The
practice of the Eucharist is a practice of awareness. When Jesus broke
the bread and shared it with his disciples, he said, "Eat this. This is
my flesh." He knew that if his disciples would eat one piece of bread
with mindfulness, they would have real life. In their daily lives, they
may have eaten their bread in forgetfulness, so the bread was not bread
at all; it was a ghost. In our daily lives, we may see the people around
us, but if we lack mindfulness, they are just phantoms, not real
people, and we ourselves are also ghosts. Practicing mindfulness enables
us to become a real person. When we are a real person, we see real
people around us, and life is present in all its richness. The practice
of eating bread, a tangerine, or a cookie is the same.
When we breathe, when we are mindful, when we look deeply at our
food, life becomes real at that very moment. To me, the rite of the
Eucharist is a wonderful practice of mindfulness. In a drastic way,
Jesus tried to wake up his disciples.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step
I'm currently reading "belonging here: a guide for the spiritually sensitive person", and although Judith seems to be misunderstood anatta (e.g. she rejects 'thoughts without thinker' due to misunderstanding it as sort of dissociative) the experience is clearly non-dual and the exercises are very good. I like the practice exercises she described.
Interesting. synchronicity as usual, just yesterday i was reading her conversation with thusness from spring 2011, in regard to ocean seal samadhi (something I've been studying lately). Can you give us some example of her exercises?
Sure. Many exercises and are quite long so didn't have time to post this yesterday.
Exercise 1: Attunement to Fundamental Consciousness: Inhabiting the Body
This exercise is best practiced sitting on chair with your back straight and your feet on the ground. (Once you become familiar with the exercise, you can practice it in ony position.)
Close your eyes.
Begin by focusing on your breath. Observe how the breath comes in and out of your nose.
Silently count two counts to inhale and two counts to exhale, so that your breath becomes smooth and even.
Bring your inhale lnward through your head, so that you use your inhale to moke deep inward contact with yourself. Let your exhale release naturally, without directing it.
Bring your attention down to your feel, Feel that you are inside your feet, that you inhabit your feet. Let yourself feel that you are the internal space of your feet, thot this is part of who you are.
Now attune to the quality of your self (not an idea, but a particular quality that feels like "self") inside your feet.
Make sure thot you can remain in your feet as your breath—that your inhale does not Iift you upward, out of your feet.
Feel that you are inside your ankles and your lower legs. Attune to the quality of your self inside your ankles and lower legs.
Feel that you are inside your knees. Settle down into your knees until you feel soft. Balance your awareness of the space inside your knees, finding both of those internal areas at the same time.
Experience the absolute stillness of the balanced mind. Fundamental consciousness is experienced as stillness because it is the dimension of perfect balance. So to find the space inside both knees at the same time can help you enter into, or uncover, the dimension of fundamental consciousness. You will find that very subtle attunement is required in order to find the inside of both knees at exactly the same time (without going back and forth between them).
Feel that you are inside your thighs. Attune to the quality of your self inside your thighs.
Feel, with a very subtle mind, that you are inside your hip sockets. From the inside of your hip sockets, you can feel the internal space of your upper thighs and the internal space of your lower torso at the same time.
Balance your awareness of the space inside your hip sockets, finding the inside of both hip sockets at the same time. Experience the stillness of your balanced mind and the movement of your breath at the same time. The mind is still and balanced, and the breath is moving.
The part of the exercise can help you experience that all of the content of your experience - all of your thoughts, emotions, sensations, and perceptions - moves through the stillness of fundamental consciousness, without disturbing that stillness. As fundamental consciousness, you experience both the luminous, motionless space of the ground, and the movement of life - at the same time.
Feel that you are inside your pelvis. Attune to the quality of your gender inside your pelvis (again, not an idea but a feeling, however your gender feels to you). Bring your breath down into your pelvis and let it pass through the quality of your gender inside your pelvis.
Feel that you are inside your midsection, between your ribs and your pelvis, including the solar plexus area under the ribs. Attune to the quality of your power, your personal strength, inside your midsection. Bring your breath down into your midsection. Bring your breath down into your midsection and let it pass through the quality of power inside your midsection.
Feel that you are inside your chest (all the way through to your back). Attune to the quality of your love inside your chest. This doesn't need to be a big feeling, just a little of the tenderness that you have inside your chest. Let your love rest in your chest. Bring your breath down into your chest and let it pass through the quality of love inside your chest.
Feel that you are inside your shoulders. Attune to the quality of your self inside your shoulders.
Feel, with a very subtle mind, that you are inside your shoulder sockets. From the inside of your shoulder sockets, you can feel the internal space of your upper arms and the internal space of your upper torso at the same time. Balance your awareness of the space inside your shoulder sockets; find the inside of both shoulder sockets at the same time. Experience the stillness of the balanced mind and the movement of your breath passing through the stillness without disturbing the stillness.
Feel that you are inside your arms, wrists, and hands, all the way to your fingertips. Attune to the quality of your self inside your arms, wrists, and hands.
Feel that you are inside your neck. Attune to the quality of your voice, your potential to speak, inside your neck. Bring your breath down into your neck and let it pass through the quality of your voice inside your neck.
Feel that you are inside your head and behind your whole forehead, all the way through to your temples. Find a point int the center of your forehead (not between the brows but in the center of your forehead). Keep that point steady as your breathe. The point may move around as you inhale and exhale. See what you need to let go of in order for the point to remain steady.
Now get back behind that point so that you are seeing it from behind, from deep inside your head. With practice, you may be able to see a point, or a sphere of light in the center of your forehead.
Feel that you are inside your eyes. Let your eyes soften so that they feel continuous with teh rest of your face. Feel that you are behind your cheekbones and inside your nose, all the way to the tip of your nose. Feel that you are inside your jaw, your mouth, your lips, and your chin. Feel that you are inside your ears.
Now feel that you are inside your whole brain. Attune to the quality of your understanding inside your whole brain. Bring your breath through your head and let it pass through the quality of understanding inside your brain. See if you can feel the breath moving through both sides of your brain.
Now feel that you are inside your whole body all at once. If we say that the body is the temple, you are sitting inside the temple. Attune to the quality of your self in your whole body. Experience that you are made of the quality of self, all the way through your body. Breathe smoothly and evenly.
Keeping your eyes closed, find the space outside your body, the space in the room.
Experience that the space inside your body and the space outside your body is the same, continuous space it pervades you. you are still inside your body, but your body is pervaded by space. You are permeable, transparent. Let your breath move through the space.
Slowly open your eyes. Again feel that you rae inside your whole body at once. Attune to the quality of your self in your whole body. Find the space outside your body. Feel that the space inside and outside of your body is the same, continuous space. It pervades you.
Experience that the space pervading your body also pervades everything in your environment. You are still inside your whole body as you experience this. Do not project yourself through the things around you in the room. This is not an expansion of yourself out into space, but an attunement to the space that seems to be there already, pervading you and everything around you.
Experience that the space pervading your body also pervades the walls of the room. That's how subtle it is: it pervades even the walls, the floor and the ceiling. Remains inside your body while you experience the space pervading you and the walls of the room.