I've joined this class in hopes of further disciplining my mind and opening myself to the more enjoyable facets of life.
What the waking mind thinks, the dreaming mind does. Why not train the waking mind?
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I've joined this class in hopes of further disciplining my mind and opening myself to the more enjoyable facets of life.
What the waking mind thinks, the dreaming mind does. Why not train the waking mind?
This was a helpful exercise. I began by sitting in my office, with the radio on. A few moments of concentration and I was able to isolate sounds. Random shouting from a bar nearby, the radio, the tower of my desktop, the humming of the fridge, white noise from the AC, coughing from one of the neighbors, the front door opening and closing periodically, and constant radio chatter.Quote:
Homework for Basic Skills: Lesson #1
Version 1: Listening to a Noisy World.
Level 1) Sit in a some what quiet setting, but not a place free of sound. At first just get comfortable and quickly with no special effort determine if any sounds are already being consciously perceived. Sit and just notice which noises you where aware of before paying attention. Now, with your eyes closed, casually explore each noise starting with the most obvious ones. You may first have been aware of the sounds of children playing, and traffic from a near by street. Listen to any of the obvious ones for a moment. Try to visualize in a casual and light manner, what each sound is. Now, your only goal in level 1 is to move around your environment not physically, but with your sense of hearing. You should acknowledge the sounds that were already obvious, then move your awareness of sound around. Try to pick up on the sounds you had not been fully aware of. They will be sounds that are not extremely quiet, and will be easy enough to find. You are simply trying to become aware of the fact that while the sounds were there the whole time, you did not consciously perceive them until you focused.
In an average attempt at this meditation I can often identify about 8 sounds my brain was choosing to ignore. Make a list in your head that tells you which noises you had clearly been aware of and any new sounds that you begin to perceive while meditating. You will find that at most times the world is full of sound we are choosing not to hear.
Level 2) Repeat the level 1 meditation, but this time you will attempt to maintain aware focus on as many sounds as you can. Take the most obvious noises and pay attention to them. Think to yourself about what you are hearing, then while continuing to listen add the next most obvious noise. You may experience something strange here. This level is actually much harder! At about the time you are aware and focusing on 4 or 5 noises, and when you are scanning for more noises, your brain will attempt to ignore the first most obvious noises. Do not get frustrated; just watch the process with interest. Do not stress or become intense. This level may be practiced for years. You are learning to force your brain to acknowledge multiple sensory inputs. Try to get to where you can stay relaxed and keep a full awareness of 8 sounds at one time.
Level 3) To complete this version get to a point where you can perform daily actions while maintaining the same level of awareness as level 2. Here is an easy example. While a person is walking, they will almost always blank out the sound of their own feet hitting the ground. In level 3 do something like go for a walk. While your eyes are open and your feet are moving start to go through the process involved in #2 above. You will be surprised on how foreign trying to hear your own foot steps is if you do not allow your focus to be taken off other things. It is not enough to be able to walk and hear your foot falls. You need to be able to walk casually, hear all the standard noises, and maintain awareness of the sounds of your own feet. If you get good at that add in one more item. Listen to all the normal noises, while being aware of the sound of your feet and the sound of the air moving past your ears, or some other subtle noise your body would normally ignore.
Pick one of the three versions listed above. Work on it each day for a few days, then report any observations in your notebook. Tile your post “Basic Skills: Lesson #1
You can post about all three versions if desired, but only one is required. You do not need to write a book report, but write enough for me to have an idea of what you experienced.
You should also come up with a version of this form of meditation on your own, and suggest it in your post.
Then I attempted to pile each isolated sound on top of one another. It was a little more challenging because not all of the sounds were constant. I piled the constant ones first and then added the periodic noises after. It was manageable.
Finally, a few times I would go outside and walk around. Applying this awareness technique in a changing environment was challenging. Once something new catches my attention I instantly have to bring myself back to the initial sound and then hope the new sound hasn't passed yet. I actually thought that was useful though, having the sporadic sounds meant I needed to adjust my attention to first accommodate new sensory input and integrate it adequately. When one sound diminishes, I also need to readjust the balance of awareness involved.
Quite fun actually. Especially when things are changing rapidly. Almost as good as first person shooter games.
Suggested Meditation:
What I found helpful was to simply go for a walk. Factors as to where I wanted to walk had the potential to make it more or less difficult, depending on how challenged I want to be. For example, if I go to the basketball courts on a busy day, there's much more sensory input I'd need to integrate than I would say if I went for a walk through the woods. Both provide good variance though, learning to accommodate loud stimuli is equally important to learning how to pick up on subtle stimuli.
Thanks for joining. It looks like the first day went well. Play with the variations, and you should be able to enjoy all sorts of odd meditations, based on these simple concepts. I may not add a new set of skills for a little while, so keep up your work on these. I think the next lessons will be understanding, and the book review.
Hi everyone! It has been almost two weeks. I hope everyone got a chance to practice. The thread Dream Yoga Basic Skills: Lesson 1, has been updated. I have shared a few ways these skills will be useful in LDs, and the thread is now open to Q & A.
Thank you Sivason for your comments on the last exercise.
Level 1 wasn't too difficult aside from having to direct my attention in a different manner than I typically do.Quote:
Diffuse Vision:
Level 1: Simply do not look at any object ahead of you. This can be done while sitting or walking, but does not work well laying on a bed. Relax your eyes and have the eyes pointed ahead of you. You want to bring your awareness to the edge of your field of vision on either side. A very good way to practice this is when you are a passenger on a vehical. Here is what you are after. You should try to be aware of what is in the edge of both sides of your visual field. You will likely try to look at something directly in front of you, or your eyes will attempt to move towards one side and focus on something over there. Your goal is to hold two objects or moving scenes in your awareness without allowing your eyes to move towards the side. You also want the eyes to be in a relaxed state and not shift to an object in front of you.
Level 2: Place an object like a coin, pen, crystal, about half an arms length (you can hold it) directly in front of your eyes. You are now supposed to look directly at the object for a moment in normal vision. Then relax the eyes. You must learn how to over ride the fine muscles that cause the eyes to focus, as well as the gross muscles that control binocular vision. Diffuse vision does not use binocular focussing. Look at the object, but do not allow your eyes to come into focus on any object. You should look like the vacant faced stoner or an android. The entire portion of your face involved with eyes should relax. You want to be fully aware of the object, but fight the impulse to let your eyes focus on anything using binocular focus. You should attempt to stay unfocused for over 2 minutes. At that point you may start to experience visual distortions. These distortions are used in other mystical skills like aura vision and crystal ball/ reflexion gazing. For now, just notice them. It is not part of this lesson to see the distortions, so do not worry if you do not. Try using diffuse vision on a tile floor that has dark grout lines and you should see distortions and weird stuff within the two minutes.
Level 3: Simply combine the first two lessons. With out employing binocular focus, be aware of the object right in front of you, and an object on either side. Try to understand what mental impulse is trying to make this hard to do. Something in your mental state will fight you and try to force your eyes into focusing on an object or spot. I can not "teach" this part of it. You need to identify what in your mental state keeps forcing you to "look at something" rather than "just seeing something." You may spend years working this out. In the end learn to supress that part of your mind. Learn to not have to comply with the demand, that you do things the way you have always done them before. Mental discipline is the needed thing; develop it.
Level 4: The true goal! Use the type of vision you developed in lesson three and attempt to watch a colorful or action packed movie. I would suggest that your eyes rest off to one side of yhe TV by a few inches. Your goal is to sit and see the show, enjoy the show, and understand what you are seeing, for 10 minutes, without succumbing to the impulse to look at the screen (or anything) using binocular focus.
I will be suprised if most people do not find this to be very challenging. I am not pretending these skill I am teaching can be learned in a few weeks. Develop all these skill over the years. For now, post in your workbooks anything you feel is worth commenting on, any cool experiences, or if you think you understand why I want you to learn this.
Level 2 was interesting. I've been seeing auras since middle school. Not very often and it was almost always on accident. Each time I would see them it felt as though my eyes would stick that way. Ha. Continuing, I think all that cross-eyed joking I did as kid and having adults tell me my eyes would stay like that stuck with me; doing this exercise was challenging because of this.
Level 3: After a few unintentional glances between both items I finally decided to give up using my eyes. I was required to expand my awareness and forgo visionary input. When I did this, I could easy hold both objects in my 'sight' without actually having to rely on the use of it. In fact, I could have done this with my eyes closed since I wasn't even looking or 'seeing' them with my eyes.
Level 4 was the most interesting in my opinion. Looking at the side of the television was a great suggestion. I'll admit, I made repeat glances with binocular focus but after that urge dissipated I began the ten minutes. Few things I noticed:
i: Familiar sounds and scenarios made avoiding binocular focus easier.
ii: Unfamiliar sounds and scenarios made avoiding binocular focus difficult.
iii: Since I could no longer rely on visionary input on the characters, I was forced to listen to their words and tone more carefully when they spoke. Also their interactions with others became more obvious.
iv: I became more aware of things around me besides the show! I had to open my awareness and get past the tunnel-vision which sight supports.
One major conclusion I came across is that sight is very limiting. It's completely useful when you want to inspect something, but it's horrible if you're trying to broaden your awareness. I don't think it would be better or worse without sight; having both options seems incredibly useful to cross-reference anything we experience.
One thing I wonder about though. For people who are afraid of the dark, is it because of the heightened state of awareness which they're experiencing that they panic? I understand some may have an overactive imagination which contributes to being frightened but it could also be the inability to properly intake the extra sensory information.
I'll post the other parts of lesson 2 once I finish those.
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Originally Posted by Belle
Hi Belle, I like this part of your post. It is all true. Though it is not the primary reason I am teeaching the skill, you have made a very good observation. When i open the lesson thread in less than 2 weeks, I will copy it to the lesson and award it a 'Gold Star' which is worth 30 hall points. Good thoughts on the subject!
It would be cool if I knew the answer, but the idea sounds reasonable.