Desire has no edges;  it is an opening to experience, not to possess.

Desire acknowledges the oneness that already exists.    Want attempts to create a oneness, as though it did not already exist.    Want relies on my doing something.    Desire relies on deep observation.

All this musing is about understanding how I relate to the world and how I choose to experience it.   I would like to be a person of rich desires and meager wants.

All my life I have had the key and didn’t know it.   It’s beginning to make sense, and now I think I had the answer with me all my life.   Everything seems to fall into place if I reach for the key, something I’ve had with me all along.     My body is the key.    When I experience my mind and body joined, everything is joined.   Everything is also released.    I experience a freedom more than I could have imagined.

Learning to experience my breath has been so important.    It has put me in touch with my body in a most intimate manner.    Actually feeling the energy and sensation in my hands when doing Tai Chi Chih has also allowed me to form an intimate relationship with my body.   Realizing this connection has allowed me to go back to my body.

The irony is that so much of my culture has either encouraged me to fear my body or indulge it.   There truly has been a middle way.

While I am amazed at what I have discovered, I am not totally surprised.    All my life I have resisted those worriers who tried to teach me the dangers of the body.   I have instinctively pulled away from mindless excesses as well.   Now I am starting to understand why I was so wary.

I am also finding it interesting that I don’t have to “do” anything.   I just have to allow myself to experience what my body tells me.    There is no effort.   Breathing is not effective as an action.    It is effective for me only if it allows me to experience, to intimately feel my body.    It “works” only if it brings me back to my body, joins mind and body.

My body is actually an easy key to use, like using my fingerprint to unlock my iPhone.   I experience intimately what my body knows, and all barriers disappear.    My feet touch the asphalt of the parking lot, and I melt into what my body knows. I move my hands through the air like thru pudding, and the energy inside of me rises.   I feel my breath, and it is like placing my finger on my iPhone.   A whole universe is opened in an instant.   Tension disappears, freedom surges through all of me.

My body is a pretty amazing key.    I’m learning how to use it better.

It’s really quite simple.    So simple I am amazed I have not seen it before.  Squeeze / Release (Suffering / End of Suffering).     When I feel things out of sorts, when I feel tightness, when I feel the squeeze reaction in my stomach, that is something to notice.   It is time to pay attention to it, watch it, but only for a moment.  Then it is time to  allow release.    Give my mind something else to do.    Allow things to simply be and not change them.   I don’t cause the release.   The release simply happens.

My mind loves to solve problems.    It is drawn to disorder like a compass needle  pointing north.   My mind sets up the tension, wants the disorder to go away.   Maybe it even offers ways to make it go away.    My human mind has evolved to be very good at performing on demand.   It likes to solve problems and is constantly searching for problems.    Best to give it something useful to do.

Sometimes putting the mind to work actually does solve problems.   Mostly it simply quivers at distraught attention, the pointer dog who sees the bird, strikes a tense pose, and can do nothing.   It wants to act, and sometimes it unskillfully springs unbidden into action, solving problems without being released to solve them.   My mind wants the problem to go away, and tension arises.   I feel the tightness, I feel the squeeze.

For me it helps to give the mind something constructive to do, like paying attention to my breathing.    My mind is like an anxious puppy, wanting to spring into action.   Sometimes it is good to toss it a bone to gnaw on. I send it to my breath, the sensation in my fingers, the touch of the parking lot on my feet.   I don’t make the tension or suffering go away.   It simply ends.

I have lived with the tension of “getting my act together” long enough.   Wanting to act creates tension, the squeeze.    Most of the time it is about something I cannot have an effect on anyhow.   The tension and squeezed feeling is a sure sign it is time to allow the release.

My mind wants action, and most of the time that is wasted effort.   Allowing the mind to convince me that “I have to do something” causes me to suffer, to be tense, to be squeezed.   I don’t want the suffering, but it is what happens.

As soon as I unskillfully yield to my urge to “make it go away,” I know I am being squeezed by my mind.    It is simply a good time to skillfully give my mind something else to do.   It’s actually that simple.

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On September 28, 2017, I listed the first Five Mindful Movements.     These are movements that not only serve to  connect my body and mind.    They also connect me with others who are practicing the same Mindful Movements most days.    Typically, those of us practicing these movements daily, try to do them between 6:30 and 9:00 in the morning.    I hope you will join us.

If you want  illustrations of the movements, contact me at barryschade@gmail.com

Mindful Movement #6

This exercise is called The Frog.

Begin with your hands on your waist, heels together, feet turned out to form a V, so  that they make a 90 degree angle.  Breathing in, rise up on your  toes.

Breathing out, stay on your toes, keep your back straight, and bend your knees.   Keeping your upper body centered, go down as low as you can, maintaining your balance.   Breathing in, straighten your knees and come all the way up while still standing on your toes.   From this position, repeat the movement three more times, remembering to breathe slowly and deeply.

 

Mindful Movement #7

In this exercise, you touch the sky and the earth.

Your feet are hip-width apart.  Breathing in, bring your arms up above your head, palms forward.  Stretch all the way up, and look up as you touch the sky.   Breathing out, bend at the waist as you bring your arms down to touch the earth.   Release your neck.  From this position, breathe in, and keep your back straight as you come all the way back up and touch the sky.

Touch the earth and sky three more times.

 

MindfulMovement #8

Start with your feet together and your hands on your waist.  Begin by putting all your weight on to your left foot.  Breathing in lift your right thigh as you bend your knee and keep your toes pointed toward the ground.   Breathing out, stretch your right leg out in front of you, keeping your toes pointed.  Breathing in, bend your knee and bring your foot back toward your body.

Breathing out, put your right foot back on the ground.  Next put all your weight on to your right foot and do the movement with the other leg.

Repeat the series of movements three more times.

 

Mindful Movement #9

In this exercise, you make a circle with your leg.

Begin with your feet together and your hands on your waist.   Put your weight on your left foot and, breathing in, lift your right leg straight out in front of you and circle it to the side.   Breathing out, circle it to the back and bring it down behind you, allowing your toes to touch the ground  Breathing in, lift your leg up behind you and circle it around to the side.   Breathing out, continue the circle to the front, then lower your leg and put your foot on the ground, allowing your weight to again be on both feet.   Now do the exercise with the other leg.

Repeat the series of movements three more times.

 

Mindful Movement #10

This exercise is done in a lunge position.

Begin standing with feet together.   Keeping your left foot where it is, move your right foot out so your feet are wider than shoulder-width apart and turn your right foot out 90 degrees.   Keeping your weight on both feet your body will naturally turn slightly toward the right foot to find a comfortable position angled between your two feet.  Put your left hand on your waist and your right arm at your side.   Breathing in, bend your right knee bringing your weight over your right foot as you lift your right ar with the palm of your hand facing outward in front of you, and stretch it to the sky!   Breathe out as you straighten your knee and bring your right arm back to your side.

Repeat the movement three more times.   Switch legs putting your right hand on your waist.

Repeat the same movement on the left four times.  Then bring your feet back together again.

 

You have finished the Ten Mindful Movements.   Stand firmly on your two feet and breathe in and out.   Feel  your body relax