In class this week we were asked to find ways to expand ourselves, or our own experience, rather than just expanding objects.  We could start with embodiment by expanding our sense of being a body in space by imagining that we are about two feet bigger than we are, as if the body just extended further in space.  To see how that feels.

Then to expand our sense of being present through the layers of experience we have been exploring.  Then, to try the same kind of expanding with the different layers of experience.  For instance, we could expand the sense of the experience as positive, negative, or neutral, or expand our sense of the context within which we are doing an action.  (Walking for instance)

I like working with this exercise, so many different ways to expand, but perhaps because I am often visually stimulated I was particularly struck by Bruce's photo of contiguous, overlapping, and successively appearing circles or bubbles, as if arising out of space, so transparent they even seem to consist of space.  So many possibilities could be represented there; areas of concern, contexts, derivation and direction, multiple perspectives, arising thoughts and referrals, even unfolding nuclear events prior to 'complexification' of read-outs.   

Ephemeral rings evoke possibilities of worlds within worlds, things within things, consisting of substance, but at the same time as insubstantial as wisps of half remembered times, a moment now referring to then, perhaps a forward looking projection to an unrealized and open future, an allowing potential.  Watery worlds or space and form, unfolding as time... just considering the possibilities seems to 'expand' to silence, and an open wondering.

This week we are asked to consider 'what makes the real, real?'  We are told in the book that reality is made up of "co-referring manifestations", and that "beyond all particular interactions and all possible communications, there is the field of these interactions."  Our teacher says further:  "The 'field' communicates the reality of what can appear in that field.  What can be communicated in the field is real or potentially real:  what cannot be communicated cannot be real." 

An analogy is a 'chess game' and the 'field' of the game, which in this case is the rules and these 'rules' communicate the possibility of certain moves but not others.  So how then do we investigate the field if we can't grasp these rules of co-referring interactions directly?  To do this it is suggested that we continue with the exercise of "expanding" what appears, and by doing so, making appearance less solid and substantial, and that will reveal "the field", in its underlying 'realness' communicating forward to its parts. 

I feel fully present in this moment, feeling deeply intimate with what is, sitting on the porch surrounded by color; the cave of maples slowlly caving in, crumbling lemon-yellow leaves, against emerald patches, with dots and waves of crimson, while cornstalks are left to shine golden in the distance.  I feel full and appreciative, fortunate to inhabit the moment.  I wonder about expanding this experience.  I know from before it can't be grasped, but it seems it can be allowed for awhile.

But then, thoughts begin to fill in.  I seem to want to pursue time.  How far can I expand this moment?  Thoughts begin to refer, metrics start processing.  I can stretch time forward as if I were a disembodied point, a rapid time-lapse view from dropping leaves, flickering day and nighttimes passing, changing seasons... stark branches scratching grey winter skies, snow covered cornfield, changing to new turned earth, new growth emerging.  Moving faster; seasons flickering by, trees disappearing, structures rising, centuries passing like nanoseconds, structures deteriorating, disappearing, conflagration, Earth is gone, space expansive, planets moving, Milky Way galaxy spinning colliding into another spinning galaxy...then space and not-knowing.

I realized I was expanding a scenario, one that in my mind was fleetingly reasonable, a stream of meaningful "if this, then that" associations.  I was establishing the meaningfulness of my particular flight of expanding fancy.  At each point of my time-lapse view, what newly appeared seemed to confirm what was earlier reasonable to assume.  The rules of logic and science, or my knowledge of them, seemed to justify and underpin my imaginative venture.  My 'expanding' was done along a line, a kind of linear unfolding, and was inherently limited by the scope and direction of my scenario.

It seems that however my 'expanding' would have proceeded, through directionality and referring, I would have eventually arrived at the limits of that field of inquiry...my space and not-knowing.  The 'field' communicating forward to its parts reminds me of a liquid medium, a pool rippling out from a center that seeks to control or conduct what is focused upon?  I did have a sense of where I would arrive as I embarked on my expanding scenario.  I did have a sense of the whole before I began, as I recall.  I knew I would reach a point of not-knowing, of open space, the space within which the inquiry began. 

Today, I'm sitting in the same spot looking out upon the same colorful, crumbling palette, but this moment though similar is different, the TV is on in the other room, the sun isn't shining as bright as it was the other day, my mind is busy thinking as I'm comparing the present with the past, and with associated value judgments as to what was better about the original experience, and so on.

For this experiment, I realize 'condensing' is a matter of unclenching, letting go of what is not essential to the present moment, relaxing into it, as if isometrically releasing any residual body tension, exhaling all sense of self, and calming down mental activity while instantaneously ceasing connecting names and running commentary.  I've done this many times, it's quite familiar.  This 'condensing' seems to momentarily eliminate all activities that separate me from being fully present to the bright colors and feeling of intimate fullness.  I notice feeling tones of happiness and a childlike fascination, even surprise, looking at the movement of bright colors, and a flow of emotional tones of exquisite delicacy, and a stillness that seems primal.  

So, the previous 'expanding' exercise of last week seemed to lead ultimately to space and open wondering as I expanded a line of inquiry, and the 'condensing' exercise of this week seemed to lead me to my own deepest intimate feelings, and even in that condensing there was a fullness, a vast 'feeling' space. 

I took the dog out for a walk just before turning in for the night.  It was late, and everything was quiet, the storm had passed and the winds had been blustering for four or five hours.  While she was busy, I looked up at the sky and it seemed to open wide.  There were pale rolling clouds parting, and the sky was still tinged with a night-blue, and stars were twinkling.  The moment I looked up I was 'impacted', space seemed to open from my head shooting down to my toes, and just continued on as if through the earth.  What I normally maintained as distance was distorted, like a discarded construct.  There was all sensation; chill wind and skin, and trying not to fall over backwards while nose pointed toward a brilliant moon.  It only lasted a few moments because the dog was tugging at me to come inside.  I heard and felt and saw everything there was for me to see at that moment, and I'm not sure how else to express that...

In 1995 there was a movie called "Powder", about a sixteen year old who is electrically super-charged, and had miraculous powers of perception, ESP, and healing.  There is a scene at the end of the movie when Powder is running in an open field with arms out-stretched in an electrical storm, and the lighting is attracted, as if he were a metallic kite floating in the gathering storm clouds overhead.  At a point this super-charged being meets with a sustained lightening bolt from the heavens and is carried up into the clouds and 'ionized', and thus, Powder is released, set free into the energetic space of the living planet. 

Observing thoughts and sensations in this way generates a spacious quality... This more subtle focus will help you see how space openness is partitioned through assigning attributes and characteristics and taking them seriously.

As you become aware of these trends, the partition­ing activity slows down, and fewer partitions form. Since thoughts and perceptions are less crowded and jumbled together, they can expand, allowing more space. Eventually, whatever appears opens into space, while thoughts dissolve into the mind. Though events con­tinue to arise and to present themselves, nothing is pro­duced through this arising.  As you become familiar with this way of appearing, you may notice that you partici­pate in experience differently. Free from the momentum that proclaims identity, you can open to silence.  Dynamics of Time and Space, pp. 279-280