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inquiry based practice
December 2009 
TSK Unit Two, Week 2 – Thoughts That Establish
Davidu
...practice seeing the content of each thought as though it were a character in a stage play, dressed in its distinctive costume. Apply your inquiry to the experience of thinking (including associated feelings, images, and so forth) rather than simply to the content of what is experienced. Later, bring into the exercise the content and significance of each thought.
In doing this practice, you may find that thoughts have a ‘body' that extends beyond their content; that the awareness of the mind and the openness of the heart are present as a kind of aura surrounding each thought. Practice expanding awareness into these domains. As you open them up, you may touch residual pockets of tension or emotionality that can be released in the course of doing the exercise.
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.
View from the Porch
My practice notes:
Sometimes I get the clearest sense that thoughts continue, as if from a spigot, yet I have no involvement with them at all, like when I awake in the morning. It's that period just before full orientation in 'my world' has taken place, a kind of sensual 'zero-point'. It's almost like rising up from beneath them or from a space prior to them, as if prior to putting on the fabric of my robe, or prior to cloaking or surrounding myself with clothes. This awakening feels like openness which gradually, if I observe closely, begins a sense of 'I am', which takes on the concerns from which I left off the preceding night before falling asleep. Then, as I continue waking, noticing 'where' I am orients me in a location, the familiar surroundings of my bedroom, and then, 'where I am in time', becomes important so I can assess where I need to be in the future, and how long I have to get ready; travel time, what to wear, what to be sure and remember to bring with me, and so on, because 'by this time', I am thoroughly engaged in, and engrossed by, my world. I'm cycling and reinforcing; don't forget this or that, and while I'm over there I can stop at... etc., my world of thoughts, my stage and scenery, my cast of players; my contextual world assembled around 'I am' and 'I am here'.
Another example of observing thoughts and how solidly they establish my contextual world, unless I take the time to step back and observe how they are doing this, is a current situation of mine. Due to the economic times I'm trying, like many others, to come out of retirement and find work. The process of searching for employment, preparing resumes, and interviewing, can be stressful. The thoughts about what to do, and how to do it, continue to cycle, pick up anxiety and worry, and create a kind of tightly focused internal maelstrom. When I step back, knowing these are worrisome thoughts and not hard facts (things), they lose some of their wind and force (momentum). I have more space to be present, and notice thick globs of snow falling in the cornfield outside my window. Everything has a white dusting, there's a crisscross pattern of falling flakes; a slight slant to the left close up, and driven to the right out by the pines, as air flows freer further from the 'structuring' I sit within. The moment is peaceful yet pregnant. Suddenly, crows set down on maple branches, a stark contrast against the white flow. I'm watching and listening to the silence of the snow, and mildly curious about the winged raiders as they lift-off headed for the next look-out. Silence and space; "free from the momentum that proclaims identity"; a silence I was led to by observing thoughts.
It's nice here, noticing and falling into the silence; becoming the blanketing snow. I'm just not thinking about job hunting right now, there will be time enough for that construction. I'm aware I must plan, but now I'm just in-tune with unique flakes falling by the trillions, the sensual fullness of perception, and the system of planes and contours, gradation, and tonal density; moving dots screening white sky, washed-out distant trees, and tan cornstalks outlined in white.
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PRACTICE NOTES TABLE OF CONTENTS
Fall 2008 - Unit One: Inquiry, Space
October 6 - December 5, 2008
Davidu
1. Layers of Mind with TSK
2. Exploring Layers of Mind with TSK
3. Space of Memories of Layers and Contexts
4. Expanding with TSK
5. Expanding - Revealing the Field
6. Condensing Experience with TSK
7. Week 7, Generating Space
8. Tracing the Tendency toward Solidity
Balder
1. Layers of Mind (TSK Practice Notes)
2. Deepening Layers of Mind
3. Week Three: Exploring Space and Form
4. Week Four: Expanding Layers of Mind
5. Subject-Object Reversal (TSK Class 9)
Debyemm
1. Layers of Mind (TSK Practice Notes)
Winter 2009 - Unit Two: Thoughts, Stories, Self
January 12 - March 13, 2009
Davidu
1. TSK Course Two - Time (Thoughts, Stories, Self)
2. Week Two - Thoughts that Establish
3. I'm Telling (TSK Unit 2, Week 3)
4. Unit 2, Week 4 - Defining Stories
5. Models, Stories and Self - Week 6
6. The Founding Story of the Self (week 7)
7. Imposing Reality & the Cycle of Seeing, Week 9
Balder
1. TSK Online Course (Unit 2)
2. Watching Thoughts (TSK Class 2, Unit 2)
3. Telling Stories (TSK Unit 2, Week 3)
4. Telling Stories 2 (TSK Unit 2, Week 3)
5. Personifying Thoughts, Embodying Space (TSK Unit 2, Week 5)
Starlight
1. Adventures with Time, Space, Knowledge
2. Noticing Thoughts - TSK Exercise
3. once upon a time...tsk exercise
4. restoring multidimensionality...tsk exercise week 4
5. Memories, Models, Stories, Immediate Experience...TSK Exercise...
6. self interpretation...models...tsk exercise...
7. core self...tsk exercise...wk 7
8. self and world given...tsk exercise...wk. 8
9. Creating My Reality...TSK Exercise...wk 9...
Spring 2009 - Unit Three: Conducting Time and Knowledge
March 30 - May 29, 2009
Davidu
1. Objects of Desire - TSK Class 3, Unit 1
2. The Edge of the Future - Class 3, Unit 2
3. How Time Recreates - Class 3, Week 4
4. Time is Our Life - Unit 3, Week 6
5. My Summary of the TSK Class
Starlight
1. Objects of Desire...TSK class 3...unit 1...
2. on the edge of time...tsk exercise class 3...wk 2...
3. Time...Past...Present...Future...wk 3...
4. Opening up to Time...TSK exercise...class 3...wk 4...
5. Unending Flow of Time...class 3; wk 6...
6. Footprints in the Sands of Time...TSK exercise, wk 7...
7. Time Conducting Time...TSK Exercise...wk 8...
Access: Public
very beautifully done David…joy*
Perfection at its finest to me….
Hi Star and Kathy,
Thanks for dropping by to leave a thoughtful comment. I was thinking about what our teacher was telling us when we started Unit 2, ”Thoughts, Story and Self”.
He said Space is the most fundamental thing we can say about our experience, so a focus on space is a way of opening up the identities we identify with. When we focus on ‘things’ and ‘identity’, space disappears. Focusing on Space at the center of experience just as it is, ordinary experience, looking with less emphasis on content and more on feeling tones, we begin to see the way we structure experience, the ‘non-content’ of experience. The point is Space offers freedom… greater freedom of experience.
A quote from Dimensions of Time and Space, says, ”To recover space ‘presence’, we must clarify the operation of the thinking mind…”, and that’s what we intend to do in this course, by starting out with thinking, and seeing how that works, then seeing how stories work to shape experience and also structure thoughts, then to see how the stories that matter most are the stories of the self, identifying, gathering, and consolidating around it, as a subject as apposed to other objects.
I think the whole idea of the exercises is to see this first hand, as direct experience, so that the experience of what we learn is embodied fully, from our heads to our toes.
Best wishes,
David
hey David, your last comment made me think of the ‘field communique’ that is so often discussed within TT’s books…
when we can resist attaching identity, and stabilizing what is, then we can open up to an endless amount of ways it can be otherwise…
i have the tendency to just ‘accept’ things the way they are, and be content with it…and although there is nothing wrong with that, there is within that attitude the subtility of ‘giving up’…on the other hand, the ‘if’ of everything can also bring attachment and suffering…b/c of our tendency to hope in stabilized ways…
the magic for me, is to be inbetween the potential/actuality of the field of experiencing…where the focus is not on my individual experience, but rather on allowing it to arise as a dance of Being…an interaction that is open and alive with vibrance and beauty…between Being…where anything and everything is possible…
this exercise has helped me have a deeper understanding of how our thought patterns work at deeper levels…and how they actually prevent us from changing and interrupt the flow of Being, and its potential…these thoughts are actually based on deeper beliefs that we have yet to recognize…and penetrate…
thank you for sharing your experiences with us…joy*
David, i woke up today thinking of your snowflakes…lol
i resonate so much with what you said concerning that ‘awakening’ place; it is almost like during sleep, my thoughts are being integrated at another level, and i awaken periodically through this, with such clarity…i very seldom sleep over two hours at a time, and although i find it difficult to get to sleep, once i am asleep, i love it…you might ask how i know this? LOL…b/c when i wake up periodically it is so wonderful, that i immediately wish to go back…sometimes, if i don’t get up and actually write about what i just experienced, i appear to ‘lose’ that clarity; but i don’t think it is ever lost…it arises when it needs to…
although i have not experienced it in the ‘exact’ way that you have, the way you have written about it really resonates…also, the the various snowflakes ties into what you were pointing to on my blog…various apsects of Being…
anyways, the snow has been melting within my being…and just wanted to share how much i appreciate you sharing your experiencing…joy*
Hi Star,
I like sleep too. I’m fascinated by it, ‘not’ because I become oblivious, rather, because at the ‘edge’ of wakefulness I glimpse a kind of twilight landscape. I used to practice the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, and became fascinated by the internal, the symbolic and sensual world, and the space within which appearance takes form, and the spring from which meanings seem to bubble up. I kept a micro-Dictaphone on the bedside table so that when I awoke to turn over, I would sleepily record what ever I was dreaming. Often the next morning, I couldn’t believe what I was playing back, but if I sat up and meditated, slowly the space of the dream, and the dreamscape would return, and I could actually see where meaning and symbols were put together. It was a fascinating adventure. The dreams were rich in imagery and multiple meanings, and gave me clues to what dream images meant in waking life, which were not always apparent during my normal daily activities. I also got to see how insubstantial and diaphanous thoughts really were, not fixed like the ideas and beliefs that I had assumed were solid.
Best,
David
hey David, i was thinking about this, and can also remember when i began practicing Dzogchen; my first book was “Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light” by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu. i had some interesting experiences with it as well. what i find to be most amazing, is that this ‘edge of twilight’ that you are referring to, might be similiar to what i experience. there is a clarity of awareness, where ideas seem to merge from disoriented thoughts. where maybe the ‘light’ is shown upon confusion…one of the most helpful things i learned from Norbu was that we are to use our own vision of appearances to awaken. i found that much easier for me to do, rather than visualizing mandalas and such…
while i was practicing this however, at first my dreams became clearer, b/c before i never really remembered my dreams; then, it got to where i was not really dreaming anymore…the deeper i became involved with the practice though, the less sense it began to make to me to continue with it when i could just use whatever visions continued to arise in my waking conscious; that is just my experience though, and i am not saying that it is not helpful, nor am i saying that i might not one day return to it, but just that for now, especially since dzogchen teachings are less available, and entwined in many ways with Bon and Buddhism, not to mention the rainbow body and all of that, i find TSK just more realistic and available for my life…it has given me practical ways of living and continuing my practice in the here and now, without all the ‘extra’ conceptual teachings…but that is just me…lol
your experience sounds like you were able to take it to a whole other level, which if i remember right, the purpose was to be able to realize first at the level of dreams, how appearances lack solidity…and then that would transfer over into our ‘waking’ life…i might look into it again, if not for anything more than i can remember that i was able to sleep more restfully when i was actively practicing it…but it might just be that ‘right now’ has more to do with me uncovering some deeper issues that i need to look at…within the ‘stories’ that are now loosening their hold…
much joy to you, hoping all is well with your job search…always, *
Hi Star,
When I was practicing I had a lot of fun investigating the content of the dreams, and then I came to understand the essential purpose of dream practice is to abandon the idea that there is important meaning in the dream. The teaching was… meaning only exists when I start to look for it. Meaning does not exist independently, it’s a formulation. So to penetrate to what’s below meaning, the pure base of experience, the unconditioned, is to be free of the projections of my mind.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoché says in his book, “Developing the ability to control dreams means developing a flexibility of mind that can be available into waking life, to understand the constructed nature of experience and the freedom inherent in that understanding.”
The feeling behind the dream is what gives rise to the image or symbol, and I do try to note any emotion I can identify with the dreams, but I always focused in the past on the images for their meaning instead, another example of my fascination and identification with the image. Apparently I love to be carried away with the content of the image. I do it in my writing; conceive of a metaphor, test it against the relative reality that I’m playing with, only instead of letting it form and dissolve in front of me, I grab it and pin it to the paper like a colorful specimen… :-)
Regarding the feeling behind the dream, I remember I dreamed of being in a seat on a plane, very high, (20,000 feet) but there was no floor below me, and open air on each side, so I could see bright blue water far below. I was afraid, but because it was a fear I had to go after it and face it, so I jumped into the nothing… very scary. After a long fall I plunged into the water. There was more to the dream, but I dismissed it because I was looking for the feeling behind it, not the content.
The feeling was a kind of fear and anger about the fear, and then a power or strength of assertiveness because of the anger. That’s the emotional flow-story below the symbolic content of the dream. :-)
Sleep Yoga was beyond dreams, and there were nights I seemed to dwell in empty space neither fully awake nor fully asleep.
D
seems like you were able to work it into your waking experience quiet well…see, my experience has been more intune with my waking emotions, and dealing with them directly…it just seemed to me to be a waste of time, as i already knew what the purpose was, to directly look at the emotional attachments of our waking life…and not be attached to the dreams or any meaning we gave them…and as you are probably aware, i had plenty in my here and now to address…LOL…still, it would seem, but these tsk exercises have been very powerful in that context. i don’t seem to have any difficulty in resting in my true nature, except of course when conditioned awareness raises its head and insists that i look and inquire into it at deeper levels, which for me, has to do with interacting with others…lol…but even with that, i am reminded that it is not necessarily the ‘abiding in bliss’, it is the ‘abiding’ regardless of bliss, or not…like you stated in your pm…it is not that we will not have pain…it is that we can have pain, and deal with or without it in responsible ways…
i love the ‘idea’ of being able to open pain up…realizing there is no one to own it, just like there is no one to own knowledge…or joy or bliss…opens everything up to just Being…and while i experience this quiet often, it is still a little difficult right now to fully transform that into actual experiencing, iow, to not reject or accept ownership when interacting with others; i am still human; but i am experiencing a lot more freedom of Being right now…i am looking forward to the exercises that deal more with the ‘self’; i am certain that those will prove to be very helpful…
to simplify what i am trying to say, it is really easy for me to maintain an abiding presence…carrying that into ‘living experience’, interacting with the universe as it unfolds, of course has been more difficult…i have felt so ‘out of it’ lately, because…issues are being raised at deeper levels where i seem to have ‘missed out’ on integrating during various stages of normal development…but i am beginning to be more at ease with this…it’s all good…even when ‘i’ still don’t ‘think’ it is…lol…and i am grateful for awareness of being, and being able to abide there…
be well…*